I love the works of JMS, and i appreciate the fact that he is also a fan of lord of the rings and the lensman series by e.e. doc smith.
His comics work is astounding, i especially enjoyed his work on spider-man.
not only do i consider babylon 5 to be intriguing in terms of its use of character development, mythology and politics, but also a worthy and great saga of science fiction and the space opera tradition in the grandest sense.
The whole space station idea was reletaively new for tv when the show was first put on tv, then deep space nine came along and kinda copied the premise albeit needed being shoehorned to fit roddenberry's universe.
Babylon 5 is greater and more satisfying to me than all sci fi shows of its ilk when it was on tv towards the end of its run, and is up there as one of the greats next to star trek tos and the next generation.
Bruce Boxleiter is awesome, i love his work. very underated actor, and interesting enough was in the casting call for star wars for luke skywalker though was not one of the callbacks for videotape.
I also loved this show because the Psi Corps and the Rangers were kinda like the lensman of the galactic patrol or the jedi knights. and because Chekov from star trek played bester named after the famous sci fi author alfred bester another space opera luminary in the tradition of the doc.
Lucas these days plays up the Joseph Campbell and mythology stuff but does not mention how he ripped off E.E. "doc' smiths lensman opus and J.r.r. tolkiens lord of the rings.