Be Excellent To Each Other

A friend has just lent me the first series of Babylon 5, after we both suffered a horrendous and arduous walk resulting in mud and cuts and psychological trauma. She assures me it hasn't dated too awfully. Let's see... shall we?

(Bit surprised by the way to see the full run, barring shitty TV movies on her shelves. She also had all the Sharpes. A closet nerd, well I never.)

So I'm just watching Midnight on the Firing Line, the first episode.

Stephen Furst has pointy teeth!

The interior of the station has been decorated by North Korean interior designers with approximately the same budget!

It's completely unsubtle!

The CGI has really, really dated! (Apart from the bit where the camera zooms out of the engineer working on the solar batteries to reveal the full station. That's still cool.)

Still, it's quite fun. It has gusto. And y'know, the Londo & G'Kar show is still worth the money. There's some nice dialogue though.

And some appalling.

But by and large, it's pretty good. I always viewed the show as an underdog, I only turned agin' it when it kept being dragged back kicking and screaming when the story was clearly done. I also think Michael O'Hare was a bit under-rated. It was good having a stoic, nigh-emotionless Captain when everyone else had 'teh issues'. I love his voice over in the credits too. And I have also just discovered through the Death thread that he's just passed away. Blubs. Possible victim of the 'Babylon 5 early-carking curse'.

So, Beex opinions on the show? Doc Lave was a fan. (By the way, where did he go? He had the best avatar!)

And did you know the CGI was done on the Amig-*ACK!*

Babylon 5 is the sort of show that people will tell you it gets really good in the later seasons, but you have to watch the first couple of seasons to get into it.

They lie, they only say that because they have suffered the pain and can't admit to themselves that they wasted their time, so fool themselves that it was worth the investment.
From the simply awful acting from 95% of the cast, with the main actor for the first series being the worst actor to ever be put on TV, to the final 3 episodes which were 3 solid hours of everyone travelling round saying goodbye to each other... and literally nothing else, to the director's commentary posts that he made on usenet at the time of broadcast, where he is so far up his own ass he can swallow his own tongue from the inside., Babylon 5 is simply some of the worst TV ever shown.

Not purely because of how bad it is, it isn't that bad on it's own merits, some episodes even manage to raise themselves to the giddy heights of mediocrity. It's the fans who will tell you how amazing it is that really drag it down to the depths of hell. Without them it would be forgettable, with them you will be forced to remember as they bring the subject up again and again and again.

I should watch tjis.

Despite having an affection for the show I'm in the bizarre position of half agreeing with you. The fifth and last series was completely terrible, aside from some Londo stuff. Even Neil Gaiman's guest episode was a bit rubbish, which is an astonishing feat. I never read the Usenet posts so can't comment on that.

I haven't see the series really since my college years, so it's pretty damn strange to see it again properly more than a decade and a half on. It has dated, dramatically. I have to confess. You compare BSG to this and the acting of BSG just torpedoes B5. Yet I wonder how much of that was in the way TV was made back then. It was never a prestige show, never got great directors to coax top performances out of the cast. It's a shame, as Katsulas and Jurasik, both good actors, also seem to struggle with perfuctionarily directed scenes.

But I don't buy that it's terrible. Maybe its my affection for anyone who can manage to get an original (okay yes, it did rip off Lord of the Rings somewhat) story up on TV. And I remember the plotting being masterful. It really was adept at giving you enough plot progression to keep you hooked and yet keeping enough mysteries hidden to keep you addicted. Aside from the awful 5th season, it never looked to be casting around desperately for plot twists - which even BSG has been guilty of. I do believe, despite the shonkiness, that is is somewhat groundbreaking stuff, albeit not as BSG will prove.

That being said, I'll skip the next few episodes that are apparently awful, and move on to the meatier stuff. I'd argue that for pacing, plot and gripping drama 'Chrysalis' and 'Signs & Portents' alone from Season 1 are great TV. 'Coming of Shadows' in Season 2 I recall being bloody excellent. (Though its amusing how the magnificent Centauri palace is represented by some curtains and cheap chair.)

In all I guess I'd rate Babylon 5 a resounding 6/10 today. With it being an 8/10 compared to TV programming of its day.

Can't believe you didn't do the, "Babylon 5 is a big pile of shit!" line, btw. You must have met some really irritating fans, huh? I seem to recall also that fan consensus was that season 2 was the best one?

Did we have this conversation there before?

No. But i got a twinge of nostalgia.

Nowhere, just Beex is banned at work, during which I'm hella busy and wouldn't have time to browse anyhow. Moment that changes...

So yeah, I lurk and post in evening mostly, but it's hard to keep up.

Loved it at the time, doubt it's held up - so in know hurry to watch it again. But there was nothing like it at the time. So much of mainstream TV owes itself to Babylon 5. It pioneered proper archs that still rarely matched now. Comments in series 1 paying off 3 seasons later was magical at the time.

I mean compare it to Homeland's WE"VEN'T'A'FUCKING'CLUE'WH'T'WERE'DOIN'-ness.

It was like BSG, if BSG had no money or swears but built to a pay off that actually paid it all off.

Do what I did a couple of years back, watch it from the start, but after each episode read the lurkers guide to that episode.
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html

I persevered due to the amount of people who were insistent it got better, but it really doesn't. Reading JMS's comments made at the time on the lurkers guide are hilarious, lots of stuff about how amazing the actors were, how fantastic an actor Michael O'Hare was and how certain scenes were so full of emotion that it was impossible to not cry at them etc...

<small voice>

I love it, though there are some bad bits, and the dialog does get really cheesy.

About time I gave it another run through.

We watched it not long ago. I still love it, and hel was at least happy enough to stick to the end.

Of season 4, natch.

I watched it on tv as it was aired, then I bought the videos of each one and watched them again. I went to watch it back recently with my kids, but they couldn't stand it.

The videos are currently in my loft and my memory of it is that was excellent and better than ds9 ( which I only watched a bit of).

Although I liked the ranger spin off stuff too.

Malc

I watched through series 1-4, but couldn't be bothered with 5 after a couple of episodes. Couldn't really see the point of it either because they'd wrapped it all up because they thought it was being cancelled then had to try and think of something to do for another 20-odd episodes when it wasn't. Really they could have cancelled it after about episode 6 of series 4 and I wouldn't have minded.

I've only ever seen one episode, which was all about a man who was being interrogated, and he ate a sandwich but it was poisoned, and then they let him go but he just started getting interrogated all over again. It was quite good, to be fair.

Was that B5?

Yep, that was Sheridan being questioned.

You lucked out, that was one of the mediocre episodes.

The payoff of what happened to B4 remains one of my favourite TV moments.

This, basically. Even at the time it was wildly inconsistent but when it worked it really, really worked. And the Starfury is still one of my favourite ships in all of sci-fi. If I'd been ten years older when I first watched B5 I'd probably feel the same way about it as I do Battlestar "Bloody" Galactica. But I wasn't, so I don't.

You are not the one.