The Moment Babylon 5 Crossed Over With Star Trek Remains Timeless
"Point of No Return" was a pivotal episode. But it had a metametatextual agenda.
Today, it’s hard to remember that TV in the 1990s was in an incredible science fiction renaissance. By 1996, there were two popular Star Trek series airing — Voyager and Deep Space Nine — not to mention the final season of seaQuest, the golden era of The X-Files, Space: Above and Beyond, and the spaceflight series The Cape. But, arguably, the sci-fi TV series that rivaled Star Trek in 1996, at least in terms of a burgeoning fandom, was Babylon 5. Like Deep Space Nine, the story of B5 took place on a space station and also dealt with massive space wars and massive interconnected serialized arcs. While the idea that DS9 ripped off B5 is mostly water-under-the-bridge today, at the time, there was some tension between the fandoms.
And so, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski teamed up with an ally within the Star Trek camp, Majel Barrett, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Often called “the First Lady of Star Trek,” Barrett guest-starred on a pivotal episode of Babylon 5, which has a kind of peace-keeping mission between the two fandoms. During the week of February 26, 1996, in the episode “Point of No Return,” Barrett appeared as the character Lady Morella, and in doing so, made sci-fi history.
Majel Barrett in 1996.
In the middle of Babylon 5’s third season, the show was taking very big swings, and the episode “Point of No Return” has a very literal title. The humans on the show are in the middle of a civil split between EarthForce, while the rest of the alien races are trying to figure out what happens if humanity turns in on itself.
Amid all of this, the tragic character of Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) has been granted an audience with the Centauri leader, Lady Morella (Barrett), the widow of the recently-deceased Emperor. In real life, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had passed away in 1991, and some of the dialogue delivered by Barrett in this episode could be read as a kind of tribute to Roddenberry. “He came to try and prevent the insanity that was coming,” Lady Morella tells Londo. And when she arrives, she says, “We have heard much about the good work you are doing here,” referencing the idea that though Babylon 5 wasn’t a Star Trek show, there was much in the series for all fans to love.
And, of course, there were many Star Trek connections to B5, too. Walter Koenig was a frequent guest star on the series, Harlan Ellison was a creative consultant, D.C Fontana wrote for B5 in Season 1, Adam Nimoy directed a few big episodes, Andreas Katsulas was a Trek guest star and a B5 regular, and Straczynski was a big Star Trek fan — he even penned an issue of DC’s Star Trek comic book series in 1991, titled “Worldsinger.”
So, there was a lot of common ground between the B5 and Trek fandoms, and Straczynski specifically wrote this part and episode for Barrett. “She felt that the feud between a certain party of Trek fans and B5 fans was pointless,” Straczynski said in 1997. “It was a very nice gesture to make, and got us a fair amount of publicity and made some Trek fans give us a second chance.”
Majel Barrett in Babylon 5, Season 3, Episode 9, “Point of No Return.”
As Trek fans know, Barrett had a role in every version of Star Trek from 1966 to 2009, so the fact that she would even bother to guest-star in an entirely different franchise is not just surprising, but speaks to her generosity and love for science fiction more broadly.
“I can honestly say that she carried around a great burden being a Roddenberry in life,” B5 actor Peter Jurasik reflected in 1997. “When she enters a group of science fiction fans...the waters just part for her and people just kind of stand back.”
Thirty years later, this fascinating moment in science fiction culture is still as tender and compelling as it was in 1996. And, if you're a Trek fan who has still slept on Babylon 5 all these years later, this episode might be a great way to experience the little-space-station-that-could for the first time.
