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The Buffy vs. Angel vs. Firefly discussion is a good one. Babylon 5, Veronica Mars, and the recent Battlestar Galactica also fit in. Ditto Dollhouse, Heroes, Al

The Buffy vs. Angel vs. Firefly discussion is a good one. Babylon 5, Veronica Mars, and the recent Battlestar Galactica also fit in. Ditto Dollhouse, Heroes, Alias and Lost. I'd say: -- It's just a detail, but recall that the first season of Buffy was actually just a half-season in length. -- The first three seasons of Buffy had a very clear meta-metaphor. :) It posited monsters as being a good representation for what happens in actual high school life. -- That aspect of the show hit its stride in the Buffy/Angel romance: Girl sleeps with guy and he turns into a monster. -- Firefly was good, but nothing in it was as brilliant as, say, the best of Buffy. -- A lot of shows started with a lot of monster-of-the-week/crisis-of-the-week and emphasized the ongoing story more later into the run. But most of the shows cited did at least some standalone stories all the way to the end. (Babylon 5 is one exception). -- Firefly never got past that part of the show's evolution. This may be one reason it never matched Buffy's brilliance. -- Not knowing whether or not a show will be renewed is a huge problem. If you're a fan of Buffy or Angel or Babylon 5, you're familiar with the consequences. -- The writers' strike messed up multiple shows, or at least their audiences. I never went back to watching Battlestar Galactica post-strike. -- Joss Whedon tried to oversee three shows at once. That didn't go well. Each of Buffy, Angel and Firefly deserved more of his attention. -- Dollhouse didn't have real characters, the people running the place excepted. It was never going to work. -- Some shows have a brilliant idea for an overarching story, in which the big story and the individual characters' experiences and arcs mesh beautifully. Then that story comes to a natural end, and the show is never quite as good again. Veronica Mars Season 1 is a great example. Ditto the first 1 1/2 or 2 seasons of Alias. Ditto Babylon 5 after things were wrapped up in Season 4. -- I'd put Battlestar Galactica into the same group. The best part was the first season, as everybody builds a society on the fly )as it were) that can survive against terrible odds. The plots with the election and the defeat and the aftermath weren't as good. And the pseudo-mystical stuff toward the end was just weird.

ghaff 10y ago
I agree with a lot of what you wrote. Babylon 5 was a pretty unfortunate case. There was a lot to love about it but also so much that you have to overlook that it's really hard to recommend, especially a couple decades later (ack! seriously). The effects were pretty low budget at the time--even if somewhat revolutionary for low budget graphics (Amiga). The acting was very uneven. And, generally, as you suggest the uncertainties around renewals through the series run drove too many decisions with respect to the story arc and made the whole ending arc somewhat anticlimactic. I'm also not sure that shows driven so heavily by central mysteries--as B5 was--work very well outside of their original context. (And perhaps in today's on-demand viewing environment more broadly.) I think I liked Battlestar Galactica more than you did overall but agree that the final somewhat mystical arc wasn't a strong finish. Lost didn't close well either after a strong start.
- CurtMonash 10y ago
  I actually think Babylon 5, Seasons 2-4, was outstanding. I'm not sure of what you mean by being very negative about some of the acting -- I see the range as being from competent to brilliant, with almost nothing that was outright bad, a few specific lines perhaps excepted. There was quite a bit of good stuff in the fifth season as well, actually, mainly the Centauri and telepath arcs. I also can't think of any effects that are distracting on a rewatch. I stopped watching Lost early on, perhaps in Season 2. I stopped watching Heroes a few episodes into Season 2; when Kristen Bell of all people seemed to be giving a bad performance, I concluded that the show was probably doomed.

ghaff 10y ago

I agree with a lot of what you wrote. Babylon 5 was a pretty unfortunate case. There was a lot to love about it but also so much that you have to overlook that it's really hard to recommend, especially a couple decades later (ack! seriously). The effects were pretty low budget at the time--even if somewhat revolutionary for low budget graphics (Amiga). The acting was very uneven. And, generally, as you suggest the uncertainties around renewals through the series run drove too many decisions with respect to the story arc and made the whole ending arc somewhat anticlimactic. I'm also not sure that shows driven so heavily by central mysteries--as B5 was--work very well outside of their original context. (And perhaps in today's on-demand viewing environment more broadly.) I think I liked Battlestar Galactica more than you did overall but agree that the final somewhat mystical arc wasn't a strong finish. Lost didn't close well either after a strong start.

CurtMonash 10y ago
I actually think Babylon 5, Seasons 2-4, was outstanding. I'm not sure of what you mean by being very negative about some of the acting -- I see the range as being from competent to brilliant, with almost nothing that was outright bad, a few specific lines perhaps excepted. There was quite a bit of good stuff in the fifth season as well, actually, mainly the Centauri and telepath arcs. I also can't think of any effects that are distracting on a rewatch. I stopped watching Lost early on, perhaps in Season 2. I stopped watching Heroes a few episodes into Season 2; when Kristen Bell of all people seemed to be giving a bad performance, I concluded that the show was probably doomed.