J. Michael Straczynski is rebooting Babylon 5 on The CW

J. Michael Straczynski, who created the original series, is teaming up once again with Warner Bros. Television to reboot Babylon 5 for The CW. Straczynski will be writing the new show.

The reboot follows John Sheridan (played by Bruce Boxleitner in the original series), an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.

The original show ran for five seasons in the 1990s and was an amazing piece of storytelling featuring some brilliant characters. It also had some pretty decent CGI in places and fantastic alien and ship designs. The first time we saw a Shadow ship was incredibly creepy.

The first season was a bit hit or miss, but once the story got going then it just got better and better. It was always planned for fives seasons but rumours of cancellation meant that many of the main story elements were put into season 4. That meant season 5 felt a bit anti-climatic in places.

The fact Straczynski is involved means I am quite happy to check out the reboot when it arrives. If they again stick to a definite set story with limited seasons then it would be great to watch it with today’s visual effects technology. The Expanse has proven that strong story-driven sci-fi dramas can make for brilliant television, so hopefully the new Babylon 5 will follow that path.

How do you feel about the reboot?

Source: Deadline