This was the first B5 episode I ever saw - not because I missed The Gathering but because Channel 4, in their wisdom, chose not to show it first. I can't now remember how many episodes of season 1 I'd seen before I saw The Gathering, though I do remember that when I finally did get to see, I was blown away by how much had been set up in it (principally the Sinclair/Minbari stuff) that had had me scratching my head while watching the following episodes (which I saw before the pilot).

So, on viewing MotFL again for the first time in years, I guess it's a tribute to how gripping B5 is right from the start that I kept on with it, because the episode doesn't make any concessions. It just throws you right in there.

Yes, Ivanova and Talia (and Dr Franklin in the next episode)are new characters, but the others already know each other and I found myself dropped right into the middle of things knowing nothing about them. I hadn't been introduced. So, Sinclair is incredibly hostile towards G'Kar, for reasons that were at the time unknown to me - as was the history between the Centauri and the Narn, so Londo and G'kar's enmity was also inexplicable. (And who was this Dr Kyle that Dr Franklin told Sinclair he'd met on Io in Soul Hunter I had no idea?

Speaking of whom, I suppose if Dr Kyle became the President's personal physician, he must have died too during the assassination?)

Anyway, despite being totally bewildered, way back then (1994?), there was enough in this first episode to draw me in and keep me coming back, even though I remained in the dark about a lot of things until I saw The Gathering.

For a start, there's Londo and G'kar. So much about their interactions here and about Londo's with Vir adds richness to their various cultures. Weirdly, for me with Londo, it was the fact that he was so concerned about his nephew that drew me in, because it sets up so well and so economically the Centauri preoccupation with the extended family. Have to admit that on my first watch, I just presumed the Narn were going to be the villains. Brash, arrogant, look like lizards therefore treacherous and bound to be the bad guys. Yet even in this episode, there are hints that all is not quite what it seems.

I'm also so impressed by how much is set up here that turn out to mean so much later in the series, which is also true in Soul Hunter, such as Londo's dream of fighting to the death with G'kar, and Earth's political troubles. Also, I know it's hindsight talking, but it looks to me like Talia had set her sights on Ivanova right from the start, which reminds me all over again how innovative B5 was, not just for its own time, but still, in suggesting that same sex relationships are no longer thought of as 'difficult' or unusual.

And I don't think Sinclair's wooden.