Important Poll: B5 vs DS9

[EPW]

Likeingness isn't a matter of degrees. Either you do or you don't. And so the only way you can like one more than the other is to like one and dislike the other.

[EPW]

Can we like neither?

JM

Only if you dislike them equally.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

And overall the acting was on a totally different level. (on the good side)

Wait--seriously? The only good actor on B5 was the guy who played G'Kar.

[rah]

IMO seriously yes.
Londo Mollari was well done especially in the later episodes when he was emperor.
Susan Ivanova, enough said,
Vir was always excellent.
G'Kar, agreed.
Michael Garibaldi was also well done.

a lot of the charaters that had smaller parts were also done much better.
A lot of special guests stars in Star Trek (not just DS9) where in because they were famous and not necessarily because they were good actors.

[Dauphin]

Quite, Stephen Hawking is a crap actor.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Late Londo was ok, though he gets a bonus because the writers actually gave him something to work with.
Ivanova was one of the reasons we almost gave up on the show in the first season. She was horribly written and acted until right before she left the series. I would have said she was the worst regular on the series if not for Delenn.
Vir was pretty good, actually, so I'll give you that one...though he was unfortunately best during the time in the series where he wasn't on as much.
Garibaldi...at times, maybe, but mostly was painful to watch.

DS9 wasn't the best acted show on television, but it was pretty decent once they got their feet under them. I'd say Kira, Sisko, Worf, and O'Brien were all in the same league as G'Kar. Dax was only ever good as eye candy, and the doctor was painful...Odo may have been ok, but it's kinda hard to tell given that he only had one emotion in 7 years. Most of the important recurring characters like Garak and Weyoun were done extremely well. The monster-of-the-week ones, yeah, they pretty much sucked.

[Garth Vader]

IMO seriously yes.
Londo Mollari was well done especially in the later episodes when he was emperor.
Susan Ivanova, enough said,
Vir was always excellent.
G'Kar, agreed.
Michael Garibaldi was also well done.

a lot of the charaters that had smaller parts were also done much better.
A lot of special guests stars in Star Trek (not just DS9) where in because they were famous and not necessarily because they were good actors.

I don't remember too many DS9 guests who were there because they were famous. Despite liking both series a lot, I think the acting was better in DS9.

[rah]

The bad acting on DS9 was the main reason I found it boring. At the point I watched a lot of shows that sucked just because they were science fiction, since I was a big fan, so it wouldn't have taken much for me to enjoy it, but i just never did.

[Tattila the Hun]

Can we like neither?

JM

Warsie!

[Blaupanzer]

We could actually like both, and just like one less than the other. Again both the acting and the story line for B5 left you feeling you were in a larger universe in which this border post is a small but useful intelligence gathering point. The guests had purposes in carrying forward the story, no one was quite what their surface made them appear to be, and everything wasn't going to be explained. All reflections of life in modern military alliances. The DS stories by comparison were cartoons, tales for children, clearly defined good and bad guys with motives to support those rolls. Not much of the real world is occupied by such realities unless you are a child. In the sci-fi genre, that Star Trek series would be regarded as "Young Adult" fiction. B5 is a much more "mature" presentation. Again, both can be good, but B5 was more subtle and more successful in stringing the episodes together in a master tale.

[Zoid]

I think they're equally good, B5 wins for the master storytelling (apart from the hideous 5th season) and DS9 wins for the casualness and re-wachtability...

[Ben Kenobi]

DS9, by far.

The characters are engaging and easy to write for and about. Never really saw the point of B5.

[Thoth]

B5 hands down.

And she possed for playboy in 1999 and did some full nudity in a movie or two. WINNER.

(an attempt to make this thread just a bit less nerdy)

Claim is invalid without pics and/or links.

Why not? There is only one human captain who has survived combat with the Minbari. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!

[Thoth]

This is also one of the geekest threads that's ever existed on these forums.

Nonsense, http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showt...rite+B5+quotes was far geekier than this.

[-Jrabbit]

Babylon 5 -- our last, best hope for televised science fiction. Big, sprawling story arcs across a well-imagined galactic setting, with depth of character and relationships.

Deep Space 8 -- the weakest of the overly redundant Star Trek franchises (at least until Voyager came out), with virtually no action. Just another series of individual morality plays, with no real concern for long-term continuity.