Babylon 5 Seasons 3 and 4 were masterpieces—imho the best science fiction in a video format ever.
But the series got off to a slow start in the early seasons.
Just try Season 3 and see what you think—it is truly creative edge of the chair stuff.
And—the Vorlons were totally amazing—once you figured out what they were about...
Seasons 3 and 4? What took them so long. You have to grab the audience attention up front....then you can have a respite of dialog, then you need to have a big finish with multiple( hopefully) climaxes.
I watched B5 numerous times season 1. Nothing happened. Nothing!
If you drop a hammer on your foot and are in pain, you learn not to keep dropping it on your foot.
Remember that the Vorlons existed in a unique dichotomy with the Shadows, that does not quite parallel other dichotomies that we’re familiar with.
Both were trying to achieve similar ends, the evolution of other species. And both were ruthless about achieving this, over the course of many thousands of years.
Philosophically, it could be said that the Vorlons were believers in the evolutionary theory of “punctuated equilibrium”, the idea that intelligent species are generally stable in their environment until something, in this case, the Vorlons, causes “Cladogenesis”, an orderly split into two species, caused by the introduction of, in this case, new ideas and technologies in a species separated by a distance.
So, they were in favor of “order”.
The Shadows, on the other hand, were firm believers in Natural Selection, that two intelligent species should be brought into conflict, so the better of the two would evolve, and the lesser of the two die out.
And since intelligent species cannot be counted on to naturally conflict with each other, the Shadows set themselves up to be the “nemesis”, at intervals, creating both animosity and alliances.