Rewatching Babylon 5

Cafe Society
1

I was and am a huge fan of the show. If was so completely different than Star Trek and everything else that we’d been given that even Star Trek had to rip if off in order to create Deep Space 9, arguably the best of the Star Trek series.

I don’t own Season 1. I’d like to, but back when I had money, I somehow missed out on getting it. So I had to start with Season 2. Then, as I watched, I limited myself to the really meaningful Arc episodes.

So far I’ve watched;

Season 2
Points of Departure
Revelations
A Race Through Dark Places
The Long, Twilight Struggle
The Fall of Night

Yup, skipped some good ones in there. I do enjoy the one where Londo gets to pick which one of his wives to keep. There are a few others too, but these caught the core arc.

Season 3
Matters of Honor
Voices of Authority
Dust to Dust
Point of No Return
Severed Dreams
Interludes and Examinations
War Without End, Part 1
War Without End, Part 2

I intend to finish up with the last two episodes of the season, Shadow Dancing and Z’Ha’Dum before moving on to Season 4.

Now clearly, the CGI is badly dated. It’s obvious that it IS CGI, sometimes almost cartoon like in rendering. But damn, I remember how Star Trek was pretty much caught with it’s pants down at the time when it came to showing us geniune star ship battles and struggled to come back with DS9 episodes like Sacrifice of Angels. I don’t feel that much else, the plots, the writing, any of that has been dated much, although I catch myself laughing everytime someone says those three magical words “Straight to Hell!!!” I find myself just as much amused and annoyed by Londo, amused and awed by G’Kar, twitchingly wanting to kill Bester, and impressed that the characters were all allowed to be so Human.

So if you’ve got the show on DVD, pull it out, dust it off, fire up the popcorn, crack a beer and join with me, metaphorically speaking, to enjoy Bablyon 5 once again.

2

Here is my thread from when my wife and I started it again last year. Great show and the thread should tell you which S1 episodes to skip if you do go back to it.

Babylon 5

3

Addendum to the list from that thread, I actually liked “Grail”. It’s certainly not critical to the plot, but I still liked it.

Similar subject matter was covered in (I think) season 3, “A Late Delivery from Avalon”, which was of course much better, but there’s enough room for both of them.

4

I burned through S 2-5 over the past 6 weeks or so- and if there ever was a show that deserves to get remastered, this is it. It seems to have -inspired, shall we say?- a lot of the space battles in the BSG remake. BSG basestars sure seemed like Shadow vessels on steroids (I don’t remember what the Cylon ships looked like in the original).

5

No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.

The original series Cylon ships looked sort of like a weird clam.

6

I had never seen it and when the series ended and all were exclaiming its demise, I started from the beginning, pretty enraptured. It was well-written, well-produced, and well-acted.

Up until about 4 episodes before the end. It became an incomprehensible mess and I more than did not care about any of the principal characters.

I still don’t know how it ends and don’t care…

7

There was a boom tomorrow.

8

Fried, you watched all 5 seasons but the final four episodes? Wow, they are actually pretty good and the finale is especially good.

9

Sleeping in Light is worth it.

10

Yeah, you could pretty much skip the entire fifth season, except for “Sleeping in Light”, and maybe “A View from the Galley” (another non-essential but fun one). What happened was, they originally planned for five seasons, but then somewhere in the fourth season, it looked like they wouldn’t get the last season, so they hurried a resolution to all of the main plot threads. But then, the Sci-Fi channel picked up the fifth season, and they didn’t have anything left but the psi war to fill it, so they had to stretch the psi war to fill the entire season, which resulted in pretty much everyone involved acting like an idiot because that was the only way to prevent things from getting resolved.

11

The finale of season 4 was a worthy end to the series. After watching that, I had no desire to actually continue with season 5, despite having watched two or three episodes every night up until then. It was just such a satisfying note to end on. I still haven’t watched S5, I only read the Wikipedia synopsis of the very last episode.

12

Season 5 is OK if you skip the whole “Byron” thing. My wife and I skipped it last time as well. I’ve nearly forgotten about it.

13

Have you checked your local library for Season 1? Lots of libraries are carrying DVDs now. They’re usually a mixed lot, but at least one near me has a substantial section of TV series.

The single thing that impressed me most about the space battles was not the quality of the CGI (though I thought it was pretty good for a TV show of the time). It was the maneuvering of the Starfuries. They actually operated under something bearing more than a passing resemblance to real physics, and were logically designed for their purpose. The thought put into them impressed me.

14

Isn’t “the whole Byron thing” pretty much, well, Season 5?

15

There’s also the ep with Bester taking some Psi Corps interns on a field trip to Babylon 5. Probably one of the most interesting internships one could have.

16

Well, I guess, but there is other stuff and you can easily skip Byron.

17

I thought the Psi-War in season 5 was badly done and wasted so much potential. I get that it wasn’t supposed to be on the show at all, that Season 5 was supposed to be the campaign to retake Earth, but there was just so much they could have done that they didn’t with the basic premise.

18

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who hates the last season.

And it’s funny, a couple of years ago or so someone started a thread on B5. When I decided to post something it was already something like three pages long and since the show had been off the air for a few years I mentioned in detail all of the things I hated about season five. Turns out the OP hadn’t seen it all and I gave a bunch of spoilers away :o .

19

I redo B5 every couple years or so and, yeah you have to dredge through a lot in season 5 for the few nuggets therein, but I can’t get through Sleeping in Light without tears. YMMV; it hits close to home for me because my wife died at age 49 before the arc finished. I urge you, if you see nothing else in season 5, see that one. Rent it on Netflix or something.

20

I’ve just bought the B5 box set with the entire series plus the movies and Crusade.

I’m getting towards the end of season 1 now and it seems to have found its groove after nearly 20 episodes.

I haven’t skipped and episodes but have watched some of the early ones with my finger pressed on FF.

I enjoy all the episodes hinting at the Shadows and those involving the Psi Corp, I also ejoyed the Soul Hunter episode, whch seems to be disliked by quite a few people.

It’s been a long time since I saw it and I can’t yet remember how they write out Sinclair’s character and bring in John Sheridan. Looking forward to Season 2.