A Recommended Viewing Order for the First Season of Babylon 5

Fundamentally there are now four generally popular/accepted viewing orders for the first season of Babylon 5: The Authorized Chronology, The Master List at The Lurker’s Guide, the original broadcast order and the Remastered Order from streaming sites and digital download. The latter as evaporated over the last few years to embrace the original broadcast order, but fundamentally... none of them work for me and I came up with a simple fix (some spoilers below if you are just watching the show for the first time)

AUTHORIZED CHRONOLOGY:
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Soul Hunter (102)
Infection (101)
Born to the Purple (104)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
The War Prayer (107)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
Mind War (110)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
Deathwalker (113)
Believers (105)
Survivors (111)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120-121)
Babylon Squared (118)
Legacies (115)
Grail (109)
Signs and Portents (116)
TKO (119)
Eyes (122)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
Chrysalis (112)

LURKER’S GUIDE MASTER LIST:
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Soul Hunter (102)
Born to the Purple (104)
Infection (101)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
Mind War (110)
The War Prayer (107)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
Deathwalker (113)
Believers (105)
Survivors (111)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
Signs and Portents (116)
Grail (109)
Eyes (122)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120-121)
Babylon Squared (118)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
TKO (119)
Legacies (115)
Chrysalis (112)

ORIGINAL BROADCAST ORDER:
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Soul Hunter (102)
Born to the Purple (104)
Infection (101)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
Mind War (110)
The War Prayer (107)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
Deathwalker (113)
Believers (105)
Survivors (111)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
Signs and Portents (116)
TKO (119)
Grail (109)
Eyes (122)
Legacies (115)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120-121)
Babylon Squared (118)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
Chrysalis (112)

REMASTERED ORDER:
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Soul Hunter (102)
Born to the Purple (104)
Infection (101)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
Mind War (110)
The War Prayer (107)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
Deathwalker (113)
Believers (105)
Survivors (111)
Signs and Portents (116)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
Grail (109)
Eyes (122)
TKO (119)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120-121)
Babylon Squared (118)
Legacies (115)
Chrysalis (112)

The problem is that they all have problematic continuity and flow and several people have become intractable on the issue, but I think I may have a solution, that works well. It does take one reasonable assumption but it’s less of s stretch than some of the assumptions made for the above lists.

I’m a big believer in staying as close to production order as possible, moving only episodes that need to be moved due to continuity when an episode has intentionally been filmed out of order. The reason is simple: the actors, characters and general production tends to grow organically. While commenting on a different issue series creator J. Michael Straczynski said something very similar on 7/4/94.

“I think the concern there is that they might begin playing the *result* rather than the process, that this prior knowledge might color their current performance, rather than making it a clean evolution.” http://jmsnews.com/messages/message?id=18111

Babylon 5 was mostly shot in an order that works best for viewing. There are about five exceptions during the entire series of episodes being shot intentionally out of order (six if you count the movies shot during production of the series), for example in season two’s “Divided Loyalties” and “The Long Twilight Struggle” were intentionally flopped in production to allow extra time for CGI in the latter episode. Conversely any other time that season when episodes were broadcast flopped from production order it invariably led to continuity errors. Examples include “A Race Through Dark Places”/”Soul Mates” or “Knives”/”In the Shadow of Z’Ha’Dum.”

Season one was the most egregious in terms of not following production order but only two of the five (or six) intentional production deviations are present. Being the first season, there was lots of world building by JMS and story editor Larry DiTillio. They were very detailed oriented and clever about giving information. A great example is Garibaldi’s history with Lise. Described in dialogue in “A Voice in the Wilderness” and shown in flashback in “Babylon Squared.” You can watch these episodes in either order (“Voice” was broadcast first but “Squared” was produced first) each builds on the other regardless of order. However, it does play slightly better in production order. We see Lise, and we know they broke up and *then* we get more details as well as some follow-up. Same with the episode “Eyes” and its reference to the events on Mars. As broadcast, it also came before “Voice” and serves as foreshadowing but viewed in production order it plays like a follow up. The production order works better because a follow up is both more readily apparent than as simple foreshadowing and serves as a logical extension from the events in “Voice.”

Careful scripting makes it work either way, which is brilliant crafting even though in both cases it plays better in production order. Therein lies the problem.

On 5-19-2000 JMS said: "Because episodes were often aired out of order, you have to look at what's *inside* the episode when determining the chronology rather than when PTEN decided to air an episode.” http://jmsnews.com/messages/message?id=5805

I think this caused too many people to look for stuff that wasn’t really an error but just reflective of the brilliance of how the episodes were structured so that, for the most part, they could be viewed in almost any order. Please also note he was talking about how they were *aired* out of order, NOT that they were *filmed* out of order.

I’ll go through the reasoning and address why this works better than the four main lists. When there is conflicting information, I will defer to Occam’s Razor (the simplest solution is almost always the best) in terms of how it serves verisimilitude. So, lets first put the episodes in production order.

PRODUCTION ORDER
Infection (101)
Soul Hunter (102)
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Born to the Purple (104)
Believers (105)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
The War Prayer (107)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
Grail (109)
Mind War (110)
Survivors (111)
Chrysalis (112)
Deathwalker (113)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
Legacies (115)
Signs and Portents (116)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
Babylon Squared (118)
TKO (119)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120-121)
Eyes (122)

Right off the bat we have two major continuity errors because there were a few episodes filmed out of order (as well as some not-really-continuity-errors, I’ll address farther down).

JMS made no secret that he intentionally flopped “Infection” and “Midnight on the Firing Line” in the production line up to give the actors a few episodes to settle into their roles before making what would likely be a highly scrutinized season premiere.

From a continuity standpoint “Infection” has to move after “Soul Hunter” since Dr. Franklin in introduced in the latter episode (showing that they were clearly filmed in reverse order). Technically, an argument could be made that “Soul Hunter” could just as likely be the premiere as “Midnight” and it would not cause any continuity issues, but I defer to “Midnight” because according to the script books, “Midnight” was written first and it’s the only episode that season that carries a title card for the first appearance of the station (It reads: “Babylon 5, Earth Alliance Station, 10:30 Hours Earth Standard Time”). This along with introductions for three new characters as well as the Raiders and the Londo/G’Kar conflict, appears the best bet as a reintroduction to the show (conversely Soul Hunter only introduces one new character and the Delenn/Sinclair mystery).

Next, “Chrysalis” was shot twelfth even though it was always intended to be the season finale. This is apparent from a continuity POV in the form of the cliffhangers that pick up in season two. So now we have my list what I call:

ALTERED PRODUCTION ORDER
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Soul Hunter (102)
Infection (101)
Born to the Purple (104)
Believers (105)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
The War Prayer (107)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
Grail (109)
Mind War (110)
Survivors (111)
Deathwalker (113)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
Legacies (115)
Signs and Portents (116)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
Babylon Squared (118)
TKO (119)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120 & 121)
Eyes (122)
Chrysalis (112)

It’s that easy. That’s the order.

Now, I know there are fans jumping up and down saying what about this or what about that. I could go through all the possible continuity issues and see if I can address the one that concerns you. I originally even considered going on episode by episode to show why it works better but do this for every episode would become too unwieldly.

Ultimately the big debatable conflict comes down to two chains of episodes and two different lists that have JMS’s approval and other comments.

The first episode chain is the construction of the Chrysalis machine. Delenn is seen building the first level in “Legacies,” the second level in “Signs and Portents” and completing it in “Chrysalis.”

The other chain is the pilot played by Doug. E. McCoy who appears in three episodes “Midnight on the Firing Line,” “Signs and Portents,” and then dies in “Babylon Squared.”

The first list with JMS’s blessing is the “Master List” from the “Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5.” This list appears to be the list that HBOMax was used. It moves “Legacies” to the penultimate episode of the season under the pretext that the Triluminary is used in “Legacies” but given to Delenn in “Babylon Squared” but ignores the progression of construction of the Chrysalis Machine. The argument for this order is bolstered by JMS’s comment on 7-25-94 about wanting Legacies “later in the run, because I didn't want two PsiCorps episodes back-to-back, and for one little detail that will become clearer after "Babylon Squared" airs; it would've been better to have followed that episode, but again, these eps are made to be watched in just about any order, so it's okay in the long run.” http://www.jmsnews.com/messages/message?id=17902

Conversely, the “Official Babylon 5 Chronology” has the construction of the Chrysalis machine in the correct order *and* following JMS’s post by moving both “Legacies” AND “Babylon Squared” before “Signs and Portents,” but this creates a continuity issue with a character getting killed then flying around and doing just fine a few episodes later.

I asked the author of the Chronology about this, and he said the pilot was never intended to be the same character and pointed out that JMS re-used actors all the time. The latter is true but usually when an actor is re-used, they are either buried in prosthetic make-up or more than a year has passed (example Ed Wasser playing a tech in the pilot and then Mr. Mordern over a year later in season one). It seemed odd to have McCoy, who had some unique and instantly recognizable facial characteristics, not be the same character. When I brought up this issue, the author shut down the conversation and retreated to “it was authorized by JMS.” Which seemed like an odd fallback position since the Master list also had JMS’s blessing and author himself (rightfully) completely ignored JMS’s personal preferred order for “Crusade” in the Chronology because of big continuity errors. It seemed inconsistent to ignore one continuity error because of a post from the creator then turn around and ignore the wishes of the creator because of continuity errors.

Fundamentally something about that just didn’t jibe with me. The impact of seeing a familiar face meet a horrible end added to the dramatic weight of “Babylon Squared.” It made it more than just a “Star Trek” style “red shirt” death. It had to be deliberate choice and not just coincidental casting.

A little over a year later, I thought I would go straight to the source and on 12-1-22, I asked JMS on Twitter if it was coincidental casting or intentional that a familiar face was killed off. His response was “A TV show is carefully run, down to the color of the screws in the walls, very little happens by accident or coincidence.” https://x.com/straczynski/status/1598497563690561538?s=46

So, it appears it was, in fact, supposed to be the same character. Which makes sense since it is more impactful from a dramatic standpoint. However, this leaves us with two lists both with JMS’s blessing and two comments that create an order conflict. How do we reconcile?

A little common sense and Occam’s Razor.

Before I get started, I want to point out that it is entirely possible the prop in “Legacies” was not intended to be the Triluminary. First, after reviewing the script for “Legacies” there is no direct reference to the Triluminary. The use of the prop could have been a situation where they decided to repurpose a prop and JMS might not have been on set that day allowing the inconsistency slip through. It happed with the placement (or lack thereof) of Delenn’s hand in “War Without End” during season three. http://jmsnews.com/messages/message?id=12300

It could have happened again. In some photos and even when the image is paused on screen it almost looks like they tried to alter the prop changing it from a simple triangle to a pyramid shape by adding a back. Here is a photo of both the prop from the episode as well as from its first appearance in "And the Sky Full of Stars."

The first appearance of the prop. Simple triangle.

Is that an extra side added to the prop?

Admittedly this is pure speculation on my part with nothing but a fuzzy image and a non-mention in a script to go by. So, to remain intellectually honest, let’s consider production and progression of the episodes from the assumption that the device in “Legacies” is and was always intended to be *a* Triluminary.

In my Altered Production Order we have the pilot appearing in “Midnight,” Delenn is seen building the first level of the machine in “Legacies,” the pilot appears again and Delenn is building the second level in “Signs and Portents,” Delenn receives the final piece/Triluminary and the pilot dies in “Babylon Squared” and Delenn completes the machine it in “Chrysalis.” Moving only the episodes intentionally shot out of order the production order works. 

Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Legacies (115)
Signs and Portents (116)
Babylon Squared (118)
Chrysalis (112)

If “Legacies” was actually supposed to be the next to last episode as Remastered List/Lurker’s Guide Master List have it, then this begs a HUGE logistical question. In filming order, they made “Chrysalis” first then “Legacies” and then “Signs and Portents.” So why would they take the complete machine prop from “Chrysalis” then tear it down to a single level for “Legacies” then build it back up for “Signs” if the broadcast order was supposed to be “Signs,” “Legacies” and “Chrysalis?”

This makes no sense.

If “Legacies” was always supposed to be after “Signs” but filmed before, it would be MUCH easier to take the whole prop from “Chrysalis” and take it halfway down for “Legacies” then take it farther down for “Signs.”

They didn’t do that. Common sense says “Legacies” was filmed to be seen prior to “Signs and Portents.”

Building the first level in Legacies.

Half way built in Signs and Portents.

About to finish in Chrysalis.

That leaves the pilot and his death being out of order in the Official Chronology. The author works from the assumption (admittedly fueled by a JMS post) that both Triluminaries are the same one. This is where we get to Occam’s Razor. The easiest answer is right in front of us all along.

ONE: The displaying of the body of Bramner is considered unusual in “Legacies.”

TWO: In “Babylon Squared” it is said point blank said there are THREE Triluminaries.

So, do we assume the character who dies has an identical twin who just happens to be a pilot and stationed at the same post has his brother or that the pilot character was resurrected off screen?

OR

Do we assume that the Triluminary seen in “Legacies” is not the same one that was given to Delenn but one of the other two Triluinaries and it was part of the “unusual” “spectacle” of displaying Bramner’s body?

Occam’s Razor.

We *know* a pilot with the exact same face as the one who dies in “Squared” is alive in “Signs,” and we *know* there is more than one Triluminary, but it’s an *assumption* that the device used in “Legacies” is the exact same one from “Squared.” (Again, yes, admittedly an assumption fed by a comment from the creator, but also one that contradicts a different comment from the creator.”) If assumptions have to be made, isn’t it better to make one that *fixes* a continuity issue rather than make one that *creates* a continuity issue and destroys any verisimilitude?

Another argument I hear on this is that the pilot goes by two different call signs (Delta Seven and Alpha Seven) as “proof” it wasn’t the same character. Sorry, it but it’s less of a stretch to assume the character was simply reassigned to a different squad between “Signs” and “Squared.”

Another argument that pops up is that it makes sense that Delenn would get the Triluminary first (in “Babylon Squared”) before building the Chrysalis Machine (in “Legacies”) since the machine is useless without it. This would be a great argument *except* Delenn repeatedly showed complete and utter faith in the prophecies. It is not in any way out of character for her to start construction on the device without having the final piece and having complete faith that she would eventually end up with exactly what she needed. In “Signs and Portents” we see clearly that she already started building it *before* having confirmation that the Shadows were “here.” In “Chrysalis” she didn’t even get confirmation from Kosh that the Shadows had returned to Z’Ha’Hum until *after* finishing the machine. Delenn was faith driven and believed that “faith manages.”

There is another episode to consider. The Official Chronology has “Voice” ahead of “Legacies” because it “is the last episode where there is nothing on the stand where she eventually starts building it (the Chrysalis Machine).” This is a logical assumption, but one could argue, that after Beldon scanned her mind in “Legacies” and then Morden literally walked in on her while she was building it in “Signs and Portents,” she simply moved it out of sight to the other room of her quarters. Given huge implications of the Great Machine, Draal, and Mars, as well as the general flow of episodes work much better with “Voice” near the end of the season. Taking this point into account with the Master List. It would have Delenn build the machine up several levels in “Signs,” took it completely apart again (or moved it) by “Voice,” started rebuilding (or moved it back) in “Legacies” then completed it in “Chrysalis.” Technically it *could* go anyway. Again, a reflection of the brilliance of the writing but the verisimilitude rests with my Altered Production Order.

There is one more order I didn’t mention. There is an alternative viewing order listed on a word press blog you can read here: https://b5season1order.wordpress.com/

It goes like this:

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING ORDER
Midnight on the Firing Line (103)
Soul Hunter (102)
Infection (101)
The War Prayer (107)
Born to the Purple (104)
The Parliament of Dreams (108)
Grail (109)
Deathwalker (113)
And the Sky Full of Stars (106)
Believers (105)
Survivors (111)
The Quality of Mercy (117)
Mind War (110)
By Any Means Necessary (114)
A Voice in the Wilderness (120 & 121)
Babylon Squared (118)
TKO (119)
Legacies (115)
Signs and Portents (116)
Eyes (122)
Chrysalis (112)

The author put in a lot of thought, time and effort (which I really respect) and well-reasoned points but those arguments can go either way. For example: the reasoning for putting “The War Prayer” before “Born to the Purple.” By flipping the original order, first in “Prayer” Londo forced to recognize he had given up on the idea of true love, and then in “Purple” he has a chance to change and seek it out. Of course, the reverse can be surmised in that Londo is so heartbroken after the incident in “Purple” that he has become hardened over the months before “Prayer.” That brilliant writing strikes again.

This new list suffers the same “resurrection of the dead pilot” as the Authorized Chronology but another issue for me is the basic timeline basic timeline really doesn’t work.

Three first season episodes have on screen dates. “And the Sky Full of Stars” April 11, given on the newspaper), “Signs and Portents” (August 3, given in dialogue) and “Chrysalis” (December 30, given on screen). With 22 episodes covering a 52-week calendar year we can assume about 2-3 weeks between episodes.

“Sky” is sixth episode, and the week of April 11 would fall around the 15th week of the year. 2-3 weeks would be 12-18. 15 falls exactly in the middle. “Signs” would be 15th episode and Aug. 3 would fall about the 31st week of the year. 2-3 weeks would be 30-45 weeks. Just falling within the range. “Chrysalis” is end of the season. End of the year. No math required. These three still line up in my Altered Production order.

However, in both this Alternative Order and the Authorized Chronology the beginning of the year is front loaded with numerous episodes and the back half more sparse.

In Alternative Order, you have “Sky” 9 episodes in (18-27 weeks) which just barely squeaks in. Conversely “Signs” is pushed back to episode 20 would mean 19 episodes are crammed into seven months and only three episodes take place over five months. The Authorized version has 17 episodes are crammed into seven months then the remaining five episodes cover five months. Certainly, each of these are possible but most defiantly improbable (especially when season two clearly has 11 episodes taking place over six months, establishing that the episodes are supposed to be spread out reasonably evenly over the course of the year, in fact ALL the date cues are for *every* season confirm this).

At the end of the day, you can watch in whatever order you like, for the most part the writing is so clever that most of season one can be watched in a variety of ways but I champion sticking close to production order as possible because there is a natural and very subtle evolution to production, from the performances, costumes, make-up, and sets, they are all tweaked and refined over the course of a season or a series, particularly in the early days.

Look at classic “Star Trek.” There was virtually no episode-to-episode continuity on that show but if you take an early episode like “The Corbomite Maneuver” or “Mudd’s Women” and watch it later in season one, say, after “City on the Edge of Forever,” you will see things that seem subtilty different and out of place. Nothing major. Spock is still Spock, and the Enterprise is still the Enterprise but there is an almost imperceptible feel of something being different, from uniform cuts to lighting and make-up coloring. That’s the case here. The show simply flows better adhering to production order as close as possible. Doing it this way is contributing to “making it a clean evolution” as JMS once called it.

Don’t believe me? Go back to my ALTERED PRODUCTION ORDER and try it out for yourself.