In the past few months, I’ve been watching Babylon 5. I noticed the first season available for rent at Tsutaya, and since I really enjoyed the series when I watched it on TV back in the 90s, I decided to rent it. Of course, after watching the first season, I had no choice but to watch the rest. Tsutaya didn’t have seasons 2 or 3 for rental, but they were available for sale over the web, and cheap too: 4000 yen per season, so about 700 yen a disc. That is a great deal, so I bought seasons two and three. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find seasons four and five for sale, except as ridiculously expensive imports from the US. So I obtained seasons four and five as digitally time shifted broadcasts via the international world fat web.

Coincidentally, I just found out that there is a new Babylon 5 related project: direct to DVD releases! The first one, Babylong 5: The Lost Tales will come out at the end of July. I’m really excited about that, and might have to import it. I hope that it will be on sale in Japan at the same time, but we’ll see.

Anyway, just a reminder to everyone out there that Babylon 5 is some of the best sci-fi that has been on TV. It definitely holds up to my two favorite things on the air right now, Doctor Who and the new Battlestar Galactica.

I was also very surprised about how well the effects held up. I expected that every time I saw a graphics shot that I would be thinking “Amiga! Lightwave! Video toaster!” and so on, but I quickly forgot about the technical issues, and became wrapped up in the story. In fact, I was surprised at just how GOOD the special effects were over the course of the series. I’m really looking forward to what they will be able to do on the DVD releases due to the amazing advances in technology and CG that we’ve seen since then.

Highly recommended, add Babylon 5 to your Netflicks queues immediately!