Babylon 5 LIVES!!!!!
- Thread starter Sar
- Start date
Vae
Resident Freddy
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2003
- Messages
- 1,182
I had the same initial experience Tom and only got back into it in the middle of season 3 (By far the best season) but I've made up for it since then 
Having watched it several times I've come to the conclusion that it's one of the best TV series in many years (and there's not many I'd even consider good - West Wing and Firefly being the only ones to impress me recently) but you really do have to stick with it and get into the story - watching a couple of episodes is not enough.
Put it this way Sci-fi is not my Mothers cup of tea at all but she's seen quite a few episodes of it when myself or bro or sis have watched it over the years and got into it herself!
I'd be tempted to suggest that pigeon-holing it as a sci-fi show is doing it a great injustice. It's really a drama series telling a great story which just happens to be set in space in the future. There are so many plot threads/stories interwoven through the seasons that it's hard to describe. There's a great Dork Tower cartoon about B5 where you have one character describing all the different plot threads going on which takes up most of the cartoon. The other character asks if that was all in last season and the reply is No - That was just last episode.
Quick breakdown of seasons while avoiding spoilers:
Season 1 - setting the scene, introducing characters and starting plot threads.
Season 2 - expanding plot threads, expanding characters and setting up season 3
Season 3 - Kick ass Season - everything you've been waiting and hoping for.
Season 4 - Probably 2nd best season which rounds up the story quite well but a bit too quickly as they weren't sure if they were going to have a season 5 or not.
Season 5 - Bit of an add-on tbh. Still fairly good but it really feels like an add-on because the story was mostly finished off in season 4.
TV Movies:
In the Beginning - A good introduction to the B5 universe but does include quite a bit which is revealed as part of the series and thus includes quite a few spoilers for the series.
Thirdspace - Nothing exciting
River of Souls - Nothing exciting
Call to Arms - The link film to introduce Crusade. Better than the others but still not great.
Legend of the Rangers - Quite a fun film but nothing spectacular.
Crusade: Not a disastrous series but never lived up to the level of B5 hence it only lasted a season.
Having watched it several times I've come to the conclusion that it's one of the best TV series in many years (and there's not many I'd even consider good - West Wing and Firefly being the only ones to impress me recently) but you really do have to stick with it and get into the story - watching a couple of episodes is not enough.
Put it this way Sci-fi is not my Mothers cup of tea at all but she's seen quite a few episodes of it when myself or bro or sis have watched it over the years and got into it herself!
I'd be tempted to suggest that pigeon-holing it as a sci-fi show is doing it a great injustice. It's really a drama series telling a great story which just happens to be set in space in the future. There are so many plot threads/stories interwoven through the seasons that it's hard to describe. There's a great Dork Tower cartoon about B5 where you have one character describing all the different plot threads going on which takes up most of the cartoon. The other character asks if that was all in last season and the reply is No - That was just last episode.
Quick breakdown of seasons while avoiding spoilers:
Season 1 - setting the scene, introducing characters and starting plot threads.
Season 2 - expanding plot threads, expanding characters and setting up season 3
Season 3 - Kick ass Season - everything you've been waiting and hoping for.
Season 4 - Probably 2nd best season which rounds up the story quite well but a bit too quickly as they weren't sure if they were going to have a season 5 or not.
Season 5 - Bit of an add-on tbh. Still fairly good but it really feels like an add-on because the story was mostly finished off in season 4.
TV Movies:
In the Beginning - A good introduction to the B5 universe but does include quite a bit which is revealed as part of the series and thus includes quite a few spoilers for the series.
Thirdspace - Nothing exciting
River of Souls - Nothing exciting
Call to Arms - The link film to introduce Crusade. Better than the others but still not great.
Legend of the Rangers - Quite a fun film but nothing spectacular.
Crusade: Not a disastrous series but never lived up to the level of B5 hence it only lasted a season.
Isn't the plot of the new film the same as "A Call to Arms", where ... the ancient shadow technology was being used upon the galaxy by a mysterious enemy ?
B5 is more drama than sci-fi, though calling it a space opera summons up images of Blake's 7 which rocked, but is entirely inappropriate. B5 did do the mad new idea thang (organic ships, weird alien probes, ancient species etc) which I'm sure qualifies it for the sci-fi tag. Indeed, it is unique.
B5 is more drama than sci-fi, though calling it a space opera summons up images of Blake's 7 which rocked, but is entirely inappropriate.
B5 did do the mad new idea thang (organic ships, weird alien probes, ancient species etc) which I'm sure qualifies it for the sci-fi tag. Indeed, it is unique.
Skyler
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2003
- Messages
- 688
B5 is elite, but as others have said.. a few episodes are not enough.
Watch it in order start to finish and you'll appreciate just how good it is and just how wank Star Trek and other crap like that is.
B5's storyline is brilliantly written.. whilst some of the episodes are weird and not fantastic it really does grip you and has a fantastic overall story..
Watch it in order start to finish and you'll appreciate just how good it is and just how wank Star Trek and other crap like that is.
B5's storyline is brilliantly written.. whilst some of the episodes are weird and not fantastic it really does grip you and has a fantastic overall story..
Oooohhh ... Star Trek, Wank ? Now now ...
If you are comparing B5 to Star Trek compare it to Deep Space Nine, which tried to fix the characters to one place and put more of an onus on people having to live together rather than what was trying to destroy the entire universe this week. Admittedly it's still the same kind of thing but it is more drama than the other Treks. It had an ongoing story as well as occasional duff episodes that seemed to be just filler, because sci-fi is about guns and spaceships and weirdness, but please: Star Trek was about putting Gene Roddenberry's nucleus of futuristic humans into all sorts of mad situations and mixing that up with new scientific ideas, as well as lots of political messages, philosophies and so on. B5 had those one-shot epsiodes, but towards series 3 and 4 it neglected them in favour of the cynical style of overly self-aware Sci-Fi that pervades our screens these days (or wastes our bandwidth, whatever.) That doesn't make for great drama.
Star Trek's story-per-episode cannot generate the same kind of intrigue that a 4 series (B5's 5th does not count of course) epic can, but don't tell me you didn't like the borg, and Q, and who can forget spock's ears ...
If you are comparing B5 to Star Trek compare it to Deep Space Nine, which tried to fix the characters to one place and put more of an onus on people having to live together rather than what was trying to destroy the entire universe this week. Admittedly it's still the same kind of thing but it is more drama than the other Treks. It had an ongoing story as well as occasional duff episodes that seemed to be just filler, because sci-fi is about guns and spaceships and weirdness, but please: Star Trek was about putting Gene Roddenberry's nucleus of futuristic humans into all sorts of mad situations and mixing that up with new scientific ideas, as well as lots of political messages, philosophies and so on. B5 had those one-shot epsiodes, but towards series 3 and 4 it neglected them in favour of the cynical style of overly self-aware Sci-Fi that pervades our screens these days (or wastes our bandwidth, whatever.) That doesn't make for great drama.
Star Trek's story-per-episode cannot generate the same kind of intrigue that a 4 series (B5's 5th does not count of course) epic can, but don't tell me you didn't like the borg, and Q, and who can forget spock's ears ...
Another thing I want to say is: why did they axe Crusade?!
I always takes a series or two to get the actors playing off each other and getting the characters polished ... I could see that series becoming something good. Again, we're back to the modern sci-fi 'trying to be everything' approach. How many two-parters and end of season cliffhangers did Star Trek TOS have? Surely there is life in that format yet ...
I always takes a series or two to get the actors playing off each other and getting the characters polished ... I could see that series becoming something good. Again, we're back to the modern sci-fi 'trying to be everything' approach. How many two-parters and end of season cliffhangers did Star Trek TOS have? Surely there is life in that format yet ...
