In the history of the world, nothing has united and divided people as much as religion. It can bring peace and meaning to one person's life while destroying another. To say that discussing religion in public is controversial is, to put it mildly, an understatement. The TV series "Babylon 5"« tackled the subject boldly from the start, using "Parliament of Dreams," the fifth episode of the first season, to explore the good, the bad, and the importance of religion, culminating in a final shot that serves as a sort of mission statement for series creator J. Michael Straczynski throughout the series.
Everything that makes Babylon 5 great: religion, murder, and love.
Religious celebration of Centauria
Babylon 5 is a hub of trade, commerce, and diplomacy for hundreds of species, meaning that when the Earth Alliance dedicates a week to celebrating religions, hundreds of different celebrations take place on board. Each civilization showcases its dominant religion: the religious Minbari caste holds prayer meetings, the Centauri throw a party, and other, lesser-represented species get brief moments demonstrating what's important to them.
One of G'Kar's most striking early episodes.
The episode's main plot has nothing to do with the religious holiday. Narn Ambassador G'Kar struggles to survive an assassination attempt he knows is being carried out by a political rival seeking revenge from beyond the grave. Paranoid, G'Kar assumes it's his new aide, Na'Toth, overlooking the fact that it's actually a courier sent by his rival with a dying message. We get an early glimpse of the man G'Kar will become when he and Na'Toth stop the assassin and allow them to escape. After all, the penalty for failure in the Assassins' Guild is death, so why get your hands dirty?
As usual, there's another subplot designed to help fans gain a deeper understanding of one of the characters, in this case, Commander Sinclair (Michael O'Hara), who is dealing with the return of his on-again, off-again lover and former pilot apprentice, Catherine Sakai. Now working as a planetary explorer, Catherine has struck it rich thanks to her latest discovery and has decided to celebrate with Sinclair. For now, their relationship is definitely "together," but Catherine promises to return, and unlike her love for Londo, you can be sure she will.
An Emmy Award-winning episode.
In the final moments of the episode "Parliament of Dreams" the series «Babylon 5» The film returns to the theme of the religious festival. Finally, Sinclair is about to show the alien diplomats Earth's dominant religious culture. He leads them to a long line of people, each representing a different religion prevalent on Earth, starting with an atheist. It's a brilliant moment that plays out right up until the credits, demonstrating how many religions exist on Earth and that Sinclair intends to respect each of them.
The episode "Parliament of Dreams" won a 1994 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Series" thanks to its extensive use of alien prosthetics throughout the episode. Recurring alien characters, including Ga'Kar, Londo, Kota, and Delin, created their own looks for their species, but the talented crew working on the episode used it to practice standard alien backgrounds. Thanks to the team's dedication to creating unique, memorable looks, even when the aliens only appear in the background of a few shots, Babylon 5 felt like a real space station inhabited by hundreds of different species.
By the end of the series it becomes clear that «Babylon 5» was ultimately a show about religion. The fates of many characters, including Sinclair and Neroon, are directly tied to their religious journeys. The episode "Parliament of Fates" is an early and beautiful testament to the importance of religion and why humanity is unique in the universe.