'Universal' education has brought many things in its wake over the past half-century: a higher standard of living in general; greater opportunities for the general population to achieve something more than subsistance living; widespread access to, and appreciation of, the art, the literature and the music of a wide range of different cultures; a veritable explosion in the depth and breadth of discovery in the physical sciences, quantum physics, molecular biology, computing and information theory, geology; greater thought about the consequences of the 'soft' sciences, sociology, philosophy, economics, psychology. All of these things were once the domain of the privileged few; now they are open to all who, in whatever way, can, and do, acquire an education.
However, education is a double-edged sword; with all the advantages comes a host of disadvantages. Dissatisfaction, alienation, the despair that comes from the knowledge that what we know is never enough to satiate the thirst for knowledge and, the subject for today (!) the fragmentation of art and, specifically, literature.
Prior to the nineteenth century, books were books. There were really only two kinds of books; the religious or philosophical* treatise and books which told a story, whether in dramatic, poetic or narrative form. Few were written and one might call those that were the 'golden age' of 'high art'. However, with the growth of universal education, more of the general population learnt to read and write, albeit on a basic level, and 'literature' began to be written for 'the masses'; the so-called 'penny dreadfuls'. These were simple stories, simply told, about romance, mystery, crime. They were largely written by the hacks on 'Grub Street', journalists taking a break from their 'day job' and had little invention or style or literary merit; they were, and were always intended to be, infinitely disposable. Those inclined to a more literary flavour could bask in the serialisations of Dickens, Conan Doyle or H G Wells.
After the first world war, a new publishing tradition grew up, predominantly in the United States, of 'fiction magazines', a number of which, in the light of advances in technology, built on the legacy of Jules Verne, H.G.Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the dawn of the Golden Age of Science Fiction and the genre flourished under the expert tutelage of John Campbell who became editor of 'Astounding Science Fiction' in the 1930s using authors as diverse as Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Frederick Pohl and James Blish and, subsequently, such writers as E.E (Doc) Smith, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Stanislaw Lem.
It is customary amongst followers of 'high art' to deride science fiction as so much fodder for the masses and yet who can doubt the skill of Bradbury, Philip Dick or Ursula Le Guin. While the general setting, a future, whether utopian or dystopian, whether hard or soft sci-fi, was not to everybody's taste, the real 'meat' of the best of science fiction must rival the best of any other kind of fiction in terms of the relationship of characters with each other and with their environment.
Unfortunately, irrespective of their merits as 'entertainment', the triple-edged sword** that was 'Star Trek', the first 'Battlestar Galactica' and the first 'Star Wars' trilogy only reinforced the cogniscenti's view of science fiction as simplistic candy for the not-so-very-bright. Roddenberry's vision of an ideal system, free from everything that made the post-war period so depressing, was simple wish fulfilment in an age of optimism; Lucas' 'Star Wars', 'Shane' and every western like it but in outer space complete with heavy nods to 'Dune', and its bastard offspring, 'Battlestar Galactica', was merely 'Buck Rogers' repurposed with better visual effects. It is little wonder that the intelligentsia dismissed science fiction as trite, simplistic and not worthy of serious consideration; not that the juvenalia of E E (Doc) Smith did anything to alleviate this!
In the mid-nineties, an attempt, though seriously flawed, was made to try to redress this balance by producing a television series which not only tried to deal with the kind of issues that were being dealt with in mainstream science fiction literature but also attempted to divorce itself from the prevailing manner of series and serials which had been so endemic in American TV up to that point. From 'the Fugitive' to 'Star Trek', from 'the Time Tunnel' to 'Lost in Space', each episode stood alone; no prior viewing was required, each episode was prefaced with as much of the background story as you, the first-time viewer, needed to know. Into that rigid formula, J Michael Straczynski parachuted 'Babylon 5'. A five year mini epic with the novel, in both senses of the word, structure of a distinct beginning, middle and an end.
It is difficult, and I suspect that Straczynski himself is no better guide than conjecture would be, to ascertain exactly where the underlying raison d'etre was compromised by the networks or the people who ultimately stumped up the cash for what must have seemed like a gross piece of self-indulgence, Straczynski wrote 95% of the scripts for the 110 episodes, 22 per season at a cost of around $750,000 per episode, but what is clear is that compromises were made.
Straczynski himself has stated that he wanted to write a televisual novel, however the evidence belies such a claim. In a novel, the size of the book expands or contracts relative to the story being told. There are certainly sections in a novel which seek to expand upon the nature of the world or universe that the story takes place in but these, nonetheless, also move the tale along; the stand alone episodes in Babylon 5 very often do not. In fact, fewer than half of all the episodes actually drive the plot and therein lies, perhaps, Babylon 5's single biggest weakness if it is to be viewed as a coherent narrative. 'Deep Space 9', a Star Trek franchise, suffered the same problems which is not too hard to fathiom. Straczynski first 'pitched' Babylon 5 to Paramount, makers of Star trek, and to say that they stole the idea, lock, stock and smoking barrels, for Deep Space 9 is surely the grossest understatement in the entirety of science-fiction.
And yet, for all of its faults, the characters in Babylon 5 are the very architypes of literary fiction; the hero, the man of action (Sheridan); his love, more spiritual, sensitive, more cerebral (Delenn); the 'stay-at-home' dutiful 'wife', who is not wife, (Ivanova); the fatally flawed 'best-friend' (Garibaldi and Lennier); the philosopher (G'Kar); the amoral and opportunist schemer (Londo Morali) and his 'Jiminy Cricket', his conscience (Vir); the sage who speaks only in riddles (Ambassador Koch). These form the nucleus of an ensemble cast which is augmented with occasional, but regularly occuring, characters; Lyte Alexander, the 'rogue' telepath, augmented in her abilities by Ambassador Koch; Zack Allen, Garibaldi's plodding and rather boring replacement as Security Chief; the Centauri Emperor, Cartagia, who is so modelled on the later Roman historians' view of Caligula as to become almost a figure of fun and ridicule, lacking any real menace; Bester, the psy-cop, a telepath engaged in ensurung conformity among telepaths, who could have played a much greater part in proceedings and, the nonsensical character development notwithstanding, must surely lay to rest the spectre of Pavel Checkov for actor, Walter Koenig.
The themes of resurrection and redemption lie at the heart of the story; Sheridan's resurrection from death at Z'ha'dum, which is surely an attempt to mirror Gandalf's fall and subsequent rise in Khazad Dum, the mines of Moria, as well as the obvious Christian overtones of a saviour, risen from the dead; G'kar's redemption from the hate-filled, belligerant protagonist of early episodes who transforms himself onto a being of peace and co-operation, someone who is able to temper the hate with a semblance of compassion***; Londo Morali.
Anyone who has ever written about a fictional character will, at some stage, find that the character develops into someone undreamt of at the outset; a character alive and very real and too strongly loved by the author to be given a left of centre role whatever the exigencies of the plot may be. You get the impression that, for Straczynski, Londo became the central character even if the 'plot' did not determine that. His materialistic rise, subsequent fall and his metaphorical, and moral, rise to a state of grace surely outweigh any such consideration given to the 'hero', Sheridan.
And finally, an observation. Is it just me, or was Straczynski trying to undo the fascistic leanings of E E (Doc) Smith's 'Lensman' series, which may have been de riguer in the 'anti-communist' 1950s but were scarcely appropriate for the 1990s.
When all is said and done, for all of its faults, for all of its pseudo-intellectual dialogue, Babylon 5 paved the way for that most intelligent of sci-fi, the re-boot of Battlestar Galactica. To even think of weaving the concept of 'suicide bombings' and its ultimate moral diemma into the narrative of a US mainstream television show would have been, I think, unthinkable without Babylon 5. J Michael Straczynski, pretentious arsehole that you are, we salute you!
* I use the word in its broadest sense to include 'natural philosophy', ie science.
** To paraphrase 'Ambassador Koch', truth is a triple edged sword; (your truth, my truth and the truth).
*** Interestingly, it is G'kar who has the most 'Christ-like' moments. It is he who has to decide whether to go on a journey to almost certain death at the hands of a conqueror; he that is subjected to the 'thirty-nine lashes'; he who is paraded around his home world bearing a yoke that looks suspiciously like the 'T-piece' to a cross; it is he who succumbs to the 'St Veronica' moment - the Veronica of sudarium fame.
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