Babylon 5...
 

One of the best done series ever.

I've been watching the third season today. The storyline is pretty much awesome. Continuity is a good thing.

The special effects are kinda cheesy for the time, but it doesn't matter--They get the job done, and the focal point shouldn't be on the SFX anyways. Plus, the alien ships are often incredibly beautiful and well designed. The White Star, for example, and the Shadow ships.

The characters are interesting and well-played. I love Londo: How he pretty much epitomises that old saying, "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Marcus is cool, and proof that JMS is a D&D geek.

Most of all, though, I like how everything ties together. Every episode is somehow important to the storyline. It's good.

So who else is a fan? Sound off. Favorite episodes, characters, random line?

I used to watch it. But then I stopped. I think it was on before before WCW. I don't remember much of it, but I thought it was pretty good.

Yeah, it was on right around WCW at one point. I didn't catch it at that point, unfortunately.

It's currently on Sci-Fi (Last I knew, at least), though I don't know when it gets to the beginning, and it's really not something you just wanna start from any random point.

I've been watching it sequentially since I got S3 on Disk, but had to stop. The third disk was scratched beyond all fu</>cking repair NEW out of the box. Needless to say, I'm gonna raise some Hell tomorrow.

The spinoff series kinda sucked tho.

I need to sit down and see that from start to finish. I'm sure I'd like it. When I've watched it here and there it seemed real good, but I didn't know what was really going on.

<font color="#ccffcc">
i'm a huge fan of the show and i don't think i could talk about it without sounding like a geek. watching the series you can sort of pick up on tolkien and orwellien influences which is pretty cool. the charater develpment is pretty cool and it's neat to see londo's character evolve from a bumbling, drunken washed up has been to a person of major inflluence and at the centre of the destruction albeit unwitiingley. even g'kar's character from strong and vengefull to whipping boy in the span of a few seasons.

fave episode would have to be the war without end 2 parter. they were basically non stop mark outs and reallly rewarded the long time viewer with refrences to things seen back in season one like what happened to baylon 4, how mimbari and human souls began to merge, and who valen was. also pretty gutsy by teasing the viewer by revealing the outcome of the shadow war and the fate of captian sheridan (with a twist). also seeing the context with which londo's vision of his own death at the hands of g'jkar was pretty rewarding as well. they were jam packed episodes, with non stop "holy sh</>its". i also liked the episode "intersections in real time" the one where they interrogate captain sheridan, very well done. can't wait for the season 4 dvd and i'd strongly urge anyone into sci fi to check the show out if they can, preferably from the begining. i know the space channel in canada used to carry the repeats but no longer does which is a shame for people up here who never got into it..


</font>

G'Kar is another strong and awesome character. I love the sort of tenuous friendship he and Londo seem to share through much of the season (Despite the hatred G'Kar develops for Londo after the invasion of his planet). Granted, it seemed sometimes like it was the friendship between a master and his pet...

And then his relationship with Vir. The kind of relationship of a mob boss father who DESPERATELY wants to keep his son out of the "family" business. I love how he calls in a favor from the Mimbari.

I also love how Morden seems to unwittingly honor Vir's wish...:D What do you want indeed?

The truth behind the Mimbari surrender ("Mimbari do not kill Mimbari") and the origin of the soul merger (And the payoff to the nested clue that Valen was not Mimbari, but became Mimbari) were definitely climax-worthy notes.

I also love the closure involved in Bab 5. Everything wraps up so well.

The underlying totalitarian themes are very scary, very realistic-feeling, and very cool. I always hated how Star Trek always claimed a Utopia when they were always fighting and they were always able to outmuscle the other guys. That is kinda silly. Whereas, you get Ivonova's Bab 5 intro--The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed."

But I digress. Back to Londo, just when you want to hate him, they reveal why he was so determined to get power, and why he let himself slip down that path of good intentions. His inability (or unwillingness) to take control of his situation really makes him seem...Well, real.

Ambassador/Citizen G'Kar's evolution is similarly good TV. He seems so sinister at first, but really grows on you. Of course, he starts off as the sponsor to an assassination attempt. He's naturally gonna seem a little evil.

Man, it sucks that people can't see Bab 5 in Canada.

Yeah I liked the eps here and there that I saw but never got a good chance to see it in any order :(

I'll lend you my DVDs... :shifty:

It's a shame that you haven't had a chance. The episodes themselves are good, but it works so much better if you know what's already happened (and what we know WILL happen).

You might wanna try renting the discs one at a time or something.

<font color="#ccffcc">

season 4 dvd's come out next week :D
</font>

Yeah it was alright. I too didn't follow it from start to finish so it could get quite confusing.

Yeah, and I just BARELY got a viewable copy of the DVDs for Season 3. :mad:

I only started watching it round about the start of what I think was Season 4 (the one where Sheridan comes back from the dead after dying at the Shadow's homeworld, Za'da'dum or whatever). Not knowing a lot of the backplot kind of made it confusing, but it had its moments.

Yeah the storyline is GREAT! i only watched the first season, so i am gonna buy it on dvdbox. :y:

The story only gets better. :D

I was surprised to find they already have up to season 5 out on DVD. I bought the first two for about the price most series are charging for one set (100 bucks US). I can't wait to scrape the cash for the other seasons, but with college starting up soon again, I expect to be broke pretty soon.

Yeah, it's an expensive habit. The series only gets better with time, and the resolution is awsome.

It's spelled something like Xahadûm or some funky spelling.

I loved the bit with the Whitestar on Xahadûm. That was just...Awesome.

Incidentally, I love the Character of Zathras. I know he's not really in the series more than like, 3 episodes, but he's still just...cool.

I mean, first off, he's a very simple creature, but he's instrumental in saving both B4 and B5. Actually, the fact that he doesn't understand what's going on to a large extent makes him cooler. :D I also like his occasional glimmers of wisdom.

<font color="#ccffcc">

benoitic, try to keep in mind all those visions that appear durring that first season as well that babylon squared episode as they all crop up later in the series in a rewarding way. i used to have all the episodes taped and going back in rewatching some of them results in noticing little subleties and things that might've gotten missed or forgotten so even if purchasing the box sets, the series is very re-watchable.

also i love alan bester as a heel and the little mind games he loves to play with everyone.
</font>

Soooo... 10 years late to this thread and about 20 years late to the show itself but I'm gonna go through this after my mum's partner lent me the entire boxset which he's not opened yet himself :'(

Gonna use this guys list as the order to watch them in I think and probably post in this thread a bunch of times while I'm watching.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Babylon-5...wing-order.htm

Thoughts on the show? Is that a good enough order to go by?

Watched chunks of it when it was first shown since my dad watched it, remember it being quite good, not sure if you need the spinoff series too.

I've got the spin off as well and DANIEL DAE KIM IS IN IT! I did post a picture of the entire box set but it doesn't seem to be in that post anymore. Oh well. It's a nice, tidy boxset with everything Babylon 5 related in it.

Never seen an episode. I remember seeing my brother watch it, and all I could do was laugh at that one alien's haircut.

I remember bits of it being a bit wtf, just picture polar bears on a tropical island, but it all made sense eventually.

And yeah, some fantastic hairdos.

Wasn't Crusade considered to be awful?

I still prefer Ds9 at least it had an ending.

B5 kicked ass. I don't remember the firth series though. I have the first 4 on DVD and really should get round to buying it. It is a shame that they wrap up the whole shadow storyline pretty quickly.

I think it had its fans, the episodes I saw just seemed a bit off, its that universe and what not but it tried to be a seperate entity, sort of like the stargate spinoffs I guess.

What are the similarties between this and DS9 other than a space station?

Just watched the pilot. It was alright, definitely gonna give the series a watch anyway. Can't see it becoming a favourite of mine in the way Farscape did, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it enough.

A lot of it is so 90's, surprised Gary Sinise didn't pop up.

Sure Kinickie is in it. Which is good because Grease is the word, even in space.

That added absolutely nothing to this thread.

Shit yes that's who that is. Knew I recognised him. Also Danielle Rousseau from Lost

She never sang Grease Lightning though, priorities son.

An ending that was remarkably similar to the Babylon 5 ending. And that show went off the air a year before. Funny how that worked.

Yes, Bab 5 had an ending. Two, really. I don't know what you're talking about here.

Network interference. Fucking hate it.

I only saw like, one episode of Crusade. It just didn't interest me. Though I suppose with Netflix, I have no reason not to watch now. I think your comparison may be fair, though.

The major difference appears to be that Stargate Atlantis at least managed to become its own entity.

The B5 spinoff movie(s?) after the core story was done were kinda bad, too. Legend of the Rangers is the one I'm thinking of.

She did fuck Space Jesus, though.

Think Crusade only got the one season so it didn't really have the time to develop, from what I saw it struggled to decide if it wanted to be its own show or just a spin off.

I know. I'm always torn about that sort of thing. On the one hand, I hate to see a franchise dashed. On the other, bad thigns should get canceled.

Was it bad? I don't know, but I intend to find out.

Reboot!

...Wait.

That list does look like a good viewing order. It really is a shame that TNT (who picked up the show after it spent 3 years in first-run syndication) wouldn't commit to the fifth season, so JMS decided to wrap what he had always envisioned as a five-year story arc in the second half of Season 4. That's the main reason that Season 5 feels like an appendix to the show.

What I think is really awesome is that JMS had all the major and most of the minor events plotted out before filming ever began, including what to do if X actor didn't come back after season Y. And he had it all on notecards in a binder in his office. To hear him tell it, anyone who visited his office could have gotten a MAJOR spoiler alert if only they had looked around.

I've seen a bit more of it since posting 9 years ago. Think I finally managed to watch Season 2 and 3 and still enjoyed it. Never managed to see 1, but I think I have it all on DVD somewhere. Definitely needs a beginning to end watching, but it has to get in line.