"The Hand" Me Down

A Movie Review

It's a bit of a treat to get to write a Babylon 5 related review as I've already seen just about everything Straczynski's done with that 'universe' save for a couple of episodes of the ill-fated sequel series Crusade. Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight, in addition to being an excessively long title was the 2002 pilot movie for another attempted sequel series to the venerable 90's space opera. Like Crusade which lasted only one season, Rangers would fail at having much of a life span, not even having a single regular episode produced.

The premise of the program was to follow the adventures of Ranger Capitan David Martell (Dylan Neal) and his rag-tag crew aboard the 20-year-old ship the Liandra as they investigate the emergence of a new power on the galactic scene, the mysterious race known only as 'The Hand'. Set in 2264 roughly 2-years after the events of B5's last season and three years before the start of Crusades storyline, if this series had continued it would have been interesting to see how its events might intertwine with those of the Gary Cole helmed series.

The best thing about this slightly better then average Sci-Fi Channel TV movie is the late Andreas Katsulas in his final performance as the wonderful G'Kar. More then a cameo appearance G'Kar does play an important role at a couple points during the film, he even delivers a little speech about death rendered kind of creepy granted the actors recent passing. Legend of the Rangers is best for hard core B5 fans who'd just like to have one last look into Straczynskis fascinating 'universe'.