Product Details

• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 3
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: November 3, 1998
• Run Time: 267 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0790738368
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #474,444 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

As the first season of Babylon 5 started getting its footing and a universe of races and complicated diplomatic relations were slowly carved out, the show began expanding the complicated groundwork that would soon become the basis of a web of conflicts and conspiracies. "The Parliament of Dreams" finds G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) the target of an assassin while the Babylon 5 is in the midst of a week of religious celebration. Walter Koenig (Chekov of Star Trek) makes his first of many appearances as the black-suited, cold-blooded Psi-Corps agent Bester in "Mind War," when he boards Babylon 5 to capture an escaped telepath with unimaginable powers. "The War Prayer" introduces the Home Guard, a quasi-fascist organization that evolves (at least thematically) into the Nightwatch during the second season, and its first attempt to infiltrate Babylon 5. "And the Sky Is Full of Stars" investigates the mysterious "missing 24 hours" of Commander Sinclair during the final battle of the Earth-Minbari war when two interrogators kidnap Sinclair for an elaborate cyberspace mind game. At the same time, Delenn is given alarming instructions in case he should recover those missing memories (this thread is played out in the opener of the second season, "Points of Departure"). "Deathwalker" features Ambassador Kosh in both playful and deadly serious sides in a tale of a bloody war criminal suddenly given diplomatic immunity because of her development of an immortality serum--over the protests of the Narn and other races. "Believers" takes a sobering look at ethics and faith as Dr. Franklin demands to operate on a dying boy, contrary to the wishes of the parents and the boy himself. At the same time, Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) finds herself alone against a deadly fleet of Raiders moving in for the kill. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Making a list, June 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Babylon 5 Season 1, set 2 - Mind Probers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

There is a hole in your mind. Amazon won't get off their encounter-suited butts to tell you that this 3-pack from the Signs and Portents season includes: 1.4 THE PARLIAMENT OF DREAMS/MIND WAR, 1.5 THE WAR PRAYER/AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS and 1.6 DEATHWALKER/BELIEVERS.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest Sci-Fi Saga of the '90s Continued, December 8, 1999

By 

Steven Yates "free your mind" (Greenville, South Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Babylon 5 Season 1, set 2 - Mind Probers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

First things first. Get COLLECTION before you get this. Possibly saying that was unnecessary, but one never knows. BABYLON 5 episodes are not stand-alones, like many STAR TREKs. Get things out of order, and you're in danger of not knowing what is going on.

MIND PROBERS contains the Season One episodes THE PARLIAMENT OF DREAMS, MIND WAR, THE WAR PRAYER, AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS, DEATHWALKER, and BELIEVERS (episodes #5 through #10). Each episode is, in its own way, another J. Michael Straczynski masterpiece.

MIND WAR was the episode that originally sold me on this series, as it weaves together two ideas which eventually become dominant themes in this five-year "novel for television." The first is the behind-the-scenes scheming of the highly secretive Psi-Corps, who are not above experimenting on human beings in efforts to create and increase telepathic and telekenetic powers. (Recall from Episode #1, MIDNIGHT: this outfit's treatments drove Susan Ivanova's mother to commit suicide, distilling in her a scathing hatred of them that colors all her subsequent actions.) In this case, Jason Ironheart is the experimentee. He had escaped from the clutches of the Psi-Corps, only to discover that their experiments on him had given him powers he cannot control or cope with. A distressed Jason tells Sinclair, "I look at you, Commander, and I see not a man but a galaxy of subatomic particles I could pull apart with a single thought! It is a power we were not meant to have!" (By the way, playing the evil Psi-Cop Bester is none other than Walter Koenig. If you're thinking, "that can't possibly work," I assure you that it does, and extremely well. Bester will be back with more mischief!)

The other major theme in MIND WAR is the excursion to Sigma 957 taken by Catherine Sakai, Jeff Sinclair's on-again, off-again girlfriend. She had been warned by G'Kar, the Narn Ambassador, not to go there. "Sigma 957 is not a healthy place. Strange things happen there." She had dismissed him as having ulterior motives. But when she gets to the planet, she has an encounter ... and we see another example of the brilliant visual effects the BABYLON 5 crew is capable of. Having been rescued, Ms Sakai again confronts G'Kar, wondering what that was she saw. G'Kar's reply: "There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless, and if they are aware of us at all it is as ants, and we have about as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us.... They are a mystery, and I am both terrified and reassured that there are still wonders in the universe, that we have not explained everything yet. Whatever they are ... they walk near Sigma 957, and they must walk there alone." This sequence really does invoke one's sense of wonder at the unknown!

Watchers of BABYLON 5 know that we will see and hear from incredibly old and advanced races of beings again. To put it mildly.

There is, of course, much more. Each of these episodes develops one or more of the BABYLON 5 characters or fleshes out some previously-obscure detail of the wonderful BABYLON 5 universe. There is plenty of thinly disguised commentary as to the fundamentally destructive nature of racism in both THE WAR PRAYER and AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS (anti-alien equals anti-immigration? ). The latter probes a bit more into whatever happened to Sinclair during those mysterious lost hours during the Battle of the Line.

BELIEVERS, the last episode in this set, raises a somewhat different question: should a doctor's advice (e.g., that of Dr. Stephen Franklin) override the religious beliefs of the parents of a patient? Should he perform an operation forbidden by those beliefs, even to save the patient's life? This is a textbook dilemma in medical ethics. The question is raised here in a more forceful way than we'll find in any ethics textbook. Warning: the end of this episode will haunt you for a week no matter what you believe about Western medicine! (BELIEVERS has a fringe benefit in offering up one of the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh's most interesting lines: "The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.")

I could go on, but we've got space limits here. Safe to say, this is important science fiction. Two episodes per tape make all of these exceptionally good buys, and the only grounds for waiting is that we know they'll eventually all be available on DVD--very likely in widescreen versions.

Lastly, the soundtrack by Christopher Franke (ex-Tangerine Dream) is again worth its weight in gold.

Correspondence to: [e-mail]

5.0 out of 5 stars Six episodes of excitement, April 4, 2009

By 

Michael Patrick Boyd (Waukesha, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Babylon 5 Season 1, set 2 - Mind Probers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Parliament of Dreams is forty-three minutes and thirty seconds long and originally aired on February 23, 1994. There is one main story and two sub stories. The main story revolves around Ambassador G'Kar getting amessage from an old Narn rival whom he embarresed years ago. When G'Kar receives a message from carrier Tu'Pari, the message states that he would die forty-eight hours after getting the message and that it would be somebody close that would kill him Little did he know that it was carrier Tu'Pari from the Assin Guild. At this time we are introduced to Ambassador G'Kar new assistant Na'Toth. At first G'Kar suspect Na'Toth but, quickly decides she is not the murderer. G'Kar hires a bodyguard but, the bodyguard gets killed. Finally Na'Toth brings carrier Tu'Pari to G'Kar to confront him. Tu'Pari tricks G'Kar into beleiving that Na'Toth is the hire killer. While contacting the Narn home world Tu'Pari shoots G'Kar and kidnaps him. Tu'Pari uses pain killers to hurt and then eventually kill G'Kar however, Na'Toth arrives and tricks Tu'Pari that she is his back up incase he does not finish the job. When Tu'Pari questions Na'Toth on her method of torture she starts to kick G'Kar where the pain killers are located so that the pain killers become disable. G'Kar frees himself and knocks Tu'Pari out. When Tu'Pari wakes up, G'Kar tells him it is 72 hours later and the time for him to be kill has past and G'Kar tells Tu'Pari that he has transferred a certain amount of money into his account. This would lead to believe that Tu'Pari have sold out to the Assin Guild. Tu'Pari leaves with the next shuttle heading off Babylon 5. The sub stories are a week long event of religious and cultural exchange and Commander Jeffrey Sinclair hooking up with an old love interest Catherine Sakai. Finally we are introduce the last cast member of the series- Lennier portrayed by Bill Mumy. Overall I am giving The Parliament of Dreams an A-.

Mind War is forty-three minutes and thirty seconds long and originally aired on March 2, 1994. The main story deals with an escape telepath named Jason Ironheart. Jason is arrives at Babylon 5 to meet up with his old love Talia Winters to say good-bye. Jason tells Talia that he was part of a Psi Corps experiment to try to turn a P5 to a P10 and a P10 into who knows. Also Jason finds out during the corse of the experiments that the real truth was the Psi Coprs want a stable telekinesis telepath for murder jobs. In this episode we are introduced to Psi Cops and the infamous Alfred Bester. The Psi Cops want t inplant a fail safe message into his head telapathicly so the can bring Jason Ironheart back to Earth for futher studies. With help from Talia and Commander Sinclair help Jason get back to his ship and become energy. In a sub story Catherine Sakai needs Ambassador G'Kar approval to go to Sigma-957 and when she arrives there one of the First Ones attacks her ship. Catherine is rescued by two heavy Narn Cruisers and is escorted back to Babylon 5. The Mind War has an excellent story and the special effects are not bad. Mind War gets an AAA+++.

The War Prayer is forty-three minutes and thirty seconds long and originaly aired on March 9, 1994. It has two stories to it. The main story starts off with Shaal Mayan getting attack and stabbed. Shaal Mayan is a friend of Ambassador Delenn. We find out that The Homeguard is involved and the plan to kill the four main ambassadors. A friend of Lieutenant Commander Ivanova has arrived, Malcolm Biggs. We later find out that Malcolm is the leader of The Homeguard at Babylon 5. Commander Sinclair gets Lieutenant Commander Ivanova to set up a meeting with Malcolm Biggs. There is a diplomatic meeting later that evening where there will be lots of aliens. Malcolm is impressed over Commander Sinclair cold reception towards the aliens. Malcolm invites him into the inner circle and introduces him to The Homeguard. Commander Sinclair must pass a loyalty test; he must kill an alien. Commander Sinclair is able to steal a gun and firefight begins. Security comes to the rescue and The Homeguard is capture. In a lesser story Kiron Maray (Vir's cousin) and Aria Tensus are bought abroad Babylon 5 as prisoners. Kiron Maray and Aria Tensus have fled Centauri Prime because they are both escaping their arrange marriages. Kiron Maray and Aria Tensus are in love and want to get married. Commander Sinclair turns custody of those two over to Ambassador Londo. to Ambassador Londo tries to tell Kiron Maray and Aria Tensus that loves has no place on Centauri Prime and tell them how both lucky they are to have their marriages arranged. Kiron Maray and Aria Tensus are attacked by The Homeguard. Kiron is serious injured and goes into a coma. Londo begins to have second thoughts and tells Vir a story that his shoes are too tight, but that is all right because he has forgotten how to dance. Vir does not understand. Kiron comes out of his coma and Londo and Vir has some good news. Kiron will enter a period of fostering with Londo second cousin and at the end of fostering Kiron and Aria can get married. I give The War Prayer an AAA+++.

And the Sky Full of Stars is forty-three minutes and thirty seconds long and originaly aired on March 16, 1994. The main story begin with Commander Sinclair waken up in a dream and finds out that he has been taken hostage. Two people only known as Knight 1 and Knight 2 (though there names are never mention in the story) want to know what happen to Commander Sinclair at the Battle of the Line and his missing twenty-four hours. Commander Sinclair is in a computer-generated illusion and that his body and Knight 1 body are straped to chairs conncect to a neural device and they both share one mind. Knight 1 pushes Commander Sinclair to remember and the truth begins to unravel. We find out that Sinclair was a Squadron Leader at the Battle of the Line who watched his whole squad get destroy under sixty seconds and with his shipped damaged decides to ram a Minbari heavy cruiser. It is at this point that he is capture, interatgated and tortured by the Minbari. The Minbari through use of the triluminary find out that Sinclair is hosting Valen DNA. Since Minbari believe in reincarnation, they surrender at the Battle of the Line. Also we find out that Ambassador Delenn is a member of the Grey Council. Sinclair escapes and begins to hallucinates and think that the station crew are member of the Grey Council. It is only through Ambassador Delenn that Sinclair begins to come out of his to hallucinated state. And the Sky Full of Stars is a very good episode. This shows brings us closer to understanding Commander Sinclair and gives us the heads up of feature shows to come; mainly in Season 2 and 3. I give And the Sky Full of Stars an AAAA++++.

Deathwalker is forty-three minutes and thirty seconds long and originaly aired on April 20, 1994. The story begins when Na'Toth sees a woman comes aboard the spacestation. She begins to scream Deathwalker and runs after and beats her. Deathwalker is taken to the Med Lab and we find out that she is Warmaster Jha'dur (aka Deathwalker) one of the leaders of the Dilgar race whose people did horrible acts to other races. The Dilgars were brought to trial and those whose survived died when their sun went nova. Deathwalker is at Babylon 5 to meet with a Narn high official to talk about a drug she has discovered. However that all changes when Na'Toth attacked her. When G'Kar tries to talk to her, Deathwalker agrees to sell the drug to him only if he will bring her the head of her attacker. Commander Sinclair tries to sneak Jha'dur off the station but his efforts are blocked by the body of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Commander Sinclair reluctantly agrees to hold a meeting in the next three hours. A vote is taken in council chambers 3 to 2 against Deathwalker for standing trial. At this time the council erupts with anger and leaves the room. Warships from the League of Non-Aligned Worlds start to arive at Babylon 5 to demand the surrender of Warmaster Jha'dur (aka Deathwalker). Commander Sinclair reasons with the leaders of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and tell them about the life drug. The council backs down and the warships leave the station. When Deathwalker leaves the station in her ship she, Deathwalker and her ship are destroyed by a Vorlon ship. Ambassador Kosh tells the people in the room that they are not ready for immortality yet. In a substory Ambassador Kosh asks Talia Winters to represent him with a meeting with Abbut. Unknows to Talia Winters, Ambassador Kosh is using her. Abbut is a Vicar that can record a person thoughts, brainwave patterns, colors and sound. The main story is very good and goes at a steady pace and the sub-story has it share of human to it. Deathwalker gets an AAA+++.

Beleivers is forty-three minutes and thirty seconds long and originaly aired on April 27, 1994. This story begins with a young alien boy in Med Lab who is suffering from a chronic respiratory ailment which requires a simple operation. The parents objects to cutting their son open because it means releasing his soul. Dr. Franklin sees Commander Sinclair but asks him not to do. The parents file petition with Commander Sinclair who must now ask as an advocate for the family. Finally he makes his decision claiming he has no right to interfere in the belief of alien religion. Dr. Franklin upset with the commander decision dois the operation anyway. When the parents find out what they have done, they are in horror and believe their son now to be souless. The leave the room but come back later with a Travel robe for their son and take him back to their quarters. When Dr. Maya Henandez shows the information about the alien race to Dr. Franklin; he finds out that the travel robe is actually a sacrifice robe. Dr. Franklin rushes to the family's quarters, but it is too late. It is unclear if they murdered the boy of if the boy committed suicide. This is the first show that touches on religion and the rights of the parents. Beleivers gets an AAAA++++ from me.