New to Babylon 5: View Order

Cafe Society
1

I never watched Babylon 5 when it was first on, I recentally signed up with NetFlix, and since I’ve heard such great things about it, It was my first series I requested. It took a little while to get into, but by the first 2 parter (about the planet the station orbits), I was hooked.

Now, I’ve finished up to the end of season 2. I also have the first 4 episodes of season 3, but haven’t watched them yet, probably tonight. I also borrowed the movies from a friend, and I was wondering when the proper time to watch them is. I know the movies came out after the series was over, but should I watch them after the series? Or should I watch them some other time?

So basically, is there a recommended order to watch the series?

2

How do you like it so far?

3

I’d finish watching the series, first, then go back for the movies. Especially In the Beginning, which is the best of the B5 movies, but which spoils a lot of the major surprises from the series.

4

Really good so far, and from what I’ve heard its only going to get better. Once I’m done with my family time, I’m back to Babylon 5. :smiley:

So watch the whole series first? Ok. What about the movie order? Should I just watch them in order or release, or does it matter?

5

[url=http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/master/eplist.html]This page, from[url=http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html]this site, puts the movies in chronological order. Like Miller said, don’t watch In the Beginning 'till you’ve seen all of season three at least, as it contains beaucoup spoilers for the first three seasons and minor spoilers for season four.

Another nice thing about that page is that it puts the episodes in the originally intended order. The changes are slight, but noticable, though I guess it’s a little late now.

6

The Shadows made me mess up the coding and forget to preview.

7

You can skip the final season. Some of us pretend it never happened anyway. Except for the one titled “Deconstructing legends”–or something like that…think it was shown as the series finale, but shot prior to Season 5.

B5 remains my favorite series of all time. Great stuff. Heavy drama, laugh out loud comedy, excellent concept. I’ll look forward to reading some B5 discussion threads after the holidays…

8

There’s some great stuff in Season 5. “Day of the Dead,” for example. Not to mention “The Very Long Night of Londo Molari,” “The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father,” and “Sleeping In Light,” whish is the episode Oak was trying to think of above. Besides, “Objects In Motion” and “Objects At Rest” are essential to any kind of resolution of the whole series.

As for the movies: View them after Season 5, and skip “River of Souls” and “A Call to Arms.” The first is bad, the second is really bad.

9

I wouldn’t skip season five, but don’t expect it to be anywhere near as good as seasons 3 and 4.

10

Hubby wouldn’t let me watch Season 5 because he was morally opposed to spending the $50 required to buy it. But we got it cheap, so we’re re-watching and I’ll eventually get around to watching it.

Haven’t seen any of the movies, except Legend of the Rangers. That was bad. Sooooooo bad. I know it’s not officially a “movie” as it was meant to be the pilot for a spin-off that never occurred. But yeesh. It was terrible.

11

Nobody like Season5, Season5 is like dirt under feet. But, Season5 is comfortable with it’s role. It knows what it is. Everyone say "Season5 do this, Season5 do that, but that is place.

12

Very sad life. Probably very sad death. But at least there is symmetry.

13

Can never have anything nice.

14

You can watch The Gathering before season 1, or probably any time after that, since it is basically the Special Edition of the B5 pilot, fixing all the stuff JMS (the producer of the show) didn’t like from the first time they did it. That said, I saw it after In The Beginning, which was basically a B5 primer, giving a bunch of the universe backstory for new viewers before watching Season 5.

Anyhow, watch the first four movies, then watch In The Beginning and Thirdspace. Thirdspace, chronologically, takes place at some point in season 4, but it’s easier just to watch it between seasons rather than figure out exactly where it should fit. Watch Season 5, then River of Souls, A Call to Arms (which I personally liked a lot) and then Crusade. Crusade’s viewing order is all confuzzled, since the series had a quasi-reset after they had produced a few episodes, I prefer to just stick with TNT’s broadcasting order for this, which can also be found at the Lurker’s Guide, as linked above.

Of the movies, the least vital ones are arguably River of Souls and A Call to Arms. A Call To Arms serves as a sort of pre-pilot for Crusade, introducing the new ship and setting up the events that lead to the premise of Crusade, but the most important bits to Crusade are recapped in “Warzone”, which is one of the most-hated episodes of Crusade, in the tradition of Firefly’s “The Train Job”.

The Gathering can also be skipped, but various conversations later on in B5 (particularly late season 1 and season 2) make less sense, but since you’re already past season 2, watch it whenever. Plus, if you skip The Gathering, you miss out on ProtoDelenn, before they had the makeup figured out.

And I’d say watch season 5. From what I’ve heard, it is much better when you can watch it at once than it is when you have a week to stew on each episode. Much of it is relatively weak (particularly the first half of the season), but much overall plot important and/or character-important stuff happens, such as the departures of most of the original characters as they move on to different things towards the end. Also, if you like Bester, there’s lots of Psi-Corps-centric episodes in S5. In short, Season 5 is the Scouring of the Shire for B5.

If you DO decide to skip S5, watch the last episode, “Sleeping in Light”, it’s a necessary epilogue for the end of the series, even if you skip the denoument of S5.

15

I’m bad about remembering which episode is from which season. “The Very Long Night of Londo Molari” was good. In fact, Londo was my favorite character. It’s highly debateable, but I think he finds a measure of redemption at the end of the series. He also set up one of many great lines in the show. I’ll spoilerbox it:

It’s a episode where somebody is marketing a line of B5 toys, including action figure models of the major players. The dolls are not anatomically correct, which is particularly irksome to Londo. (we know from elsewhere that the Centauri have 6 penis-like appendages for males, and 6 vagina-like receptacles for females) He complains, somewhat uncomfortably, to Ivanova that the dolls have no…attributes…She groks, as she always does, but is trying to be all diplomatic, so she replies “So you feel as though you’ve been symbolically castr—in abad light”…:smiley:

16

I’ve already seen The Gathering, saw it right after the first disk of season 1, when I noticed it didn’t have the pilot in it. Just finished watching episode one of season three, I like that White Star ship. Just one question, is the ship named the White Star, or is that the class of ships? Or is it the first of the class, so the class and ship have the same name?

Oakminster Yea, that was a funny line. Its from the middle of season 2, so I aready saw that.

Well, thanks for y’alls help so far… I’m going to continue watching now. Have at least 3 more episodes to watch tonight. Good thing I got hooked on this show now, after finals are complete, and when I have 2 more weeks off before going back to school. :slight_smile:

17

So you’re the one I’ve been fighting with over the DVDs from Netflix, OP! :smiley:

I’m going through B5 too, and I’m up to about where you are. Just finished Disc 1 of Season 3. I’m enjoying it immensely and wondering why I never watched it before now.

18

I think the real centers of the show were Londo and G’Kar. They are the ones who go through the redemption cycles, and each would meet the requirements laid down by Jack in “Comes The Inquisitor:”

“How do you know the chosen ones? No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, … not for glory, not for fame. For one person, … in the dark … where no one will ever know … or see.”

19

No, he was thinking of The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, which is the final episode of season 4 - written and filmed in a hurry when it looked like there would be no season 5. It’s… interesting.

Third option. The original is the “White Star” or “White Star 21”, and subsequent ones are White Star 2, etc.

Btw, In The Beginning is the only movie worth watching, and that should be seen after the episode Atonement in season 4. To so beforehand would spoil a lot of, at least, season 1, and some more.

Was The Gathering the pilot? I can’t remember. Anyway, obviously no spoilers if it was.

The other movies - terrible. Thirdspace especially, which is like an experiment to see how stupid and anti-Babylon-5-esque you can get in the Babylon 5 universe.

20

Er, the first one is White Star 1, not 21.