'Babylon 5: The Road Home' is the first animated 'Babylon 5' production, as well as the first time existing franchise characters have appeared in new onscreen material since 'Babylon 5: The Lost Tales' in 2007. Like 'Lost Tales', 'The Road Home' was released direct to video. With roughly half the main cast having passed on since the series ended in 1998, 'Road' brings surviving actors back for their parts and uses voice performers for those whose have passed on, the new Doctor Franklin is almost uncanny in how much he sounds like the late Richard Biggs.
One of the things I loved about B5 was how interconnected everything was and how most everything we saw on screen was building to something else, even the storyline in 'Lost Tales' about the late Emporer Cartagie's illigmate son was clearly building towards his future regin, even if we never get it's pay off. 'The Road Home' indulges the current trend to time travel/multiverse narratives, so the story here is really a culdisac, with no true bearing on the larger 'Babylon 5' story. Still, what series creator JMS is going for here is the warm fuzzies, a character reunion, if it sells well Stracynski has indicated Warner Brothers openness to doing more of these, then maybe well get a story about the telepath war or finally meet Sheridan and Deleen's son David.
What we get in this outing is a mixed bag, I wasn't sure what to make of it on first viewing but watched it again the next day and liked it more. There is not much to the story, it felt repetitive and Micheal Joseph's sentimental streak and occasionally hooky, jokey dialogue are on full display here. Still it has its moments, we get to have scenes between characters who never meet each other in the series, Commander Sinclair of season 1 and Captian Lochley of season 5, plus Lochley and Zatherus, the latter unseen since season 4. Also we get to see the road not taken, the destruction of Babylon 5 by Shadow forces is something we saw brief prophetic glimpses of in the series, but was ultimately avoided by what had been the franchises only time travel narrative; here we get to see how that last stand might have played out. I also enjoyed the visit to the timeline where the Shadow War never happened, things are pretty uneventful and calm there.
So ultimately I did enjoy 'The Road Home', this may be the last hurrah and can be appreciated as such, or it may open the door to many hinted at but unexplored side narratives in the 'Baylon 5' universe. **1/2
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