"Babylon 5" Returns!

Fans of "Babylon 5" will be excited to learn that Warner Bros. is starting production on a straight-to-DVD movie called "Voices in the Dark" that will come out next year. In brief, it looks like two episodes of the series, taking place a few years after the original series ended. Bruce Boxleitner et al are back, along with the show's creator J. Michael Straczynski,per the press release I just received. "Babylon 5" was a particularly bold and unusual series. Rather crazily, it was designed from the start to last five seasons and tell one long, complicated over-arching story and that's exactly what they accomplished, despite switching networks and the usual travails of a TV show. It could have so easily ended before the story was over, but somehow they pulled it off. Just as tempting would have been huge ratings: FOX would have screamed bloody murder if "The X-Giles" ended after five seasons, even though that would have been the best thing in the world for the show creatively. But "Babylon 5" was almost blessed with a loyal but cult following that kept it barely alive until they reached the end. The world's longest miniseries? A novel for TV? These are some of the ways people describe that unique accomplishment. Though it's supposed to be complete as is, I'm sure fans will be eager to see what they're up to now.