Should I watch Babylon 5?

[Methuselas]

No. You should turn that crap off and go read some classic literature. Don Quixote will keep you entertained for a long time.

+1 He's absolutely right.

[mingle]

Hmm...

"B5 is one of the most important EPIC SCI-FI's of all time"

... an oxymoron there, I suspect... :-)

Mike.

[Calen]

Yeah, the wife and I are sufferring withdrawl from having recently finished B5 on DVD.
We're getting to the last of the movies now. We just watched the set-up movie for "Crusade" which was a B5 spin-off, and plan to start watching that too. Pity Crusade only got picked up for one season, if only because they never finished their mission.
G-Kar and Londo were the best characters in B5 and they both grew immensely by the end. Sadly G-Kar and the guy who played the Doctor passed away.

Yeah, shame about Crusade, it had the makings of a great show. They made i think 12 in total,  but the  network axed it before the first episode even aired. JMS also planned to run this over a 5 year story. so like B5, It  was just laying the foundations.
The G'Kar and Londo saga was pretty awesome, great acting. Shame G'Kar has passed on now,  but his good self and the doctor did get alittle nod  from JMS  in the 2007 B5: The Lost Tales.
If memory servers correctly,  the guy who played Zathras (think B4) also passed away  not that many years ago in a motorcycle accident.  what a great character he was.

B5 is very similar to StarTrek Deep Space 9 in setting, which we're also in the middle of watching(me for the second time). You can *almost* switch the races, locations and characters with eachother and have the same plot. Nothing wrong with that.

There was a rumour  going around  that B5 was originaly offered  to Paramount?  but later  turned  it to down after  having the scripts  for quite a while.  A year or 2 later,  DS9 was born.  got to love conspiracy's
I did enjoy DS9, well mostly. The  2 part  final  ending was quite cool,  but why  in all of it's seasons  did  the borg not come a knocking?  seems strange as they was everywhere else but there, not even mentioned i don't think.

Once you've finished B5 you must watch "StarWreck: In the Pirkining", a fan-made comedy which mixes StarTrek and B5. Absolutely hilarious, and it has great special effects. The translations are also very amusing.

Great funny show yea, loved it.

[Amiga_Nut]

I didn't like season 5 or season 1, but 2-4 were quite enjoyable apart from the odd stinker which bored the pants off me.

Not bad, worth a watch I would say.....you may even like s1/s5

A couple of the films were really good, can't remember which ones they were but still.

[jorkany]

I really liked B5 when it originally aired. It has some great characterization and subplots, though IMO the series was quite uneven. I think they could have done it in four seasons or less and it would have been much better.

Supposedly the entire story was planned start to finish in advance, but I stopped believing that after season 3. I think there may have been *a* story which was written start to finish, but I can't shake the feeling that at some point about halfway through the airing that the story was reworked in order to spread it out over another couple of seasons.

But if you're a sci-fi fan, then you should definitely watch B5. It would be great if there was a guide somewhere on the net that would list the "core" episodes that you could watch to get the main story, without all the chaff.

[KThunder]

@tension re: On reflection i should've put a smiley after the 2nd time i said it. Irony doesn't transfer well sometimes. Whoops!

No need.  I get Irony.  Americans don't. Thats where you went wrong.

Et al.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony
http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/irony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/irony.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/irony

After studying the subject at length as well as the posts in question I believe that your grasp of the concept is lacking. Posting the same comment twice and expecting readers to assume the second was irony is incorrect. Also stating that "Americans don't" get irony when said posting was infact not ironic is also incorrect. A cross reference of cited materials shows clearly that a cutural bias towards or against irony is inferred primarily from a cultural basis. A study of current and past American periodical and literary reviews shows significant ironic element which may or may not translate to other cultures or literary frames. The postings in question are best understood perhaps as a misplaced attempt at humor or possibly other input would indeed place such a statement firmly in the realm of troldom as defined by contemporary, online participants.

For further information please see my 16 volume works on confounding societal concepts including not only irony, but also sarcasm, lying, jokes and their intellectual componants, and others.

[whabang]

Others have already said it, but yes, you should definitely watch it!

In my opinion, Babolyn 5 is the best Sci-Fi series ever, together with Firefly. It does start off somewhat slow, but once you get to season 3 it all makes sense.

[barney]

From what I heard, only season 1 uses Amiga technolog for its special affects.  I'm curious myself as to how good these effects are.  I never watched a single episode.

[whabang]

I think they used video toasters to apply the effects during the entire series, and Amigas to do the actual rendering during season 1 and the first episodes of season 2.

[Piru]

I think they used video toasters to apply the effects during the entire series, and Amigas to do the actual rendering during season 1 and the first episodes of season 2.

Other sources mention that only pilot was rendered with amigas, while toaster was used for the 1st season.

[mpiva]

As a huge B5 fan I'd definately say to watch it but, like others, I'd have to admit that Season 1 stinks.  If you can make it through the first season you'll be greatly rewarded.  Season 5 is also a bit of a let down but that's just because JMS tried to wrap up most of his story by the end of Season 4 (thinking they were going to be cancelled).  Fortunately they got renewed for the 5th Season but sadly there's not much story in that season as a result.

[Belial6]

The maitanance workers episode was one of my favorites.  The tastes like chick banter and comments about the corridore maitanance equipment were really funny.  It is also the only series/movie that has ever bothered to give an explination as to why the bad guys all have different collored explosions/light sabers/whatnot.

I still don't get the love for the new BSG.  It is sooo cheeseball, the whole thing plays out like it was written from a checklist.

Replace male roles with females... Check
Immediately establish that the females are mens equals or betters.... Check
The bad guys look just like us, so you can't tell who is the 'terrist'.... Check
Huminize the bad guys... Check
Kill a some innocents to establish 'grittyness'... Check
etc.. etc... etc...

The absolute worst crime was rippng off a character from Voyager.  If you are going to rip off characters from another show, at least pick a good show to rip them off from.

Really, a tall hot blond, kinda robot, kinda human, named 7/8 who is on a voyage of self discovery, trying to find her way through the mechine part of her phyche to learn about the human side beneath.  Not good sci-fi.

I can just see the network meeting...  No, this isn't the same character as the one in Voyager.  Voyager has a character named 7.  Our character is named 8!  That's one more.  Totally different.

[KThunder]

I am downloading the Babylon 5 fangame right now (I love fangames)

[the_leander]

I am downloading the Babylon 5 fangame right now (I love fangames)

The Babylon Project?

If so, you're in for a treat. I loved it.

[x303]

In my opinion, Babolyn 5 is the best Sci-Fi series ever, together with Firefly.

I think you forgot Farscape :cool:

[AJCopland]

Yes, you should watch it.

It might be dated visually now, but I remember it very fondly and thoroughly enjoyed it the first time through.

If you don't like it... stop watching it Lifes too short and you simply may not like that sort of series, but if you don't give it a try then you could miss out on a series that people are still fanatical about after all these years.

As an aside, I went to an ECTS show many year ago when I was a measly student with a made up company ID badge. I got to wander around the show floor and chat to developers on the no-public days
At one stand was a 3D space shooter, as I got closer I realised it was the Babylon 5 game that was in development! It was guarded by a guy who was meant to be showing it off to developers and publishers but I think he clocked that I probably shouldn't have been there... and gave me all the talk anyway, it was great, visually impressive for the time and flying along b5 itself in a Starfury was really cool. I walked away from that very happy

Andy