The Lurker's Guide to Babylon5
midwinter.com
midwinter.com
One was a character that came on to interrogate the main cast, who had a scar on his face. After the episode aired people complained about how fake the scar looked and that it shouldn't have moved like that when he was talking. But actually, that was a real scar the actor has gotten in, I think, Vietnam.
The other was, Centauri women shave their heads, and comments after one episode were about how fake one of the actresses' bald caps looked. If I remember right, that particular actress was going through cancer treatments and was actually bald in the episode.
> Don Stroud got his scar by jumping into a crowd of men with knives to stop a woman from being raped, according to former story editor Larry DiTillio.
> [..]
> Boggs' scar wouldn't have moved like it did.
> The physical dynamics of the scar would have worked as seen, actually, mainly because that wasn't a piece of makeup, that's a real scar, and it does work that way.
> The scar is real. He had some rough times a few years ago. (Actually, he also appeared with the scar as it's seen here in "TKO," as Garibaldi's corner man, though there it was hidden a bit.) He's still doing a lot of work though.
> (The funny thing was seeing the occasional comment on the nets saying how fake they thought the makeup looked, and why couldn't we manage to do something a bit more realistic looking?)
Some people over-analyse these things way too much.
Midwinter's episode ratings are a pretty good guide to which ones are skippable, though there's only a handful of episodes that are truly disposable filler. It's a remarkable achievement for 90s TV.
- the acting is terrible,
- dialog is pretty corny in places
- the alien prosthetics look silly
- the CGI, while technically impressive, look cartoonish (even in true in its era)
Yes despite all this, it’s still amazing and, for me at least, it becomes very easy to look past those faults.
In my opinion it’s one of the best sci-fi shows ever written for its world building. You genuinely buy into the politics.
I just wish they weren’t messed around with the cancellation, then renewal of season 5 because that completely destroyed the pacing of the last two seasons.
It's a remarkable achievement but yes, it does look rather dated sadly.
My main annoyance with B5 is how the alien designs echo human historic stereotypes. A lot of sci fi falls in this trap.
The Minbari are meditative asians. The Centari are a decaying franco-romanesque empire. The Narn are primitive and violent with dark skin and exaggerated facial features. The humans are plucky American go getters. The Vorlons are the only real original alien design, but were deliberately made a blank canvas of mystery.
Mind you in no way do I think it was malicious, just a lazy writing crutch others have used. Star Trek TNG had some pretty glaring examples of the same thing in early seasons. Star Wars patterns the Jedi after Samurai.
Even if there's a universe/plot justification for why all the alien species are humanoid variations too, I think it's a lot more interesting if the writers can come up with unique histories and cultures for the aliens.
To be more specific, it was done on Video Toaster. Since the Video Toaster effectively guts the Amiga's video system and substitutes it with its own its hard to even call it an Amiga anymore.
And yeah, it has numerous examples of very lazy writing: Minbari (Space Asians), Centauri (Space French), Narn (Space Palestinians) ... but the Vorlons as original? Really? They're the Space Zen Masters, spitting out zen fortune cookies to drive the plot forward.
> I think it's a lot more interesting if the writers can come up with unique histories and cultures for the aliens.
Not everyone can be Tolkien and write 5,000 years of history and a linguistic family tree, so I tend to cut writers some slack even if their fictive cultures are boring stereotypes, as long as they can create characters that aren't. For the most part I think JMS succeeded at that.
1) The problem with TV is that you have to cough up an episode every single week on the fly. And JMS wrote a huge number of the episodes for Seasons 3 and 4 (I think all of them, but I can't find a citation).
2) Babylon 5 was specifically engineered to be TV budget friendly and was about $650K per episode. That puts significant limits on what you can do. Contrast to say Farscape at $1M or TNG at $1.5M per episode.
IIRC, JMS says so in one of the DVD extras for Season 3 or 4 (one of the JMS commentary tracks).
I also don’t think it was too bad for its time, but I think it was too early to rely on CGI to that extent. Great show though.
The station still looks pretty great...
This isn't Trek where the Enterprise is a character in and of itself. This is more Deep Space Nine.
Babylon 5 is about politics and personalities, the spaceships and stuff are just the background.
Tom Bakers Doctor Who I think is the best example of using a shoestring budget to tell huge sci-fi stories well. B5 takes a lot from that book.
I watched it then, and i can tell you that NO, it wasn't pretty good for the time nor the media, it was terrible even for that time. Not because their CGI was particulary worse, but because all CGI was terrible at the time. The technology wasn't ready yet to do much, so everyone else at the time relied on practical effects, miniatures, and built full set; but for practicality and cost reasons they decided to use the crude CGI of the time for many things that were not good enouth at the time, and it shown terribly.
In subsequent seasons they walked back that decision slightly, mostly abandoning CGI for indoor scenes in favour of building sets for their actors like everyone else. And the last few seasons had fairly good CGI for external shots of the station and ships, because by that time the tech evolved to be good enouth (that is when you start seeing such CGI being used in all other shows as well).
We all know shows that started out strong then got ruined by this stuff, like Lost or Heros. Or the internet's favorite punching bag, Game of Thrones.
I think The Wire is an interesting exception. They never got more than a single season commitment, but still managed to make something that feels cohesive over 5 seasons. They did it by using an ensemble cast where character's arcs can be extended in later seasons, but with new characters entering the mix as well. They also picked a different theme for each season, looking at the failures of american institutions from different directions, and resolving that theme within each single season. The result is each season feels distinct and can stand alone, but they also form a cohesive whole.
Heroes, I agree with you, no question.
That said, it's also aided by primarily being a story about characters rather than plot.
I always thought Lost got a bad rap for that. It was actually a story about characters, but its fandom thought it was very much about plot. Hence the hate for the finale (which I thought was wonderful)
However, genuine thanks for the Lost finale spoiler, I never wanted to watch beyond season 2 anyway as it already became rather tedious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdOpQE5miP4
Referring to the 'Who Shot JR' part was a mixup on my part- was pretty young at the time and not actively watching weekly so I forgot which was which...
You refer, of course, to Season 5.
it is just a bunch of useful info condensed out of discussions about Babylon 5 on Usenet in the mid 90's, including from posts from jms, who used to hang around and mostly cryptically answer questions. it's still online, largely unchanged, 30 years later, links unbroken, no begging for money for hosting fees, no Partnership With An Exciting Brand Partner.
bless the editor and all who helped.
Without fare for transport off the station, they were trapped.
Straczynski was one of the first to actively participate in the Usenet group dedicated to his own show, creating a lot of buzz.
Those who only read the news without posting were known as "lurkers".
Plenty of reasons. A few crazy people live there, some running from the law or other authorities, some lose everything gambling, one has been there since the station was built and was afraid to leave. One episode centered around a teenage girl whos parents died so she resorted to stealing food.
And then there's the episode "Gray 17 Is Missing".
There were other gems around that time though. I was chatting to friends about the Outer Limits just yesterday. Plus let’s not forget the other Star Trek franchise; Voyager.
I also love(d) Stargate SG1 (this was a little later too IIRC but much closer in time frame than BSG).
There were some pretty weird shows too. Some people liked Fargate. I personally couldn’t get into that particular show. But I did enjoy Lexx.
Edit: a little later (possibly around the time of BSG), but Firefly and Dollhouse shouldn’t be forgotten either.
I did rather like SG1s parody of Farscape for this (iirc) 200th episode.
"Go for Marty!"
[0] https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Wormhole_X-Treme!_(episode)
And for something more recent: War of the worlds (tv show from BBC+France).
I was never a big tv watcher, so maybe everyone knows.
Sadly, it doesn't seem it's ever gonna come back indeed. Not only because the US entertainment industry (mainly) decided to embrace new values but also because media format itself changed much. While streaming platforms bring big money to the table and technology made easier and cheaper to create worlds we see on screens, the series per episode become longer but shorter as a whole. And that IMO affects the true quality of production no matter how much these gonna be sprinkled with effects, big names in cast or marketing.
The old media had these filler content that allowed audience to get accustomed with heroes, see their weaknesses and strong sides, explore their backgrounds while all what's made today bring flat stereotypical characters and worlds that personally remind me of cheap fanfiction.
I readily admit the internet is more usable today, but in miss engaging with sites with a clear voice like this.
And yes, the first 3.5 seasons of B5 are incredible.
> Concept
> What we propose is not Star Trek: Another Generation, or Star Trek: A New Ship, or even Star Trek: The Search for Plots. In other words, not a copy of a copy, or a distillation of a variation. We want to re-boot STAR TREK. The original. Pure and simple. The characters, universe and situations that have attracted, and continue to attract, a worldwide audience. Re-set… re-imagined… re-invigorated…
https://monsterscifishow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/st2004r...
And IIRC he also on few occasions mentioned he'd like to contribute to Doctor Who universe
The universe is a big place; a decent writer can find a way to tell any story they want. (As demonstrated by the many IP-friendly reboots since 2004, when this was written.)
It's a fascinating site. Besides being a great commentary on a really good TV show, and a great example of how durable and usable 90s-era web could really be, it also encapsulates something about the position and velocity of culture at the time. The whole thing really reflects how TV shows were viewed at the time, and how the Internet was used at the time, and the hopes and ideals people had about where things would go.
1) the variable frame rate: live action is 24p anything with CG is effectively 60p (both in a 60i container). This is difficult to do in HD.
2) a lot of the source materials for the CG are scattered to the winds, and the surviving stuff is in semi-obscure formats, that make re-rendering expensive.
A few people on youtube have posted fan restorations of the CG based on source-material that have fallen into their hands, and it looks pretty good… but I can’t see WB making the same effort to restore the CG further. Maybe as AI upscaling improves - it might look better.
3) Questions around 16:9 vs 4:3 framing.
Either way - great show - but HD doesn’t do some of the aets any favours.
when they recently made a new movie a few years ago they used fan models for getting a 3D B5 going.
Probably can be recreated but it raises the possibility of not keeping the spirit.
So I'd think someone that is motivated with money, some streaming service, could re-create these.
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/master/eplist.html
A comparison of the Lurker's Guide's and others' viewing order:
Their rearrangement of the TV episodes is fine.
I don’t know why the Lurker’s Guide (or JMS) recommend watching it first. I rewatched Babylon 5 recently and I’m glad I watched “In The Beginning” last.
You are absolutely correct that "In the Beginning" has all kinds of spoilers, and shouldn't be watched.
Because "In the Beginning"[0] is not a pilot. It was a TV movie made to introduce the series to TNT viewers and broadcast just before they started airing Season 5.
"The Gathering"[1] is the only Babylon 5 pilot (with "A Call to Arms"[2] as the introduction for Crusade[3], and "To Live and Die in Starlight"[4] was the pilot for the never-made "Legend of the Rangers"[5])
[0] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/111.html
[1] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/000.html
[2] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/115.html
[3] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/113.html