'Guide' gives complex look at 'Babylon'

"Babylon 5" has had a strong following since the series began four years ago on syndicated television. It has produced trading cards, Micro Machines and some very ugly T-shirts, but there has not been a concerted effort to merchandise it until recently.

MARGARET MYERS/Daily This figure should see a lot of action in "Babylon 5" fans' toyboxes.

"The Official Guide to J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5" is probably the most complicated products so far. Like the name suggests, the CD-ROM is essentially a visually enhanced guidebook to the fictional future space station.

You take the role of a tourist boarding the station and you can choose one of three guides; a straightlaced human, a sleazy gray market human or a genetically engineered drone guide from the species known as the Gaim.

If you don't know who the Gaim are, you might go to the "Governments" section of the guide and learn that the species is a hive-based insect race dominated by six queens. This disc is full of interesting little tidbits of information, with nice bits of video from the show that contextualize the information into the mother series.

But the material is too much a fictional document. For the person curious about "Babylon 5," the series, there is a bare minimum of information, and much of what there is comes from inference. While it provides interesting trivia for the devout fan and runs admirably well on a computer whose processor, memory and CD-ROM drive all fall short of the stated requirements, it's just too specific to be a stellar game.

The CD-ROM comes with a bonus enhanced-music CD as well. The full length CD, "The Best of Babylon 5," is a compilation of the musical score from the series, as culled from two previous compilations and five upcoming CDs, each of which will collect all the music from a single show. In addition to the CD-ROM, the presence of this disc makes for a worthwhile purchase even for those with just a passing interest.

"Babylon 5" has also just inspired action figures that should make fans salivate. Exclusive Premiere has already shipped three nine-inch dolls of the human Captain John Sheridan, the female Minbari Ambassador Delenn and the reptilian Narn Ambassador G'Kar. Arriving in stores are six-inch figures of these three characters and of the Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari.

These action figures have their problems; the larger ones have some nasty fabrics for clothes and the smaller ones lack the ability to be posed. For instance, the arms on G'Kar don't move. In spite of these problems, they seem to fulfill a basic need for fans of the show, and they disappear from the shelves at Toys 'R' Us, their only distributor thus far, very quickly. Future shipments are scheduled to show up in comic book stores, but have so far been plagued with delays.

With other new products like a customized card game, video cassettes, a second comic book series and models out now or soon and an "X-Wing" type flight simulator due out later this year, it's never been a better time to desire "Babylon 5" merchandise.

- Ted Watts

01-28-98