I read this while skimming through the thread and initially thought it was about office cooling. Was mightily confused for a while.

Yep. For all the credit we give to B5's actors and writers, their directors have pulled off some great shots as well.

Good points, but I don't think it was simply JMS' ego-tripping.
The guy just finished a successfull 5-year series, had written something like 2/3rds of it single-handed (and your points about his writing style notwithstanding, that means he can take a lot of credit for how the series turned out), without an extravagant…

Hmm, guess I worded it somewhat poorly…the intended point was that in this final episode, Pierce's departure from the show was well handled. They didn't, say, have a French train run him over- he beat the whole rest of the group, and especially Jeff, by graduating first. It was actually sweet and heartwarming. And,…

Wait, what? Your commenter contract has guaranteed likes? I'm so firing my agent.

Beetlejuice!

Not disagreeing with you, but there's another difference between Old Trek and New Trek, and it's a deal breaker for me at least: in New Trek, everyone -from the writer down- has been lobotomized. Utter idiots, the lot of them. In Old Trek, they did f**k up quite badly a lot of the time, but they were not…

I think it's exactly what Rowan's written: she has in a way lost herself. To become herself again, she has to restart from first principles. And her core is that she will offer up her life in service of others in need.
SPOILER
And this is also kind of a dress rehearsal for Comes the Inquisitor, which probes the same…

Apparently, Lt. Keffer's been taking his Starfury out in hyperspace to look for…well…something.
B5 is peppered with moments that will only be noted as significant: a) by viewers paying extremely (some would say obsessively) close attention or otherwise b) on the second viewing of the series.

MINOR SPOILER
And the space battle in the episode will knock your socks off.

Rowan, good choice about Long Twilight Struggle.
I was really pissed they lost Talia, she was becoming incredibly fascinating. Thompson was doing good work with the character, too. For nearly two seasons she shouldered the main weight of showing what telepathy is in B5's world, and carried it well.
Confessions and…

All right, there's already 2600 comments as I'm posting this, so there's no guarantee this hasn't been said before.
I liked this episode. And this season.
I can fully understand the criticism that people are heaping on both, but that's IMHO the key: it's understandable. It's clear, well argued, and makes sense. But…

Good point about Delenn's motivation for spilling the beans. I'd never contrasted this with the season's early info-dump. Nothing like a fresh pair of eyes to see something from a new perspective, thanks!

SPOILERS
@Yuri Petrovich, I'd say the Drakh are a good match for the medieval/rennaissance era mercenary bands. Pick a side, fight for them, and if they lose the war, try to find another employer- failing that, carve your own territory or take over someone else's.

Heart? Erm, that doesn't sound right.

Actually not that bad.
Here in Greece, the Air Force's cadets are called Ikaros, for example.
And the Japanese Solar Sail Demonstrator (working quite nicely last time I checked) is also called the IKAROS.

I think it's fair to say that what gets lost in the other writers' absence is more than made up for by what B5 becomes over the next two seasons. And we probably wouldn't have that amazing run with JMS trying to channel his story through a half-dozen other heads to get scripts.
It's actually more noticeable when…

He seems to have been quite a firebrand- he has that moment of crazy stunt flying "just like the old days" too, in Voice In The WIlderness.

And the flipside works too.
When the s**t hits the fan later on, what Sheridan, Ivanova et al. will choose to do is not really in doubt. But Zack's choice in "Point of No Return" is not a given, and becomes a remarkable moment- and Conaway playing it without any heroic aplomb but in his normal style makes it even more…

"which can best be summarized as 'a good point turned up way too loud.'"

Yep, JMS does go all the way up to eleven, doesn't he?