Babylon 5, Prisoner links

[Bippy_the_Beardless]

OK so what are the links between Babylon 5 and The Prisoner?
I have noticed the ‘Be Seeing You’ salute used by psi-corps. Are there other links to be found?

Cheers, Bippy

[joshmaker]

You can find more than you ever wanted to know about Babylon 5 from doing a search at www.jmsnews.com , an archive of Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski’s messageboard posts.

Here’s what he has to say about the Prisoner and Babylon 5:

Disagreement: the coolest show ever made is THE PRISONER. I hope to
capture a little of the flavor of that show, mainly by playing a little with
surrealism, what’s real and what’s not…but it’ll pale beside that show. THE
PRISONER, for me, is the perfect television program. I’ve never really seen
its equal.

Just for clarity, I don’t want to “slip Prisoner elements in” in the way
described. Was only referencing the show as the kind of show to emulate with
a beginning, middle and end, and a sometimes surreal aspect that leaves you
questioning what’s real and what isn’t.

Aside from the Psi-corps salute, I don’t think you will find many Prisoner references. While some fans try to find references everywhere, JMS maintains that at it’s core, Babylon 5 is his show, at not just a remake of something else.

Though I may sometimes nod to one or another landmark of SF, I’m not
doing the Prisoner, Lord of the Rings, Childhood’s End, MacBeth, the
Illiad, The Mountains of Madness, or any of the thirty other works that
I’m supposed to be doing, all mutually contradictory. I’m telling this
story, my story, and though it’s nice to be compared to such other works,
it does become bothersome after a while when everybody tries to pin down
which work I’m supposed to be “doing” when they NEVER do this to novelists,
because this is TV. C’mon, people, I’ve written published novels, and
short stories, and plays, and radio dramas, and I do have a brain in my
head to maybe make up something on my own, y’know.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

Just FYI: The best source for all things Babylon 5 related is probably The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5. The sheer quantity of information over there is just ludicrous.