After roughly eight years, give or take a few episodes of Crusade and the misbegotten Legend of the Rangers we've finally got the "real" Babylon 5 back, with the direct-to-DVD release of The Lost Tales.

The actors hardly seem to have aged a day, the effects are crisper and prettier than ever, and the storylines are classic J. Michael Straczynski. But is that enough? Babylon 5 was constructed in order to tell one vast, grandiose saga that ran for five years. That's a problem forever afterward because, with that big story long done, where do you go? In Legend of the Rangers, JMS tried the route of "an even bigger, more deadly foe than the Shadows."

But that approach felt more like a cop-out, and like an insult to all the fans who had invested so much time and attention and passion into the multi-season Shadow War. It was as if Tolkien had written a fourth Rings book in which Frodo and Sam discover an even scarier flaming-eye-villain than Sauron. Please.

This time, JMS opts for the other route: The "small" story, focusing more on deep, moral issues than on vast fleet actions and on the rise and fall of empires. And, indeed, the two stories presented back-to-back here are both remarkably small -- small in scale, small in cast. Instead of throwing the kitchen sink at us, each storyline merely asks a question of its protagonist, and forces them to come to grips with somewhat uncomfortable answers.

Before pronouncing judgment on this effort, however, I have to admit to enjoying the sheer thrill of seeing three old, favorite characters again, and seeing the station and the ships depicted using today's top effects technology. Yes, the space effects here are spectacular and gorgeous, making the groundbreaking CGI work of the original series look like something from an Atari 2600 (which actually isn't too far off.)

The opening credits sequence gives us a quick tour of the major characters from the series, divided by race, so that we get Londo and Vir for the Centauri and Delenn and Lennier for the Minbari. And then -- surprise! -- it's Kosh, all mysterious and menacing as he stands beside what is presumably the Vorlon homeworld.

Why is this significant? Because, perhaps inadvertently, it serves to so powerfully remind us of what the show lost over the course of seasons three and four, as the major storylines were resolved and truly interesting and fun characters such as Kosh and Morden were removed from the board. No wonder Season Five became so dreadfully dull in places. The only people left by then were the mostly one-note, goody-two-shoes survivors of the Shadow War.

The dialogue, particularly in the first segment, is vintage Straczynski in more ways than one. A number of his usual phrases lie scattered throughout the script, from "miracles greater than the burning bush" to his old, tried-and-true favorite, "after a fashion." (The only JMSism more prevalent in the series, I think, was "almost certainly.")

And, perhaps even more so than in the series, actors are forced to alternate between passages of eloquent beauty and passages of ham-fisted and clumsy expository text. After all these years, I still find it remarkable that this one writer can at some times render lines of Shakespearean subtlety, and at others nail together word conglomerations that would make George Lucas blush. Sometimes within the same sentence.

The presentation is broken into two distinct features that blend smoothly together in the middle. The first is like an extension of Season Five of the original series. We have Elizabeth Lochley (Tracy Scoggins), now promoted to colonel but still in command of the station ten years later, and dealing with a situation somewhat similar to the one she faced in the TNT B5 movie, "The River of Souls."

I like Lochley well enough, and Scoggins always gives it everything she has, but . . . Can an old B5 fan truly be blamed for wondering how much better this all would have been with Claudia Christian playing Susan Ivanova here? The spark, the wit, the indefinable something she brings to that role: Man, I miss Ivanova.

The Lochley half of the show is somewhat tedious in places. It's talky. There's not much scenery beyond the interior of her office and a security cell. There are extended bits featuring two actors who never appeared on the series at all. The station feels remarkably empty.

Only the raising of a somewhat unexpected moral/existential question for Lochley and her guest to ponder prevents this half of the feature from sliding into the land of the worst of the final season's episodes. I half-expected Byron the telepath to round a corner at any moment.

Things perk up noticeably in the second half of the disk, however.

Full disclosure: My two favorite characters from the original series and the Crusade spinoff were John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Galen the Technomage (Peter Woodward), and the second half of this presentation belongs to them. So the deck was stacked immediately in my favor, enjoyment-wise, regardless of the quality of the story.

Fortunately, I can assert with some degree of objectivity that the quality of the second story, and everything else associated with the second half of the show, rises well above the first.

It also features another very intriguing moral question, but one grounded a bit more in reality. It poses a classic alternate history puzzle and forces President Sheridan to work through the permutations.

There are some cool things to look at along the way, as well, if only for fleeting moments. Ultimate B5 geek test: If the phrase "Vorchans vs. Warlocks" gets you at all excited, there's a snippet of footage here that will have you out of your seat. For the other 99.9 percent of you . . . blink your eyes about fifty minutes in, and you'll be fine.

And maybe it was just me, but I think JMS cribbed one of his ideas from real life, near the end, when he has President Sheridan flying a Star Fury fighter to the station in, to quote Lochley, a "conquering hero" publicity moment. I was hoping and half-expecting to see a "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging in the bay, but, alas, even JMS is not that obvious.

It must also be noted that on two or three occasions, we get a line concerning the status and whereabouts of the two characters, Dr. Franklin and G'Kar, who were played by actors that have passed away in recent years, Richard Biggs and Andreas Katsulas. The references are poignant and effective, and very much in keeping with the spirit of the show. Well done.

The DVD includes a Bruce Boxleitner/ JMS conversation clip. And I just have to say, I love Bruce Boxleitner so much. He's like the anti-Shatner. He's so enthusiastic about B5 and he seems to know every detail about the show. At one point he throws out specific references to the Star Furies and "the later Thunderbolt models that were a bit more maneuverable." Are you kidding me? And then he talks about Londo's character arc. This guy is so likeable. He needs to be on another show now. We need more Bruce Boxleitner on TV.

Babylon 5: the Lost Tales: Voices in the Dark (that enough colons for one title?) rises above the level of most of Season Five and far beyond the utterly forgettable Legend of the Rangers. But does it touch the stratospheric territory of Seasons Three and Four? No. Certainly not.

But as long as Morden, Kosh, and the Shadows are dwelling beyond the Rim, I doubt any new Babylon 5 production ever could.