'The Deconstruction of Falling Stars' is an episode of the science fiction drama Babylon 5. It forms a second fourth-season finale, or perhaps an interlude between the fourth and fifth seasons.

The episode has an unusual history. During the filming of the fourth season, the show appeared destined for cancellation. As a result, plotlines were shortened and resolved ahead of schedule. After the completion of the final episode, but before its airing, the cable network TNT approached the creators of the show with an offer of syndication and funding for a fifth season.

The show's creator, JMS, insisted that the final episode not be seen prematurely. As a result, a new fourth-season finale had to be composed. The episode was filmed as part of the fifth-season production run, and hurriedly composed for airing in its proper place before the switchover from PTEN to TNT.

As the episode was not originally planned for, its form is substantially different from most episodes of Babylon 5. All other episodes were shot as unified storylines; however, Deconstruction exists as a series of vignettes examining society's views of the events of the series from increasingly distant future viewpoints: one year, one hundred years, five hundred years, one thousand years, and eventually one million years in the future.

The episode ends with a dedication:

"...TO ALL THOSE WHO BELIEVED THAT THE BABYLON PROJECT WOULD FAIL IN ITS MISSION. FAITH MANAGES."

On Usenet, JMS described this message thus:

"...for the reviewers and the pundits and the critics and the net-stalkers who have done nothing but rag on this show for five years straight, it is also a giant middle finger composed of red neon fifty stories tall, that will burn forever in the night."