Well…G’Kar’s Jesus-figure and what happened with him were kind of relevant to what’s been going on for the past thousand years or so.
-Joe
Actually, Ivanova starts out as a non-observant Jew. Her father’s death and a subsequent visit from their old family rabbi to help her sit shiva for him start her back on a path to observance.
And at this point I’ll have to bow out of this thread, as you’re starting to give me spoilers. No big deal, and please carry on discussing if you want.
Ep 6, Mind Games with little Chekov, was also interesting, and I will carry on, although the booming soundtrack is starting to annoy.
The middle three seasons are definitely the best. The last season is fairly skipable, as I recall. They weren’t sure if the series was getting renewed, so they wrapped up most of the main plot at the end of Season 4. You should watch the last episode, though (which was actually filmed before the last season, in case they needed to end the show at that point).
The use of time travel is a lot more limited than in Star Trek – no one ever interacts with past eras on Earth, for instance.
As for the “U.N. in space” thing, there are actually fairly major changes in the political situation over the course of the show.
G’Kar and Londo in particular show a huge amount of character development over the course of the show.
Some of the stuff that seems religious at first (souls, an angel) ends up having a non-religious explanation.
The best thing about the show for me is the ongoing plot lines. Each season introduces new mysteries which are gradually unraveled.
Don’t worry. Nothing that’s been posted is any kind of big deal spoiler, or else it’s vague enough that you’re not going to grab big plot points by reading it.
Little is made of Londo’s religion–he’s not a spiritual kind of guy–but when he swears he says “Great Maker,” and there is a passing mention in one episode that indicates that there is a whole family of “Maker religions.”
There’s a bit more about Centauri religions. They’re pantheistic, for one. Londo memorably refers to a statue of a fertility goddess that prompts Lenier to take a vow of silence on the topic. They don’t seem to be terribly spiritual, though, or at least, we don’t see any Centauri who regard their Gods as anything more than a license for some sort of hedonistic behavior.
Then again, that might just be a reflection of the fact that Londo’s the Centauri we see the most of. Vir’s approach to religion isn’t really explored, but he certainly does not use it as an excuse for wild parties.
Here’s the thing. A desire for religion, or superstition, or some kind of mysticism, is a human thing. You’re not going to get rid of it. So it’s lame to pretend that you will; all it does is leave out a dimension.
And, the fact is that SF is not really about the future anyway–it’s about us. A large part of SF is just about examining the human condition. You can take one aspect of a philosophical question, strip it of current associations, and take a look at it from several sides. In this way much of the better SF (and fantasy too) addresses the great questions of what it is to be human: what are we here for? Do we have a purpose, and what might it be? What happens when a person meets great evil, or great good, or the unknown? How do we make choices? What does it mean to be brave, or honest, or whatever?
This is also why a lot of SF doesn’t necessarily age very well; in its clumsier forms, it’s too obvious and clunky, and a product of its time. Like, say, the Star Trek TOS episode about the half-black, half-white guys. It’s perfectly acceptable to use SF to address questions of racism or tribalism; they just didn’t do a very good job of it there.
If you took all the philosophizing out of SF and just kept the spaceships, not much would happen. It would be boring.
Well, not always. Sometimes you get Star Wars.
The Force ?
I don’t know if I’d call it a philosophy per se. There’s the Jedi Code and all, but that was never a part of the original trilogy. There’s the alliance fighting against the fascist Empire, but that’s not so much philosophizing as it is setting up a straightforward Good vs. Evil conflict. Star Wars isn’t really about exploring facets of the human condition as true SF should and Babylon 5 does, it’s about laser swords and cool spaceships and explosions and heroism. It’s fantasy, space opera, not SF as that community defines it. My (tongue-in-cheek) point was just that removing the essential part of SF and leaving just the cool tech stuff isn’t always boring.
Most of the Jedi philosophy (such as it is) was established in Empire Strikes Back, the second film of the original trilogy.
:smack:
Shows what I know, trying to navelgaze while working. Didn’t think about it closely enough. I think I’ll be quiet here now.
True, although IIRC, in the first season episode with the big religious cultural exchange, the Centauri’s religious ceremony is basically a bacchanal. When Londo climbs up on the table and passes out, Vir exclaims, unironically, that he has attained “Oneness with the universe!”
(Garibaldi: He’s passed out!
Vir: That, too.)
Not only is Kirk a monotheist, he seems to assume everyone else is too: “Man has no need for gods. We find the one quite sufficient.”
Well, regardless of what was said back then, I know I remember seeing people on this very board talk about it in those terms.
what everybody else has said. i agree.
the show is all about the story, not the sfx. the visual has aged badly only because the tech wasn’t available at the time. i can overlook that if the story pulls me in, and trust me, the story WILL. JMS was/is one helluva storyteller (DS9? never saw it. i was instantly hooked on B5.).
let the experts give you the best season one eps to watch and forget the rest, because yes, season one was crap for the most part as was sinclair’s acting. i wince every time i pop in season one for a look.
the show is worth staying with - believe me and the others.
I’d say “was”. Picked up the “Babylon 5: Lost Tales” DVD when it came out. Two stories with interesting ideas at their cores, but presented by someone who’s completely forgotten the difference between writing for print and writing for television.
:smack:
Episode names that relate to the same subject matter, and a decade since I’ve seen it through. Mea Culpa.