Tommy Snöberg Söderberg 
Thirdspace is a standalone TV-movie in the Babylon 5 Universe. It’s not really necessary to have seen the series prior to watching this. Well, there might be a small exception and a small detail that is good to know beforehand. But basically, I’d say that Thirdspace doesn’t take place in a timeline important for the whole picture of the universe.
Apparently this takes place between the eighth and ninth episode of season four. But I don’t think it’s mandatory to watch it at that exact point. I, of course, did it .. haha.
The story centers around an ancient artifact found by the crew during a mission in hyperspace. It’s enormous and no one has a clue what it is. Therefore there’s an external company investigating and researching the data that they can gather. Pretty soon it’s obvious that this isn’t a very good thing, not the investigation itself maybe, but the actual artifact. And here comes the small detail you might be beneficial to know, the overview of the Vorlon Race since it’s kind of in the center for the story of the artifact.
The pace and the overall feel of the movie differs quite a lot from the series. There are several characters that I feel contributes so much to the atmosphere in the series that they are sorely mised. And some of the others, which had a major part of the story in the series are reduced to miniscule parts. It’s like they made a story but without any real content to connect it to the established Babylon 5 universe.
To be fair, it’s entertaining at times. Some of the actions are almost cliches of what the established character’s personality would do in a certain situation. So there’s almost no surprises. There is a whole lot of self sacrifice and heroism though.
Everything has a kind of happy ending to it, but that’s expected. We could have a movie that blows up the entire station or something. but the button line is that Thirdspace isn’t essential watching to understand the universe or the main plot. It’s a side story that could have been left on the cutting room floor.
About the Author
