Babylon 5 TV Series Rewatch: My own comments

Babylon 5 Comments

Currently, on the site Reactor [ https://reactormag.com/ ], previously Tor.com, there is a series of blogs that will explore Babylon 5.  [ https://reactormag.com/columns/babylon-5-rewatch/ ] The problem is that the analysis of the show fails to catch some important points that reveal and explain the show.
 
For instance, the very first post completely fails to notice the importance of the opening line in each episode.  First off, to appreciate what JMS is doing, you need to pay attention to the literary symbols he is alluding to.  Such as in the introduction to all of the episodes they begin with the following line: “It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind.”
 
That phrase is a reference to J R R Tolkien’s ‘Third Age of Middle Earth’. 
 
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Third_Age
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Third_Age
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Arda#Third_Age
 
To fail to recognize JMS use of that phrase is to fail to understand what he is doing throughout the whole series.
 
What JMS is doing by using that phrase, ‘The Third Age of Mankind’, is alerting the perceptive viewer that this is no ordinary TV series, but one that is going to be a giant multiple ‘book’ series in the same manner as The Lord of the Rings.
 
Additionally, it will be an Epic in the same manner as the LOTR, in that it is a grand fantasy covering a vast geography and pre-history.
 
It will also literally allude to similar themes as LOTR.  In Tolkien’s Third Age, the supernatural forces of the First Ones were either directly present or their agents were present and active.  At the end of this age, the world was left with the retreat or passing of these beings out of space/time, and thus, all creatures were not directly affected by their influence.  Those supernatural forces were allegorically and metaphorically the forces of Chaos and Order.  Once they left, all beings had to rely solely on their free will to choose how to live.
 
This is exactly what JMS’s world of Babylon 5 is.  The Super-Natural First Ones are here as a species that represents Chaos and Order, and they are trying to control the universe of beings.  They try to solicit and guide them, and the whole ancient war between these two forces will once again play out until Sheridan proclaims, “Get the Hell out of our galaxy!” By this act the Third Age comes to a close.  By doing this, Sheridan is declaring that henceforth all beings will need to rely on their own free will to decide how to think and how to act.  They will now be condemned to a state of existential freedom as Jean Paul Sartre described, they will have to face the responsibility for their own actions and choices without the influence or guidance of those Super-Natural beings.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-165hJAis