It just keeps getting better
First watch BABYLON 5: THE GATHERING from this boxed set. To be blunt, it is not very good at all. It is basically a pilot and not an especially compelling one. We meet some -- but by no means all -- of the important characters of forthcoming seasons, and get a taste of the B5 universe, but this is just a dull, chatty, uninteresting debut. And the make up for G'Kar looked like it was in planning stages! Very, very different from how he looked on the subsequent series.
Next, watch Seasons One through Four of BABYLON 5 the series. The first season is slightly more interesting than the pilot, but not by much. Season Two gets slightly more interesting, especially near the end of the season when the Shadows plot really kicks into gear. From this point to the end of Season Four B5 is incredibly compelling. Just be patient watching the first two seasons. You'll start getting hints in Season Two of how good it will eventually get, but there will still be plenty of dullish episodes instead. The series is not terribly balanced because the network changed its plans a couple of times, first telling Straczynski that the series was going to wrap up at the end of Season Four and then, after he had collapsed two season's worth of stories into one, telling him that the show would be renewed for one more season. So much for planning.
Next, before watching Season Five, watch another movie in this set, IN THE BEGINNING. This is far and away the best of the B5 movies and is fully as good and as entertaining as Seasons Three and Four. It goes back before the beginning of the series, giving the details of the Minbari was. But the narrative assumes you've seen the first four seasons.
Next, watch Season Five of BABYLON 5. Because he really had a different story arc planned for Season Five one had to be created pretty quickly. The whole telepath arc simply never caught fire and it does not represent the best of B5. The last third of the season focuses on the decline and fall of Centauri Prime and this is B5 at its best. There are a string of very, very good episodes as well as a very beautiful series finale. Mention must also be made of a lovely episode in the first half of the season written by the great Neil Gaiman.
Season Five was actually broadcast in split seasons and a couple of the movies -- THIRDSPACE and RIVER OF SOULS -- were broadcast before the series actually finished. Your call. Neither is all that great and neither really requires to be seen at a certain point.
The next movie, however, BABYLON 5: A CALL TO ARMS, should be viewed after the end of the series and the previously mentioned movies, and before the series CRUSADE. This episode features Bruce Boxleitner very prominently as Sheridan and is probably his last great hurrah in the series. The movie introduces the new and highly advanced space ship Excalibur and deals with a Drakh attack on earth, infecting it with a slow-acting virus that will kill all life on earth if a cure is not found (but since B5 the TV series gave us multiple glimpses into the future, we know that doesn't happen). This required the need for a search for a cure for the virus, a search that was continued on the quickly cancelled CRUSADE. The show never really got off the ground, but it had some interesting characters (especially Galen, played by Peter Woodward, who also appeared in the films A CALL TO ARMS and LOST TALES). I do recommend that fans of B5 see CRUSADE.
The next movie was THE LEGEND OF THE RANGERS: TO LIVE AND DIE IN STARLIGHT. Horrible. This is the worst of all the B5 movies, the worst thing ever done in the entire run of the show. I honestly don't even recommend this for fans of the show. The most I can say in support of it is that it is one's last chance to see Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar. He died a couple of years later of lung cancer.
Last, and not quite least, there is 2007's THE LOST TALES. It is definitely not as bad as THE LEGEND OF THE RANGERS, but not as good as IN THE BEGINNING. My reaction was that it was nice to see some familiar characters again (mainly just Tracy Scoggins's Captain Lochley, Bruce Boxleitner's Sheridan, and Peter Woodward's Galen). But definitely not B5 at its best. Most fans describe it as "chatty." There are entire scenes devoted to nothing but talk, and not terribly good talk at that.
A lot to see. For me the heart consists of the end of Season Two, all of Seasons Three and Four, the movie IN THE BEGINNING, and the last third of Season Five. My advice to anyone newly approaching B5 is to stick it out through it all. Much of it is dull, some of it even downright bad, but the best is very good indeed. If you are patient, you will find your patience rewarded.
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