This 5-Part Sci-Fi Masterpiece Perfected What ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Started

Image via Warner Bros. Television Published Aug 9, 2026, 4:53 PM EDT Collier Jennings is an entertainment journalist with a substantial amount of experience under his belt. Collier, or "CJ" to his friends and family, is a dedicated fan of genre films - particularly science fiction, fantasy and comic book adaptations, not to mention all forms of animation animation. This stems from a close bond with his father, who introduced him to these genres via copies of X-Men comics and reruns of the original Ultraman series. Using his near-encyclopedic knowledge and bottomless love of genre, he's been able to tackle a wide variety of articles. Sign in to your Collider account Battlestar Galactica is one of the few science fiction series that proves reboots can improve upon their source material and that television was ready to support a sci-fi franchise that wasn't Star Wars or Star Trek. From its pitch-perfect pilot to nearly every episode that followed, Ronald D. Moore and his creative team brought a grounded approach to their story — as grounded as "being chased around space by killer robots" as you could get. But the series finale "Daybreak" alienated some fans with its resolution to the Galactica's journey to Earth and the startling revelation that Cylons were the forefathers of humanity. Yes, apparently, we're all descended from killer robots. Even Moore has expressed a few regrets on how "Daybreak" wrapped up the series. "To me, I wanted [Battlestar Galactica] to have a definitive ending...a part of me wishes I hadn't done that," he said at last year's San Diego Comic-Con, though he stood by his decision. Battlestar Galactica fans shouldn't fret, though, since there's another sci-fi series in the same vein with a far more satisfying ending: Babylon 5. Created by J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5 centers around the Babylon 5 space station, which serves as "the last, best hope for peace". It also featured a unique story structure at the time: Straczynski had planned the entire show out for a five season run, meaning that it had a definitive ending. Babylon 5 also featured richly developed characters and surprising plot twists at a time when they weren't commonplace on TV. In fact, the argument could be made that if it weren't for this show, Battlestar Galactica — and the entire era of "Peak TV" — might not have become the norm. But what exactly makes Babylon 5 such a great series? ‘Babylon 5’ Slowly Built Up to Its Main Storyline At first, Babylon 5 seemed to merely be a hub where various alien races could hash out their differences on neutral ground. But as the show progressed, it started to reveal a massive storyline that served as the forefront of a massive intergalactic war. It begins when Babylon 5's commander, Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O'Hare), is unable to remember the last day of a war he fought in involving the alien race known as the Minbari. Slowly, the Minbari reveal that they believe Sinclair carried the soul of the legendary prophet Valen, who would lead them to victory against the alien invaders known as the Shadows. Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another. AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The MatrixYou took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it. You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare. You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it. The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door. Mad MaxThe wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you. You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider. In the wasteland, that distinction is everything. Blade RunnerYou'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either. In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything. DuneArrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools. You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect. In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it. Star WarsThe galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way. You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion. You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken. You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of. In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Later on, new commander John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) finds himself on the front lines of the war against the Shadows, even allying with the Minbari and other worlds to fight them. In the midst of all of this, several subplots wound up feeding into the main plotline, including Earth falling under the control of a fascist government — which caused Sheridan to pull Babylon 5 from the Earth Alliance in protest — and a conflict between two separate groups of telepaths. Much like Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5 featured characters who started at one extreme and ended up at another. Sinclair would eventually fulfill the Minbari prophecy by becoming their ambassador — and later, transformed into Valen himself. G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Londo (Peter Jurasik) started as a pair of dueling ambassadors due to the enmity between their respective races, but ended up in widely different positions of power: G'Kar became a spiritual leader, while Londo eventually became the leader of the Centauri empire — but is manipulated by the Shadows all the while. The way characters could change on a dime not only made them more compelling but actually made sense due to the way the plot was set up. Even the series finale, "Sleeping in Light," brought things full circle: Babylon 5, having fulfilled its purpose, is decommissioned, while Sheridan has one last gathering with his friends before passing on to the next life. But while it was a trend-setting series, Babylon 5 almost never got off the ground. J. Michael Straczynski Navigated Multiple Production Issues To Complete ‘Babylon 5’ It took roughly five years for Babylon 5 to make it to television, and in his autobiography Becoming Superman, J. Michael Straczynski would detail just how rough a journey it was. In his initial pitch meetings, a cracked tooth led him to down an entire pitcher of ice water — resulting in a numb tongue and a less-than-stellar presentation. "To this day I don’t remember what I said. I’d gone in to pitch Casablanca in Space, but for all I can recall, I might have pitched Gunsmoke at the Bottom of the Sea," he wrote. There was another major obstacle in the form of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — like Babylon 5, it also took place on a space station whose commander became the center of an intergalactic war, but it had the bedrock of a successful sci-fi franchise behind it. The fact that Babylon 5 aired a full year after Deep Space Nine didn't help matters, as Straczynski worried that fans of the latter would think he was ripping it off. However, the biggest challenge concerned PTEN, the network that Babylon 5 originally was a part of. In 1997, PTEN was shut down when its parent studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount, decided to form their own TV stations with The WB and UPN (ironically, both would merge to form The CW). But TNT picked up the final season, effectively making sure Babylon 5 was able to finish on the terms Straczynski wanted ‘Babylon 5’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Have More in Common Than You’d Think Image via SYFY Battlestar Galactica does share quite a bit in common with Babylon 5, as both shows are sprawling, long-form science-fiction stories that deal with themes of war and religion. But they also share a similar beginning and ending. Both series start with a made-for-TV film that serves as a perfect introduction to the series and lays the groundwork for most of each show's respective revelations. Shortly after ending, each show received a short-lived spin-off series: Battlestar Galactica had Caprica, while Babylon 5 had Crusade. Both Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 have recently been considered for reboots, but nothing seems to be going forward at this rate. A common saying in Battlestar Galactica is: "This has happened before, and it will all happen again." Perhaps the person who wrote that was secretly referring to Babylon 5, since Battlestar Galactica mirrored its journey in more ways than one. Babylon 5 is available for purchase on Amazon Video in the U.S. Release Date 1994 - 1998-00-00 Network Syndication, TNT Showrunner J. Michael Straczynski Cast Bruce Boxleitner John Sheridan Writers J. Michael Straczynski, Larry DiTillio, D.C. Fontana, Harlan Ellison, Peter David, Christy Marx, David Gerrold, Kathryn M. Drennan, Marc Scott Zicree, Neil Gaiman