- It always vaguely bugs me when a major character in an episode is a one-off alien species. B5 doesn’t have a lot of aliens of the week, so it stands out far more when one appears – they don’t feel like they belong. It doesn’t ruin the episode, but I’d really have preferred it if Trakis had been a Drazi or a Markab or something – or if his species had appeared in the background in other episodes.
One of the things I like about Season 1, actually, is that we have less common aliens in the background--it seems like we only had the main races in the later seasons. I think that Trakis is supposed to be the same species as the family in "Believers." Hold on! *grabs the B5 Monster Manual--err, the Larry DiTillo Guide to B5 Aliens* .. .Hm, no, okay, they're just the same race as the alien fighter in TKO. Apparently, Trakis is a Golian, and those three are Onteen. I get the sense from this that Larry DiTillo was the one who was pushing a lot of the odder aliens and alien worldbuilding, and when he had a reduced role in the show as JMS took on more writing responsibilities, the aliens got streamlined.
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One of the things I like about Season 1, actually, is that we have less common aliens in the background--it seems like we only had the main races in the later seasons. I think that Trakis is supposed to be the same species as the family in "Believers." Hold on! *grabs the B5 Monster Manual--err, the Larry DiTillo Guide to B5 Aliens* .. .Hm, no, okay, they're just the same race as the alien fighter in TKO. Apparently, Trakis is a Golian, and those three are Onteen. I get the sense from this that Larry DiTillo was the one who was pushing a lot of the odder aliens and alien worldbuilding, and when he had a reduced role in the show as JMS took on more writing responsibilities, the aliens got streamlined.