Babylon 5 : The Legend of the Rangers

2001

Review

Set in the B5 universe after the defeat of the Shadows, a disparate bunch of Rangers -- a Captain in disgrace for leaving a battle, his loyal crew, and a few more non-Minbari, non-humans not accepted by the other Rangers -- take a dilapidated ship on an escort mission, shepherding Ambassador G'Kar and other diplomats to a conference. But they are attacked by a new alien menace, and must fight with everything they have, and don't have, to win through.

This sets up a new menace -- bigger and badder than the Shadows, naturally -- because it was developed as a pilot for another Babylon 5 spin-off series, following up on the work of the Rangers. No series materialised, unfortunately, because this isn't bad -- certainly not as bad as the unfortunate Crusade . The crew are more interesting than that of Crusade: no irritating techno-mage, slinky thief, or cowardly archaeologist, for example -- just "ordinary" people (human, Minbari, Narn, ...) working together as a team. It may well have become a "battle of the week" series, rather than an arc -- but I would have like to have seen it.

Rating: 3.5