What's so great about Babylon 5?

[Minute Mirage]

Like Buffy, Babylon 5 starts out slow but you are rewarded when the show gets going. I really struggled watching the first seasons of both shows but I was glad that I believed those who said they would get better.

[Nostromo]

Progress report: I recently saw the fourth DVD of the second season (there are 6 DVDs per season) and... I'm hooked. Zip will send me the fifth and sixth DVD sometime this week.

Most shows are good. Some are great, like The Coming of Shadows. It even won a HUGO, IRC. Too bad they killed the emperor, it was a great character played by a good actor. Overall, the story is very good, the characters are great, played by very good actors, especially the actors who play G'Kar and Londo.

The CGI is getting better and better, although sometimes it sucks donkey balls. But according to Wikipedia, this is in part due to the fact that they had mastering problems when they transfered it to DVD. I wonder how it would look with brand spanking new CGI.

In sum, its definitively the best SF TV show I ever saw.

[OzzyKP]

A convert.

[Dr Strangelove]

Personally Lando was my favorite character. He was so wonderfully jaded, I could never tell which side he was on.

Pity that JMS couldn't get along with the production company of Crusade.

There is supposed to be another Bab 5 movie out later this spring.

Sci-Fi channel is going to be running an all new DR. Who series. Does anyone have any information about it. The advertisements looked pretty good.

[Petek]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
There is supposed to be another Bab 5 movie out later this spring.

Source? Last I heard (here) the movie was dead.

[Joseph]

For those of you that now dislike Star Trek is because you were not old enought or alive in 1966 to see for the first time. I was.
Now if you want to see something bad, see Flash Gordon from the 40s and 50s.

Hi Ming.

[DRoseDARs]

The only thing that was good about Flash Gordon was that it partly inspired Barbarella. And Barbarella sucked...

[Imran Siddiqui]

It gave Ming his username

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Thrawn05


They both had the same goal. It's just that they both had their own ways of doing it.

no, their means were pretty much the same.

[OliverFA]

Babylon 5 is like all those great books (i.e. Lord of the Rings) in which you need to read the first 200 or 300 boring pages to trully enjoy the next 1700 ones. The first season is not really impressive, but it pays watching it when you can start linking all those "irrelevant" episodes to what happens in 2nd and 3rd seasons. And each and every episode in the 4th season is just "wow!". The 5th season is prescindible.

I think the speech at the begining of the 3rd season summarizes the best of Babylon 5:

"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. But, in the Year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope... for victory. The year is 2260. The place: Babylon 5."

[Dr Strangelove]

Try: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

They announced that "The Legend of the Rangers" will be available on DVD on March 14.

[fed1943]

I liked B5.It shows a deep understanding of human beings and communities.
Best regards,

[Imran Siddiqui]

I never really watched Babylon 5, but I've just started getting into another sci-fi serial that people have been saying I should watch for the longest time: Battlestar Galactica. How do y'all think the two compare?

[Zoid]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
A convert.

Excellent *rubs hands and grins manically Soon we will take over the world!

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I never really watched Babylon 5, but I've just started getting into another sci-fi serial that people have been saying I should watch for the longest time: Battlestar Galactica. How do y'all think the two compare?

I'd personally say an overall assessment right now is difficult because we don't know how the new Battlestar Galatica ends up. One difference I would pinpoint between the two shows is that Battlestar Galatica starts off stronger, unlike the first season of Babylon 5 which does take off someone slowly. On the other hand we'll have to see how Battlestart Galatica ends up resolving many of its plot point and how satisfying and entertaining it is when it does so. One difference between the two shows is that Babylon 5's plot arc was planned out to a greater degree of precision than Battlestar Galatica's was at first, we'll have to see if that has any consequences.

One thing true about both shows is they substancially emphesize political intrigue. I'd say one difference is you're frequently dealing with ambassadors and other political figures formally representing large groups on Babylon 5, so there is more of a feel of many distinctly different political groups positioning themselves against each other, each with their own interests. One thing that Babylon 5 has going for it which I'm skeptical Battlestar Galatica will ever have to the same degree is the positions of some of these political groups radically changing as the show progresses. (The exception would be the shift for the 12 Colonies in the miniseries, but at that point the show hadn't been around enough for this shift to have the same sort of feel and impact it sometimes does on Babylon 5.