A Road Less Travelled

We watched the last episode of Babylon 5 last night. I knew I would feel sad that it was done, but I wasn’t expecting the last episode to have the punch it did. The last three episodes were mostly taken up with goodbyes. People were leaving; they’re lives were taking them other places. Most goodbyes were said with affection and sadness for leaving a place they love so well and the people who fill that place. The very last episode was about one big goodbye. A man had been given twenty years of life and now those years were up. It takes place about eighteen years after the previous episode. He feels his death approaching and so he gathers all his old friends about him and they have a party. The next day he says goodbye to his wife. I was doing okay until this part. The music, the script, the camera work all combined to make me cry. And I wasn’t crying like I normally do when a movie makes me cry. Then tears flow down my face and I don’t pay much attention to them. No, this was the personal crying when my face scrunches up and I am sobbing. Amidst my tears the man boards a spaceship and goes out into space to have one last look around and then to die. He visits Babylon 5 which is about to be decomissioned. He visits the sight of his victory over the forces that threatened everything he loved. And there he fell asleep and didn’t wake up. No one ever found his body. His friends all go to Babylon 5 to see it one last time. As they leave a maintenance worker turns off the lights. That worker was played by J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 and the writer of most of the episodes. He directed this episode and then he turned out the lights. And then, as everyone watches, Babylon 5 is destroyed. It wasn’t being used anymore and to protect it from being ill used it was destroyed. I think I cried then, too. We then are shown the characters going about their lives. Some lives have changed for the better, some have stayed the same for the better. It ends with peace, life and sadness. If I ever meet Mister Straczynski I will first slap him and then ask if I may shake his hand. The same goes for Christopher Franke who composed the music. Babylon 5 is a masterful story told by a master of the craft. I am glad to carry it with me. But now it has ended as all stories must. I joked that it felt like an ending of an age, but I am not sure how serious I am about that anymore. However serious or not, I am sorry to see it end, even though it must. And so, goodnight. Perhaps we will meet again in the place where no shadows lie.