Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonnathanson | Hacker News Reader

Babylon 5 is what I'd call an acquired taste. :) So many people swear by it, and for the life of me, I just couldn't make it past the first two episodes. It was a slog. I respect the creator of the show immensely; he is a fantastic writer, and also the author of one of the best how-to books on screenwriting I've ever read. And by all accounts, I should love the show. But I just...can't. I don't know why. Does the pace pick up a bit after the first few eps?

View on HN

B5: 1 - Took some seriously rose-tinted glasses in terms of many of the production values and the acting (especially earlier on); and 2 - Was one of those shows that required a significant commitment on the part of viewers to the "mythology" (including early-on exposition) 3 - Toward the end suffered from "will it be canceled or won't it?" whiplash.

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.

The production values have not aged well at all. And it's kind of jarring to see them in contrast, to say, the production values on the early seasons of DS9, a contemporaneous series. The latter probably had a much bigger production budget, and I guess it shows. But I'll forgive a show its low-budget feel if it makes up for that in other ways. Try as I might, I just couldn't summon the attention span to last past the first few episodes. They were about as exciting as reading a particularly dry textbook on political economy.

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.

I urge you to give it another shot too. After I few episodes I barely stuck with it, but by the end of the 3rd season I already preferred it to TNG/DS9 and just about any other sci-fi show. I think some of the characters are intentionally painted as one-dimensional early on, so that they can grow later (Londo and G'kar especially). There are many campy and lame parts too, but if you can get in the mindset of "enjoy the good, make fun of the bad" then it's highly enjoyable. I take the same mindset with most sci-fi.

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.

I couldn't get on well with early episodes of B5 season 1 when it first came out and gave up. Then a few years later I gave it another shot and bought the DVD box set and have watched it three times over.

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.

My single biggest issue with B5 (which I truly love) is the acting in the first season is very soap-opera like... I mean it's just pretty bad all around. It gets better though.

Very much. Only the first season, and especially the first half, was in "crisis of the week" format.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com