I just watched the 1.5 hour pilot. I did like the central plot, of the Vorlon ambassador and the attempted assassination, and the fact of what Babylon 5 represents.
But oh my, the acting was terrible. It was flat and wooden and looked like every actor was just reading his lines off a placard. The Asian chick was the worst, and she looks like she’s damn important - the lt. commander of the station! The Commander is Ok but I find his goofy smile very annoying. The chief of security is a tubby bastard who is completely unconvincing as a security guy.
Shows are made by people + plots, I feel, and if this continues like this it doesn’t even enter the “so bad it’s good category”.
The series does get better, though for corporate & network issues it gets screwed over starting around the middle of season 4.
One of the season 3 episodes won a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. So at least watch enough to understand that episode. (OTTOMH, “The Coming of Shadows.”)
A thousand times yes. Season 1 is…not good. For a lot of reasons it is necessary to see, but it’s not good. Seasons 2-4 are brilliant. Flat out fantastic. If you can struggle through all of season 1 I would recommend it. If you don’t think you can hack it, post and someone will tell you which episodes are key and you can watch those and skip on to season 2.
The one complaint I had for the series was that the human acting seemed so stilted – but the alien actors are f’ing amazing. It gets a lot better, and there are some cast changes that help. One thing that’s great is the fact that JMS wrote it like a novel – plotted out the whole thing and you can see the payoff for things in the first two seasons in the later seasons. Not to say the whole thing is great, but Mr Boozilu and I still quote it today (the alien characters).
My favorite character is Kosh. No, G’Kar. No wait, Londo. No, got to be Delenn. Wait, it’s Kosh.
Ok, I’ll keep at it for a bit longer. I love the idea of a show based around a space station. It’s got everything - politics, intrigue, different races…I just need to get through Season 1, I guess.
It picks up toward the end of Season 1. When someone asked this same question awhile ago, I did a kind of capsule review of the first season, noting the ones you should watch to know what’s going on later, and the ones you can skip. I’ll see if I can find and repost that.
I hated the whole thing. I completely agree with your criticisms, and if you ask me, it never improves. Certainly it never gets better than “eye-rollingly cheesy”. However, I am very aware that I am in a vanishingly small minority. People seem to love it for some damn reason. But for what it’s worth, I thought it was crap from beginning to end.
The production values were never great, and they used CGI when CGI was still new, so it’s very obviously CGI. The actors are fine, though, and the story is good.
I think it improved a great deal, particularly due to one specific casting / character change, which relegated the actor whom I felt was the worst offender in the “wooden actor” situation to an occasional guest appearance:
Michael O’Hare, who plays Commander Sinclair. He was so bad, my wife and I took to calling him “Commander Wood”. When his character was replaced by John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) in Season 2, that alone made the show far better.
Really, the essential ones are Signs and Portents, A Voice in the Wilderness, Babylon Squared and Chrysalis. If you don’t care for these episodes, this might not be the show for you to carry on watching.
As others have noted, yes, the show gets much better. However, once you finish Season 4, just stop watching. Much like the alleged series finale of BSG, Season 5 simply did not happen. It does not exist, and should never be referred to again.
Eh, there are a few hidden gems in S5. But yeah, you could skip over vast swaths of it with no difference beyond having those hours of your life free to do something better.
Actually, watch season 4, and then just the very last episode of season 5. The last ep. of season 5 was made the season before when they weren’t sure if they would get renewed for their last season, so they made that episode then to wrap everything up…you don’t have to have seen any of season 5 for the final episode to make sense.
Also, if you start to watch the Babylon 5 “movies,” be aware they have spoilers for the series if you watch them out of order.
The best time to watch each one:
“In the Beginning” : Best to wait until at least halfway through season 4, IIRC. This is the best (and really, the only good) movie. But it does have MAJOR SPOILERS if you watch it too early.
“Thirdspace” : Wait until you’re 5 or 6 episodes into season 4 Wait until the Shadow War is over.
“River of Souls” I guess any time in season 5
“A Call to Arms” - Technically after season 5, though anytime in season 5 is fine.
