In many ways, the 1990s space opera was a kind of Rosetta Stone of various science fiction that had come before. Showrunner and creator J. Michael Straczynski baked various genre references into the series, including old-school sci-fi novels like The Demolished Man, to various nominative shout-outs to The Lord of the Rings. But with the introduction of one space drug called "Dust," Babylon 5 seemed to reference , at least in a roundabout way.
What is the most pivotal sci-fi TV moment of the 1990s? While the Star Trek and X-Files franchises could dominate a list that answers that question, the little space station that could, was consistently dropping banger after banger from 1994 to 1998. And on November 1, 1995, the second season of the show jammed in a crucial twist into the last few moments of the finale, "The Fall of Night."