Babylon 5

[Gelion]

To honour Sinapus sig
I love the series although I did not watch the whole of it (almost completely missed the last season).
This thread in on Babylon 5. Lets discuss!
"Could you and your associates arrange that for me mister Mordon?"

 

[Longasc]

It is no longer on TV in Germany, and it is all over in the US, too.

But Stargate: Atlantis will soon be on TV here.

The good thing about Babylon 5 was that it is much better than casting shows and other stuff. I love Science-Fiction, and there are few worthwhile SciFi series out there.

 

[Gelion]

Of the lot I love:
Robotech (I mean I'm just in love, started when I was 12 and didn't get over since)
Babylon 5 - graphics was amazing for the time and all the bgight colors and dialogue and space UN and so on. Great stuff!
Star Wars - 4-6 as ideologically the first 2 are crap. I mean in the first one:
Whats to become of Jar-JAr binks?
He will be killed!
Master we are short in time!
(I mean, leave the guy who helped you to die? Is that a new idle?)

 

[Paradigne]

I have the first 4 seasons on DVD and am getting season 5 for christmas. This to me was the BEST thing EVER on tv.

 

[ferenginar]

Babylon 5 is IMO the best sci-fi series ever made, I am a big fan of Star Trek, STTNG was excellent, but B5 took it to a new level. Whilst there were still stories that were episodonal there was a powerful underlying story that flowed thoughout the 5 series. This was copied to a certain extent by DS9, it was not done to the same extent.

On a slightly different note, has Battlestar Galactica new version been shown stateside yet, What are your views?

 

[joacqin]

I loved B5, I followed the three last seasons fervently. What I saw of the first seasons didnt impress me as much, too Star Trekky. B5 is hte only series I have really followed, as soon as I get the economy i am going to purchase the entire series.

 

[Gelion]

Funny but:
Minbari - Space Elves with Vorlons as Valars
Narn - Communist Dwarfs
Humans - USA?
Centauri - spolied Romans
Vorlons - USA
Shadows - USSR
aren't they?

 

[Tycho Brahe]

It is no longer on TV in Germany, and it is all over in the US, too.

But Stargate: Atlantis will soon be on TV here.

The good thing about Babylon 5 was that it is much better than casting shows and other stuff. I love Science-Fiction, and there are few worthwhile SciFi series out there.

Atlantis?

B5 was great. I realy liked the story arc.

 

[ferenginar]

@ Gelion

Minbari = Minbari
Vorlons = Vorlons
Narn = Narn
.................etc

What are you trying to do, spoil it with pointless allegory.

 

[Gelion]

I'm not trying to spoil anything I'm just pointing out the similarities between them.

 

[ferenginar]

Silly me for not realising americans all wear encounter suits, and have been manipulating the gene pool of the other races for thousands of years to help defeat the shadowy Ruskies who look like some kind of cross between a giant spider / ant.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Funny but:
Minbari - Space Elves with Vorlons as Valars
Narn - Communist Dwarfs
Humans - USA?
Centauri - spolied Romans
Vorlons - USA
Shadows - USSR
aren't they?

The aliens are too humanoid in my opinion. Its shows the limits of the creators imagination. Ore maybe the limits of the special-effects technology of the time.

 

[stormbind]

I never liked that show. It was like watching everyday politics in space

 

[Gelion]

Silly me for not realising americans all wear encounter suits, and have been manipulating the gene pool of the other races for thousands of years to help defeat the shadowy Ruskies who look like some kind of cross between a giant spider / ant.

I mean Vorlon and Shadow war somewhat resembles the Cold War with all the smaller races caught in the middle. Couldn't you see that?

 

[Paradigne]

On a slightly different note, has Battlestar Galactica new version been shown stateside yet, What are your views?

The movie came out a while ago. The series starts up in january. I was going to be REAL dissapointed with the movie if it wasn't a 'pilot'

Stargate: Atlantis is the spinoff. Has a lot of potenetial but not as good as the original.

Man, a lot of you read a lot of 'earth' politics into this... I saw it more as the fight for ultimate good (order:Vorlons) v ultimate evil (chaos:Shadows), more religeon than anything, with us as the puppets between. In the end BOTH sides were wrong and kicked out of the galaxy

To call the US order and USSR chaos (or did you mean it the other way around???) is kind of funny...

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Babylon 5 is brilliant! It's like Star Trek... with a plot!

 

[Adler17]

I´m a fan of sci fi generally. B 5 is one of my favourites. I don´t think DS 9 was a copy. Indeed both came around the same time. Both have their own flavour.
I just purchased the first two seasons on DVD and watch them. It is hard to decide which is the best series.
At best I like B 5, DS9, SG1. Then Andromeda, TNG, TOS, Voyager and Enterprise (latter has potential). Also I liked Galactica, but only the first seasons. When they changed the story I didn´t like it. It was a pity they did.
Also a good small series was the German Raumpatrouille Orion. It had a good story but the effects were not so good. But in which serie you have a flat iron to do something. Or other stuff. Well it was the early 60s when they filmed it...
The UFO series I don´t like that much only some of the costumes were VERY sexy .
Star Wars is another outstanding series although rather movies. The first 2 parts wre not so good, but Jar Jar is not such a bad character I hate.
Oh B5 is very influenced by Tolkien. Lorien, Vorlons= Valars, Minbari= Elves, Sheridan and Delenn as Beren and Luthien, Ranger. Perhaps it is so good because of this!

Adler

 

[Little Raven]

Babylon 5 was brilliant. A shining star in television sci-fi history. We have yet to see its equal, though there have been some very good ones.

• Star Trek Deep Space 9: Quality varied. Started out good, then TNG died and writers for TNG started working for DS9. Episodes started to suck. Then Voyager started and seemed to pull senior writers away. Episodes started to rock again.
• Space, Above and Beyond: Different take on the whole Sci-Fi setting. Was interesting, even if casting was a little weak.
• Farscape: Top contender for B5's spot. Never afraid to push the envelope. I will never forgive the Sci-Fi channel for killing this show in its prime. Ever. (though I will watch Peacekeeper Wars)
• Firefly: Only lasted one season, but my God it was good. Casting and writing were absolutely first rate, but the setting may have thrown people off.

Sadly, we're currently lacking for good sci-fi on television. The Star Gates are ok, but just ok. Fortunately, most of the great series are avaliable on DVD!

 

[betazed]

Sci-fi is my favorite genre (after martial arts of course ).

That being the case I do not know how and why I missed B5 for such a long time. I have all teh dvd sets for ST, STTNG, DS9 (will never buy Voyager). So I thought I will pick up the first set of B5 just to check it out. I did that last month and I was hooked. I watched it day in and day out and had to run to the store (when a season ran out to get the next season. (I have got till season 4 - I will give the 5th season a pass). A earth-B5 war is just not as interesting as a galactic war.

Personally, I think it beats STTNG (its closest competitor) although I think the Vorlon-Shadow showdown was a bit of a letdown, but apart from that the entire season 3 and beginning of season 4 was a joyride.

IMHO, the problem with DS9 was that there were too many threads in the series (while B5 had only two). In DS9 these threads were all open till the very last episode where everythign was tied up haphazardly leaving a very uneasy feeling.

 

[YNCS]

"You can get more with a kind word and a two by four than with a kind word alone." -Marcus Cole