For more fun later on:
Watch how much weight the actor playing Vir loses by season 4. It is especially punctuated in the flashbacks to earlier seasons where he is much heavier.
Keep going. I just finished Season 4. Season 4 is excellent. It’s all downhill from here.
On a related note:
Garibaldi’s hair (until it is written out of the show entirely). They even make a couple jokes about it in the later seasons.
Season 5, I would say you shouldn’t skip, but it’s got a lot of weak episodes. For the most part, the whole first major plotline of the season is only any good when taken as a whole. The last part of the season is much improved.
The whole first major plotline* of season Five is dreadful, and the arc of events contained in it should have been summarized in at most a single episode. I always kind of assumed it was forced on JMS because the show changed networks at that point and the new network (TNT, wasn’t it?) was trying to make the show more broadly appealing by forcing more beautiful people and romance/sex on it. I would watch those episodes, because they do contain information necessary to the rest of the story, but hold on to your stomach. On the plus side, JMS at least manages to inject some moral ambiguity on all sides into it.
*The plotline containing Byron and his telepathic haven/commune/cult
Byron is without a doubt the most annoying character in the history of fiction.
I cried tears of joy when that whiny little asshole offed himself and his dumbass followers. Bester FTW motherfuckers!
The storyline involving Londo and G’kar is the best part of season 5 and some of my favourite episodes in the entire series.
About ten episodes in to Season 5 and wow, the previous two posts are spot on. It’s amazing how much the quality falls off a cliff whenever the focus is on Byron. Even in the otherwise excellent View from the Gallery, his appearance brings the episode to a screeching halt until he goes away again.
The writing isn’t particularly good but it’s the deeply appalling acting, especially by Byron but also every single other telepath (Lyta excepted), that makes it so excruciating. Did they go to “Wooden Actors R Us” and say “Give us every one you got with crazy hair. It’s okay - they won’t have any lines. Or facial expressions. Or point.”?
The sad thing is that I’d thought Lyta had a legitimate gripe. Throughout the whole Shadow War and Earth War they kept going to her and saying “Could you do us one more leeeetle favor?” instead of just putting her on retainer or making her a regular member of staff. It just made no damn sense.
Whenever the focus is elsewhere, the season is not bad at all - the Londo/G’Kar relationship in particular is always good and the other non-telepath bits aren’t bad either. But wow. Byron and his hypnotically shiny hair. Horrible.
Quoth Oy!:
This is the first I’ve even heard that Tracy Scoggins (or Cpt. Lochley) is supposed to be particularly attractive. To my eye, Delenn was knock-out gorgeous (note to self: Look up nude pictures of Mira Furlan), and I can see the attraction for Ivanova or either of the telepaths, but it never even occurred to me that Lochley would be the basis for fanservice.
On the topic of season 5, what bugged me most was so many characters doing absolutely idiotic things because that was what was necessary for the plot. Like, with the telepaths seeking a homeworld: OK, simple enough, find a habitable but currently-uninhabited world, and tell them to get going. Simple, fair, they’re out of everyone’s hair, they get what they want too, and nobody has to be immolated in a fuel leak. But if they did that, the story arc would be over, so they had to not do that.
I’ve been watching the odd episode of this on telly. I liked and still like most of the CGI* especially the starfury sequences but the interiors and some of the costumes are terrible, just terrible. I also used to like the character of Garibaldi, now he seems a bit of a dick. 
- The train through the hollow centre of B5 looked crap.
If you don’t like the train in the center of the station, watch the second season finale. 
I finished watching Season 5 and have to say that the non-Byron episodes are largely decent. Sadly this means most of the first half of the season is a loss, but it does get better.
I’m now watching the various movies - “In the Beginning” was much better than I expected, particularly due to the framing device used. “Thirdspace” was badly paced and looked like a mediocre episode stretched out to an extra half hour. “River of Souls” fell into the Vortex of Suck; initially I blamed Martin Sheen whose performance was dire but upon reflection I think the writing was entirely to blame. And “A Call to Arms” looks promising but I haven’t seen it yet and the potential for more suckage exists.
River Of Souls is the greatest load of cobblers I’ve ever seen. Terrible, poisonous shite.
But it has Captain Lochley in dominatrix gear (or rather, a reasonable facsimile of her), so that bumps it up to #2 in the movie ranking.
Thirdspace was a much better book than a movie, BTW.
A Call To Arms is solidly good, but it’s pretty much a quasi-Pilot for Crusade, which would have been awesome if it had ever had a chance to get anywhere. As it is, Crusade was still pretty fun. If you read about the problems the producer had with the networks, with stuff like the show getting bounced around in the schedule, the network making them write and film a new pilot, etc, it begins to sound like an eerily familiar story.
Lost Tales is good too, though the first half is very dialogue heavy, and the second half picking up the action a bit (One movie, basically making up two short stories).
Oh, and Crusade and Lost Tales are epic if only because Galen is in both. Love that smug bastard.
I’ve now seen it and agree entirely. “Legends of the Rangers” was actually pretty good too, although it had a certain “Star Trek pilot episode” feel to it and the lead character was way too pretty for a man. Also: Most Ridiculous Weapons System Ever.
And I’m not one for Big Hair so Tracy Scoggins* in dom gear didn’t really do it for me; the only redeeming thing in the entire movie was the bit about everything going wrong whenever Garibaldi or Sheridan are around. It explained a lot, really.
*The “Lost Tales” disc also has some tributes to Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs, and Tracy Scoggins appears in her street clothes and makeup. She looks older (given the gap in filming) but prettier without all the TV slap.
Oh come now, the “Love Bat” was hilarious as a use-twice-and-discard gag. Oh Corwin, the master of awkward gifts to superior officers.
Hokay. Finally finished the boxset and have a few final comments.
Despite low expectations I really enjoyed “Lost Tales”, minus a few quibbles. The Tracy Scoggins story was a decent sci-fi-meets-mysticism short story and was fairly well-paced for the story it was telling. The only real quibble was with the stock “I was raised a believer but am not much of one these days” speech from Lochley. Um, hello? Didn’t you have an actual died-and-soul-taken-out-of-your-body experience (in “River of Souls”)? I would have thought that would give one a pretty clear view that there is life after death.
The second half was more of a where-are-they-now story. Much fun was to be had with Sheridan telling off Galen for inflicting yet another apocalyptic dream upon him. If I were Sheridan I’d be sick of people beaming stuff into my head by now too.
And what can I say about Crusade that isn’t covered by “it sucks”? Oh no - we only have five years to search the whole galaxy to find a cure or everyone on Earth will die - so let’s arse around for a while playing with local politics, deal with some unresolved issues in Galen’s lovelife, maybe take in an academic conference… Seriously? This is the best use of your time? Can’t anyone else in the entirety of Earthforce do some of this?
I mean, did anyone notice that nothing happened in “Well of Forever” apart from the ship getting humped by a giant space jellyfish? “Path of Sorrows” was a remake of Star Trek V (which of course was so wonderful the “You are in pain” psychic thing deserved to be done again). And Gideon gives Lochley the big “I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you again but it could be five years from now” speech at the end of one episode, only to turn up on B5 at the beginning of the next freaking episode. The only redeeming episode was the comedy X-Files parody “Visitors from Down the Street” which was head and tentacles above the rest of the season. If you haven’t seen any of Crusade, skip most of it and watch that one.
Also, the music sucked (Evan Chen, I’m looking at you here) and the opening credits were horrible. I’m not surprised they canned it.
Yeah, Crusade was going once too often to the well. JMS should have just let it end with “Sleeping In Light” and been happy.
Different strokes, I guess. I was turned off by Delenn’s “Crown of Bone”, but thought that Lochley was hot.
I admit, i got bored. I watched the required episodes in Season 1, and then Season 2 came and I watched a couple and then just didn’t really care what happened to the characters.
If I can make a suggestion… in that case, give “The Coming Of Shadows” a go. That’s when everything changes, and the show really kicks into gear. And then watch “In the Shadow Of Z’Ha’Dum” and “The Long Twilight Struggle”. Those 3 episodes really move things along, and also illustrate the kind of things that people tend to love about the series. Plus you’ll see just far the series can move in less than a season.
Delenn or I should say Mira Furlan, does something with her lips to convey emotion\grief and it’s exactly the same thing every damn time in every season, the best way I can describe it is as if someone has run out of breath, it’s annoying and it’s very distracting, try to do some range for christsakes.
Other than that, the main cast I guess is ok, just the extras are terrible, if it’s one thing about B5, it’s the terrible, terrible extras in the background.