First, thanks for being the first comment in my new journal! Yay!
Second, let's first (huh?) remember that Michael O'Hare, who played Commander Sinclair, died last year, so respect for the dead first.
As to the role he played, yes he was slagged off as being stiff, wooden etc but then that is the way the character was written, and how it was supposed to be played. Possibly to give all the more effect to the later change of leadership at the station: I mean, you couldn't really come up with two more opposing leaders than Sinclair and Sheridan, could you?
But as I mentioned in the intro, B5 was the first show to really explore the story arc idea, and it did this tremendously well, in effect laying down a blueprint for many shows that were to follow. The CGI was pretty impressive too, for the time, and of course the music, courtesy of Christopher Franke from Tangerine Dream, was beautiful, sumptuous, exciting, dramatic ... everything you want in a space show, as it were.
It's sad to see how many of its stars passed away, but at least the show came to a real and logical and finite conclusion, meaning any talk of a reunion would have been unlikely. "Crusade", the spinoff, I didnt like much, though I like Gary Cole, and sadly the planned series of followups, "The lost tales", only got the one outing, which I thought was unfortunate as I really enjoyed them, and it was great to see the station again after all that time. Oh well, maybe someday we'll see a Babylon 5 movie eh?