The Most Underrated Sci-Fi Show Of The ‘90s Delivered Twists On Par With The Giants

What is the most pivotal sci-fi TV moment of the 1990s? While the Star Trek and X-Files franchises could dominate a list that answers that question, the little space station that could, Babylon 5, was consistently dropping banger after banger from 1994 to 1998. And on November 1, 1995, the second season of the show jammed in a crucial twist into the last few moments of the finale, “The Fall of Night.”

Though Babylon 5 would have a handful of memorable twists and finales across its five seasons, “The Fall of Night” is perhaps the most underrated of the pack, simply because it perfectly represents what made the series so smart: It made epic events into deeply personal moments.

Spoilers ahead.

Back in 1995, Babylon 5 lived in the shadow of Star Trek stalwarts Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Today, Trekkies like to think of those spinoffs as the underdogs, but in the larger world of popular ‘90s sci-fi, Babylon 5 was an underdog of the underdog. After a rocky first season, Babylon 5 Season 2 returned with propulsive energy, thanks in part to a new lead actor in the form of Bruce Boxleitner as Captain John Sheridan, replacing Michael O’Hare as Jeffrey Sinclair in Season 1. This isn’t to say Babylon 5 Season 2 was a reboot of Season 1, but this run of episodes certainly leaned more heavily into what, at the time, was the thing that made Babylon 5 unique among its peers; it was playing the long game in terms of narrative, with several serialized elements in Season 2 setting the stage to a bigger shift in Season 3. And, unlike the vast majority of serialized sci-fi shows — then and now — creator J. Michael Straczynski did have an overall plan for the story, even if some characters and storylines had to be tweaked along the way. In short, what was revealed in the Babylon 5 Season 2 finale would end up mattering even well into Season 5.

Throughout Season 2, the show had been focused on several plot arcs, but the biggest galactic event had been the ongoing aggressive expansion of the Centauri, following the conquest of the Narn homeworld. The audience is aware that the Centauri are being aided by the evil Shadows, an ancient alien race that has been staging a comeback for ages. The audience also knows that Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) isn’t crazy about these developments, but publicly can’t admit his concerns and misgivings. As the Centauri gear up for even more invasions of other planets, security chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) tells Captain Sheridan that he knows that Lando is “trapped.” This is a small point, but a relevant one, because the conceit of Babylon 5 is that it puts, what are, analogously, world leaders, into a self-contained space station, where they have to rub elbows with all sorts of people on a day-to-day basis. In real life, it would be like if Putin were friends with an NYC beat cop because they all had to live at the version of the U.N. in space. The proximity of major galactic power centers in Babylon 5 is all squished together, like Elrond and Saruman from The Lord of the Rings sharing a bathroom.

“The Fall of Night” employs this dramatic use of scale to tell a pretty simple story: Earthgov sends an ambassador to suss out the Centauri military aggression, but at the same time, a Narn warship, the last of its kind, seeks sanctuary at Babylon 5. Captain Sheridan is inclined to help the Narn; after all, they’re the ones getting slaughtered by the Centauri. (Though the reverse was true in Season 1.)

But the twist is, Earth doesn’t want to censure Centauri Prime, but instead, lets the other aliens get kicked to the curb in favor of a non-aggression pact. Sheridan and the crew are shocked by this development, and when a Centauri ship shows up to take custody of the Narn, a massive battle ensues, which results in the destruction of the Centauri ship. Sheridan blames Londo and the Centauri, naturally, as does the audience. But the Earthgov ambassador demands that Sheridan apologize, publicly.

And so the episode seems to end with Sheridan on his way to deliver the apology, to meet with all the other alien representatives in the Zen Garden in the center of the station. Sheridan boards the space station equivalent of the subway and heads over. But Centauri terrorists plant a bomb in his car, sending him to jump out, and into freefall in the center of the station. It quickly becomes clear that he’ll perish if he hits the ground, and so, the mysterious Kosh, a Vorlon encased in an encounter suit, finally reveals himself, and flies up to save Sheridan. Up until this point, the true form of the Vorlons has been kept a total secret from the audience, but here, every single person — save one — sees a version of an angel. Delenn (Mira Furlan), who was barely in this episode until the end, tells Sheridan that basically, the Vorlons are literally angels and have been visiting various planets for eons.

This twist not only redefined the entire series but, in retrospect, represents the best of Babylon 5. Hilariously, Sheridan never has to make his apology, because the Biblical events that just unfolded have taken everyone’s mind off of it. Various aliens argue in a bar at the end of the episode about which kind of angel they saw; each insists they saw someone who looked like a member of their own species. But Londo says he saw “nothing.”

Again, the epic and histrionic nature of the show becomes tempered with the personal. Sheridan and Londo may have been locked into a struggle of the wills, connected to the possible outbreak of a much larger interstellar conflict. A space angel has even flown onto the stage now, reframing how we’re meant to think about the coming bigger battle. And yet, it all comes down to a conflicted guy, alone in a bar, wondering why he couldn’t see the angel, too.

Babylon 5 streams on Tubi.