Babylon 5: The Gathering/In the Beginning

All systems go. The long-running, Emmy -winning science-fiction TV series Babylon 5 launched onto DVD with two feature-length adventures chronicling landmarks in the history of the space metropolis that's a way station for the universe's populace and a shining hope for universal peace. The Gathering, the series pilot, concerns an interstellar summit aimed at negotiating a lasting truce -- if an assassin's agenda doesn't have the opposite effect. Set primarily in the decade before the orbital station existed, the prequel In the Beginning depicts the tumultuous and tragic events of the Earth-Minbari War, the fight that shaped interstellar events and paved the way for the construction of the universal safe port.

• science fiction
• tv