Babylon 5: The Gathering, on PTEN
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This movie first aired in 1993, and served as a pilot for the series Babylon 5, which began airing a year later. But I've never seen the original version of the movie. A special edition was aired by TNT in 1998, which must be the first time I saw it. By the time I re-watched it on DVD (also the special edition), I didn't really remember anything about it. Now that I've seen it again, I'd say it does a fair job of introducing us to the world in which it's set, and to some of the characters who will become more familiar in the course of the series. A lot of it is basically exposition, but I don't think the dialogue ever felt out of character or too clunky. (Okay, sometimes it was a little clunky.) I do think the writing wasn't as good as it is in the series, but the story itself was decent. A lot of the CGI was pretty unrealistic, though. Not too bad for the time the movie was made, but by today's standards... it's quite dated.

So, it's set in the year 2257, on a space station called Babylon 5, about one year after the station became operational. (The first three Babylon stations were destroyed by sabotage, and the fourth just mysteriously disappeared... which will eventually be explained in the series.) The man in charge of the station is Commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O'Hare), and his first officer is Lt. Commander Laurel Takashima (Tamlyn Tomita), though Takashima doesn't appear in the series. The chief of security is Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), and the chief medical officer is Dr. Ben Kyle (Johnny Sekka), who also doesn't appear in the series. In the movie, a telepath named Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman) comes to the station, though she wouldn't be seen again until later in the series. Those are all the major human characters. Major alien characters include the Centauri ambassador, Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik); the Narn ambassador, G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas); and the Minbari ambassador, Delenn (Mira Furlan). A fourth ambassador, a Vorlon named Kosh, arrives at the station for the first time in the movie. But as soon as he arrives, he is poisoned and spends most of the movie in sickbay on the brink of death. Garibaldi and Sinclair have to try to learn who poisoned Kosh and how, so that Dr. Kyle can save his life. At one point, Lyta uses telepathy to see what Kosh saw, but I don't want to spoil that. It's obviously a red herring, anyway.

The mystery of the assassination attempt against Kosh provides the framework of the story, but the movie mostly exists to introduce us to the characters and concepts that would be prevalent in the series. This includes a bit of history of the Earth Alliance, the Centauri Republic, the Narn Regime, the Minbari Federation, and the Vorlon Empire. Those are the five major powers in the galaxy, though there are countless non-aligned worlds that are also part of the interstellar community, so we'll see any number of other alien races throughout the series. The Vorlons are the oldest and most mysterious race in the galaxy, and we only ever see Kosh in an "encounter suit", which sustains a breathable atmosphere for him, which is different from the other races on Babylon 5, but is also used to hide his true appearance from the other races. The second oldest race in the movie/series are the Minbari, who ten years ago were at war with the Earth Alliance, but mysteriously surrendered right before they would have beaten Earth. (More will be explained about that later in the series and another movie, "In the Beginning".) The Centauri Republic is not as powerful as it once was; they had conquered many worlds, including Narn, so of course Londo and G'Kar don't like each other. But Delenn is friendly with Sinclair. Sinclair also has a girlfriend named Carolyn, but she doesn't appear in the series, and I don't feel like her presence was too important to the movie, other than for having someone for Sinclair to provide exposition to.

Anyway... I wouldn't say it was a great movie, certainly nowhere near as good as the series it spawned. But like I said, it does a fair job of introducing us to the world created by J. Michael Straczynski. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad to have seen it again.