Babylon 5: theater in space. It tells the story of a spacestation on which the ambassadors of many alien races live. The complex storyline spans 5 years and tells of order against chaos. Contrary to many science fiction series, all characters have a realistic feel about them. None of them are overly invulnarable (except than Sheridan returning from the dead :). All characters evolve throughout the series. Some for good, other for worse. The soundtrack of the series is great, especially in the movie Thirdspace. A must see. The latest movie I saw was Lost Tales - Voices in the Dark. This is really theater in space: 2 acts with 3 actors in each act :) Remarkably is that I have seen the movie 4 times now and am still amazed by the quality of the actors involved.

Andromeda is one of those few series that after 4 seasons suddenly changed rudder, to good effect. The 5th season (and sadly the last) provides for very good science fiction. The 5th season can be seen as a books, that, when you reread it, you actually find new things back every time. The entire season is set up as a story involving 9 almost identical planets, which are part of a great machine. On these planets technology is forbidden (at least strongly discouraged). While the characters try to come to terms with their own history and who they are, the major story unfolds along the same lines: unwinding a legacy of a civilization long gone. In Andromeda all characters are greater than life: they are the perfect captain, they are the greatest engineer, they are the most cynical Nietzschan and so on. This idea is even taken further by means of the 'avatars'. Moons, suns, planets can have avatars, which look like humans, but are part of the same entity. For instance, trance is the avatar of the original Vedran sun. In the same way, it seems that Dilan is the avatar of a tri-galactic cluster. However, these avatars, being only a part of their full being, do often not realize their full potential and must find themselves back. The graphics is this season are awe-inspiring; taking the reader/viewer to amazing fantasy places. In one specific episode, they actually fly into a star ;) All locations are worked out very well and the editing, lighting is superb. Many metaphorical hints are given about the story. One of them for instance is trance trying to guess what the outcome of a coin-flip will be. After 74 successful consecutive tries, Dilan joins her at the table and stops the coin rotating in midair. Suddenly she cannot guess what the outcome will be, which is exactly how trance has difficulties to guess the future when Dilan interferes with it. Andromeda season 5 is a very good science fiction book, which can be viewed without watching the previous seasons. These might however give some background and support the story somewhat more.

Very Cool Science Fiction Series

Babylon 5

Andromeda Season 5