[QUOTE=congodwarf]
The interactions between Garibaldi and Molari, G’Kar and Molari, Vir and Molari, Vir and Lenir, and Lenir and Marcus are wonderful. Ivanova is delightfully pessimistic and is played by a much better actor than Bruce Boxleitner can ever hope to be./QUOTE]
You forgot Marcus and Franklin, most notably on the flight to Mars. 
Don’t skip directly to season 2. You really should watch at least “Babylon Squared” and “Chrysalis”. The former introduces a very mysterious key situation that is resolved in a later episode. Also try to watch “Legacies” and “A Voice in the Wilderness” 1 & 2.
See the previously cited thread for the best episodes of each season. Don’t let the nay-sayers put you off Season 5. There are some wonderful moments in there among the dross, and it’s the only way to finally know the truth about Molari, G’Kar, and the fate of the Babylon Project. As I said before, if Sleeping In Light doesn’t make you cry at least twice, you have no soul.
*“Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future … and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future … or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have care for one another, because if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope … that there can always be new beginnings … even for people like us.” *
-- Ivanova in Babylon 5:"Sleeping in Light"[QUOTE=bouv]
Hehehehehe…“I spy, with my little eye…”
I’d also like to add that there are very, very few children in B5. I’ve heard that DS9 was pretty good so I’ve always wanted to start watching it, but…every…time…I try…there’s incessant drivel about that Ferengi kid and Sisko’s son. Good lord. Makes me want to stab myself every time I try to watch it.
The rest of the show might be pure gold, but I’ll never know it, because I have a primal reflex that makes me instantly stab the remote every time I see a 12 year old with Proteus Syndrome learning the True Meaning Of Space-Christmas.
Preach it!
IIRC, the only children who show up on B5 come to a bad end, and rather quickly.
Your invocation of Space-Christmas reminds me that Babylon 5 contributed a valuable new term to our household lexicon: the Space '90s. As much as I love it, B5 reeks of mid-1990s interior decorating, hairstyles, and clothing, particularly Gaibaldi’s Garth Brooks shirts. Example: “Wow, this doctor’s office came straight from the Space '90s.”
Seriously, there are some Season 1 episodes that set up really important plot points that are resolved later. You really need to watch the last few, which spin directly into the beginning of the next season and therefore into the next few years of stories.
The thing about B5 is that it is different. Unlike the various Trek series, B5 is one arc story, delivered over 5 seasons…more or less. In the begining (hehe), there’s a lot of set up exposition that only becomes important later in the series. Nothing, and no one, is exactly what they first appear to be. Londo is not a buffoon, G’Kar is actually noble, D’lenn is much more than she admits, Dr. Franklin is much less than he wishes, Vir has considerably more spine than he shows early, Sinclair is…well, you’ll have to wait and see, or hit up the Lurker’s Guide and read the spoilers.
I really wish I’d been around a board like this during B5’s run. The weekly episode threads would have been awesome, much like the current series of BSG threads. Really adds a lot to the series to be able to discuss it with others who like to analyze the show…
I’ve lamented exactly this point. We just started watching B5…when it was in first-run, I was almost never in control of a television. And I keep coming off of episodes wanting to TALK about them…
B5 was almost good. I wanted to like it, but after slogging through 4 seasons waiting for it to attain awesomeness I skipped the 5th. The dystopian future was a refreshing change of pace, but everything was so damn hamfisted. I felt like I was constantly being hit over the head with Important Events. Look, someone is wearing a Significant Expression, the full meaning of which will only become apparent 50 episodes later. Look, someone has a Latent Power. I wonder what use that Latent Power will be? Better keep an eye on that Latent Power. Look, here are some Fascists. You can tell they’re Fascists because they wear Fascist clothes and put up Fascist posters and speak in Fascist slogans. Look, someone is having a Moral Crisis. He’s caught between his Traditional Upbringing and his Newfound Knowledge. How will he resolve his Moral Crisis?
I say give up B5 and rent Firefly. Firefly kicks everything else’s ass. It was cut short by morons at Fox, but perhaps that ironically prevented it from fading into mediocrity in its old age. After that, watch Serenity. You can watch Serenity first, but it will have more resonance if you don’t.
That was the fun of USENET back then, when JMS would chat with fans regularly about what was happening. Babylon 5 was the first show that I was a fan of that I really took part in the fan community. While the old joke was that while the first newsgroup was for research and the second was for Star Trek shows didn’t really have much of an online presence back then. Babylon 5 really took advantage of the emerging technologies to build that grassroots support.
An example of what JSG is talking about. Scroll down to JMS Speaks to see the on-line commentary and replies the writer/producer posted about the episodes.
Yes, this bothered me too. The Fascists were so ham-handed and that whole situation was painted so black-and-white that it was really rather painful to watch, even though that plot thread was praised as one of the best in the series. BSG does much better at portraying complex issues, IMO. I get the feeling that B5 was the first sci-fi show for adults, which gets it lots of praise, but in absolute quality it lags behind later shows like Firefly and BSG, which took that complexity to a whole new level.
Cancel B5 and order Firefly instead. It’s only one abbreviated season, but damn if Whedon doesn’t create characters and develop a story arc in a fraction of the time JMS spends just setting up to tell a story.
I tried–I really tried–to watch B5 and totally lost interest midway through the second series, and occasional viewings of later episodes did nothing to convince me otherwise, especially when they bring on characters and scenerios clearly ripped from Tolkein. And the acting, with very few exceptions (Jerry Doyle’s pretty good for a character acter, and Andreas Katsulas is good even when he’s hamming it up behind layers of makeup and plasticine) is more wooden than the H.M.S. Victory. Also, the five year story arc thing is nonsense; they could (and should) have capped that story in 24 episodes or less. There’s a lot of padding in there, and some clear shifts in direction. And the dialogue is, as previously noted, often painful to listen to.
Of course Firefly isn’t “real” science-fiction; it’s a outlaw-cowboy show/character drama set in a science-fiction milieux, but it makes no bones about it, either. In fact, Whedon and Minear have a lot of fun bending and sometimes breaking genre conventions. (Kaylee: “Catalyzer on the port compression coil blew. It’s where the trouble started.” Mal: “Okay I need that in captain dummy talk, Kaylee.”)
I like science fiction (both the space opera kind and the more serious, philosophical sort) but I’m particular; it’s not enough to have space ships flying around and bizarro aliens; it also needs to have good writing, credible (or at least entertaining) dialogue, and engaging characters. It also helps if they don’t cheat out on plot revelations–“particle of the weak” plot resolutions become tiresome and yawn-inducing.
I vote no on the OP’s question.
Stranger
I don’t remember “incessant drivel.” It seemed to me that the storylines that involved them were pretty reasonable – no magical Crushers here.
Obviously, it’s subjective but I’ll throw in my voice for “it does get better”.
It’s worth it just for G’Kar.
Not to mention the Zima neon sign prominently displayed in the back of the bar. In the future, there is no Bud, no Heinekin, no Guinness. Just Zima.
That’s how you know it’s a dystopia.
[QUOTE=bouv]
’i am the very model of a modern major general!’
or words to that effect. my gilbert and sullivan’s pretty rusty.
what the others said, btw. the first season’s pretty bad, altho i like several of the eps. i’d watch the last couple of the season, though. they’re fairly important particularly about garibaldi and delenn.
seasons 2, 3 and 4 are worth every bit of time you can steal to sit down and watch them. i promise you, you’ll get hooked on it. hands-down, THE best scifi storyline ever aired on television, as silenus said, i think? he/she is quite correct.
despite all the BSG buzz, that show has left me cold. i tried to get into it, but only the dive master got hooked. he watches while i read a book. 
It wasn’t a Zima sign, it was the Zocolo sign, Zocolo being some word in another language (that is to say, another Earth language) meaning ‘meeting place’ or something.
No, actually, there IS a Zima sign prominently displayed on the wall of one of the bars on the station. JMS has said that it was a joke.