Babylon 5

[TheCorpulent1]

Anyone watch this way back when? I'm just getting into it now and trying to watch everything over the next month or two. I'm about halfway through the first season and, although I've read in several places that season 1 is pretty terrible, I have to say, I've been enjoying most of the episodes so far.

 

[Addendum]

I'm not alone!!!

Anyway, I remember trying to watch it in my high school days, when it started up. It didn't hook me. But I got hooked in college, when a friend of mine convinced me to give it a second chance. He graduated before I was able to finish Season 1. About a year or so after I graduated, I saw it on DVD. I remembered this show and I gladly spent the 65-75 bucks for each season, and the TV movie collection.

The thing that keeps me watching the entire series again and again is that you pick up new things each time you watch. In an episode that may not have that much to do with the overall arc, there always seems to be a little piece in there that comes back in a later episode: be it a line, or the action of a character.

I'm jealous of you, in that I'll never be able to have the experience of watching Babylon 5 for the first time. You're in for one bad place of a ride, especially Season 4. Enjoy it.

Have you made it to the episode "Signs and Portents" yet? If so, then if you said "holy ****" when you saw what happened to the raiders, there will several more moments where you'll utter that as the series goes on

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, I'm enjoying it a lot now. I just finished up the first season and started the second today. When I started watching with The Gathering, I was pretty surprised that Michael O'Hare was so, um... animated. I was counting down the episodes of season 1 to Bruce Boxleitner's entrance in season 2, but when season 2 finally rolled around, I kind of found myself missing O'Hare. I'd kind of gotten used to his overacting as Sinclair. I think I'll miss his eyebrows the most; they seemed to each have a personality of their own.

Anyway, "Signs and Portents" was definitely a great episode. "And the Sky Full of Stars" was great, too. I liked seeing Sinclair start to piece together the mystery of his missing memories. I think my absolute favorite moment of season 1 was the ending of "Deathwalker," though. I really like how JMS is playing the Vorlons as this super-mysterious race of seemingly benevolent beings who nonetheless act in pretty scary ways.

Through the dubious wonders of the internet and Wikipedia, I've actually got an idea of what happens throughout the series' run, but I'm still enjoying the journey of how they get there. I like Sheridan a lot, and I'm getting more and more interested in Londo and G'Kar. I plan on watching as many episodes as I can tonight, since what I've read indicates that season 3 is a pretty major one in terms of changes and developments.

 

[Superfreak]

I will soon enter the b5 galaxy... everyone always tells me to watch it all the way through, it's just a lot to watch. It'll be my summer project. And I will finally see if I can swallow the low production value, in favor of the plot.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I suspect they tell you that because JMS is like the ultimate foreshadower. He plotted the entire B5 story out as a "TV novel" before it was even picked up. Things hint at other things that won't come to fruition for a couple seasons sometimes.

But, as a huge fan of continuity in comics, I happen to love that sort of thing. I'm looking forward to getting through the series and seeing how the whole story unfolds.

Oh, and if anyone's interested, here's a "master list" of the proper viewing order for all the episodes and movies. JMS himself has apparently approved the first few seasons' order, and it's generally regarded as being pretty sound on the latter seasons'.

 

[Superfreak]

I suspect they tell you that because JMS is like the ultimate foreshadower. He plotted the entire B5 story out as a "TV novel" before it was even picked up. Things hint at other things that won't come to fruition for a couple seasons sometimes.

But, as a huge fan of continuity in comics, I happen to love that sort of thing. I'm looking forward to getting through the series and seeing how the whole story unfolds.

Oh, and if anyone's interested, here's a "master list" of the proper viewing order for all the episodes and movies. JMS himself has apparently approved the first few seasons' order, and it's generally regarded as being pretty sound on the latter seasons'.

isn't that how TV is supposed to be written, especially given the amount of money invested in making them?

 

[Addendum]

isn't that how TV is supposed to be written, especially given the amount of money invested in making them?

Shows do plan things out, but not every show has 100 years in either direction of a series that shows a 5 year block of time finely detailed, 1,000 years in either direction of that point moderately detailed, and 1,000,000 years in either direction broadly written.

And with that 5 year storyline already completed before the pilot began production, as well as "trap doors" for every major character in stand-by if the actor leaves the show for whatever reason, I also don't think every show has everything that planned out.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, most shows that I've heard of have very broad outlines of where they're supposed to go, and then each season is plotted out during the previous one or a few months before filming begins for it.

 

[Addendum]

In one of JMS' internet posts after the series was finished (I don't know if it was immediately afterward, or some time after that), JMS mentioned that he had a notebook where the entire 5 year storyline was written down on index cards, and then stored in something similar to how one keeps baseball cards in a notebook. That folder was on his desk for the entire time of the series in plain sight.

 

[C. Lee]

I haven't seen it since it's original run....but was able to recently pick it all up on DVD...so will start rewatching it soon. It was a good show...can't wait to see what all I missed the first time.

 

[Addendum]

For those who like podcasts and B5, there's a Babylon 5 podcast. One of the hosts of the show is Jeffrey Willerth, who was a production assisstant during the show's run and also was Ambassador Kosh (not the voice, but the guy inside the costume).

They discuss each episode in a segment called "Deep Geeking", they have interviews with those involved with the series from actors and actresses, to the crew and they had an interview with Jeanne Cavelos who wrote 4 books set in the B5 universe (all of them are considered canon).

It's been on the web since 06, they're now at 102 episodes (not including the best of's).

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm on season 5 now. Um... this season kind of sucks. There have been great individual episodes, but it all feels kind of superfluous. It also feels like it's lost its recognizable balance; I hate all-politics Sheridan and miss hard-assed, principled Captain Sheridan, I miss Marcus' exuberance and energy, I miss Ivanova and the way she and practically all of the other humans played off each other, I miss the focus on B5 itself instead of the Interstellar Alliance... meh, I miss a lot. Really, much like the first season, the only reasons I find myself still watching now are G'Kar and Londo. Garibaldi's conflict with Bester would've been another if I didn't already know that it's not actually handled in the show, but rather in some trilogy of novels afterward. Don't even get me started on the telepaths. You'd think a bunch of people who can read minds and are consequently forced to live under the oppressive rule of a government agency would actually be interesting. I mean, it sounds interesting, doesn't it? But, if B5 season 5 is any indication, you'd be dead wrong.

Still, it's not all bad. Just very different. Probably too different.

 

[Addendum]

It took me a while to get into Season 5, but I still like it. The reason that it seems kinda strange is that Season 5 was a virtual last second save. While Season 4 was going, the syndicated network B5 was on, PTEN, would be closing up. So JMS was told to wrap it up in Season 4. They even shot and completed the last episode of the series during this time. Then TNT picked up the series for their fifth year, as well as the other 4 seasons.

Now, if a fifth year would have been guaranteed, the introduction of the telepath colony on the station would have happened in Season 4, the season finale of Season 4 would have been Intersections in Real Time.

More info can be found on the archived posts on jmsnews.com.

But I can say that I enjoyed the second half of season 5 immensely.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm really not a fan of the telepath colony in the first place. It's changed Lyta into practically a whole new character, and she kind of sucks now.

 

[Addendum]

If there was a guarantee that the fifth season would happen, then Claudia Christian would more than likely come back. She was told they were done after 4 seasons. Ivanova would have taken over command of the station, and then things would have been interesting with Byron and the telepath colony, since she is a latent telepath.

And then in a couple years, the telepath war starts and it's revealed that.... But I'm getting too far ahead t:

 

[Superfreak]

hey Corp, I just got to epi 8 season 1. Sinclair jus had his flashback to the line. So far so good. Cheese factor is at an all time high. But I can see the interconnections starting to grow.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, while I've enjoyed most of B5, I've noticed that JMS has a tendency to overdo his dialogue a lot. Romantic dialogue especially. There's one couple in particular that kind of make me retch every time they're together.

 

[Addendum]

I'm not much of a romantic, but I don't wince at some of the mushy dialogue in B5 like I did with the Star Wars prequels.

At times, I do roll my eyes. But Sheridan and Delenn's final moment together in "Sleeping in Light", I admit that still gets me.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, "Sleeping in Light" was very well done. I know Claudia Christian's only in it because it was filmed for season 4, but I'm glad she was there. It really wouldn't have been as satisfying without Ivanova.

Anyway, I finished the main B5 stuff yesterday. I also watched River of Souls and Legend of the Rangers. I started watching A Call to Arms in preparation for Crusade, but I fell asleep about halfway through--not because it was bad, just because I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before and I was tired.

Actually, of the three movies I watched yesterday, A Call to Arms was the best based on what I saw of it. River of Souls felt really extraneous, much like Thirdspace. Neither of them deal with any character or long-term plot development; they're just things that happened and the characters dealt with. I suppose that's to be expected, but it still makes the movies feel pretty useless.

Legend of the Rangers was better than River of Souls because it tried to branch out and do its own thing rather than forcing a lot of the major characters to have some random adventure, but a lot of plot elements were pretty weak. I thought the targeting system on the Liandra was 1) too goofy and 2) too advanced given that it's a 20-year-old ship. More modern Minbari ships all have targeting systems that consist of a dude sitting at a console, so what's with the old-ash Liandra having a fully functional, zero-g, virtual reality targeting system? Seemed very odd to me. Also, the Hand sucked ash. They're introduced as a mysterious enemy with pretty cool ships, and I get all excited over that, and then we hear they're supposedly even more advanced than the Shadows, and I get even more excited, and then... David beats them by outsmarting them really, really easily. Oh well, I'm still a bit disappointed that Legend of the Rangers didn't result in a new series. The Gathering was a pretty boring movie as well, but if they'd just stopped there, we wouldn't have gotten to the outstanding third and fourth seasons of B5 later on. I think Legend of the Rangers might've been pretty good if it'd had a season to find its footing.

I'll wait until I've finished watching A Call to Arms before I comment on that.

 

[Addendum]

I caught a re-run of Legend of the Rangers on sci-fi a year or so ago. I thought it was bad. Really bad. The only thing I liked about it was G'Kar addressing the Grey Council, at least I think it was them. I'm in no hurry to get it. I'm content with the 5 seasons of B5, the tv-movie collection, the Lost Tales (since further ones will come out), and Crusade. I'd like more Crusade but that will never happen.

The thing that I found more interesting was that it came out in 2002, the same day of the Patriots/Raiders game. Anything that wasn't that game got killed in the ratings, and it was a damn good game too.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm watching Crusade now. I really like Galen. I was happy to learn that, although Crusade got canceled, he played a part in the first of the Lost Tales direct-to-DVD things.

 

[Superfreak]

just entering the final epis of season 2. Good, but everytime I run into a single serving episode, I wanna slit my wrists. Lando is by far my favorite character.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, the stand-alone episodes are usually pretty weak. I would've preferred 5 seasons of 13 episodes, all tightly focused on the main "novel" storyline, rather than 22-episode seasons where a bunch are just random filler.

 

[Superfreak]

k, what do I watch after season 5 epi 21?

 

[Addendum]

uhh...Episode 22