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Sci-Fi Channel Picks Up Babylon 5
Schemer writes: "The Sci-Fi channel has acquired exclusive rights to all 112 episodes of Babylon 5 (and the 4 movies) from TNT. They plan to start airing the episodes every night at 7:00 pm starting in September."
Yeah, I remember when the local FOX (IIRC) affiliate had it first. They changed the time slot like every other week and never told our local paper so it could update the show listings, and worse they would play the episodes out of order which makes B5 darn near unwatchable.
When TNT finally picked it up, I finally got to watch the entire story arc from start to finish, which makes for a much much better experiance. I hope Sci-Fi is planning to do the same thing. Maybe they can even resurrect Crusade if B5 is popular enough.
I can only hope...
I read the internet for the articles.
> "TKO" pretty much stands alone.
TKO doesn't really stand at all. I'll give it "hobbles", "whimpers", "festers", or "oozes", but that episode would be improved by recording Star Trek V over it. Yeech.
B5 certainly fits the old nursery rhyme. When it was good it was very very good, but when it was bad, it was horrid.
-- Rick
> Why to all the aliens have french accents?
So you can tell they're ALIENS, silly! Much like the forehead bumps on the various Star Trek programs.
Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!
-- Rick
Err, I think you'll find JMS offered B5 to Paramount, who turned it down, and then started production on DS9. Thus raising many eyebrows...
JMS always said he was filming in wide screen... I could only hope about the DVD part; but since he's a bit of a perfrectionist I would expect no less. Oh this is good news.... a lot of us in rastb5.mod were asking why the SciFi Channel didn't just go get the rights from WB sooner. Hopefully this'll replace Lexx. It would make for a great double header with Farscape (about to start, so I gotta get going).
<*>
0.
On no other show would the female leads get together and host a joint web site as http://www.crusadebabes.com
My favorite ep had to be Signs and Portents. #116 (Though Into the Fire in Season 4 was killer on the gfx)
It was a first season episode that got the major story arc underway... It was the one where the Centauri Emperor dies on B5, and Kosh has that one foreboding line...
I've got the whole series on tape - except for two eps where TNT superceded the show with NBA playoffs (bastards!)
This is the ONE (no hidden B5 reference, really...) show that would make me buy a ReplayTV unit... Having another chance to watch it makes me giddy - it's like a sugar high.
I just hope that Sci-Fi runs the episodes in order. If they're out of sequence, the arcs fall apart - it would be a waste.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
For all new to B5, those who want a plot archive and insider/behind the scenes tid-bits, visit:
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5
This is probably THE best fan site out there, with plenty of links, back-plot, production info, yadda-yadda... Well worth the click.
For the rec, I'm a HUGE fan of B5. It's a brilliant plot, even though it does tend to lean a bit heavy on Tolken. (Then again, Tolken leans on the Illiad, so NYAH!)
B5 is the only sci-fi show with believable people, alien aliens, characters screwing up because of their faults, the good guys losing, people getting hurt - and staying hurt for several episodes, warm and touching moments, hillarious character banter, deeply developed personalities, teddy bears shoved out of air-locks, and an actual philosopy.
The cheesiest line on B5 beats most of the profound crap on ST:xxx. "Get that cheese to sick-bay" my ass! There is no techno-babble about reversing the polarity if the sub-ionic Heisenberg compensators or any such crap. People hit computers to make them work...
Ah... ramble-ramble... I think I'll go dust of my VCR, to make sure I can get those two episodes I'm missing. Fasten, then zip!!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The Technomages were covered a lot more in Crusade. They were supposed to have been revisited in season 5, but TNT had threatenned to can the show in season 4, so the plot threads were tied off sooner, hence the relatively weak season 5.
Since TNT shafted Crusade as well, the Technomages never did get to fully shine. Too bad, they were yet another brillian facet of the show, along with the Psi-Corps, the fate of Lando and Daniel, the telepath war... Plenty of room to grow into as well, with the Great Burn and so forth.
Oh, I sure hope this is a revival, and that JMS will get enough encouragement and support to consider picking up the B5 pen again. I can dream, can't I?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
What you had initially said was half-right. The show DID mutate a bit, but the end of the Shadow War was exactly where it was meant to be from the start.
:)
The reclaiming of Earth from 'Shadow puppets' was supposed to take a bit longer than it did, a little into Season 5, with the openner of S5 being Sheridan's rescue from the Earth prison.. Follow?
The end of S5 would be the brink of the telepath war, I think..
The reason for the shake-up was that TNT threatened to kill the show at the end of season 4. JMS took this very seriously, and tried to tie off as many loose ends in S4, to not leave the audience hanging too badly. Then when TNT renewed contract on B5 for the 5th season, the plot was prematurely completed, and so there was need for filler at the beginning of S5.
S5 was supposed to focus more on the troubles of the new 'Republic', with the Byron thread starting much earlier, probably towards the end of S4.
But the Great War ended in the middle of the series for good reason, so the younger races would have to grow up a bit, and we'd get to see it.
You really ought to visit The Lurker's Guide for the back-story, analysis and 'Everything you ever wanted to know about Babylon 5, but were afraid to ask'.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Babylon 5 (season 5, which I'm not sure was worth it) is the reason I got cable. And laziness (combined with South Park) is the only reason I haven't bothered to cancel it.
About season 5... I watched my tapes again a few months ago, and it doesn't really suck. I mean, I stil hate Byron as much as I ever did, but it really isn't bad as long as you don't compare it to the previous seasons (especially 2 & 3).
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If you are into the story at all, individual episodes are quite ejoyable, but are far from a complete story. As some say, watching the first few seasons is like reading lord of the rings. It's an epic. I don't WANT stand-alone. I don't believe you can convey real meaning in 35 minutes of TV. Unlike a soap-opera, B5 was thought out in it's entirety BEFORE they were aired. The whole story was written, it just took a while to tell
It wasn't 10%. I think B5 was costing around $800,000 per episode (which peaked out at about $1M toward the end of the series) and ST:TNG was around $1M-1.5M per episode. Everyone was aghast that Space: Above and Beyond was costing $2M, so there's no way TNG was costing $10M!
BTW: The B5 numbers are quoted from Straczynski (back when rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 was THE group) who was very up-front that these numbers were ballpark, and he was not allowed to go into detail.
Yeah, and what's up with about 50 sports channels I could care less about, which they include on the expanded tier, but they charge us for the good channels?
Will in Seattle
NB it does contain spoilers.
My brother subscribed to the short lived Babylon 5 comic book, in one episode there was a letter from a guy in Denmark. The guy in Denmark said he was happy to get the B5 comic even though he couldn't watch the series in Denmark. Unfortunately, that was the last issue of the Babylon 5 commic published. So my brother, insane Babylon 5 evangelist that he was, started taping episodes of Babylon 5 off of TV and mailing them to this guy in Denmark. (In clear violation of region coding! Oh, the villainy of it!)
Ok, so, if there are any fan tapes of B5 circulating in Denmark now, maybe you can thank my brother...
Now it is an international story, see... ^_-
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Ok, how much better was Babylon 5 than The Phantom Menace?
Would (a googleplex)*(a googleplex) be excessive?
I think not....
(I have to post this at 2... I'm afraid humorless Star Wars moderators will think of it as flamebait. Would it mollify you Star Wars moderators if I said Empire Strikes Back was one of my all time favorite movies?)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
You can probably pick up most of the first-season episodes without prior knowledge of the series, although it helps. A background in the show helps to understand the fifth-season episodes, although I don't remember it as always being necessary -- with some exceptions, "Day Of The Dead" coming immediately to mind (otherwise the interactions between Leneer and Malden, and between Garibaldi and Dodger, don't make as much sense).
Anybody coming in in the middle of any of the other seasons is probably going to be lost until they watch for a few weeks to catch up with the action. That's something of a drawback, because not everybody is going to put in the effort to catch up. Those who do, though, will be well rewarded.
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
Now, if only they'd bring MST3k back...
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
They may have exclusive rights in the US, but Babylon 5 has been airing up here on the Space Channel for a long time... every night. I've seen almost every episode. It's one of those sci-fi shows you don't really like at first, but later you get right into the characters. Except for all the Sheradan / Delene love crap. They overdo that WAY too much for my tastes.
In most American TV, each episode can stand alone. B5 RARELY had an epesode that, by itself, stands alone.
The only one I can think of is, after the shadow war, he send the white star fleet to destroy asteroids (with the intent of the other races to believe the enemy is invisible to their sensors....but not the white star fleet)
What episodes do you think could stand alone? Episodes that are self-explanitory, and could be pulled out of the series, and someone would feel that from a plot context-wrapup in an hour match normal American TV?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I remember reading, back when B5 started, that all the episodes were actually filmed in widescreen and would be available eventually on DVD, in widescreen, with extra scenes. Did this ever happen?
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
there is a site that has all episodes and the plots of those episodes, plus commentary from JMS who write most of the episodes and analysis. I don't remember the URL, I'd have to do a websearch to find it. Anyway my advice to anyone is watch the entire series TWICE. The first time through, the first season will bore you. Things are really moving the fourth season and once you have seen it once the whole way through, you will look at the episodes in the first season and say things like "Wow, that doesn't come up until season 4 and this is only the 4th episode!!". You will see the plot threads that come together and probably be pretty impressed. It's the closest you are going to get on TV for having the complexity of a good novel. When it went to TNT, I bought cable just to be able to watch the show.
Its complex; keep watching. If after the episode "And the Sky Full of Stars" you haven't found you like it, feel free to stop, but give it a chance to that point. (its the episode where Sinclair is captured, drugged and has his mind probed.) The Lurkers guide is the best place for information: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/
This was announced 4 days ago! Anyway excellent show; finally you Americans can see it weekly on a well known channel. It is a completely different show when you see the episodes concurrently. I've watched most episodes more than 7 times and I still catch new information, in jokes and stuff. If you haven't seen the show before, stick with it; it begins to get really good frm "And the Sky full of Stars" there's loads of back story and you expect the answers to appear within a few episodes, but you don't get all of them till the next year! Heck there are things from the 1st season which don't have an impact until the 5th season. Talk about planning ahead. : heads home tomorrow; B5 videos ahoy!
That was what I liked about the original Star Trek as well, but to be perfectly honest, I find that Babylon 5 not only has integrity, courage, and human nature, but it has them in spades.
I vividly remember the first time I saw all the episodes of B5, and those factors were what made it so good. It was a terribly realistic portrayal of a lot of what it means to be human.
There were wars that had no meaning that went on simply because they always had. What about when Londo Mollari, the Centauri ambassador to B5, decided to give up his future, his freedom, even his very life, in order to save his people -- and right when he was finally where he wanted to be.
Or how about Kosh being afraid of dying -- a "superior" being who had all the frailties inherent in every human being. Or G'Kar, a flat, one-dimensional character who wanted nothing more or less than to see the Centauri exterminated, who by the end of the series not only had forged a lasting peace between their two races but had also grown strong enough to turn down the chance to be ruler of his entire world.
I could continue, but my point is that not only did all this happen and more, but all these stories were told and woven together in a way that made them all believable and made them your own. That was Babylon 5
To call B5 a Star-Trek rip-off is like calling one hard-boiled detective a rip-off of another. People sometimes forget that Star Trek is not the be-all and end-all of science fiction. Most people have forgotten that when Star Trek first came out it was laughed at as a Lost In Space rip-off. I mean, it had people in space, right?
And to say the Borg mean anything, compared to the complex backstory in B5, is funny, too. At least the Vorlons and Shadows stood for the same thing consistently. The Borg started out as decentralized technology junkies, became cybernetic parasites, and were eventually turned into an insect hive, with no explanation.
"Oh, my god, these two novels both have words in them! This one's an obvious rip-off!"
He doesn't just have accidents.
But it was on Fox, but CBS.
Fight Spammers!
Yeah, I know Automan was not real smart, but it was funny.
Fight Spammers!
Fight Spammers!
I was going to cancel my SCI-Fi channel. Now, if they pick up Strange Luck and bring back The Flash.
Fight Spammers!
It startwith this cop geek. He builds a program that analyzes data, that has the personalities of all the great detectices inputted into it. He hooked it up to a holographic projector. Now, with enough power, the program becomes alive.
Automan has the ability to become as solid as needed. He has cursor which can draw. Of course cursor draws his car, which has no inertia. Cursor on occassion has redrawn the car into a jet and helicopter.
Fight Spammers!
Why to all the aliens have french accents?
Judge Pag, the Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed
Simple version: space station Babylon 5 is a United Nations in space. Aliens from different worlds arrive to coexist peacefully, which usually fails to happen. Stuff blows up with increasing frequency.
Thematic details: We start with fairly standard SF stories with a couple of intriguing subplots about the history of the B5 universe and its characters (Season 1).
We then get the table kicked out from under us as a couple of the major races go to war and we realize just who's pulling the strings (Season 2).
The good guys and the string-pullers begin to encounter each other in earnest. In the process the status quo changes cataclysmically for the good guys, and they find themselves warring on more than one front. Meanwhile, some we thought were bad become good, and vice versa (Season 3).
Everything comes to a head, and I mean everything (Season 4).
Time to pick up the pieces -- what is the universe like after a major war's end? Meanwhile, a repressed minority begins to flex its muscle, and a new world order slowly emerges (Season 5).
For info on just about everything about the series, be sure to visit The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.
At the same time, somehow he managed to almost make me feel sorry for him at times, and he son become more than just the one dimensional character.
And who can forget the whole 'psi-corps spy' affair!? Phew....
I stand corrected with regards to Babylon 5 lacking depth. Since I don't watch the show that often, it was probably haste of me to pass judgement like that. The fact remains, however, that the new Star Trek series suck :-)
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
A couple of points of clarification:
Crusade was about as good, script-wise and plotwise as Season 1 B5. I've noticed that people who watch S1 tend to think it moves really slow and don't really understand the value of it until they see the rest of the series.
The Excalibur wasn't intended to me a small cruiser like the White Star fleet was.
But yeah, TNT did some nasty things to Crusade. Sad to say that JMS was right when he said, "I'd rather stop it now and have it become a legend rather than continue and compromise the integrity of the series, making it a disappointment to the viewers."
Babylon 5 was produced on roughly 10% of the budget that ST:TNG had, per episode.
Given this, they had decent acting, great writing, and pretty damn spectacular CGI. B5 had more original (meaning non-recycled between eps) CGI in one episode (I forget which, but I'm sure the Lurker's Guide has the statistics) than a whole season of TNG.
Add to this that the initial CGI work was done on Video Toasters (and later on less then top-noth graphics worstations), and you've got a totally GEEKY show, made great through effort and perseverence, not a big budget. B5 is a work of art, the ST series are a politically correct marketting franshise.
Just found this on the Lurker's guide:
The B5 effects teams, both at Foundation and at NDI, use Lightwave 3D by NewTek and specialized software to design and render the visual effects. For the pilot, the effects were rendered on a network of Amiga computers; later, Foundation used 12 Pentium PCs and 5 DEC Alpha workstations for 3D rendering and design, and 3 Macintoshes for piecing together on-set computer displays.
Considering that, it's pretty damn good... No?
Also, the graphics were not poor, they were realistic, IMHO. Video of Mir and other orbitting craft look pretty cheesy too, due to the harshness of the light outside the atmosphere.
Maybe what you meant to say was that the effects didn't look like those in big budget productions like Star Trek and SW:TPM?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
It was "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", and yes, it was good.
Personally, I really liked "Severed Dreams". Delenn's speech was moving to more than the bad guys.
Of course, then there's G'Kar's voiceover at the end of season three in "Z'ha'dum", which I actually had on my desk at work.
And of course, "Confessions and Lamentations" was the most wrenching episode of anything I have ever seen. The feeling in Delenn when the doors opened to show her there with nobody left alive has haunted me ever since.
No other series has ever had a moment burn itself so deeply into my mind as Babylon 5, and that is why it is significant.
I don't think it's entirely fair to claim that Crusade failed because we knew they found a cure. Babylon 5 has never really been about keeping the endings from you... it's how you get there that's more important. We knew from the first episode, ("Midnight on the Firing Line") that G'Kar and Londo were going to kill each other 20 years in the future. We knew Londo would be Emperor of Centauri Prime pretty early on but that didn't make his innevitable journey to the throne any less interesting, (I would argue it made it _more_ interesting). We knew Londo was going to get a keeper. We knew G'Kar was going to lose his eye. We knew the Shadows would come to Centauri Prime. We knew these things were going to happen but we didn't know how or why or the reasons they did. When it comes down to it, Babylon 5 has always been more about the characters and the way the journies they take effect them than the journies and events themselves. So I don't think it's fair to say that Crusade failed because we knew the crew would succeed. Personally I think it failed because it wasn't all that good an idea to begin with, but the Babylon 5 series prejudiced me toward a more political and character driven type of show and Crusade was basically Xena in outer-space.
"Last time we saw you, you looked so much older; Your famous blue raincoat was torn 'round the shoulder..." -------
- Galen alone is a better character than any other sci-fi channel character. Not because technomages are cool, but because he is more than just an SF stereotype. Yes, he's Aragorn and Gandalf. Yes, he's got bits of a lot of archetypes, but he's a living breathing character. Plus, technomages are cool.
- ;-)
9.- The sci-fi channel has some people (at least indirectly) who are familiar with how to integrate good animatronics into a science fiction show, and it would be a cool thing to see some of Straczynski's odder ideas put into play (e.g. the praying-mantis-like character from B5).
8.- The bits of Crusade that TNT didn't f**k with were much more interesting than the bits that they did. This makes me think that a station willing to let Straczynski do his thing will reap the rewards.
7.- There's a ready-made fan-base, as I'm sure the B5 ratings will tell them.
6.- The sci-fi channel has good connections among teleplay-capable SF authors. This means that they can feed Straczynski with good authors and keep him down to those 8-12 per season where he does his best writing (e.g. see the first 2 seasons of B5 vs. the rest; still a lot of good writing, but not as many GOOD EPISODES).
5.- They need a good companion show for Farscape (once they start writing episodes as well as they did at the end of last season, and I'm hoping that they will...)
4.- A 4+ year show that's pretty much guaranteed to have interesting stories for the full run.
3.- Sci-fi could use some good will among fans right about now.
2.- If they don't Joe will go somewhere else, and do something that Sci-Fi will wish they had.
1.Ever since I first saw Lexx, and every time I accidentally catch a little of it by way of the promo spots, I sigh and say "this is what Sci-Fi wanted in stead of Crusade." I can only hope that the move to pick up B5 is a trial before going whole-hog and developing Crusade. Fellow fans, let us hope....
This is the series that got me interested in space-opera again. Something that Star Trek, in its endlessly repititive episodes, fail to deliver. (Dons flame retardent asbestos suit).
Okay, this is just slightly off topic, but I think it's close enough (flame me if I'm wrong and I'll apologize personally).
Babylon 5: Into the Fire was/is a sim based on the StarFury fighter in B5. If you haven't heard about it, it hasn't made it to life yet. It has now been dropped around twice or so, and a last-ditch effort to save it is continuing.
If anyone cares, you can see the current status at FirstOnes.com. If you liked the show, and might like the true inertial space flight sim (you can spin around in mid flight just like in space and the show), support B5:ITF now and we might even be able to convince them to port it to Linux once it's actually revived... again.
(Just thought it would be informative for those who really liked the show and would like to fly a 'Fury. If you don't like this post, please just flame me and let me apologize in person; don't moderate it down.)
As a fan of Babylon 5 from day one, I can say that this is news I've been waiting for a long time to hear. TNT terribly mistreated Babylon 5 after doing so much, producing the final season and four telefilms, then screwing over both Babylon 5 and it's short-lived but promising spinoff Crusade.
/.ers who haven't seen Babylon 5, give it a try. Especially if you like the epic scope of The Lord Of The Rings, you'll find many parallels to Babylon 5. While Babylon 5 doesn't always have the production values of Star Trek, the compelling stories and characters more than make up for it.
For those
Now that it's on at a decent time, give it a try. You could end up as hooked as me and all my friends...
This is the one show that I got hooked on religiously. I have none of the extra paraphenalia nor have I tried to extend its universe. I just found it to be a damn good show, one that was (pardon the fanaticism) extremely well written with intertwining plots and a human race that seemed believable.
This was the first show I saw where I felt the politics were believable. Most of the star treks always felt like they assumed that going into space would unite humanity. Babylon 5 went with the idea that... 'ooo, space' and life moved on. Perhaps it felt believable because that world was as cynical as the one I live in today, but I really got lost in the show when it came on.
Since I know we're all going to start mentioning favorite episodes, let me submit mine. I think it was called "The Deconstruction of a Star" but that doesn't seem right. In any case it right after the new alliance was created and everything seemed alright.. so this one episode sidetracked and stepped ahead into the future at different intervals. I don't remember all of it, but I know it showed the alliance after sheridan's death, a new 1984ish government complete with its brand of newspeak attempting to change history, and even a race of people without technology following a religion that worshipped sheridan and the alliance.
You can bet that 7:00pm is now booked solid from now on for me.