I dunno, the effects budget for the pilot at least looked like it had to be incredible, cause CGI-ing (presumably) see-through skin and that dream/psychic sequence had to have been a lot more work than changing up a few things in the same alley, although maybe that’s just because it was the pilot for the series.
CGI is cheap. CGI is a lot of how JJ made the same alley “move” all over the world, find some neon sign with Chinese script on it in the prop room CGI a chunk of the Hong Kong skyline and WALA. Even with non-skyline object stuff, CGI is why B5 was so cheap to make.