🔥 Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9
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They did try with Crusade, but it never took off.
No, Crusade took place after the Telepath War. One of the results of the Telepath War was better integration with society, including the military. That's why there was a telepath on the command staff of the Excalibur.
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At least Jake wasn't annoying, like say Wesley and had done nice stories.
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I was really sad when it got canned. I was so invested in the story of that box.
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This is true (full stop) in the first two seasons. But later, there are lots of episodes focused almost entirely on the Dominion war and the Jem Hadar and the changlings. They may have been "problems of the week" but they fleshed out the story a lot, and had consequences down the line.
I would phrase it differently:
DS9 stories didn't necessarily flesh-out the season's plot, but they always fleshed-out the character relationships, which is more important to the successful of a show.
One of my favorite episodes is Heart of Stone. Did it advance the war against the Dominion plot? Not really, no. But what a great character moment for Odo, amazing.
Kira; "Odo, how'd you know she was an imposter?"
Odo: "She said something you'd never say."Jesus, that's one of the most heartbreaking lines ever in any Star Trek show ever.
EDIT: oh and I forgot the 'B' plot of that episode also has the amazing speech Nog gives about wanting to join Starfleet. Again, what a great character moment.
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Given this particular discussion, does anyone here know of a place where I can actually go watch Babylon 5? I've never actually seen it, and it doesn't exist on the major streaming services as far as I can find. I'd like to give it a try and see if I enjoy it before I do anything rash like spending money on DVDs or whatnot...
That said, I hated DS9 when I was younger, and always preferred TNG. Nowadays, I've rewatched a good chunk of it and it's a pretty good show in and of itself, but I chalk the change up to the fact that DS9 is a very "political" type show, where TNG had a lot more action-y type episodes with space combat that DS9 just didn't have and that appealed to my younger brain because "Space lazors are cool, yo!"
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Given this particular discussion, does anyone here know of a place where I can actually go watch Babylon 5? I've never actually seen it, and it doesn't exist on the major streaming services as far as I can find. I'd like to give it a try and see if I enjoy it before I do anything rash like spending money on DVDs or whatnot...
I did a quick google, and it does look like there are "free streaming sites" with it. But not any of the major ones like Hulu or Netflix. You should check it out from your library if you're uncomfortable with "free streaming sites." I know I am.
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Unfortunately, the only libraries around here aren't all that big, and have practically nil in terms of non-book selections. Usually it's just one or two copies of a couple recent releases and then a bunch of kids' shows.
Perhaps once I get a media PC back together after I can put stuff back into what will become my TV room, I'll throw together a batch of browser things to help defang the "free streaming sites" as much as possible...or I'll hunt around with some people and see if they may have some acquired files for it laying around.
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I don't know anything about these newfangled science fiction serials mentioned in the title, but what I do know is I spent most of my weekend hunting down the animated reconstructions of missing Doctor Who episodes. Even found Web of Fear 3, which I was quite happy about...
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They are on ITunes I think. At least I seem to have them in my account - which means I must have legally obtained it at some point. Not a fan of free services here either.
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I acquired B5, the movies, and Crusade from a "free streaming service." Said "free streaming service" is now blocked by my ISP.
Also, having seen the pilot movie, I'm really surprised they made it to a show. That pilot is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
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People were still salivating for space sci-fi. Same reason Star Trek: TNG was renewed after their awful first season: there hadn't been any space sci-fi on US networks in like a decade previous, it was a huge hole that needed filled.
Sure, Airwolf is awesome, but it's not Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.
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From "There All the Honor Lies": "We're not some deep space franchise, this station is about something!"
Turns to camera, winks
EXT: billboard inexplicably show in-universe illustration of Deep Space 9 space station. Starfury fighter approaches from right, blasts billboard with space-lazers.
WV Van-driving Hippie: "Far out!"
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Yeah, that's the hard part of getting people into B5. It takes a good chunk of the first season for everything to start to come together. Like Blakey said, though, a lot of people who hate B5 and love TNG have somehow managed to completely block out the first season of TNG. I hate to bash the actors, because I know how good they are, so I assume that the terrible performances by Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner were because of the writers and directors.
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Let's be perfectly frank: what really allowed the Star Trek universe to evolve was Roddenberry's death. His stupid rulebook in the 90s only served to prohibit every possible Star Trek plot viewers would be interested in seeing. If you go back and read episode guides, frequently they'll have the original scripted plot synopsis next to how it looked like after they got Roddenberry's rubber stamp. The Roddenberry version was always worse. His rules were unworkable in a post-Hill Street Blues world.
It was also hypocritical and unfair of him to enforce his rules to the letter when the original series in the 60s frequently broke them: remember that episode where the woman kidnapped Kirk's body to be captain? Or the one where the Starfleet engineer built a killer computer he couldn't control? (Ironically, the one where Kirk arms the natives with phasers so they can fight the other natives armed by the Klingons seems horrible today, but at the time it was made that was pretty much the US' actual defense strategy, so.)
Deep Space 9 could not have existed while Roddenberry was alive. Maybe the first season of it-- maybe.
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where I can actually go watch Babylon 5?
Walmart stocks the seasons for about $10 each. If you have a friend who can ship them to you, try out at least the first couple seasons.
Or just go to Potato Bay or whatever everyone uses to download 15-year old DVDs that aren't supported on any international streaming service because TV execs hate money.
They did try with Crusade, but it never took off.
Oh, Crusade took off. It would have been great. But then TV execs came in. Despite telling JMS he'd have complete creative control, they started fucking around. Forced more "sex appeal". Re-arranged episodes. Forced him to write and film a second pilot. Seriously, right in the middle of the first season there's this whole stupid "let's dig for artifacts" episode that re-introduces all the characters as if they're meeting for the first time, and the audience knows nothing about them. wtf?
It wasn't that there wasn't an audience. It's that the execs fucked it up, and JMS canned it.
If you want an idea of what TV Exec Fuckery of a JMS project looks like, I highly recommend watching Phelous' overview/review of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. No, really.
- Showrunner, producer, writer JMS
- Hugely popular, well written, good series bible, likable characters, neat plots that didn't assume the viewers were fucking idiots
- Smash ratings
- TV execs stepped in with Highly Paid Consultants to fix problems that didn't exist
- Show = shit
He goes over the story and timeline of how the show came to be and how it was fucked around with. It lines up pretty much 1:1 with the same shit that happened on Crusade. It's actually kinda infuriating.
The overview's so good that the reviews got retweeted by JMS himself with something like "an excellent look at what went down on Ghostbusters"
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the first season of TNG
Roddenberry's death.
There's a great documentary about this on Netflix*, it's called Chaos on the Bridge.
*UK Netflix but I buttume it's available elsewhere.
