Babylon 5

First off, why is there no thread for this? I just started watching the series yesterday, and though I've been told by other fanboys that the first season is "weak" I'm still finding it fairly hilarious (if a tad predictable). I've picked up small bits about the series and characters from reading Undocumented Features, but so far nothing that I've noticed as spoilers.

So, Babylon 5, through 1.05, I rate as "Pretty Good". No CMOA yet. The special effects are dated, but I am happy to see a sci-fi show that actually obeys the laws of physics in space!*

Back then the SFX were pretty good ;)

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html if interested. I Find the "JMS speaks" very interesting toward the episodes.

B5 is probably discussed out, too bad you weren't around for when it was coming out live.

I honestly can't even remember which episodes were in S1. I do remember watching the pilot. Still awesome.

I finished the fifth season a few weeks ago, great show!

The only ships that really pay even lip-service to Newton's laws are the EA fighters. Everything else, not so much. Even the larger EA ships somehow coast to a halt without firing retro-rockets, and White Stars zip around like barnstorming planes on acid.

... but of course, you won't have seen that yet, will you? Series 1 is all Starfuries blowing up Raiders and a Centauri space station being blown up by Narns.

Mind you, if you're worrying about the 'realism' or otherwise of the combat scenes, you're missing out, so don't sweat it too much.

Let's be honest, the show contains telepaths, energy beings, time travel and other weird things. Realism is hardly the point of the series.

edited 4th May '11 4:29:31 AM by Tailspin

Regarding the special efects: even by the standards of the times, the effects in Season 1 were nothing special. The jump in quality in later seasons is like night and day when they're compared.

Just finishing a series rewatch, I have been catching the whole thing on netflix along with my girlfriend, who had never seen it and really wanted to. Currently not quite through midway through Season 5, which I remembered virtually nothing of aside from a few episodes and scenes.

For the most part I've very much enjoyed the trip down memory lane, as I hadn't seen the series again since it was on TV. Has been interesting rewatching, relearning, and seeing various themes that JMS seems to keep returning to. The way the characters and plots develop are exquisite. Now if only JMS had some idea of how to credibly write romance...

First off, why is there no thread for this?

Um, there is, right here. Why do you expect a thread to be right at the top for an old show?

Sorry, a pet peeve is people not using the search engine and for some reason thinking if they don't see a topic straight away, it was never discussed.

I confess to not using the search engine, but I did look through the pages, and did not see a topic for it. Mea culpa.

edited 5th May '11 10:29:04 AM by BlueNinja0

Alright, no need to apologize, I can be lazy too. And yet when others do it it makes me think they expect the Universe to shape around them or something. "I expected a Babylon 5 topic! Where is it?! And where is that gold I want! Grahhh!"

I am finally up to episode 1.20, and now have the desire to start a YF topic about whether everyone zips first, or snaps first.

I just recently started watching the show. Up to 2:9, I'm enjoying it so far.

It keeps on getting better.

OK, maybe my google-fu is lacking, but why did Sinclair leave the show? I'm up to 2.13, and while I'm enjoying the more centered plot better, I'm not nearly as fond of Sheridan as Sinclair.

He became Ambassador to Minbar.

As for the actor leaving, it was a mutual and amicable decision between him and JMS. (as far as my wiki-fu works)

Just go on watching :) Season 3 explains it somewhat.

edited 13th Oct '11 6:50:38 AM by 3of4

I think on the whole I prefered Sinclair too. Sheridan's character seems to lack the same air of command.

That's intentional. Sheridan starts out milquetoasty and gets increasingly dark.

I like Sheridan well enough, but he doesn't seem enough like a military commander. He's far too ornery (like refusing to pay rent on his quarters when he can well afford it), way to friendly to the Minbari for someone who fought in the Earth-Minbari War, rather more lefty than you'd expect from a military man (how many would have picked the solution he chose to the strike in By Any Means Necessary?), and very quick to distrust and go against the government. Not that any of those are bad things, but they don't seem like a recipe for a commander who would be chosen to head B5 specifically because the higher-ups thought he'd be obedient.

But then, the Minbari thing bugs me generally. They - and Delenn in particular - are basically treated as the moral centre of the show, despite the fact that they committed genocide against humanity during the Earth-Minbari War and were ready to completely wipe them out despite repeated offers of surrender from the Earth government.

The Religious caste are the moral center. The Warrior Caste are a bunch of douchebags.

I won't say more on Sheridan being all wrong for the post, because that's intentional too.

The religious caste - or rather, Delenn - are responsible for the Earth-Minbari War. I understand they had provocation and had lost their leader. But they get way too much of a pass for waging an all-out war of extermination. It might not push them over the Moral Event Horizon, but it certainly doesn't put them - or her - in a position to be lecturing people who have done far less with far more provocation (e.g., G'Kar and the Narns) on morality and forgiveness.

Spoiler tags in politeness to the people who are in the middle of the show.

edited 13th Oct '11 8:14:52 PM by WarriorEowyn

Every side is guilty.

But I will agree that the Minbari are pretty deplorable.

Babylon 5 is a big part of my childhood and was one of my favorite series. I remember that my brother and me even created our own universe, that was a pretty obvious ripoff of the series.

What the Minbari did really wasn't any better than anything the Centauri did to the Narn, the only difference was that humanity didn't have a huge space presence yet and thus, the overall number of victims was comparably small.

I always found the Minbari to be the least interesting of the races. They were mostly Tolkin's elves, BUT IN SPACE, and while we got the occasional hint that they weren't as pure as they appeared to be, that mostly happened off screen and had little bearing on the overall plot. Seriously, all the other race's politics were interwoven into the Shadow War, but the Minbari seem to exist mostly to provide ships for the good guys.

Because the Minbari were pretty much the Vorlons right hand race. The Shadows probably thought "awwww, didn't work thousand years ago, why throw more money at them"

I am talking about the writing. I know the why, but that doesn't mean I don't think it could have been handled better.

Agreed, but it's only a nitpick on my end.

Nobody likes space elves. I don't get why a supposedly philosophical, space-faring race would still have a caste system, xenophobia, and comes to stupid conclusions like, "All races think and behave the same way we do, so let's flash our ginormous gun ports at everything that moves." The Bajorans were pills, but at least they're consistent.

If you had combined this series' premise - the inexplicable surrender by the Minbari - with the craftiness of say, the Taelons - you would have an alien race with some bite. The so-called 'surrender' would result in a de facto occupation.

edited 14th Oct '11 11:46:49 AM by johnnyfog