15 ms·

Is Babylon 5 secretly the most influential TV show of the past 25 years? (2021)

176 points by Apocryphon 4y ago

cbazz 4y ago
[flagged]
crop_rotation 4y ago
Most Influential by what metric? Friends aired in the last 25 years and is still extremely popular, makes more money than almost anything else, made it's cast vastly rich and is a big part of popular culture in so many countries. Or if you don't like sitcoms, how is Babylon 5 more influential than Game of Thrones.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Why don't you just read the article? Its thesis is that Babylon 5 pioneered many of the trends that led to the present golden age of TV- a multi-season serialized storyline, auteur showrunner, numerous morally ambiguous POV characters who develop over time. The article argues that B5 was a predecessor to Game of Thrones even before The Sopranos/The West Wing/The Wire kicked off prestige television (or Battlestar Galactica or Lost did the same for sci-fi TV). Granted, in the '90s you also have Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which also shared in many of these trends, but TFA is still worth reading.
  - crop_rotation 4y ago
    I did read the article. But none of it makes it the most "influential" TV show, unless influence was very very narrowly defined. Hence I ask by what metric. It certainly wasn't influential in other aspects compared to the two shows I mention.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Pioneering stylistic trends is influential. Certainly people talk about The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad as incredibly influential as well, even if none of them reached the raw audience numbers of a mega-blockbuster cultural phenomenon like Game of Thrones. (Not to mention others with even fewer viewers, but still high craftsmanship in the vein of modern prestige- Oz, Deadwood, and Rome). You are talking quantity of viewers when this article is talking about quality, or at least quantity of qualities. You're also responding facilely to an article's title without actually engaging in its substance.
      - throwaway81523 4y ago
        Breaking Bad has a shout-out to B5 at some point. One of Jesse Pinkman's friends(?) became obsessed with B5 and Jesse mentioned that. Idr the exact context.
        andrekandre 4y ago
        this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuMMYVu6vdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuMMYVu6vdE
        throwaway81523 4y ago
        Yes I think that was the scene. Breaking Bad looked pretty good but I wasn't a regular viewer and don't remember it accurately.
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Very intertextual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEhWjI0OFlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEhWjI0OFlM
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    It's been suggested that DS9 was derived from when JMS pitched B5 to Paramount.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      The craziest (unverified) rumor is that this might have been caused by WB and Paramount's abandoned plan to launch a joint network: > A commenter named Steven Hopstaken left the following comment in the io9 article: > I was working at Warner Bros. in the publicity department when Warner Bros. and Paramount were preparing to launch a joint [emphasis mine] network. Warner Bros. already decided to buy Babylon 5 for their adhoc PTEN network (a group of independent stations that agreed to show Warner Bros. shows in prime time.) > Paramount and Warner Bros. both agreed that Deepspace 9 would be the show that would launch the new network and there wouldn’t be room for two “space” shows on the network. I was told they purposely took what they liked from the B5 script and put it in the DS9 script. In fact, there was talk of leaving the B5 script in tact and just setting it the Star Trek universe. I had to keep rewriting press release drafts while they were trying to make the final decision. https://www.tor.com/2013/02/26/is-this-the-smoking-gun-proving-deep-space-nine-ripped-off-babylon-5/ https://www.tor.com/2013/02/26/is-this-the-smoking-gun-provi... While both shows were conceived independently, elements might have made their way from B5 to DS9 due to the studio suits.
    - squarefoot 4y ago
      I like to think that Babylon 5 was one of the best things that could happen to Star Trek.
      - throwanem 4y ago
        And even at that, it took a solid quarter century to sink in. "The Next Generation," indeed - that said, while I've forgotten the specifics, I do clearly recall having to pause the 2009 Trek reboot film on first viewing to laugh about a couple of fairly transparent B5 in-jokes, which suggests to me that it's not an accident people from that same orbit went on to make Trek that inherits a lot of what made Babylon 5 great.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    I'm going to have to side with the X-Files in terms of influence, considering that its corps of writers, directors and producers has thrown off numerous TV shows including Breaking Bad that many critics rank among the best shows of all time.
    - zhengyi13 4y ago
      I think you're right that they did develop multi-episode character and story arcs and mythology, but I feel like it was done organically - not quite so meticulously planned up front, and so it kinda devolved into incoherence in the end.
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        True. Another example from the 90s would be Homicide: Life on the Street. It was "influential" in that David Simon himself went on to make The Wire and other famous shows. It had an overarching story in the murder of Adena Watson. And it imported a bunch of famous film actors to television as later "prestige" series would do.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  The article mentions many reasons, but these two stand out: - One of the first, if not the first series where a single author wrote most episodes (and the ones JMS didn't were penned by legends such as Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman and DC Fontana). - A five-season story arc, with episodes you should watch in order.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    The 5th season was really pretty bad though. I know they had to rush things for fear of there not being a 5th season.
    - lelandbatey 4y ago
      Yeah, it basically was 5 seasons compressed into 3 seasons. The 5th season didn't even happen on the same network as the first few, IIRC.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Yep, the first four seasons were on a little network called PTEN that had four shows. The fifth was on TNT
      - AprilArcus 4y ago
        It's not terribly unusual for a show to get dropped by a network and picked up by another; some other heavily serialized genre shows that have changed networks include Buffy (started on the WB and moved to UPN), Stargate (started on Showtime and moved to Sci-Fi) and The Expanse (started on Sci-Fi and moved to Prime Video)
    - RegularOpossum 4y ago
      I understand it to be that they weren't sure there was going to be a 5th so the forced two major plot lines into Season 4 which was popular enough they got Season 5 with the problem of most of the big arcs already wrapped up.
hindsightbias 4y ago
No. First episode B5: January 26, 1994 First episode STNG: September 28, 1987 Roddenberry was a Showrunner before Showrunners were in daipers.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  That's one aspect, but TNG never had multi-season or even more than two-episode story arcs, and while the characters develop from season to season, you rarely see a character appear to remember anything from past episodes, as syndication usually aired episodes out of order. I remember many complaints about B5 being incomprehensible because broadcasters were airing episodes randomly.
  - jerrycruncher 4y ago
    You're generally correct about TNG, but I think that Worf's development and the machinations within the Klingon High Council roughly constitute a story arc that ran through the series.
    - twoodfin 4y ago
      Thank you, Ron Moore, who probably deserves at least a fractional share of the credit for the evolution of genre TV from the episodic structure of the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s to the serialized structure we take for granted today. Hard to believe now, but at the time shows that embraced multi-episode character arcs and season-long plots ran a risk of being tarred as soap operas.
      - tomjakubowski 4y ago
        ahhh that would explain why Twin Peaks embraced the soap opera thing
    - jonathankoren 4y ago
      The closest thing that TNG has is the Lore and Borg episodes. Picard’s assimilation and the Battle of Wolf 359 has resonated across episodes and series. “The Best of Both Worlds” arc doesn’t fully end until s4e2’s “Family”.
MrZongle2 4y ago
No. But certainly one of the best science fiction series in the last 25 years.
brucethemoose2 4y ago
Maybe there is something to the seriality point. I am looking through the list of 90s shows, sorted (more or less) by popularity, and the only other serial one I can see is Twin Peaks: https://reelgood.com/tv?filter-sort=8&filter-year_end=1999&filter-year_start=1990 https://reelgood.com/tv?filter-sort=8&filter-year_end=1999&f... But there are some others off my radar, like Red Dwarf, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- danaris 4y ago
  Neither of those are American TV, so they played by different rules.
- KingMob 4y ago
  Red Dwarf wasn't really serialized. There's some key plot points at the beginning and season finales, but for the most part, each episode was a self-contained comedy, and things largely went back to normal next week. Neon Genesis was an original script, but it follows most of the anime industry in having long-running plots. That's usually because they're are based off volumes and volumes of manga, where long-running plots are common.
Arrath 4y ago
I've been meaning to get around to watching B5 one of these days. I'm a huge fan of DS9, but totally missed out on Babylon back in the day.
- jfengel 4y ago
  My advice: have someone curate it for you, or use a curated list of episodes. Many series start off rocky and this one more than most.
  - kemayo 4y ago
    That works pretty poorly for B5 unless you've got someone willing to do some hardcore editing for you, because there's so many cases where you should really watch, say, just the C-plot for a given episode even though the A/B plots are trash.
- michaelsbradley 4y ago
  Season 1 is a bit clunky, maybe that goes for some of Season 2 as well, I don't recall exactly. After that, it gets pretty good. A friend of mine gave me that same heads up after encouraging me to watch it, circa 2010. I just can't remember if he said it's one or more seasons that you have to sort of slog through before getting to the good stuff. If I had to choose between watching again DS9 in its entirety or B5, I'd probably go with B5, but I found both enjoyable. If a third option was BSG (2004-2009), that would be my choice in a heartbeat.
  - bsder 4y ago
    People often forget that the first seasons of Star Trek TNG and DS9 were ... not good. Actors and writers seem to need about a season to marinate. Straczynski knew what he wanted, and even he still took a season to dial stuff in.
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      On the other hand, there have been plenty of TV series in the past 20 years where the first season is excellent and then the quality steadily drops in the later seasons.
gigel82 4y ago
No
animex 4y ago
100% agree. That first season is so rough though. It's made it hard to introduce to friends.
- airstrike 4y ago
  I'm a huge sci-fi fan and couldn't finish the first season.. I guess I'll give it another try
  - VyseofArcadia 4y ago
    The first season is rough. You need to watch the pilot, Signs and Portents, the Sky Full of Stars, Voice in the Wilderness parts 1 and 2, Babylon Squared, and Chrysalis. Skip the rest, come back to them if you enjoy season 2.
robear 4y ago
I thought Twin Peaks was the primary influence on the modern long form TV series.
- obfuscator 4y ago
  That's what is my impression as well. Not an expert, but I thought Twin Peaks invented secondary plotlines.
calf 4y ago
I would love to watch a reboot or remake.
sprior 4y ago
I didn't know it was a secret.
neuracnu 4y ago
In terms of influence, it's disappointing that the author neglected to mention the considerable online fandom around the show during its original run. A television show with a genuine series-long narrative arc screamed out for debate over cryptic hints and plot twists, which all found their home within a handful of usenet groups. And the definitive online reference to the show, The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5, is still there, unchanged since the mid 90s: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/ http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/
- sillywalk 4y ago
  As well JMS did a lot of personal replies on GENIE, COMPUSERVE & USENET that are on that guide as well.
- ghettoimp 4y ago
  Woah. I can't believe this is still online!
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/nav/ http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/nav/ that's genius
  - tfandango 4y ago
    I felt old the other day when I was telling my son that when I was a kid, if it was blue and underlined, you can click it! Now everything is polished and fancy and you never know what you can click on anymore. Something beautiful and utilitarian about the HTML of old.
- NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
  Steve Grimm was a coworker of mine during the heady days of B5. I found myself invited to his home for a few viewing parties of the show during its original run. My girlfriend ruthlessly mocked the show, but she realized how near and dear it was to my heart. I was an unmitigated fanatic for it since that fateful Comic-Con in the early 90s when my classmate professed his devotion to it before the pilot aired. In fact at this very moment, I am viewing "The Gambler III" with Kenny Rogers and Bruce Boxleitner (special appearance by Colm Meaney). In a way, my life in those years sort of paralleled B5, with wild roller coasters of drama and enigmatic encounters in strange lands. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing!
arp242 4y ago
I feel a lot has to do with the technology that's available; in 1966 when Star Trek aired you couldn't really rely that everyone had seen all the episodes; who can always be at home at a given date and time? People got lives to lead. You can get away with the occasional two-parter, but that's about it. VCR started to change this; you could now record that episode when you had something else to do; in 1985 about a third of people owned a VCR, by 1990 about two thirds. Later DVD and streaming changed this even more; I remember reading about a bloke who had all of TNG on videotape; it occupied an entire wall and must have cost a small fortune: 89 tapes (2 episodes per tape) it must of cost about a thousand, give or take. With DVD you can but all seven seasons for an affordable price and your girlfriend won't hate you for taking up a wall, and with streaming it's even easier. Star Trek has a somewhat interesting broadcast history; from 1966 to 1969 it was broadcast in the traditional way: a set timeslot on a particular day and by season. It had a dedicated set of fans during the original run, but was never a phenomenon like it is today. After the series ended some regional broadcasters got the rights and started airing it ever day during meal time. There's about two months worth of material, and after that it would just start over again. It's that format that made Star Trek truly popular, eventually leading to the films, TNG, and all the rest of it. Today it's a common way to air older shows. In 1983 Babylon 5 would have been a non-starter, simply because few people would be able to watch all of it, and you do need to actually watch at least a significant portion of it. Even with multiple repeats it takes a lot of effort to consistently follow a show with traditional TV. I never watched Babylon 5 when it originally aired; I watched some episodes but I had missed many and I was generally just confused by it; it wasn't until some time in the early 2000s when I downloaded and watched it that I actually followed it. I think there are a few shows in the 90s leading up to the Sopranos: Twin Peaks (1990-1991), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), Babylon 5 (1993), Oz (1997), and The Sopranos (1999). Maybe some others I'm not familiar with.
- martinflack 4y ago
  > I feel a lot has to do with the technology that's available; in 1966 when Star Trek aired you couldn't really rely that everyone had seen all the episodes; who can always be at home at a given date and time? People got lives to lead. True. And it's true that times have changed, but I really miss a good episodic Trek where you can simply tune in and out. Sure, we can stream episodes and guarantee that we've seen them all in order, but... my gosh I still have a life to lead, and I can't remember everything in your plot just for the sake of it. I'm hoping SNW is going that way, but I'm unsure.
rcarr 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
none_to_remain 4y ago
Breaking Bad gave it recognition
haolez 4y ago
Babylon 5 was amazing. They event hinted at what could be an usage for a LLM-based AI in the far future (light spoilers ahead). There is an episode near the end of the series where we are seeing the equivalent of a TV talk show hundreds of years in the future after the events of the main arc. They "resurrect" the main characters of the series through holograms and AI models that mimic their memories and behaviors. For some reason that I don't remember, the main characters consider the host and its nation a treat and decide to do something about it. Some of the characters distract the host while another hacks into a terminal and command some missiles from who-knows-where to be launched targeting their current position. It works and everything blows up! Even in the future, what seems to be a harmless technology (holograms + LLM-like thing) may have unintended uses and security holes. What an amazing show!
- ethbr0 4y ago
  > the main characters consider the host and its nation a treat and decide to do something about it They realize they're being used for propaganda explicitly counter to the beliefs they lived (and in some cases sacrificed) their lives for. And they don't just command some missiles: the character in question gets their captor to admit his nation is planning a first strike (including against civilian population centers), then broadcast a recording of the plan to the other side.
  - haolez 4y ago
    Thanks for the corrections!
- Izkata 4y ago
  Season 4 finale, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars. It wasn't originally planned, they needed a filler episode when they got renewed. Basically when they reached season 4, they got worried they wouldn't get renewed for the planned 5th season so secondary plots for both seasons were dropped and the primary plots for both were compressed into season 4, including the series finale. Then they got renewed for the 5th season and couldn't air that finale until the actual end of the series, so they used some budget from the 5th season to create the new 4th season finale. This is also why Ivanova is in the series finale even though the actress had left the show, it's the one that was filmed the previous year while she was still there.
DennisP 4y ago
Babylon 5 went even further than most shows today. It had one giant narrative arc over the entire series. The first season was mostly setup. Things started picking up in the second, built up to a huge peak in the third and fourth season, and wound down in the fifth. This wasn't entirely intentional (they were worried about season 5 being cancelled and crammed more into 4), but the effect was like you were reading one big novel. That might have made the last season disappointing if you were watching one episode a week, but it works great for binging. By comparison, Sopranos for example had a narrative arc for each season, and the new Battlestar had a fairly continuous level of narrative tension throughout, with maybe three or four episodes from peak to peak. I don't think I've ever seen another show that did quite what B5 did.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The other unique thing about B5 is the richness of character arcs. The central plot moves everything forward, but each character has their own multi-season arc inside it. I mean, Garibaldi? G'Kar? Londo? These are not "Oh, that's cute, the character changed" few episode arcs. They're the sum of innumerable small events in most episodes, that result in complete (and believable!) overhauls of the characters.
  - sillywalk 4y ago
    (I'm a fan of both DS9 & B5) You could also look at the arc of say Nog, or Jake Cisko, or Vir.
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      Or Elim Garak, one of the most interesting anti-heroes in all of the Trek universe. (Is he really an anti-hero? Well as Garak would probably say, "I'm not so sure, but there's hope for him yet.")
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        I loved Garak, I just wish DS9 had devoted more time to him! Or Bashir! It's been a minute since I've done a watch-through of DS9, but from memory they have great episodes, but also get lost in the background for large chunks of seasons.
VyseofArcadia 4y ago
Surprised with this audience that no one is talking about how it was the first TV sci-fi to use CG for the spaceship scenes instead of models. Done on an Amiga no less.
- lsllc 4y ago
  Seaquest DSV I believe also used Video Toaster on the Amiga for CG. See the Jan 1994 edition of "Video Toaster User" magazine: http://amr.abime.net/issue_2738 http://amr.abime.net/issue_2738
spiralpolitik 4y ago
I recently rewatched the first season (and some of the second) and it stands up pretty well. The first season is uneven as the show was finding its feet and the stuff that feels dated are the early 90s TV Tropes that every show from that period had. The non JMS episodes fair the worst as these hew close to the A plot/B plot/C plot template that was prevalent. Two things stood out during the rewatch. At the end of the first season there were many different directions that the show could have gone and have been a completely different show. This gives me hope that the reboot/remake will strike fresh ground while still being recognizable as B5. The second was how well the pivot at the beginning of season 2 is handled. The show basically reboots itself over the first 2 episodes, while also resolving the cliff hangers from the first season. JMS is an excellent and underrated writer, and I think some of the scripts should be studied by any prospective writer as examples of how it can and should be done. His book on writing is also worth a read. ('Signs and Portents' from s1 is great example. It takes the A plot/B plot/C plot template but has the plots weave around each other before colliding at a single beat before then separating out again).
evo_9 4y ago
I’m cautiously optimistic about the B5 reboot because JSM is involved. Also - the B4 sub-story arc is some of the most incredible TV moments ever created. Zathras can never have nice things.
- EFreethought 4y ago
  I hope there is a reboot of "Crusade". I would love to see what story he was going to tell in that series. And Zathras did have nice things. It was Zathras who did not have nice things.
- arp242 4y ago
  I don't know; much of what has been done with Babylon 5 after the main series ended (season 4) ranged from "meh" to "wow that's bad". I found Crusade unwatchable, and the less said about that "legend of the rangers" thing the better. The Lost Tales was kinda okay from what I recall, but not all that great and mostly underwhelming. Sometimes all the stars align just right to make something really great for a while and it's hard to recapture that later on.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Most of the things after B5 had a fraction of the budget and so many layers of bad luck (actors passing just before or in the middle of filming, production companies going bankrupt, TV channels getting cold feet). Crusade had a ton of studio meddling, so much so that they had to write it into the show (the multiple uniform changes for no reason other than studio execs wanted it, for instance). The bad luck part has always been my biggest concern for the current reboot. They started that at The CW just as The CW entered into "will they or won't they sell/break up/destroy The CW" drama.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    Remember the first season episode of Babylon 5, Signs and Portents, that kicked off the series-long plotlines? In addition to the meddling from the sibling comment, Crusade didn't even get that far before cancelation, its version of that episode was still coming. Also because of that meddling, episodes aired completely out of order, so a lot of things made no sense. For example, using the nanotech shield before it was invented.
cjohnson318 4y ago
what about Twin Peaks? That was two seasons of episodes that were highly dependent on each other, with a large cast, and lots of plot lines.
- abeyer 4y ago
  Or one season of episodes that were highly dependent on each other, followed by one season of episodes that were highly dependent on being high... depending on your take on season 2. ;)
b1c1jones 4y ago
Article neglects Homicide: Life in the Street doing the multi-episode story arc, plus having top notch acting.
julianeon 4y ago
You can also watch it for free on Tubi (ad-supported).
earthboundkid 4y ago
I miss dramas without an arc. They were fun.
no_butterscotch 4y ago
> You can watch the entirety of Babylon 5 (remastered) on HBO Max. I just searched my HBO Max and it isn't available for me (US based). ?
- goerz 4y ago
  Note the date of the article: April 25, 2021
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  I don't know the service offhand but, when it was removed from HBO, it was made available somewhere else. I'm fairly certain it's on a free service.
- xsmasher 4y ago
  It was on HBO Max but got removed a few months back. https://click.justwatch.com/a?r=https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/babylon-5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios https://click.justwatch.com/a?r=https://www.justwatch.com/us... Justwatch claims HD is on Roku and SD is on Tubi, but I didn't confirm that.
jiggawatts 4y ago
I binge watched the show some time around 2003-2004, when the US had gone to war with two nations, established a Department of Homeland Security, and was generally being more than a little authoritarian under Bush Jr and Cheney. In that context, Babylon 5 felt to me like a bad parody, taking cheap shots at the political landscape in the US at the time. For example, their equivalent to the DHS was something like the Earth Alliance security division, and just like how US senators were wearing little "USA flag pins" on their lapels, the politician characters in the show started wearing similar little pins on their lapels. "I get it, you watch the news, stop making it so obvious." was what was going on in my mind for every second scene. It felt almost obnoxious... until I realised the show was made in the 1993 – 1998 time frame, years before any of the things it was showing had happened! Suddenly, it blew my mind how prescient it was, how it was showing a society's journey down the road to military fascism, and how half the world was following the same path. Around the same time I read someone's "Ten steps to a fascist society." article (also pre-2001!), and I realised that the B5 TV show was at step 8, and the United States was at step 7 and eagerly beginning work on the next step. Then, Obama won the election. Whew.
- btown 4y ago
  The showrunner has since commented explicitly about how the show was specifically critical of fascism in this way. https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1322031158113103872 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1322031158113103872 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/986502756700569600 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/986502756700569600
  - pavlov 4y ago
    JMS had unique leeway as a showrunner because he wrote every episode of the show in seasons 3, 4, and 5. (Except for a guest spot for Neil Gaiman in season five.) Those were long seasons, 22 episodes each. The total is basically an epic novel written for TV. Nobody gets to do that today. Even author-driven shows like "The Last of Us" feel truncated at only 8-9 episodes with no guarantee of renewal.
    - 4y ago
costanzaDynasty 4y ago
No, but JMS' Spider-man run was really good. Yes, even with one of the most hated storylines of all time. I have no faith in a CW reboot.

176 points by Apocryphon 4y ago

[flagged]

Most Influential by what metric? Friends aired in the last 25 years and is still extremely popular, makes more money than almost anything else, made it's cast vastly rich and is a big part of popular culture in so many countries. Or if you don't like sitcoms, how is Babylon 5 more influential than Game of Thrones.

Apocryphon 4y ago
Why don't you just read the article? Its thesis is that Babylon 5 pioneered many of the trends that led to the present golden age of TV- a multi-season serialized storyline, auteur showrunner, numerous morally ambiguous POV characters who develop over time. The article argues that B5 was a predecessor to Game of Thrones even before The Sopranos/The West Wing/The Wire kicked off prestige television (or Battlestar Galactica or Lost did the same for sci-fi TV). Granted, in the '90s you also have Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which also shared in many of these trends, but TFA is still worth reading.
- crop_rotation 4y ago
  I did read the article. But none of it makes it the most "influential" TV show, unless influence was very very narrowly defined. Hence I ask by what metric. It certainly wasn't influential in other aspects compared to the two shows I mention.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Pioneering stylistic trends is influential. Certainly people talk about The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad as incredibly influential as well, even if none of them reached the raw audience numbers of a mega-blockbuster cultural phenomenon like Game of Thrones. (Not to mention others with even fewer viewers, but still high craftsmanship in the vein of modern prestige- Oz, Deadwood, and Rome). You are talking quantity of viewers when this article is talking about quality, or at least quantity of qualities. You're also responding facilely to an article's title without actually engaging in its substance.
    - throwaway81523 4y ago
      Breaking Bad has a shout-out to B5 at some point. One of Jesse Pinkman's friends(?) became obsessed with B5 and Jesse mentioned that. Idr the exact context.
      - andrekandre 4y ago
        this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuMMYVu6vdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuMMYVu6vdE
        throwaway81523 4y ago
        Yes I think that was the scene. Breaking Bad looked pretty good but I wasn't a regular viewer and don't remember it accurately.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Very intertextual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEhWjI0OFlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEhWjI0OFlM
- jrootabega 4y ago
  It's been suggested that DS9 was derived from when JMS pitched B5 to Paramount.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    The craziest (unverified) rumor is that this might have been caused by WB and Paramount's abandoned plan to launch a joint network: > A commenter named Steven Hopstaken left the following comment in the io9 article: > I was working at Warner Bros. in the publicity department when Warner Bros. and Paramount were preparing to launch a joint [emphasis mine] network. Warner Bros. already decided to buy Babylon 5 for their adhoc PTEN network (a group of independent stations that agreed to show Warner Bros. shows in prime time.) > Paramount and Warner Bros. both agreed that Deepspace 9 would be the show that would launch the new network and there wouldn’t be room for two “space” shows on the network. I was told they purposely took what they liked from the B5 script and put it in the DS9 script. In fact, there was talk of leaving the B5 script in tact and just setting it the Star Trek universe. I had to keep rewriting press release drafts while they were trying to make the final decision. https://www.tor.com/2013/02/26/is-this-the-smoking-gun-proving-deep-space-nine-ripped-off-babylon-5/ https://www.tor.com/2013/02/26/is-this-the-smoking-gun-provi... While both shows were conceived independently, elements might have made their way from B5 to DS9 due to the studio suits.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    I like to think that Babylon 5 was one of the best things that could happen to Star Trek.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      And even at that, it took a solid quarter century to sink in. "The Next Generation," indeed - that said, while I've forgotten the specifics, I do clearly recall having to pause the 2009 Trek reboot film on first viewing to laugh about a couple of fairly transparent B5 in-jokes, which suggests to me that it's not an accident people from that same orbit went on to make Trek that inherits a lot of what made Babylon 5 great.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I'm going to have to side with the X-Files in terms of influence, considering that its corps of writers, directors and producers has thrown off numerous TV shows including Breaking Bad that many critics rank among the best shows of all time.
  - zhengyi13 4y ago
    I think you're right that they did develop multi-episode character and story arcs and mythology, but I feel like it was done organically - not quite so meticulously planned up front, and so it kinda devolved into incoherence in the end.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      True. Another example from the 90s would be Homicide: Life on the Street. It was "influential" in that David Simon himself went on to make The Wire and other famous shows. It had an overarching story in the murder of Adena Watson. And it imported a bunch of famous film actors to television as later "prestige" series would do.
rbanffy 4y ago
The article mentions many reasons, but these two stand out: - One of the first, if not the first series where a single author wrote most episodes (and the ones JMS didn't were penned by legends such as Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman and DC Fontana). - A five-season story arc, with episodes you should watch in order.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The 5th season was really pretty bad though. I know they had to rush things for fear of there not being a 5th season.
  - lelandbatey 4y ago
    Yeah, it basically was 5 seasons compressed into 3 seasons. The 5th season didn't even happen on the same network as the first few, IIRC.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Yep, the first four seasons were on a little network called PTEN that had four shows. The fifth was on TNT
    - AprilArcus 4y ago
      It's not terribly unusual for a show to get dropped by a network and picked up by another; some other heavily serialized genre shows that have changed networks include Buffy (started on the WB and moved to UPN), Stargate (started on Showtime and moved to Sci-Fi) and The Expanse (started on Sci-Fi and moved to Prime Video)
  - RegularOpossum 4y ago
    I understand it to be that they weren't sure there was going to be a 5th so the forced two major plot lines into Season 4 which was popular enough they got Season 5 with the problem of most of the big arcs already wrapped up.

hindsightbias 4y ago

No. First episode B5: January 26, 1994 First episode STNG: September 28, 1987 Roddenberry was a Showrunner before Showrunners were in daipers.

rbanffy 4y ago
That's one aspect, but TNG never had multi-season or even more than two-episode story arcs, and while the characters develop from season to season, you rarely see a character appear to remember anything from past episodes, as syndication usually aired episodes out of order. I remember many complaints about B5 being incomprehensible because broadcasters were airing episodes randomly.
- jerrycruncher 4y ago
  You're generally correct about TNG, but I think that Worf's development and the machinations within the Klingon High Council roughly constitute a story arc that ran through the series.
  - twoodfin 4y ago
    Thank you, Ron Moore, who probably deserves at least a fractional share of the credit for the evolution of genre TV from the episodic structure of the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s to the serialized structure we take for granted today. Hard to believe now, but at the time shows that embraced multi-episode character arcs and season-long plots ran a risk of being tarred as soap operas.
    - tomjakubowski 4y ago
      ahhh that would explain why Twin Peaks embraced the soap opera thing
  - jonathankoren 4y ago
    The closest thing that TNG has is the Lore and Borg episodes. Picard’s assimilation and the Battle of Wolf 359 has resonated across episodes and series. “The Best of Both Worlds” arc doesn’t fully end until s4e2’s “Family”.

MrZongle2 4y ago

No. But certainly one of the best science fiction series in the last 25 years.

brucethemoose2 4y ago

Maybe there is something to the seriality point. I am looking through the list of 90s shows, sorted (more or less) by popularity, and the only other serial one I can see is Twin Peaks: https://reelgood.com/tv?filter-sort=8&filter-year_end=1999&filter-year_start=1990 https://reelgood.com/tv?filter-sort=8&filter-year_end=1999&f... But there are some others off my radar, like Red Dwarf, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

danaris 4y ago
Neither of those are American TV, so they played by different rules.
KingMob 4y ago
Red Dwarf wasn't really serialized. There's some key plot points at the beginning and season finales, but for the most part, each episode was a self-contained comedy, and things largely went back to normal next week. Neon Genesis was an original script, but it follows most of the anime industry in having long-running plots. That's usually because they're are based off volumes and volumes of manga, where long-running plots are common.

Arrath 4y ago

I've been meaning to get around to watching B5 one of these days. I'm a huge fan of DS9, but totally missed out on Babylon back in the day.

jfengel 4y ago
My advice: have someone curate it for you, or use a curated list of episodes. Many series start off rocky and this one more than most.
- kemayo 4y ago
  That works pretty poorly for B5 unless you've got someone willing to do some hardcore editing for you, because there's so many cases where you should really watch, say, just the C-plot for a given episode even though the A/B plots are trash.
michaelsbradley 4y ago
Season 1 is a bit clunky, maybe that goes for some of Season 2 as well, I don't recall exactly. After that, it gets pretty good. A friend of mine gave me that same heads up after encouraging me to watch it, circa 2010. I just can't remember if he said it's one or more seasons that you have to sort of slog through before getting to the good stuff. If I had to choose between watching again DS9 in its entirety or B5, I'd probably go with B5, but I found both enjoyable. If a third option was BSG (2004-2009), that would be my choice in a heartbeat.
- bsder 4y ago
  People often forget that the first seasons of Star Trek TNG and DS9 were ... not good. Actors and writers seem to need about a season to marinate. Straczynski knew what he wanted, and even he still took a season to dial stuff in.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    On the other hand, there have been plenty of TV series in the past 20 years where the first season is excellent and then the quality steadily drops in the later seasons.

gigel82 4y ago

animex 4y ago

100% agree. That first season is so rough though. It's made it hard to introduce to friends.

airstrike 4y ago
I'm a huge sci-fi fan and couldn't finish the first season.. I guess I'll give it another try
- VyseofArcadia 4y ago
  The first season is rough. You need to watch the pilot, Signs and Portents, the Sky Full of Stars, Voice in the Wilderness parts 1 and 2, Babylon Squared, and Chrysalis. Skip the rest, come back to them if you enjoy season 2.

robear 4y ago

I thought Twin Peaks was the primary influence on the modern long form TV series.

obfuscator 4y ago
That's what is my impression as well. Not an expert, but I thought Twin Peaks invented secondary plotlines.

calf 4y ago

I would love to watch a reboot or remake.

sprior 4y ago

I didn't know it was a secret.

neuracnu 4y ago

In terms of influence, it's disappointing that the author neglected to mention the considerable online fandom around the show during its original run. A television show with a genuine series-long narrative arc screamed out for debate over cryptic hints and plot twists, which all found their home within a handful of usenet groups. And the definitive online reference to the show, The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5, is still there, unchanged since the mid 90s: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/ http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

sillywalk 4y ago
As well JMS did a lot of personal replies on GENIE, COMPUSERVE & USENET that are on that guide as well.
ghettoimp 4y ago
Woah. I can't believe this is still online!
nextaccountic 4y ago
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/nav/ http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/nav/ that's genius
- tfandango 4y ago
  I felt old the other day when I was telling my son that when I was a kid, if it was blue and underlined, you can click it! Now everything is polished and fancy and you never know what you can click on anymore. Something beautiful and utilitarian about the HTML of old.
NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
Steve Grimm was a coworker of mine during the heady days of B5. I found myself invited to his home for a few viewing parties of the show during its original run. My girlfriend ruthlessly mocked the show, but she realized how near and dear it was to my heart. I was an unmitigated fanatic for it since that fateful Comic-Con in the early 90s when my classmate professed his devotion to it before the pilot aired. In fact at this very moment, I am viewing "The Gambler III" with Kenny Rogers and Bruce Boxleitner (special appearance by Colm Meaney). In a way, my life in those years sort of paralleled B5, with wild roller coasters of drama and enigmatic encounters in strange lands. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing!

arp242 4y ago

I feel a lot has to do with the technology that's available; in 1966 when Star Trek aired you couldn't really rely that everyone had seen all the episodes; who can always be at home at a given date and time? People got lives to lead. You can get away with the occasional two-parter, but that's about it. VCR started to change this; you could now record that episode when you had something else to do; in 1985 about a third of people owned a VCR, by 1990 about two thirds. Later DVD and streaming changed this even more; I remember reading about a bloke who had all of TNG on videotape; it occupied an entire wall and must have cost a small fortune: 89 tapes (2 episodes per tape) it must of cost about a thousand, give or take. With DVD you can but all seven seasons for an affordable price and your girlfriend won't hate you for taking up a wall, and with streaming it's even easier. Star Trek has a somewhat interesting broadcast history; from 1966 to 1969 it was broadcast in the traditional way: a set timeslot on a particular day and by season. It had a dedicated set of fans during the original run, but was never a phenomenon like it is today. After the series ended some regional broadcasters got the rights and started airing it ever day during meal time. There's about two months worth of material, and after that it would just start over again. It's that format that made Star Trek truly popular, eventually leading to the films, TNG, and all the rest of it. Today it's a common way to air older shows. In 1983 Babylon 5 would have been a non-starter, simply because few people would be able to watch all of it, and you do need to actually watch at least a significant portion of it. Even with multiple repeats it takes a lot of effort to consistently follow a show with traditional TV. I never watched Babylon 5 when it originally aired; I watched some episodes but I had missed many and I was generally just confused by it; it wasn't until some time in the early 2000s when I downloaded and watched it that I actually followed it. I think there are a few shows in the 90s leading up to the Sopranos: Twin Peaks (1990-1991), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), Babylon 5 (1993), Oz (1997), and The Sopranos (1999). Maybe some others I'm not familiar with.

martinflack 4y ago
> I feel a lot has to do with the technology that's available; in 1966 when Star Trek aired you couldn't really rely that everyone had seen all the episodes; who can always be at home at a given date and time? People got lives to lead. True. And it's true that times have changed, but I really miss a good episodic Trek where you can simply tune in and out. Sure, we can stream episodes and guarantee that we've seen them all in order, but... my gosh I still have a life to lead, and I can't remember everything in your plot just for the sake of it. I'm hoping SNW is going that way, but I'm unsure.

rcarr 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

none_to_remain 4y ago

Breaking Bad gave it recognition

haolez 4y ago

Babylon 5 was amazing. They event hinted at what could be an usage for a LLM-based AI in the far future (light spoilers ahead). There is an episode near the end of the series where we are seeing the equivalent of a TV talk show hundreds of years in the future after the events of the main arc. They "resurrect" the main characters of the series through holograms and AI models that mimic their memories and behaviors. For some reason that I don't remember, the main characters consider the host and its nation a treat and decide to do something about it. Some of the characters distract the host while another hacks into a terminal and command some missiles from who-knows-where to be launched targeting their current position. It works and everything blows up! Even in the future, what seems to be a harmless technology (holograms + LLM-like thing) may have unintended uses and security holes. What an amazing show!

ethbr0 4y ago
> the main characters consider the host and its nation a treat and decide to do something about it They realize they're being used for propaganda explicitly counter to the beliefs they lived (and in some cases sacrificed) their lives for. And they don't just command some missiles: the character in question gets their captor to admit his nation is planning a first strike (including against civilian population centers), then broadcast a recording of the plan to the other side.
- haolez 4y ago
  Thanks for the corrections!
Izkata 4y ago
Season 4 finale, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars. It wasn't originally planned, they needed a filler episode when they got renewed. Basically when they reached season 4, they got worried they wouldn't get renewed for the planned 5th season so secondary plots for both seasons were dropped and the primary plots for both were compressed into season 4, including the series finale. Then they got renewed for the 5th season and couldn't air that finale until the actual end of the series, so they used some budget from the 5th season to create the new 4th season finale. This is also why Ivanova is in the series finale even though the actress had left the show, it's the one that was filmed the previous year while she was still there.

DennisP 4y ago

Babylon 5 went even further than most shows today. It had one giant narrative arc over the entire series. The first season was mostly setup. Things started picking up in the second, built up to a huge peak in the third and fourth season, and wound down in the fifth. This wasn't entirely intentional (they were worried about season 5 being cancelled and crammed more into 4), but the effect was like you were reading one big novel. That might have made the last season disappointing if you were watching one episode a week, but it works great for binging. By comparison, Sopranos for example had a narrative arc for each season, and the new Battlestar had a fairly continuous level of narrative tension throughout, with maybe three or four episodes from peak to peak. I don't think I've ever seen another show that did quite what B5 did.

ethbr0 4y ago
The other unique thing about B5 is the richness of character arcs. The central plot moves everything forward, but each character has their own multi-season arc inside it. I mean, Garibaldi? G'Kar? Londo? These are not "Oh, that's cute, the character changed" few episode arcs. They're the sum of innumerable small events in most episodes, that result in complete (and believable!) overhauls of the characters.
- sillywalk 4y ago
  (I'm a fan of both DS9 & B5) You could also look at the arc of say Nog, or Jake Cisko, or Vir.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    Or Elim Garak, one of the most interesting anti-heroes in all of the Trek universe. (Is he really an anti-hero? Well as Garak would probably say, "I'm not so sure, but there's hope for him yet.")
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      I loved Garak, I just wish DS9 had devoted more time to him! Or Bashir! It's been a minute since I've done a watch-through of DS9, but from memory they have great episodes, but also get lost in the background for large chunks of seasons.

VyseofArcadia 4y ago

Surprised with this audience that no one is talking about how it was the first TV sci-fi to use CG for the spaceship scenes instead of models. Done on an Amiga no less.

lsllc 4y ago
Seaquest DSV I believe also used Video Toaster on the Amiga for CG. See the Jan 1994 edition of "Video Toaster User" magazine: http://amr.abime.net/issue_2738 http://amr.abime.net/issue_2738

spiralpolitik 4y ago

I recently rewatched the first season (and some of the second) and it stands up pretty well. The first season is uneven as the show was finding its feet and the stuff that feels dated are the early 90s TV Tropes that every show from that period had. The non JMS episodes fair the worst as these hew close to the A plot/B plot/C plot template that was prevalent. Two things stood out during the rewatch. At the end of the first season there were many different directions that the show could have gone and have been a completely different show. This gives me hope that the reboot/remake will strike fresh ground while still being recognizable as B5. The second was how well the pivot at the beginning of season 2 is handled. The show basically reboots itself over the first 2 episodes, while also resolving the cliff hangers from the first season. JMS is an excellent and underrated writer, and I think some of the scripts should be studied by any prospective writer as examples of how it can and should be done. His book on writing is also worth a read. ('Signs and Portents' from s1 is great example. It takes the A plot/B plot/C plot template but has the plots weave around each other before colliding at a single beat before then separating out again).

evo_9 4y ago

I’m cautiously optimistic about the B5 reboot because JSM is involved. Also - the B4 sub-story arc is some of the most incredible TV moments ever created. Zathras can never have nice things.

EFreethought 4y ago
I hope there is a reboot of "Crusade". I would love to see what story he was going to tell in that series. And Zathras did have nice things. It was Zathras who did not have nice things.
arp242 4y ago
I don't know; much of what has been done with Babylon 5 after the main series ended (season 4) ranged from "meh" to "wow that's bad". I found Crusade unwatchable, and the less said about that "legend of the rangers" thing the better. The Lost Tales was kinda okay from what I recall, but not all that great and mostly underwhelming. Sometimes all the stars align just right to make something really great for a while and it's hard to recapture that later on.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Most of the things after B5 had a fraction of the budget and so many layers of bad luck (actors passing just before or in the middle of filming, production companies going bankrupt, TV channels getting cold feet). Crusade had a ton of studio meddling, so much so that they had to write it into the show (the multiple uniform changes for no reason other than studio execs wanted it, for instance). The bad luck part has always been my biggest concern for the current reboot. They started that at The CW just as The CW entered into "will they or won't they sell/break up/destroy The CW" drama.
- Izkata 4y ago
  Remember the first season episode of Babylon 5, Signs and Portents, that kicked off the series-long plotlines? In addition to the meddling from the sibling comment, Crusade didn't even get that far before cancelation, its version of that episode was still coming. Also because of that meddling, episodes aired completely out of order, so a lot of things made no sense. For example, using the nanotech shield before it was invented.

cjohnson318 4y ago

what about Twin Peaks? That was two seasons of episodes that were highly dependent on each other, with a large cast, and lots of plot lines.

abeyer 4y ago
Or one season of episodes that were highly dependent on each other, followed by one season of episodes that were highly dependent on being high... depending on your take on season 2. ;)

b1c1jones 4y ago

Article neglects Homicide: Life in the Street doing the multi-episode story arc, plus having top notch acting.

julianeon 4y ago

You can also watch it for free on Tubi (ad-supported).

earthboundkid 4y ago

I miss dramas without an arc. They were fun.

no_butterscotch 4y ago

> You can watch the entirety of Babylon 5 (remastered) on HBO Max. I just searched my HBO Max and it isn't available for me (US based). ?

goerz 4y ago
Note the date of the article: April 25, 2021
RHSeeger 4y ago
I don't know the service offhand but, when it was removed from HBO, it was made available somewhere else. I'm fairly certain it's on a free service.
xsmasher 4y ago
It was on HBO Max but got removed a few months back. https://click.justwatch.com/a?r=https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/babylon-5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios https://click.justwatch.com/a?r=https://www.justwatch.com/us... Justwatch claims HD is on Roku and SD is on Tubi, but I didn't confirm that.

jiggawatts 4y ago

I binge watched the show some time around 2003-2004, when the US had gone to war with two nations, established a Department of Homeland Security, and was generally being more than a little authoritarian under Bush Jr and Cheney. In that context, Babylon 5 felt to me like a bad parody, taking cheap shots at the political landscape in the US at the time. For example, their equivalent to the DHS was something like the Earth Alliance security division, and just like how US senators were wearing little "USA flag pins" on their lapels, the politician characters in the show started wearing similar little pins on their lapels. "I get it, you watch the news, stop making it so obvious." was what was going on in my mind for every second scene. It felt almost obnoxious... until I realised the show was made in the 1993 – 1998 time frame, years before any of the things it was showing had happened! Suddenly, it blew my mind how prescient it was, how it was showing a society's journey down the road to military fascism, and how half the world was following the same path. Around the same time I read someone's "Ten steps to a fascist society." article (also pre-2001!), and I realised that the B5 TV show was at step 8, and the United States was at step 7 and eagerly beginning work on the next step. Then, Obama won the election. Whew.

btown 4y ago
The showrunner has since commented explicitly about how the show was specifically critical of fascism in this way. https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1322031158113103872 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1322031158113103872 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/986502756700569600 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/986502756700569600
- pavlov 4y ago
  JMS had unique leeway as a showrunner because he wrote every episode of the show in seasons 3, 4, and 5. (Except for a guest spot for Neil Gaiman in season five.) Those were long seasons, 22 episodes each. The total is basically an epic novel written for TV. Nobody gets to do that today. Even author-driven shows like "The Last of Us" feel truncated at only 8-9 episodes with no guarantee of renewal.
  - 4y ago

costanzaDynasty 4y ago

No, but JMS' Spider-man run was really good. Yes, even with one of the most hated storylines of all time. I have no faith in a CW reboot.