Warner Bros.If you were to watch the music video for the Flight of the Conchords song “Fashion is Danger,” from Season 2 of that series, you’ll notice that Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are, in fact, wearing uniforms worn by members of the Earthforce in the Babylon 5 universe. Technically, McKenzie is wearing an Earthforce uniform from the B5 spinoff Crusade, but Clement is straight-up wearing the regular Earthforce uniform worn by most of the main human characters on Babylon 5 until the middle of Season 3. But, in a pivotal episode which aired during the week of April 8, 1996, Babylon 5 had the cast shed their familiar Earthforce uniforms for new, sleeker uniforms, representing the new independence of the titular space station. Basically, Captain Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) took off his Earthforce uniform in 1996, so Clement could put it on in 2009. But, either way, “Ceremonies of Light and Dark” proved that on Babylon 5, changing fashions wasn’t just dangerous; it was crucial for the show to move forward.One of the most under-discussed aspects of Babylon 5 was just how good the show was at embodying space opera tropes and subverting those tropes at the same time. Like Star Trek, we’re given a group of space heroes in familiar roles: doctor, captain, first officer, security chief, etc. But nothing in the series really plays out the way anyone might have expected, and the episode just previous to “Ceremonies of Light and Dark,” “Severed Dreams,” took the show from a general Star Trek vibe to a Star Wars vibe. Granted, this is a pretty reductive way to describe two and a half seasons' worth of serialized storytelling and complex interplanetary developments, but it’s still worth asking the question: If a Star Trek show had featured characters who decided to break away from Starfleet and those characters were the main characters, what would they wear in the subsequent episodes? More to the point, are there other sci-fi series in which uniformed characters get radically different uniforms for a really symbolic, thematic, and plot-driven reason? The new Babylon 5 uniforms would define the rest of Season 3 and all of Season 4. | Moviestore/ShutterstockAesthetics matter in space opera. Even in Star Wars, having matching outfits at some point in the narrative is just one of those things that helps tell the story on a subliminal level. So when B5 ditched the overtly militaristic Earthforce uniforms from the previous two seasons and had the cast adopt slick, black uniforms that represented their allegiance to the space station specifically, it was one of the smartest moves the show ever made. If you were a fan of the show at the time, this was a moment in which B5 rebranded itself as a brave, ass-kicking sci-fi show that wasn’t afraid to take risks, and it also wasn’t afraid to make its lead characters look cooler. After “Ceremonies of Light and Dark” aired, the AOL B5 portal in 1996 was suddenly flooded with new, high-res images of the cast in their new uniforms, ready for action. Whereas the Earthforce uniforms had a baggy, and yes, almost 1980s aesthetic (hence the Flight of Conchords ‘80s jokes in 2009), the new black uniforms simply looked more lightweight and were more flattering on all the cast members. The style had echoes of previous uniform design, but also seemed to slightly homage the popular maroon uniforms from the Trek franchise, which first debuted in The Wrath of Khan. (And it's worth noting that those uniforms were partially inspired by the 1952 film The Prisoner of Zenda.)All of that being said, nobody would have mistaken the new middle-of-Season 3 B5 uniforms for Trek uniforms at all. If anything, having the good guys suddenly dressed all in black, complete with a little grey patch, almost — intentionally or not — felt like a Star Wars homage; suddenly Sheridan, Ivanova, and company were like Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker, ready to get down to business.The cast of Babylon 5 in 1997, not giving a f*ck and being awesome. | Donaldson Collection/Archive Photos/Getty ImagesThough the big costume change occurs in the final moments, the bulk of the episode deals with changes that are less than superficial, including Londo (Peter Jurasik) trying to manipulate the Shadows, while the crew is required to reveal secrets they’ve never told anyone before during a rebirth ceremony. In 1997, B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski described this as a moment of shifting gears and slowing the show down for a second. “...we had to have some moments when you pop the clutch and move it into the next gear, and episodes like this one help do that.”“Ceremonies of Light and Dark” was the 11th episode in Babylon 5 Season 3, and in a sense, is the beginning of a run of episodes that would take a good, slow-burning sci-fi series and turn it into one of the boldest and coolest sci-fi shows of all time. This was when Babylon 5 took its big step into a much larger and more epic world, and the bonus was that the cast looked good doing it.Babylon 5 is available on Blu-ray, or for rental and purchase on Apple TV, Prime Video, and elsewhere.