For those who have watched both Babylon 5 and Star Trek TNG- which did you like better?
B5 is much more character driven and more of a slow burn that sets up a big payoff in the later seasons that has permanent world-changing impact. It was really ahead of its time, closer to something like Game of Thrones than anything else at the time.
TNG feels more static, even the "big events" don't really change the world all that much in the next episode, except Tasha Yar being written out of the show in season 1 causing Worf's head to shrink in season 2 or something I guess. It's a mystery-of-the-week show, you know what you're gonna get and you know it's good. No complaints, but also nothing mind blowing.
Both TNG and B5 have significant cultural value, but for different reasons. More people should watch them.
A good example is Walter Koenig, to me he was amazing in B5, at times you hated and loved his character, even at the same time.
Absolutely. I just rewatched S02E05 ("The Long Dark") that had Dwight Schultz[0] as a guest star.
While watching it (and not for the first time), it occurred to me that in that one single episode on Babylon 5, Schultz showed us more humanity than in all the dozen or so Star Trek: TNG/Voyager episodes he was in as Lieutenant Barclay.
In both roles, Shultz's character is emotionally damaged, which causes problems for them, but in the Star Trek roles it's mostly played for comedy and the issues around his dysfunction aren't addressed at all.
As the B5 character, his PTSD (based on serious trauma as a soldier) made him a homeless substance abuser. The plot pushed him to examine and face the source of his trauma. While I wouldn't call it a "powerful" performance, the B5 character was much more believable and human than the ST character.
Same actor, incredibly different on-screen results.
When people asked me what I preferred, "Star Wars or Star Trek?", I've always responded with "Babylon 5".
B5 spends most of the series saying that sort of thing.
That said, B5 absolutely does wear its fantasy pretensions on its sleeve, and I think you're correct about the "forward looking" versus "backwards looking" themes. The technomages are wizards with robes and mystical incantations and everything - it's explained away as "technology so advanced it's indistinguishable from magic" but they wouldn't be out of place in any D&D setting. Mystical prophecies, gods, demons, "light vs. dark" motifs, the Minbari being so elf-coded it's ridiculous, the Great Man heroic ideal, sacred tomes, eldritch ruins, crystals crystals crystals. All the trappings are there. Crusade went even further in this regard. The hero ship in Crusade is named the Excalibur ffs.
>TNG isn't actually about science
I agree with your point that Star Trek is very bad at being scientifically realistic (e.g., in its plots) but Star Trek -- at least TOS and TNG -- was very good at creating positive feelings about scientific and technological progress.
Technological progress is one of the few things that large numbers of people have become so enthusiatic about that it becomes a sort of lens through which they decide the goodness or badness of almost everything that happens. Jesus and dismantling capitalism and other forms of oppression are two other examples.
In other words, the first two Star Trek shows (i.e., the shows that Roddenberry exerted direct control over) seemed to have been extremely good at attracting people to the technophilic ideology.
(TNG is also a potent advertisement for communist ideology: Roddenberry was at the time interested in communism and insisted that money was absent (or rare and unimportant) inside the Federation and that crime and strife between people had mostly been eliminated.)
That's fair. Tons of scientists and engineers got into their fields because they were inspired by Star Trek.
>TNG is also a potent advertisement for communist ideology: Roddenberry was at the time interested in communism and insisted that money was absent (or rare and unimportant) inside the Federation and that crime and strife between people had mostly been eliminated.
Yes. It isn't that potent, though, because it depends on a post-scarcity economy of free energy, FTL and magic boxes that make anything out of nothing. It also assumes humans will just "evolve beyond" their basic nature, bigotry, vice and desire for hierarchies of power.
But for communism (or weakly, socialism) to work in the real world it has to deal with scarcity and human desire.
What would be the equivalent of B5 in a fantasy? A floating sky island? A neutral world in a multiverse? Both have been done, but I've never heard of one actually being the centerpiece and the namesake of a series. There's also the issue of "porting" B4 into such a setting.
Having a series of "prototype" worlds or prototype floating islands would likely make the series overly contrived.
Imagine a typical fantasy setting in which humans live amongst other races - elves, dwarves, goblins and the like (but substitute them for aliens, the archetypes are mostly the same) Humans are still venturing out into the greater world and were nearly being wiped out in a war with the elves (Minbari) when their intitial meeting went poorly. Humans create a city called Babylon where representatives of various races could come together to talk, trade and interact peacefully at the outer boundaries of what humans knew to be "the world," near the countries of wild magic where eldritch and ancient things were known to dwell, which even the older races fear to speak of.
The fourth Babylon vanished without a trace. Humans have barely begun to master even the simplest of magics but this is far beyond their understanding, and the elves, who always seem to know more than they say, say nothing. But, humans being perhaps too stupid or prideful to know when to quit, simply built it again, and tried again.
But there are prophecies of an ancient enemy called The Lords of Shadow which have slumbered deep underground for so long that they have become mere legend to all but the oldest races, if not forgotten altogether. A profane force of the deepest and darkest magics which was beaten back by an alliance of older races and the Lords of Light, the divine high elf mages who still watch over the younger races and regard humans with bemusement.
Or they seem to. It's hard to tell with them. Their faces are always obscured by masks, and everything they say is a riddle.
The prophecies say the time is drawing near for the Lords of Shadow to awaken again, and the dark magic to return... and strangely enough, within this city where humans, elves, dwarves, angels and devils all walk amongst one another, the key to the fate of the world and the coming of the New Age may be this weak, naive, plucky race called humans, whose nature seems to stand between the darkness and the light, and in whom the Elves have taken a particular interest, for reason they refuse to reveal.
It really isn't that difficult. Not every element has to have a precise 1:1 match, so many of the themes and motifs are right out of fantasy. You have an ancient immortal named Lorien, a mysterious broker of dark wishes named Morden who serves the Shadows, a group of elite warriors called Rangers who trained under the Elves (Minbari) and fought in the last great war against Sauron-sorry The Shadows. The Technomages are literal space wizards.
You could do some Norse Mythology thing and say "hyperspace" is a magical form of travel between the "realms" of these various races, and have the story take place when humans have just discovered the magic that allows access to the world tree. Add a Tower of Babel analogy and say the city of Babylon already existed and was already a place where different races commingled because it's where the portal was, making it both an international and interdimensional hub, but one day the old Tower of Babylon (which is where the portal is) just disappeared (probably those damned elves) but they built a new one.
But TNG had some amazing episodes, the top of which were are some of the best on television before or since. The Inner Light, the Drumhead, Yesterday's Enterprise, etc.
TNG was the hopeful future - something an idealist would like to imagine society could achieve.
Babylon 5 was the realistic future - where fascism and racism are issues still prevalent in society, but largely left unaddressed.
If you ask me to pick between them I'd have to go with Babylon 5 but only because of the writing. There were so many times that JMS foreshadowed events literal years in the future on the show and it was such a huge payoff as a fan.
Star Trek just wasn't structured as a show in a way that can compete with that level of world building that was all interwoven in the same kind of way.
Babylon 5 still lords over all of them.
Also, Babylon 5 later seasons are directly relevant to modern political developments and fascism.
As much as I love both shows, I wouldn't really recommend B5 to someone based on a love of TNG. I think it is more natural to recommend B5 to someone based on a minimial affinity for sci fi and a liking for Lord of the Rings, which will really tell you how different the two shows are.
TNG is wonderfully idealistic. It paints a picture of rising above your vices and being professional, civilized, and decent. It teaches you to work the problem, to examine the data, to think and consult and reflect and do better. I think it unrealistic -- I thought it unrealistic when I first encountered it -- but that doesn't matter. It's such a worthy ideal that it is worth encountering and remembering over and over again. As you go through life, you should remember that that is an option and strive for it.
B5 is wonderfully heroic. It is about dealing with a world of moral complexity and uncertainty, about trying to do good even when it is futile, about being a hero in the face of danger and risk and doubt. About how politics makes that difficult and keeps it in check and at any rate isn't a game you can check out of because it is the game.
Both shows encounter awful authoritarianism. One examines the law and philosophy in detail and gives a stirring verbal rebuke that carries the day. One starts a rebellion without certainty that it will be right or effective, but because under the circumstances, a good man feels compelled to do so. I think these are both extremely valuable takes on the topic, and I wouldn't want to have not seen either one. But I do have to say that at the end of the day, it is the second one I think of more as I go through life. For me the greater life lesson is not in taking the time to seek deeper wisdom, worthy as that is, but in having the bravery and faith to face danger, uncertainty, and tragedy.