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Grand Fromage posted:There's not really anything else like B5. I guess The Expanse is maybe the most comparable? Plot structure has similarities since it's a (very well done) adaptation of novels, centers around vaguely plausible space politics stuff. Forgetting NuBSG? I know it got gimped by the writers strike back then but it wasn't bad.
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Jul 18, 2023 19:03
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Just Another Lurker posted:Forgetting NuBSG? I love BSG but don't think it's much like B5.
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Jul 18, 2023 19:08
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Honestly, I like B5 a lot better than BSG. The arcs are more logical and well thought out, I jive more with the overall tone of the series, and although this might be a discussion for another thread, I like the characters better. In Babylon 5 the fascism comes from Clark, Nightwatch, the Psi Corps. None of the main characters are really involved except Zack, who gets himself out of Nightwatch before it's too late. The Colonials are a lot fashier than Sheridan, Garibaldi, etc. BSG is also very much a product of its time. Babylon 5 seems more timeless to me, despite the 'Zima' sign and very '90s fashion.
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Jul 18, 2023 19:30
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Farscape is wild as hell with multiple great character relationships, and really leans into "do you really think the only human is going to stay sane?" Just wild poo poo all over the place, odd moments of queer representation and some great acting. It's more restrained than Lexx, mind you, but it's wild. Like B5, I think it fits a niche.
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Jul 18, 2023 19:51
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Just Another Lurker posted:Forgetting NuBSG?
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Jul 18, 2023 19:59
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Garibaldi is 100000% a fascist. He just happens to be a fascist who is opposed to the other fascists.
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Jul 18, 2023 20:15
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Just Another Lurker posted:Forgetting NuBSG? Another great series, if you want to do a blind watch. I didn't like the last season, but first season is a perfect 10/10 mini series.
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Jul 18, 2023 20:15
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Issaries posted:10/10 mini series. 6/6 surely
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Jul 18, 2023 20:36
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Doctor Zero posted:Ron Moore Touché.  I know it doesn't match B5 but i thought BSG was the best i could hope for at the time... then came The Expanse. 
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Jul 18, 2023 21:23
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If you want a really weird and thinky SF show, try Charlie Jade. It's parallel dimensions rather than space, but it does some extremely clever things with its premise. Closest thing I can think of in tone is Southland Tales, except without the wackiness. It only got one season, sadly, although a complete set of scripts for a second was completed.
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Jul 18, 2023 22:20
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southland tales just seems like straight documentary reportage in 2023, it's kind of eye-watering how ordinary it is now
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Jul 19, 2023 00:10
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They're different but Farscape is right up there with B5 in my list of favorite scifi shows. It rules, watch it.
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Jul 19, 2023 00:13
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Maybe you can finish what I couldn't, I did a blind watch and I can't even remember if I tried to start S2.
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Jul 19, 2023 00:28
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:Honestly, I like B5 a lot better than BSG. The arcs are more logical and well thought out, I jive more with the overall tone of the series, and although this might be a discussion for another thread, I like the characters better. In Babylon 5 the fascism comes from Clark, Nightwatch, the Psi Corps. None of the main characters are really involved except Zack, who gets himself out of Nightwatch before it's too late. The Colonials are a lot fashier than Sheridan, Garibaldi, etc. I think B5 is equally a product of its time, it's just that the signs of the times in the mid-90s were less in your face than the post-9/11 era. It's very much got that post-Cold War era "the war is now over, we are all in one big international community now, there's no longer multiple separate economic spheres" spirit as its starting assumption. TNG embraced the idea that former enemies could now be allies as the new way going forward while JMS instead focuses on the way that this new era of post-war detente would fall apart due to bad actors.
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Jul 19, 2023 17:50
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Babylon 5, as I normally put it, straddles the line between old and modern sci-fi. Old sci-fi is all about imagining the best of the future and what could be out there, and often thinking about the things that were out there could be more advanced than us. Modern sci-fi is more about trying to do drama but with space as just a backdrop, things are much more militarized and less hopeful. The aliens out there humanity usually has a chance of beating in a slugfest even if we're the underdog. Older media is more married to episodic formats, modern media is all about longrunning narratives. So here's Babylon 5 that starts out brilliantly weaving in a longrunning narrative into what seems initially to just be an episodic thing. They've got the high-minded idea of being the UN in space, but the humans are all wearing clearly military uniforms and doing a lot of military things, and there's a lot of heavy dysfunction going on, evoking present-day politics as something that humanity has not grown beyond. There's an election, the commander argues with a senator. The humans clearly don't all get along. Alien politics are similarly fraught, although every so often there's a diversion into some kind of cosmic spiritualism. These are all things that get established right at the beginning. There's also something going on with the fact that most of the cast were fairly old at the time that the show was being made, which makes it feel like it was from an earlier era, but the special effects were all very new a the time. The space CGI scenes were a big new thing that hadn't been done on TV before, and the alien makeup is much more advanced than Star Trek's because they don't have to try evoking 60s or 80s alien makeup.
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Jul 19, 2023 20:09
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Babylon 5 Blind watch thread has been a huge success story. Lot of new people have seen the series we love so much because of it and it has also inspired people to do Blind watch threads for other cool too here in Sci-fi Wifi: Stargate: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3928658&pagenumber=1 Farscape: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3935239&pagenumber=1 Expanse: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3935978&pagenumber=1 Deep Space Nine: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3993545&pagenumber=1 Or  your own. People will come and enjoy cool shows with blind watchers.
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Jul 19, 2023 22:34
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5x20: Objects in Motion I was fine until "Now is all we have". I am going to miss this series and its characters. What a ride it's been over the past few months! When Bester turned Garibaldi loose around this time last season, I didn't know how Michael would recover from betraying Sheridan and the Resistance. The warm goodbye at the end of this episode was  (but non-sarcastically) material; I'm sure Medusa is going to be blubbering in her reaction video. Garibaldi's handling of the Edgars Industries problem was also  . One minor criticism, though: shouldn't a person be of sound mind and body before they get married and not blitzed out on painkillers? G'kar has been full of wisdom this season. Nearly every character has a minor mistake in this episode, and G'kar's is turning his back on his zealous Narn disciple. I completely understand why he did that, but if he had shown a bit more caring to that young Narn, Lise might not have been shot. In fact, it's almost say that his c treatment of that Narn was a stain on his otherwise pretty spotless record. It's too bad we lost Andreas Katsulas; I would have watched a spinoff of G'kar and Lyta's adventures across the universe. Seeing Number One again was a treat; I had wondered what became of her after Clark deposed himself. It's not a major surprise at all that Mars has been buried under red tape; I still don't completely trust Earthgov, even though they've seemingly been OK so far. My read was that they had not learned valuable lessons after Clark's reign. Anyway, Number One will make a great intel chief for Sheridan. e: How could I forget Lyta? After everything she's done for everyone on the station, not having anyone (except Zack) to send her off was ice cold. I expected Sheridan to show up and at least say goodbye. It's a shame that focusing on Sheridan/Delenn/Franklin/G'kar/Lyta has given short shrift to Lochley. It's a similar situation to Ezri Dax: a character introduced in the final season and not given a whole lot of time to allow the fans to get a sense of them. Corwin, Vir and Lennier are also three we haven't seen much lately, though I have a feeling we will be seeing a completion of Lennier's character arc - for good or for ill - soon. F_Shit_Fitzgerald fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 17:26
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Chevy Slyme posted:Garibaldi is 100000% a fascist. ya
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Jul 22, 2023 04:00
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5x21: Objects at Rest Before getting into today's episode, a question. The Lurker's Guide has two additional episodes between Objects at Rest and Sleeping in Light: The Legend of the Rangers and River of Souls, but neither of these episodes appears in Tubi's season 5 list. Are these essential watching? I've never seriously questioned this series' writing, because it's always been so excellent. But I do have to question the resolution (?) of Lennier's character arc here. It is said that during a crisis, you show who you really are; Lennier's hesitation during the coolant leak is not what I question, but his willingness to let Sheridan die. I just don't find that believable given what we know about Lennier. Now I see why Bill Mumy had problems with Lennier's characterization this season: they turned him into an incel and It doesn't ring true for me. Sheridan and Delenn leaving Babylon 5 for the last (?) time was a great scene. Sheridan letting Delenn speak for him was a nice touch. I remember Bruce Boxleitner's first appearance on the series and how Sheridan spent the entire episode trying to give his introductory speech in the CnC. The salute was also a great touch. Seeing Londo was a pleasant surprise, but of course I wish it had been under better circumstances. I didn't question Londo's gift until the scene aboard the Centauri ship. There was a passing reference to Sheridan's son in 4x22, and I wonder if he's going to be captured by a Drakh too. But Delenn saw the Drakh that was occupying Londo, and I can't imagine that it's something she's going to keep secret. Maybe she'll be able to detect this Drakh before it takes control of her son? I guess I'll find out in 5x22... Ta'Lon is the name of the warrior Narn that Sheridan saved from abduction. It's impressive to me that Ta'Lon went from a one-off character in a relatively minor episode in...what, season 2?....to a fairly major character. He'll make a great ambassador for Narn. I was wrong: Garibaldi's Corporate Method was the title of the video I had seen on Youtube. Not much to say about Garibaldi except this: though I agree that he's 100000% a fascist (he's a cop), I'm glad he found a measure of happiness with Lise. He deserves it. And finally, Franklin. His departure from Babylon 5 could have been seen as sudden, but I think Franklin meant it that way. I was a bit confused that he looked to be on another space station? I thought he was going back to Earth? e: It occurs to me that maybe the Drakh don't consider Vir suitable for occupation somehow. Maybe he's too 'pure' of a person for them, or it could simply be a calculation that Sheridan and Delenn's son is a more powerful figure to inhabit. Either way, it doesn't bode well for the future. I wonder if this is why the future historians were (are? will be?) debating whether or not Sheridan was a good leader.... I'll save my closing thoughts on Babylon 5 and this thread for Monday, when I watch Sleeping in Light. Gonna have to steel myself for that because I've heard it's a tearjerker. F_Shit_Fitzgerald fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jul 22, 2023 |
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Jul 22, 2023 16:45
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:5x21: Objects at Rest Neither of those are part of the original series and nothing but the original series is essential.
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Jul 22, 2023 16:54
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ultrafilter posted:Neither of those are part of the original series and nothing but the original series is essential. Legend of the Rangers and River of Souls are two of the standalone spin-off movies. The latter was filmed alongside season 5. It “takes place” after the events of season 5, and has no real links to the larger narrative you’ve been watching. It’s a fun standalone double length episode, that features Martin Sheen in ridiculous alien makeup. Legend of the Rangers came a decade later, and was an attempt to backdoor pilot a new spin off series for the sci Fi channel. It was bad. Very very bad. We Do Not Speak of It level bad.
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Jul 22, 2023 17:18
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Why are the movies so awful? Was JMS not super involved or…? I still haven’t finished my watch through so I haven’t explored the movies yet.
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Jul 22, 2023 18:02
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It seems like that decade+ that B5 ideas were cooking in JMS' head while he was trying to get the show produced was real important.
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Jul 22, 2023 18:04
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holefoods posted:Why are the movies so awful? Was JMS not super involved or…? I still haven’t finished my watch through so I haven’t explored the movies yet. Fans just like to be dramatic and absolutist about things. There's plenty of episodes of the show worse than River of Souls, and some episodes worse than Legend of the Rangers, though I don't think you can compare the last TV movie to the pilot of a series that never happened. If you judged B5 solely on the basis of the original version of The Gathering you'd think it was a pretty bad idea and we were lucky it never went to series. All the TV movies were written to be largely disconnected from the main story, meaning that with a few very minor details excluded, they have no real bearing on the arc. They're disposable. That said, River of Souls is pretty good (if you like that kind of thing) though I think the tone is off. Legend of the Rangers has some bad decisions but I think it's better than The Gathering was; it just never benefited from having a show come out of it. If you finish the series and then look up the movies and spin-off attempts and expect them to hold up in comparison, they won't. That doesn't make them awful, it just means that B5 the show really stuck the landing.
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Jul 22, 2023 18:20
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:5x21: Objects at Rest 100%. People always say the telepath cult is the worst thing about season 5 but it’s absolutely this.
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Jul 22, 2023 18:50
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holefoods posted:Why are the movies so awful? Was JMS not super involved or…? I still haven’t finished my watch through so I haven’t explored the movies yet. I think it's because so much of the appeal of the show itself is from having these big narrative plates that its spinning at once throughout he show, so after the series ended and it came time to make some movies, there wasn't a plan of some ongoing plot to link them into, so they're just individual episodes. And the episodic parts of early Babylon 5 are...not great. And also without an ongoing thing that the movies have to check in with, they end up just having one plot throughout, as opposed to the entire rest of the show being about juggling multiple subplots, it's just not good pacing.
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Jul 22, 2023 19:57
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I would also agree the movies aren't awful. In the Beginning is great, the rest are okay. Legend of the Rangers is unintentional comedy.
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Jul 22, 2023 20:20
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SlothfulCobra posted:I think it's because so much of the appeal of the show itself is from having these big narrative plates that its spinning at once throughout he show, so after the series ended and it came time to make some movies, there wasn't a plan of some ongoing plot to link them into, so they're just individual episodes. And the episodic parts of early Babylon 5 are...not great. The movies also suffered from low budgets, so a lot of the main cast only shows up for a scene or two (if they show up at all).
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Jul 22, 2023 20:34
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Bruce Boxleitner does not command a huge paycheck I don't think
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Jul 22, 2023 20:59
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Jack-Off Lantern posted:Bruce Boxleitner does not command a huge paycheck I don't think The Lost Tales only had a budget of $2 million. Movies like Thirdspace and River of Souls were stretching the cost of a 45-minute episode to fill 90 minutes, and they only got very incremental budget increases. They were absolutely robbing Peter to pay Paul in order to get the TV movies made. This is why, for example, in Thirdspace, Jeff Conaway has a much larger role because he was dirt-cheap, Richard Biggs shows up for all of 90 seconds, and Andreas Katsulas, Jerry Doyle and Peter Jurasik don't appear at all. Similar with River of Souls. The stories were set when certain characters were out of the picture because they didn't have the money to afford full-cast movies. Timby fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jul 22, 2023 |
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Jul 22, 2023 21:06
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Just before you watch sleeping in light, about which I will carefully refrain from saying anything, thanks for your write ups fsf, it's been a great journey with you! That goes for everyone else who has done it too, you are just the most recent, but I've particularly enjoyed your detailed approach.
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Jul 22, 2023 22:57
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sebmojo posted:Just before you watch sleeping in light, about which I will carefully refrain from saying anything, thanks for your write ups fsf, it's been a great journey with you! That goes for everyone else who has done it too, you are just the most recent, but I've particularly enjoyed your detailed approach.
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Jul 22, 2023 23:25
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Agreed, and when you've seen the finale - please do feel free to join those of us who have gone before in the Old Ones thread.
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Jul 22, 2023 23:35
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Absolutely will do, thank you! I was going to save it for Sleeping in Light but rambling in here about B5 has been a pleasure. Going into Babylon 5 I had no idea I'd be finding my new favorite sci-fi show.
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Jul 23, 2023 00:06
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holefoods posted:Why are the movies so awful? Was JMS not super involved or…? I still haven’t finished my watch through so I haven’t explored the movies yet. The Movies, collectively, are more good than bad. There is a specific one, that was just asked about, that is very bad. A better word for most of the others is “inessential”; since the question usually asked when they come up in this thread is “do I need to watch this”, the answer is generally “no” because most of them were designed to stand on their own and neither impact not be impacted by the larger arc of the 5 season series run.
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Jul 23, 2023 00:41
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Thanks for clarifying on the movies, everyone. I will probably give them a watch once I finish the show, sounds like they’re at least worth a watch.
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Jul 23, 2023 02:34
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For sure. Even the worst one, if you go into it with the right mindset (weed or booze, depending) you'll have a good time.
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Jul 23, 2023 02:54
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Timby posted:The Lost Tales only had a budget of $2 million. Movies like Thirdspace and River of Souls were stretching the cost of a 45-minute episode to fill 90 minutes, and they only got very incremental budget increases. They were absolutely robbing Peter to pay Paul in order to get the TV movies made. This is why, for example, in Thirdspace, Jeff Conaway has a much larger role because he was dirt-cheap, Richard Biggs shows up for all of 90 seconds, and Andreas Katsulas, Jerry Doyle and Peter Jurasik don't appear at all. Similar with River of Souls. The stories were set when certain characters were out of the picture because they didn't have the money to afford full-cast movies. Oh wow, I didn't know the budget was that low
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Jul 23, 2023 07:43
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5x22: Sleeping in Light OK, wow. This was not what I had been expecting at all. The Good: Pretty much everything. This is one of the best series finales I've seen since All Good Things (TNG). Bringing back most of the main characters - including Ivanova, whose presence I didn't realize I missed until Claudia Christian showed up! - was a master stroke. If I knew that my days were literally numbered and only had "four to five days, a week at most", that is how I would want to spend my remaining days: soaking in the camaraderie of good friends and family. I don't think I would want to grieve and mope like a man on death row. This finale hits differently now than it probably did in 1998. In the intervening years since Babylon 5, we have lost Stephen Furst, Andreas Katsulas, Mira Furlan, Richard Biggs, Jeff Conaway, Jerry Doyle, Michael O'Hare, and perhaps others I'm forgetting at the moment. Seeing them say goodbye through their characters is extra tough when you know that the actor is gone also. Tying Babylon 5's fate to Sheridan's was also a great move. There were hints along the way that Babylon 5 would eventually be destroyed, but iirc Lady Morella's prophecy was that it might happen sooner than its time had things gone differently in the Shadow War. So many of these scenes were so touching: John and Delenn's goodbye, Delenn watching the sunrise, John's...passing (?), Ivanova donning the Ranger uniform. I don't know if I even want to watch Medusa Cascade's recap because I know she's going to be ugly crying (no judgment). I liked the tantalizing suggestion at the end that maybe Vir, with Zack's help, was reforming Centauri Prime for the better? I'll talk more about it below but a lot of questions hang in the air about the Centauri and their fate post-Londo. Vir didn't seem to have a Keeper of his own, but a small detail I noticed was at the dinner, it looked like he was drinking water. Vir is one of the purest characters in the entire show and I would really hate for his loyalty and kindness to be repaid with having to deal with a Drakh. The Ambiguous: I hesitate to call anything in this finale bad, because it was really well done. It's more that there are many unanswered questions: What is the fate of David, John and Delenn's son? What is the fate of Centauri Prime? We can probably hazard a pretty good guess, but what happened to G'kar? What happened to Lyta? It's very unusual for JMS to leave story lines dangling like this, but I also realize that there's only so much exposition that can be packed into a 44 minute episode. Speaking of Lyta: in their "absent friends" toast they mentioned Londo (I'm glad they still considered him a friend), Marcus, and Lennier. What's with the Lyta erasure? I know from these characters' perspective, Lyta was more of an annoyance that didn't fit in anywhere, but after everything she did for Sheridan, for the Resistance and for the Interstellar Alliance, I really don't like the way that she was casually forgotten. On a less aggravating note, I also thought that the absence of Corwin and Lochley were conspicuous. Lochley especially; Corwin was a side character who became something of a secondary main character (which I approve of), but as I said in my previous rambling: despite their best efforts, we never got a real sense of who Lochley was. That's a shame, because I liked her character. Closing Thoughts: Babylon 5 is always compared to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In fact, I may have said before that I first heard about Babylon 5 through buzz about how it "copied" DS9. Aside from taking place on a space station and taking on arcs with galaxy-wide implications, the two series are not at all alike. I was serious when I said that I think I like B5 better: these past few months have been like immersing myself in a really good sci-fi novel with very well-drawn characters - ones you really care about. Not knocking on Farscape at all but I have a feeling that it's just not going to be the same. Thanks, and I'll see some of you in the dedicated Babylon 5 thread!
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Jul 24, 2023 15:56
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:5x22: Sleeping in Light B5 goes out exactly like she saw, though, complete with a final shuttle leaving right before the explosion. quote:
The simple answer for this is that the finale was shot during S4, and Lochley hadn't been written or cast yet. Neither had Corwin's further development.
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Jul 24, 2023 16:10
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