The Glade 4.0

So since I seem to be caught up on other shows, and especially since Jerry Doyle just died, I decided to finally cross Babylon 5 off the list to watch. I'm a few episodes in and it's still kinda rough. What made this show so great in folks' minds? I know I'm watching a 20 year old show and some stuff just won't age well, but I don't get it. Even put next to its contemporary Star Trek (DS9 and Voyager I guess?), the production value seems pretty low. Not trying to hate, just don't understand how this show made it like 5 seasons.

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The Dude abides.

I have also not watched it, but the recommendation from all the devout followers who have tried to indoctrinate me is that the first season is REALLLLY rough. Either blaze through it, or skip it entirely. Apparently it started to come together in S2, storywise and financially.

I never recommend Babylon 5 to people, even though it's one of my favorite sci-fi shows ever.

(1) it has horrible special effects. This shouldn't matter, but it does. The early-CGI was brutal, and the physical sets were worse.
(2) The acting was, intermittently, some of the worst **** ever. (This while other parts of the acting was some of the best **** ever.)
(3) The scripting was inconsistent and occasionally downright bad.

Now with that said, if you can get around that, JMS had something that is still missing from most scripted dramas -- A long term plan. Babylon5 had a brilliant plot that was supposed to span 5 seasons. JMS thought he was getting cancelled, and crammed the entire plot into 4 seasons, (as a consequence, most of season 5 is skippable), and had to make changes to the story when his main actor came down with serious mental disease, but the series transcended this anyway. The plot is one of the best Sci-Fi stories ever. Combined with amazing acting from a few standouts, it almost redeems the show.

But not quite. The great acting (from people like Jerry Doyle, Andreas Katsulas, and Peter Jurasic) is overshadowed by the mediocre work of Michael O'Hare (RIP), Bruce Boxleitner, and then the downright horrible work of people like Mira Furlann and Stephen Furst. Coupled with really bad special effects, it's damn hard to watch at times.

The lows are so very low, but the highs are some of the best storytelling ever.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I want to reiterate how bad the special effects in B5 were:

This TV show ran concurrently with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

You can watch DS9 today and still be engrossed with the effects.

B5 was ugly when it came out. Today it's on par with Star Trek (The Original Series) without the excuse of being made in the 60s.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Pff. Its not *that* bad.

FX aside, the story is what makes it. B5 was one of the first multi season arc shows.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Taly's remarks on why it sucks seems to line up pretty well with what I'm seeing thus far. Almost feeling like I should say screw it and just go back and finish DS9.

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The Dude abides.

The second through fourth seasons are much better than the first, I'll say that.

Just don't expect the effects to get better.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Part of B5's appeal at the time was figuring out where JMS was going. Hints were dropped in season 1 that were only revealed in seasons 4 and 5... but it allowed for such literary devices as foreshadowing and prophecy on a grand scale.
The Lurker's guide to Babylon 5 was one of the first true fan websites out there and survives to this day. The formatting is a little awkward by today's standards, but the site authors did a lot of digging into the episodes and point out a lot of things that a first time viewer may miss (including some of the subtlety that made the series shine) Things like newspaper articles that occur in the background, or someone's authorization code that appears on a monitor drop hints about the plot to come.

The site also had the distinction of being recognized by JMS during the show's run (the site's original domain was Hyperion and it earned a nod in the show as the name of a freighter) JMS had stated a number of times in interviews that he used the site in writing later episodes to fact/continuity check himself.

Also, they took great care to make the physics of space flight consistent with reality. Ships generally don't turn in grand sweeping arcs, unless there's a planet nearby. The little fighters act like gyroscopes, etc.

I still go back to watch some episodes, because they were just so good. But, yeah, not sure I could make my way through the entire series again. Maybe we can recommend a few for you? (For instance, I really enjoyed "And Now For A Word ... "

(And don't forget Walter Koenig's wooden acting. That was sometimes hard to watch. I got used to Bruce, eventually.)

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

He never really bothered me. He was dry, but never struck me as unrealistic. He was just there.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

At least for now, I gave up on it. I watched a few episodes of DS9 from where we'd left off and then remembered I had Star Wars Rebels sitting around, plus third season of Blacklist just hit. So I think I'm set for a while.

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The Dude abides.

Rebels and Blacklist are amazing.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Star Trek stuff generally holds up because of how little CGI they used. Practically all of the ships/stations you see were actual physical models.

My wife began watching B5 recently and it's definitely a noticeable difference, because they used CGI. CGI's pros is that it looks good at the time, but gets dated fast as time progresses. This is most true of CGI in the '90s.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I was recently thinking about this thread, and I realize that my wife and I only started watching B5 about mid-season 2. Then we went back and watched the first season, after the fact. I wonder if that contributed to our ability to see it through to the end.

A very long time ago, I participated in a Compuserve (!) discussion with Straczynski, and asked him some stupid question about Ivanova. I wish now that I had asked him about the CGI, and the fact that the entire series was shot indoors. There were no outdoor sets at all. I wish I had asked him if that was a conscious decision to make the most of CGI, etc., or one just driven by budget.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge