MovieChat Forums > Babylon 5 (1993) Discussion > About to start watching

About to start watching

posted 7 years ago by dvician
14 replies | jump to latest

Hello.

I have been getting into a kick recently on old SF shows that I missed the first time around. I see B5 ranked high on most lists and I am thinking of putting it next in queue along with SG1 and a couple of others.

I am curious, is this series linear in story (like BSG) or is it full of one offs (like Star Trek)?

If the latter, I can simply check for the 10 most highly reviewed episodes of each season and start from there. But if not, then I may have to delay this series until retirement....

Let me know. Thanks!

BTW, I posted this in SG1 forum to see which to start next. B5 seems to have more highly reviewed articles about it, but SG1 seems to have more fanatic followers...which I can dig.

_____________________
Come on Elaine, let`s go.

[–] alpha128 7 years ago

I am curious, is this series linear in story (like BSG) or is it full of one offs (like Star Trek)? - dvician

I own all five seasons on DVD, and can tell you that "Babylon 5" is a highly linear story. It was designed as a "novel for television" and was constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.

The structure of the series follows "Freytag's pyramid" and each season represents one of those five parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_%28narrative%29#Freytag.

That said however, it's not immediately apparent that the story is serialized. The first season has a high proportion of standalone episodes that introduce the settings, the characters, etc. Later seasons ramp up the serialization until Season 4 resembles a single, 22 part, episode.

The weakest parts of the series are Season 1 and the first half of Season 5. But Seasons 3 and 4 are some of the best science fiction television ever. In fact, the series won two consecutive Hugo awards in Seasons 2 and 3.

I encourage you to check it out, but remember, the first season is a bit of slog.

[–] kerryedavis 7 years ago

Just be careful to NOT watch "In The Beginning" first. That is NOT the first/pilot episode, despite the name. It's actually a refresher between seasons 4 and 5.

[–] purple_dave 7 years ago

nBSG is linear like B5. No, seriously, Babylon 5 was the first multi-season primetime series that carried a multi-season story arc. Cuse and Lindelof pointedly cited this series as a prime reason that they wanted to do Lost, and I imagine a lot of other long-form series drew some level of inspiration from B5, directly or otherwise.

You know what noone tells you about cooking with the Dark Side? The food is really good!

[–] jakeconhale 7 years ago

The one thing they didn't recreate, however, was the pre-production.

Lost was throwing major elements in as late as the pilot. That smoke monster stomping around the woods? Added because someone thought it looked cool in Forbidden Planet with no idea of who, what, why, etc.

BSG was unabashedly making things up as they went along and it went fairly well, as you didn't need too much backstory with that concept as much as a plan forward.

B5 knew what it was trying to do and where it was going - that, beyond almost anything else, is what made the series so powerful.

I've heard of other shows proudly boasting they are writing 6 episodes ahead of the airing episode. That's not a good thing - it means you have no long term plan. Hell, even 24 started the series without a back-half of the season.

Course, the trouble with intricately planned stories is that all that effort gets wasted if the show is cancelled 5 episodes in.

Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.

[–] purple_dave 7 years ago

Don't kid yourself. _Every_ long-form series ends up throwing stuff in that was never intended. If they didn't, it's only because the entire series is scripted before the series is even picked up. Yeah, Lost was in danger of getting lost for a while there, but that was more because ABC wouldn't commit to an end date so they couldn't really get too far in that direction without the risk of arriving at the finale a year or two before the series ended.

nBSG only worked in terms of winging it if you call two seasons of treading water while figuring out what they actually wanted to do with the show "working". That's why nBSG viewers seem to fall into two camps: Those who thought the show was the greatest thing since sliced bread until it went off the rails heading into S3, and those who thought two years of prologue was a bit excessive.

B5 was fairly unique in that it did have a five-year plan...or rather it had _two_ five-year plans. One was for B5 and would have ended with the station being destroyed in the war, and the other was for a spin-off series that would have basically finished what he ended up getting done in five. JMS claims the final product was more or less exactly as outlined, but I think I've only ever run across one other person who has read the original outline and would agree with that claim. At least 90% of what was in that outline was either retooled or thrown out completely before making it to the screen, and I honestly don't think the series would have made it even five years without those changes, let alone the originally planned ten years combined.

Even if you do side with JMS' claim after reading the outline, no less than half a dozen characters made use of the "trap doors" that he liked to talk about. The doctor, second-in-command, and Lyta all got trap doored out of the series after the pilot movie. Sinclair got it at the end of S1, Talia partway through S2, and Ivanova when S5 got picked up at the last minute. Those six cast changes (_six_, in a show that only started with five humans in the main cast, BTW, so 4/5 humans got written off by the end of the first season, and two of them got it a second time over the next three)) fundamentally changed core aspects of the show, invalidated some plot threads, and caused new ones to be added.

Now, Cuse & Lindelof maintained that they always intended for Lost to begin and end on the zoom in/out of Jack's eye. I'd say it's possible they stayed more true to their original vision than JMS did (and again, B5 is all the better for it).

You know what noone tells you about cooking with the Dark Side? The food is really good!

[–] DeltaFlotFan 7 years ago

It also must be remembered that some of the cast leaving was due to outside factors. Sinclair was supposed to be in for the whole series, but the actor developed mental stability issues, so he had to written out, and not seen again until his ultimate destiny could be squeezed in. Depending on who you believe, Claudia was either fired or quit before Season 5, which changing her destiny to command the station in that last season, and we got stuck with what's her name. Even though there was a complete plan for B5, it like military plans, had to change when it met reality.

[–] kerryedavis 7 years ago

And as I've mentioned before, I think those events were mostly fortunate, as the show actually turned out better than if JMS had been able to exactly follow his original plans.

[–] DeltaFlotFan 7 years ago

With Sinclair, that's a possibility, however getting stuck with Lockley for Season 5 made a rough season even rougher

[–] kerryedavis 7 years ago

Well I also preferred having Lyta back rather than Talia, for another example.

[–] jakeconhale 7 years ago

Yes, but that was also part of the strength of the series.

There were backup plans, contingency plans. This actor left? Oh well, bring in a new one. The arcs had contingency plans - the "trap doors".

Sinclair left so we got Sheridan, different character but achieves a similar end. Then there's the telepath shuffle or how the original Doc's stim addictions shifted to Franklin.

And yet, the story itself went on, because (outside of JMS) there wasn't a single point of failure.

I would love to know what the unused trap doors were, though. Once you lock in Londo as being Emperor, what if Jurasik left/died? Just "oh, he's been recalled to Centauri Prime, very busy, now it's all Vir"?

I mean, I could see G'Kar being replaced by Ta'lon or whoever that was (sword narn), most of the Earth personnel could just be replaced by their subordinates with adjusted stories (Allen becomes Garibaldi - swapping drinks for whatever addiction Allen had, Corwin becomes Ivanova, etc), but what about Delenn? Lennier just picking up her mantle in honor of her memory?

Anyways, I digress - these trap doors are indicative of the adaptability and planning inherent in the series. Other shows that are just winging it as they go along lack the ability for long term foreshadowing or as satisfying conclusions

Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.

[–] purple_dave 7 years ago

All of the cast changes were explained away within the series, but were ultimately due to real-world reasons. Takashima, the original Doctor, and Lyta were all replaced due to post-pilot tweaking going into the regular series, but they all also happened to be present when Kosh' encounter suit was opened and that was given as a rumored reason for why they were all recalled back to Earth. Talia had the sleeper agent thing, but in reality the actress wasn't happy that she wasn't given a focal role like Deanna Troi (who once showed up in the docking bay to bid farewell to a basketball player dressed as a Klingon just to fulfill contractual obligations to have all the main cast in every episode so they could all get paid accordingly). Sinclair was inducted into the Rangers, but O'Hare not so much developed a mental disorder as the pressures of filming a regular series as one of the main-main cast made it too difficult for him to cope with his situation (the same basic reason that Roy Harper got written out of Arrow). And Claudia Christian played hardball with the final season's contract and missed her deadline, while Ivanova left to persue her career after Marcus' death.

You know what noone tells you about cooking with the Dark Side? The food is really good!

[–] Theoden_of_ODU 7 years ago

I've heard of other shows proudly boasting they are writing 6 episodes ahead of the airing episode. That's not a good thing - it means you have no long term plan.

I remember the guy behind Heroes, Tim Kring, being incredibly proud about how they were writing scripts about 4 episodes ahead of what was being filmed at the time.

If you're writing a serialized show full of soap opera-style twists and turns out of left-field, and don't care about the long term quality of a story arc, then by not having a plan (and 4 or 6 episodes ahead of where the show is being filmed or aired is not a plan) is certainly fine. Just don't be shocked if the end result looks strung together haphazardly.

Hell, even 24 started the series without a back-half of the season

Certainly true about season one, and I wouldn't be shocked if it was true about nearly every other season the show ever aired (I can only guess since I don't know details about the show's production after season one). You can break down most seasons of 24 into at least 2 or 3 main story-arcs, with usually an episode or two of transition/overlap between each "part." In some cases, the stories shift so radically that events earlier in the season don't even make a reappearance.

No, not the mind probe!

[–] kerryedavis 7 years ago

I remember the guy behind Heroes, Tim Kring, being incredibly proud about how they were writing scripts about 4 episodes ahead of what was being filmed at the time.

I never even started watching Heroes, once I didn't hear about the girl coming out of the fire naked because her "mortal" clothes got burned off.

[–] Blueghost 7 years ago

A bit of both. A bit over written, some so-so CGI ... it's interesting to see once, but it doesn't have a whole lot of review value in my opinion.