After the successful airing of a test pilot movie on February 22, 1993, Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Bros. commissioned the series for production in May 1993 as part of its Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN).
The original show spawned a multimedia franchise of spin-offs consisting of a miniseries, five television movies, twenty-two novels, two tabletop games (an RPG and a wargame), and various other media such as technical books, comics, and trading cards.
Having worked on a number of television science fiction shows which had regularly gone over budget, Straczynski concluded that a lack of long-term planning was to blame, and set about looking at ways in which a series could be done responsibly.
I dragged out my notes on religion, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, science (the ones that didn't make my head explode), and started stitching together a crazy quilt pattern that eventually formed a picture.
"[20] He recalled that Peter Jurasik had asked him about the context of Londo's premonition, shown partially in "Midnight on the Firing Line", of himself and G'Kar choking each other to death, but Straczynski had to be coy about it.
[31] Preferring natural materials whenever possible, such as ostrich leather in the Narn body armor, Bruice combined and layered fabrics as diverse as rayon and silk with brocades from the 1930s and '40s to give the clothing the appearance of having evolved within different cultures.
For human civilians, garments were generally purchased off-the-rack and altered in various ways, such as removing lapels from jackets and shirts while rearranging closures, to suggest future fashions.
His complaints, and the subsequent stabbing of him with a needle by costume supervisor Kim Holly, was a light-hearted reference to the previous security uniforms, a design carried over from the pilot movie, which was difficult to work with and wear due to the combination of leather and wool.
[42] Christopher Franke composed and scored the musical soundtrack for all five years of the show when Stewart Copeland, who worked on the original telefilm, was unable to return for the first season due to recording and touring commitments.
[44] Initially concerned composing for an episodic television show could become "annoying because of the repetition", Franke found the evolving characters and story of Babylon 5 afforded him the opportunity to continually take new directions.
[45][46] Given creative freedom by the producers, Franke also orchestrated and mixed all the music, which one reviewer described as having "added another dimension of mystery, suspense, and excitement to the show, with an easily distinguishable character that separates 'Babylon 5 from other sci-fi television entries of the era.
[45] Using the "acoustic dirt produced by live instruments and the ability to play so well between two semitones" and the "frequency range, dynamics and control" provided by synthesizers, he described his approach "as experimental friendly as possible without leaving the happy marriage between the orchestral and electronic sounds".
[46] Using Cubase software through an electronic keyboard, or for more complex pieces a light pen and graphics tablet, he would begin by developing the melodic content round which the ambient components and transitions were added.
The show examines the impositions on civil liberties under the pretext of greater defense against outside threats which aid its rise, and the self-delusion of a populace which believes its moral superiority will never allow a dictatorship to come to power, until it is too late.
The conflict between the Narn and the Centauri is followed from its beginnings as a minor territorial dispute amplified by historical animosity, through to its end, in which weapons of mass destruction are employed to subjugate and enslave a planet.
Informed by the events of the first Gulf War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Soviet invasion of Prague, the intent was to recreate these moments when "the world held its breath" and the emotional core of the conflict was the disbelief that the situation could have occurred at all, and the desperation to find a way to bring it to an end.
Choosing Mars as both the spark for the civil war, and the staging ground for its dramatic conclusion, enabled the viewer to understand the conflict more fully than had it involved an anonymous colony orbiting a distant star.
[89] In the show's third season, a community of Cistercian monks takes up residence on the Babylon 5 station, in order to learn what other races call God,[90] and to come to a better understanding of the different religions through study at close quarters.
Undercurrents of religions such as Buddhism have been viewed by some in various episode scripts,[95] and while identifying himself as an atheist,[86] Straczynski believes that passages of dialog can take on distinct meanings to viewers of differing faiths, and that the show ultimately expresses ideas which cross religious boundaries.
Dr. Stephen Franklin develops an addiction to injectable stimulant drugs while trying to cope with the chronic stress and work overload in Medlab, and he takes a leave of absence from his position to recover.
Straczynski has stated that there was no intent to wholly represent any particular period of history or preceding work of fiction, but has acknowledged their influence on the series, inasmuch as it uses similar well established storytelling structures, such as the hero's journey.
[102] There are a number of references to the legend of King Arthur, with ships named Excalibur appearing in the main series and the Crusade spin-off, and a character in "A Late Delivery from Avalon" claiming to possess the sword itself.
In September 1995, they hired series fan Troy Rutter to take over the site and move it to its own domain name, and to oversee the Keyword B5 area on America Online.
[130][131][132] Babylon 5 has been praised for its depth and complexity against a backdrop of contemporary shows which largely lacked long-term consequences, with plots typically being resolved in the course of a single episode, occasionally two.
In 1997, Del Rey obtained the publication license from Warner Bros., and proceeded to release a number of original trilogies directly scenarized by Straczynski, as well as novelizations of three of the TNT telefilms (In the Beginning, Thirdspace, and A Call to Arms).
In 2007, the first in a planned anthology of straight-to-DVD short stories, entitled The Lost Tales, was released by Warner Home Video, but no others were produced, due to funding issues.
[156] In November 2001, Warner Home Video began distributing Babylon 5 DVDs with a two-movie set containing the re-edited TNT special edition of The Gathering and In The Beginning.
With slightly altered cover art, they included no additional content, but the discs were more securely stored in slimline cases, rather than the early "book" format, with hard plastic pages used during the original release of the first three seasons.
After visiting Warner Bros., which was stretching the horizontal interval for an episode of Lois & Clark, producer John Copeland convinced them to allow Babylon 5 to be shot on Super 35mm film stock.
Though the CG scenes, and those containing live action combined with digital elements, could have been created in a suitable widescreen format, a cost-saving decision was taken to produce them in the 4:3 aspect ratio.