I always laugh when people laud Deep Space Nine for how good its story is, because almost everything good about DS 9's story was ripped off of B5.
This series set the industry standard for season-long story arcs (soap operas and British TV had them before, but prime-time TV showed no move towards co-opting that until B5 made it look cool).
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxI just finished Into The Fire, the episode that ended the shadow war. So fucking excellent.
"Into the Fire" was supposed to be the season 4 finale, but they weren't sure that they were going to get a season 5 at that point. So you get the ending of the biggest arc in the series six episodes into the 4th season. Any other show, that would never have happened, but JMS understands little things like "rising action" and "falling action".
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxYeah, he's an excellent writer. I think his best quality was thinking ahead though, every single character had a sort of trapdoor laid in case something happened to the actor to keep them from fulfilling their part.
In many cases, the trap door ended up being better than the original. Boxleitner as Sheridan was clearly a better choice than O'Hare as Sinclair. Lyta Alexander / Talia Winters was a funny one, where Talia was a replacement for Lyta (from the pilot) but that set Lyta up to come back (and be way awesome) when Andrea Thompson had a snit fit.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxThe Sinclair/Sheridan thing was, IIRC, supposed to happen.
edited 5th Oct '10 11:06:28 AM by Yej
Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.No, it really wasn't intentional. The official reason was that O'Hare was a stage actor unused to the rigors of TV acting. The real reason was that he, well, kinda sucked and didn't get along with JMS or others. Apocryphally, he is said to have thrown a punch at Jerry Doyle, who played Mr. Garibaldi and was a personal friend of JMS.
Originally the whole Valen thing was to take place at the end of the series, but when Sheridan took over, it let them tackle that particular issue in an awesome season 3 episode (overall the strongest season, I'd say).
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxI rather liked Sinclairs acting.
Sinclair, "Exogenesis": "HE. TOOK. A. PRETTY BAD. HIT. BUT... HE'S. OKAY. NOW."
I exaggerate, but the guy defines wooden for me.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxHe's no Keanu, but when it came to regular conversations between characters he played a good voice of authority.
They lost the entire archive of old models from the show.
Yes, they lost the old models. Watch the episodes and make new ones. Seems fairly obvious.
edited 6th Oct '10 8:57:06 PM by Nate The Great
mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really.They never had a lot of money to play with in the first place, and they couldn't keep investors, well, invested. Look at what happened to Crusade and Legend of the Rangers (aside from the latter just sucking).
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxMaybe they didn't have money at the time the show was coming out, but ten years later when they're making the DV Ds they knew there was an audience for them. And oh yeah, they knew that message boards existed and any error or omission in the set will be revealed instantly.
mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really.The thing is, JMS had the integrity to step back and say "No, if I don't have an adequate budget to make this look up to par, then I'm not going to put out garbage."
Paraphrased, but that's generally what he seems to think. They asked him to do more Lost Tales episodes, but he wasn't happy with the budget of the first ones and they gave him the same budget if he decided to do the second set.
The Lost Tales seemed like a great idea, but, yeah, they were really hurt by the lack of budget.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxI hear alot about this show but it was before my time where can I see episodes in order?
All of time and space, anywhere and everywhere, any star that ever was. Where do you want to start?Start from season one obviously.
I didn't like season one as much as the others, though I like Sinclair, the cast is still stabilizing and the actors were still getting a feel for their roles.
By Season 2 the budget gets a bit better for props, and the actors really get good at their roles.
The Peter Jurasik/Andreas Katsulas interplay as Londo and G'Kar has consistantly been one of the best things about the show.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxThanks guys.
All of time and space, anywhere and everywhere, any star that ever was. Where do you want to start?"I always laugh when people laud Deep Space Nine for how good its story is, because almost everything good about DS 9's story was ripped off of B5."
Actually, DS 9's writers never watched B5, so no, they did not rip off B5.
I bought seasons 2 through 4 because I couldn't find it anywhere online for free (and now I find a site... ah well, it's nice to have them on hand). They get really, really fuzzy when I try to play them on my laptop, though - does anyone know why that might be? No other DV Ds have done that, and the B5 ones are fine on my TV.
I don't get why so many people dislike Season 5, it was the only one I watched on TV (aside from a few reruns) and it's what got me into the show.
All of the main actors are good, but it's really hit-and-miss with the guest ones - it's actually painful to watch the guy playing Urza Jaddo in "Knives", he's such a terrible actor and so stilted.
What do people think of the tie-in books? I read "In the Beginning" (based on the movie), a trilogy about Vir, and one about telepaths and Bester, and I thought all of them were good.
Penny Dreadful: Really? No DS 9 writer ever watched B5? That seems unlikely, but, even if it is true, how do you explain that the series went from episodic to heavily story arc-dependant around seasons 2-3 (shortly after Babylon 5), when TV-based Trek had always been episodic before that? JMS even pitched the premise to Paramount in '89.
I'm not going to try very hard to convince anyone that DS 9, which did have some good content, wasn't original, but it's hard to suggest that the concept wasn't influenced by B5 on some level, because DS 9 kept doing things about a season after B5 ("What? Babylon 5 had a lesbian relationship on their show? Well, we'll have a lesbian kiss! Beat that!")
Anyway, Warrior Eowyn, some of the books were pretty good, and some were awful dreck. The original run of books were generally not canonical and were by hack authors; the best of them, Clark's Law, did some fun things with the Season 2/3 Earth intrigue.
The later, canonical ones (the ones approved by JMS) were good; the Bester trilogy, the Technomage trilogy, and the one written by JMS's wife all stand out as worthy additions to the universe.
edited 25th Oct '10 10:03:25 AM by Dracomicron
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary Gygax
I've been on vacation lately, and decided to watch through Babylon 5 again in my spare time.. Damn I love this series so much.
It's a bit sentimental to me I guess, every weekday my dad and I would eat dinner in the living room and watch it on Sci-Fi back in the days when they had good shows on.
Age hasn't dimmed how well written it is, the musical scores are great.. The actors are fantastic.. And the story is epic. I found this for any old fans who wanted some nostalgia.
www.slashcontrol.com has every episode of all 5 seasons for online viewing, free and legal.
Words cannot describe how much I missed B5.