Of the show categories you mentioned, they don't exactly support your argument. News has little rewatch-ability, and partially recaps what's going on, in case

Of the show categories you mentioned, they don't exactly support your argument. News has little rewatch-ability, and partially recaps what's going on, in case you're just joining. Game shows almost never have long-running arcs, and even if you had a repeat contestant, it's not necessary to watch a previous episode to enjoy their performance in the current one. Soaps DO have long-running plot arcs, but are notably aired in the middle of the day, and aimed at housewives and retirees, who are MUCH better situated than the average person to follow a show regularly. A better comparison would have been Twin Peaks, which also had long-running plots. People made a point to watch it, but it was much shorter and thus easier to commit to. It was also national water-cooler conversation because it was one of the most unusual things ever aired on TV before then. I definitely agree about the special effects; it looked much worse than Star Trek:tNG, which started airing 6 years earlier. I also agree that the moral ambiguity was discomfiting at the time, and that sci-fi faces hurdles to mass popularity. I personally think B5 also suffered from a slow first season, and a lack of top-tier actors (like say, Patrick Stewart or Edward James Olmos). > at a prominent point in the cold war The Cold War might have been an influence on Straczysnki's writing, but technically, it had been over for at least a year (USSR dissolved in Dec 1991) by the time B5 aired (Feb 1993).