7 ms·
Babylon 5 Is a Perfect, Terrible Series
- gdubs 3y agoBabylon 5 sat at a golden age of the Amiga/VideoToaster/Lightwave era of TV science fiction show. At the time it was very inspiring to see how visual effects companies were using non-SGI hardware to tell stories.
- PcChip 3y agoAs a kid, I remember finding the website of someone named Kier Darby, who modeled the White Star and documented the process, and also was super excited because one of the original white star texture arists found his blog and sent over the original textures used in the show. It was really awesome to find and read that back in the day
- hyperion2010 3y agoI was playing Stellaris recently, and a few months later started a rewatch of Babylon 5. The inspiration is striking. B5, despite all its shortcomings, represents a vision of the timeless nature of politics that is in a way distinct from e.g. TNG. Furthermore the characters have a level of depth and complexity that force one to look in the mirror and ask hard questions about what it means to be a good person in the context of titanic forces the we could easily dismiss as being beyond our control.
- arrosenberg 3y agoFWIW, the Star Trek competitor series to B5 (some would say its a ripoff) is DS9.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoThere is an old Human Giant sketch about a sci-fi show, the producer of which has got a lot of flack for noticing successful shows on other networks and copying them. For example, he pitched a Heroes knock-off called Superpower People. I assume that is a sarcastic nod towards the accusation that DS9 was the powerful Star Trek franchise’s deliberate attempt to steal B5’s thunder. (Sad that Human Giant isn’t on YouTube like so many other classic sketch comedies of yore. Apparently there are rights issues.)
- dragonwriter 3y ago> I assume that is a sarcastic nod towards the accusation that DS9 was the powerful Star Trek franchise’s deliberate attempt to steal B5’s thunder. The accusation isn’t that DS9 was an attempt to steal B5’s thunder, its that JMS pitched what later became B5 to Paramount as a Star Trek series, they rejected it, and then turned around and built DS9 around the material they were pitched; that they literally stole it, not tried to steal its thunder.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoThanks, I stand corrected.
- gabereiser 3y agoAnd for this, Paramount will never be the Trek fan's friend. CBS/Paramount have done nothing but been hostile towards new Trek ideas and suing fan-films out of existence. Not cool, not cool at all. They are under the impression that it has to be TNG cast or not-at-all. Maybe that's in Jonathan Frake's contract? I dunno but it's gone the way of Mattel and not the Roddenberry way.
- ethbr1 3y ago> CBS/Paramount have done nothing but been hostile towards new Trek ideas and suing fan-films out of existence. Are we watching the same Strange New Worlds?
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- _8j50 3y agoStargate is the perfect space scifi series, even better than starwars, startrek and the expanse. The best part of it is it takes part in our time and universe. Unfortunately, not many have even heard of it. I also like how it is scientists today working with alien technology making spaceships and fighter planes.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoOf course people have heard of Stargate. It's one of the biggest sci-fi franchises there is, with 17 seasons and 3 movies. It's one of my favorite series also, but it's hard to compare to something like B5 which is very different tonally.
- hinkley 3y ago> 17 seasons That's not counting the spinoffs right?
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoIt is. SG1 was 10, Atlantis was 5 and Universe was 2.
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- _8j50 3y agoMost people I talk to haven't, even scifi fans. But it had it's viewership in its time and a following in certain circles now.
- le-mark 3y agoThe thing I most enjoyed about the stargate franchise was how the alien tech tree was discovered over time. The series didn’t plan for this (I don’t believe) and in later seasons it all got kinda bizarre and wonky. I don’t know of many other works of fiction that took this approach. I think Perry Rhodan series did (I only read a few installments) and the novel Battlefield Earth had this as an element.
- consumer451 3y agoOh, wow! I was just about to comment "I really want this series upscaled with some nice ML." Looks like WB did something along those lines in 2021. This is the only sci-fi series of note which I have not watched all the way through. The time has come. Thanks for the post OP. https://www.space.com/babylon-5-remastered-streaming-amazon-itunes-hbo-max https://www.space.com/babylon-5-remastered-streaming-amazon-...
- peterleiser 3y agoIt will also be released on Blu-Ray December 5, 2023: https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1681333005082820608 https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1681333005082820608 For $100: https://a.co/d/fyRfHEB https://a.co/d/fyRfHEB
- metabagel 3y agoBe aware that season 5 is disappointing. JMS didn’t know if there would be a season 5, so he crammed a lot of the season 5 story into season 4, and season 5 ended up a bit thin.
- pram 3y agoI feel the same way about Lexx. It’s awful, I’d never recommend it to anyone. But it’s also always very weird and interesting and the setting is fascinating. It feels like anti-utopian sci-fi. Like sci-fi for misanthropes lol
- morkalork 3y agoI'm utterly astounded that show was ever green lit, let alone had multiple seasons. The whole thing was like a fever dream.
- ncr100 3y agoThe Lexx musical episode was an innovation, recently copied by Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. * Lexx "Brigadoom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n7iIYhjiSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n7iIYhjiSQ * Star Trek: Strange New Worlds "Subspace Rhapsody" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg3-CgRitwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg3-CgRitwc
- peterleiser 3y agoI'm still coming to terms with the recent "Star Trek: The Musical" Strange New Worlds episode. The previous crossover episode with Lower Decks softened the blow.
- mgbmtl 3y agoI wish that episode had more Klingons ;)
- peterleiser 3y agoThat part was banana pants! I watched that part a few times!
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- dsr_ 3y agoI selectively rewatched B5 this summer with one of my kids, who had never seen it before. It holds up very well, actually, once he got past the blocky CGI. The characterization is wonderful, the plotting ridiculously tight -- episodes that look like they are just Monster of the Week filler are not; a few episodes are clearly setting up something Big and then just barely get referenced. The growth in G'Kar and Vir is amazing; the relationship between G'Kar and Londo legendary.
- cassianoleal 3y agoI did a full rewatch this year. Including some of the obscure feature films. The series is incredible. I agree with all your comments, but will also add that B5 is probably the best well told time travel story I've ever seen.
- throw0101b 3y ago> G'Kar and Londo Elevator scene: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkwF5BBL26I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkwF5BBL26I
- mcphage 3y agoThere are so many wonderful scenes between them, but that may be the best.
- mavhc 3y agoI'll always prefer visual effects that are somewhat realistic vs aeroplanes/boats in space that every non B5/Expanse show does
- jvanderbot 3y agoExpanse stands above for being realistic, in my mind. What about it did you dislike? The ships were well designed as far as space crawlers go, with central ladders instead of hallways, accurate acceleration effects, correct orbital mechanics, correct portrayal of vacuum and sound. I could go on. It was hard scifi.
- jmclnx 3y agoWhen it first aired, it was the only show us in the Computer Room ever talked about, before or since, it was amazing. I remember every one outside of the room talking about some crazy things people were doing. I finally asked one of them, "who did that ?". I was told it was on a show called Seinfeld, which most of us in the room never heard about :) I re-watched it last year, time for another spin with B5.
- hinkley 3y agoI was always a bit confused about where Bruce disappeared to after Scarecrow and Mrs King. I came to the show late, everyone was telling me to watch it, but I mostly watched a few episodes as a nod to Bruce Boxleitner.
- metabagel 3y agoScarecrow and Mrs. King was a fun show. Sort of a precursor to Chuck, I think.
- driscoll42 3y agoFor anyone that is on a rewatch and never read through them. The Lurker's Guide (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html) for the show is a wonderful companion. The Fandom wiki doesn't have nearly the detail this site from when the show came out (and still getting updated) has. Wonderful behind the scenes quotes from AOL chatrooms, how episodes link to an the overarching plot, and other trivia
- topkai22 3y agoThe lurker’s guide is one of my favorite living memories of the early web. It is my go to example for high quality amateur content production in the 90s.
- goldcd 3y agoJ Michael Straczynski autobiography "Becoming Superman" is definitely worth reading/listening to. Still hope he made some of it up though..
- facorreia 3y agoI’m halfway through re-watching Babylon 5 and I realized that out of all sci-fi shows I’ve seen (and I recently re-watched many), this is the best one in my opinion.
- devoutsalsa 3y agoMy top 6 are: - Star Trek: TNG - The Expanse - Babylon 5 - Battlestar Galactica (new one) - Stargate SG1 - Firefly
- webnrrd2k 3y agoI don't know, I think my vote for perfect terrible series would have to go to Farscape[1]. Red Dwarf would be in the list, too, maybe as an honorable mention. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farscape https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farscape
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- harrisoned 3y agoI started watching Farscape a few weeks ago after seeing many recommendations, critics, and because it's free to watch on Plex. Now i see why people say what they say.
- ncr100 3y agoFarscape appears to copy a number of elements from the darker Lexx series, FYI.
- jimbob45 3y agoI thought I was the only one that watched Lexx. What did it copy?
- marginalia_nu 3y agoOh man Lexx was great. Uniquely weird and initally mostly softcore porn, but great.
- wormius 3y agoI was gonna say Lexx has my vote (though I'm actually a Dwarf fan)
- ncr100 3y agoThe more I dig into the facts, it appears Lexx was merely two years earlier than Farscape. I think I might feel Lexx cleared the path for Farscape, when it might have mostly been coincidence. https://tolerabilityindex.freeforums.net/thread/676/lexx-farscape https://tolerabilityindex.freeforums.net/thread/676/lexx-far... * Living ships * Motley crew * Evil empire * Big bad evil guy causing all the problems But all of this is also pretty common in other SciFi series.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoFrom Article >"“I hope the future will be like Star Trek, but I’m afraid it’s going to be like Babylon 5.”" This is exactly what I'm seeing. Having watched sci-fi for decades, I was pretty idealistic about Star Trek, the future is going to be great. But it is turning out to be more like Blade Runner. Or the mega corp in Alien. Recently Re-watch the Babylon 5 episodes on the Right Wing take over of the Earth Government, it was incredibly realistic for its time. It was legit scary how similar it was to our elections, and we are living through it. (not even sure the mind control part is even too un-realistic with the fake AI stories coming out).
- Vecr 3y agoI'm actually not sure of any science fiction shows I think are a reasonable depiction of the future. I guess Generation Kill with slightly different equipment for the soldiers and IED/drone jammers stuck to everything?
- porkbeer 3y agoJust wait for the robocop arc.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoIt's coming. The police are already buying the little robot dogs.
- ethbr1 3y agoNot sure how many people actually read this entire post, but... SPOILERS!! ... if you're intending to watch Babylon 5 for the first time, don't read this.
- causality0 3y agoMy memory of Babylon 5 is that it was fifty percent great episodes with really good writing and fifty percent "Oh no, Senator Fuckface tripped and fell down a hole and lost their communicator and got amnesia and they're somewhere in the massive ghetto part of the station that exists for some reason."
- peterleiser 3y agoThat is a very cogent summary of my initial B5 experience when I saw random out of order episodes in reruns.
- kemayo 3y agoWith the added inconvenience that the Senator Fuckface episode will have a C-plot that contains some of the most important lore in the entire show, so you can't just tell people to skip it.
- astrange 3y agoThis is just another entry in the common genre of "online article by a media reviewer who won't stop talking about their incoherent politics instead of the media". Nobody needs to hear what an English major thinks about space neoliberalism. (The #1 example of this is the Kotaku review of the PS5 from 2020 that spent the whole time complaining that no Americans had time to think of a PS5 because all Americans were in grinding poverty, by which the author meant they lived in NYC and had untreated depression. Meanwhile, poverty and income inequality went down in 2020 compared to 2019 thanks to the US getting fiscal stimulus right.)
- bane 3y agoBabylon 5 was such an incredibly uneven production. There's award winning makeup production, combined with the worst 90s daytime TV soap level of taste in set design and fashion. The feeling I get from the show is that it is absolutely earnest. Like a group of a b-tier community theater folks got the biggest budget of their lives to finally tell the story they wanted and they just swung for the fences. It's a total, glorious, mess of a show that is as entertaining if you take it seriously as if you make fun of it. I love it.
- cmpalmer52 3y agoThat may be the best description of the show, ever. My fondest memories of it were how detailed the online analyses of each episode were as they aired. All of the speculation, references to previous clues - everything was dissected. And JMS was right in the only fray most of the time, teasing and clarifying and explaining, but never spoiling what was coming up. It was the golden age of Internet synergy with a show, not just trolling and shitposting.
- kemayo 3y agoThe name of the place? rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated. (...your phrasing wound up leading into sounding like the B5 intro.)
- compsciphd 3y agoalso the lurker's guide whih I think is how most people got that info.
- tivert 3y agoI think you're forgetting the most important aspect of the show: the entire series was plotted out before the first episode was shot, which allowed for things like foreshadowing and multi-season story arcs that could be more "fundamental" because they weren't ad-hoc.
- boboche 3y agoB5 was my inspiration for 3D and digging into lightwave back in the days.
- debo_ 3y agoOn the topic of "I hope the future will be like Star Trek, but I’m afraid it’s going to be like Babylon 5," the very first episodes of TNG loosely tell the story of what Earth was like from, say, 2000-2200. It was very bad. So, even if things are terrible now, we could be tracking towards that militaristic utopia that TNG made us all yearn for!
- cooperadymas 3y agoThe eugenics war. Riots. Mass homelessness and unemployment. WWIII where a third of the population is wiped out. Utopia doesn't happen overnight folks. It's a long road getting from here to there.
- jccalhoun 3y agoThe series is great. It had so many cast changes that required tweaking of storylines that I wonder what the show would have been like if they didn't have to change the cast.
- anotherevan 3y agoFYI there's a new animated movie that is being released currently: "Babylon 5: The Road Home" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27712788/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27712788/ https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1121575-babylon-5-the-road-home https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1121575-babylon-5-the-road-...
- Tagbert 3y agoI was impressed when two characters walked into an obvious restroom and used a couple of urinals while maintaining their dialog. Finally a show realistic enough that the actors actually piss.
- ulkesh 3y agoWith some of the best acting in both Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik, the character development, and the various production woes, I’d say it’s a pretty great series, too. But we can all agree “TKO” was just plain awful. Right?
- saati 3y agoNo. It's not stellar but it's okay and nowhere as cringey as Believers.
- Justsignedup 3y agoWhat is amazing is that the general show had a story for all seasons from day 1. With variations built in depending on cast movements. However... They had subpar actors which really killed it. I think they were heavily uderbudgeted for what they wanted to do for that time. I think if such a good planned show was to exist today, it would be fucking amazing. But alas were not there. It was also a bit toooooon soapie. Needed less soap more content.
- FreshStart 3y agoThe presence of a big budget brings along personal that prohibits passion and quality. See modern series and games. Quality is often injected by low budget media like books or podcasts setting expectations.
- dwd 3y agoHaving watched B5 in real-time (with episodes out of order and random start times depending on when the local sports show finished), I was excited to see the spinoff Crusade and on at a reasonable time. The deep dive into the world of technomages (with Peter Woodward as Galen) made this show a worthy continuation - and then it was cancelled.
- jeegsy 3y agoThere is something almost unbearably tedious about reading contemporary reviews of old entertainment. I am so glad I had seen Babylon 5 before reading this "review". I feel so sorry for folks out there who may not have seen the show yet and instead read this thing.