There's always a danger in making the show about the New Alien of the Week, which we tend to try to avoid. As for Hypernauts, yes, they showed a lot more virtual environments...but the resolution of those shots were nowhere near the level of resolution needed for a show like B5. They looked more plastic-y, more obviously CGI. The only way they could render that much material was to go for low-res stuff, and do other tricks. It also helped that they shot that show on *videotape*, which is far cheaper than film. If you did the Hypernauts EFX tricks on B5, they'd look very chintzy, for the most part.
That said, we *are* going outside the station more and more in the last batch of year 3 episodes, and even moreso in the initial episodes of year 4. We go to Narn, more time is spent on Centauri Prime, Minbar, Mars, Earth, and elsewhere.
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