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Babylon 5 Coming Back?
SaturnTim writes "Babylon 5 fans rejoice! It appears that our favorite space outpost is back. It will be returning soon in a series of direct-to-DVD 20min episodes, each featuring the past of one of our favorite characters."
It won't be the same without G'Kar, one of my two favorite characters.
Where were you when the voynix came?
This series rocked, in its day. I'm not willing to say it was the best thing on TV ever, but i think it makes the top 5. Actions taken by characters had consequences, and fundamentally changed their relationships with other characters - not a static universe where a new episode happened every week but nothing fundamentally changed. It was a realistic world, where characters needed money to live, and there was greed, and corruption, and crime, and an underworld. There were complex characters - even the bad guys were not "one dimensional" - they had their own agendas and loyalties and were not presented as some simplistic "pure evil". Semi-decent newtonian mechanics for spaceships.
It was good stuff. And although the special effects look dated now, at the time, it was amazing to see battles with 100 separate ships on TV - that kinda thing had been reserved for the movies up until then.
I think I must be the only person left on this planet who thinks that BSG is massively overrated. That's not to say it's not good, but I just really can't see why everyone sees it as some kind of Sci-fi messiah.
I have to say you're wrong about that. My image isn't romanticized, it's fresh in my memory (I'll kill a weekend ever few months watching the first four seasons).
The main thing fans usually praise about B5 is the incredible story arc. Four seasons planned ahead from day 1. It's impressive. But B5 had something I find even more important, the same thing that made Firefly great before Whedon ruined it: Characters and the way they interacted.
The best example, I think any B5 fan will agree, had to be the chemistry between Andreas Katsulas(R.I.P.) (G'Kar) and Peter Jurasik(Londo). But there were very few poor characters. Walter Koenig as Bester makes you want to punch him in the mouth, but that's because he's SUPPOSED to. Ivanova's monologues on C&C were always good for a wry grin ("No boom today. Boom tommorow. ALWAYS Boom tommorow.") Maybe I'm just fanboying, but I even found Bruce Boxleitner to be an excellent choice for Sheridan.
Babylon 5, love it or hate it. After few episodes you are addicted anyways.
One episode doesnt give you any reason to be addicted, two gives you something, after three episodes you cant wait to see fourth, after fourth you find yourself thinking how PPG's really work, after fifth you have lost the count.
Think about a show that has 110 episodes + pilot, where each and every episode are somehow connected. And I dont mean only those episodes that comes in a row, for example 18,19 and 20 would be connected, but I also mean episodes 8 and 75, 53 and 106... 106 and 75... 75 to each and every episode... etc... That is why I love this show, it only gets better more you watch it.
After few episodes you can see the unavoidable faith of Babylon 5 and how the show is going to end, and that I think is the point of the story. You are given certain hints about the future, but you cant know whether it is true or not, or is it even possible.
It is your job to find out.
When the story continues, more hints are brought up, more moving parts inside machinery, more fire to the wheel. And most of all, you can see how the actions in the past had a consequence in the future (Or in the past...:).
In series finale, you will realise how wrong you were time to time, and how great journey this series was. For the last minutes you can only cry for two reasons, because it is over, or just because you want to.
Go get the DVD's, this show is definitely worth it.
Yes, for its time B5 raised the bar on Sci-Fi the way Battlestar Galactica does now. The stories were well written, often interwoven with one another, and the characters were very complex. Even the villains are more than just "one dimensional" pure evil that needed to be destroyed (I beliece someone else also expressed this point).
What hurt shows like ST: Voyager, Enterprise and so many others is that they let the exec interfere with the creative process. Fox wanted more sex on Voyager so they brought in Seven-of-Nine, though Jeri Ryan proved that she was more than just a nice set of boobs and was actually a very good actress. Oh, and don't get me started with T'Pal on Enterprise. She was a good actress also but she was cast for the role because she was top heavy. I'm not saying sex in Sci-Fi isn't bad, but its when the focus of the show is to show off some babe in a skin tight body suit I'd rather watch the Playboy channel. I want my sci-fi shows to have depth, and I'm not alone in this. Sadly, too many media execs think they know what we want even then we tell them what we want. Case in point; the fans demanded for a series featuring Sulu as the captain of the Excellceor, but they gave everyone Enterprise because that is what the execs thought was what was best for the fans rather than listening to what the fans asked for. They're doing it again with the new Star Trek movie. Yes, they are going ahead with the Starfleet Academy things where a young Kirk meets Spock at the academy.
I also agress that Dr. Who was a great series. It is on record, with Guiness, as the longest running Sci-Fi TV series in history. Despite have an almost non-existant budget the producers of the series were still able to tell provocative stories which were sometimes totally unheard of in TV Sci-Fi. The new series does follow a similar formula though I'm disappointed a little by the fact that they dumped the serialization of the episodes.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home