this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
77 points (95.3% liked)

Science Fiction

13602 readers
2 users here now

Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction

December book club canceled. Short stories instead!

We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.

  1. Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
  2. Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
  3. Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
  4. Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
  5. Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.

Lemmy World Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
77
Should I Give Babylon 5 Another Chance? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by PlanetOfOrd@lemmy.world to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

As a Sci-Fi fan I've been a huge fan of shows like Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Terminator: TSCC, Star Trek, etc. I keep hearing Babylon 5 is awesome.

I was too young at the time to watch the series when it was on. But then as an older teen/ young adult I decided to give it a try. Everything was so cringe it was hard to get through 3 episodes. IMO the whole vibe was "safe..." maybe even a bit corny--not the intense, exciting, politically-tense space opera that I was told it was.

So maybe the beginning episodes are just world-building? What do other people think?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd suggest getting through the first season and into the second. It gets much, much better. the first season is mostly worldbuilding- there's narrative arcs, but they're mostly focused on setting the stage, so to speak.

As mentioned, season 1 is a bit rough, but the latter seasons wouldn't be so good without that foundation.

another comment- it was mid-90's CGI, so do give it some grace for that. But given the CGI technology of the time... they set a huge number of records. It should also be noted that the reason the two first seasons seem so similar, between B5 and ST:DS9 is that JMS pitched the show to UPN first, gave them an early show bible that they had for... a long time. They declined and decided to basically rebrand that as star trek (and viola, DS9). The two shows do diverge dramatically at the second season. b5 was first, though.

ETA: also, I've been thinking about the show a lot with Israel-Palestine stuff, being a bit comprable to the Centari-Narn stuff. not, like 1:1, but, specifically, Delenn asking "when does it end", and the rant about that. funny the things that stick with you.