Babylon 5, 1 guy wrote most of it, and it was much better planned than BSG
For these reasons, I'm not sure B5 really paid off on its promise and, at best, took a considerable willingness to overlook the weaknesses.
I'll grant you that every sci-fi show seems to have its bad episodes, and many of them occur early on. DS9 was not immune to that effect.
At some point I pledge to give B5 a more serious attempt. But I feel I should do that sooner, rather than later, because the show's looks are not aging gracefully.
The last 1.5 seasons of B5 were a letdown though. They had problems throughout with actors leaving abruptly, imminent cancellation, etc. that threw the plot arch off track a little. It could have been a lot better. The six or seven movies that were produced after the show's run... couldn't get through more than a few minutes of those.
It is worth the initial slog to catch the cross season story arc about the First Ones, the Shadows and the time travel stuff.
I think what puts folks off with B5 is that some of the sets and makeup are a a wee bit iffy, but the story itself is pretty damn good once you get past that.
I do recommend persevering because there is a very good deep story being told in B5.
Seasons 2-4 comprise an outstanding story arc. Londo Mollari, the alien with the upward-pointing hair, goes from Falstaff to Macbeth to redemption, and that's far from the main story.
And the central character -- head of the station -- was changed after Season 1, to a figure who was more heroic and more funny at once.
I thought that while JMS oversaw all of B5 and wrote the broad story arc, he did not write most of the episodes.
Creator and showrunner J. Michael Straczynski wrote 92 of the 110 episodes of Babylon 5, including all 44 episodes in the third and fourth seasons;[63] according to Straczynski, a feat never before accomplished in American television.