/strek/ - Star Trek ★

Fantastic show hampered by a slow, nearly unwatchable first season, and a 5th season fucked up by network issues

only controversy I heard was from people who only watched one or the other (typically, those who only watched b5).

but yea babylon 5 is a legit great show.

>>13887 (OP)

.

The Earth Alliance Civil War needed more screentime.

>>13889

Interesting you'd say that, I thoroughly enjoyed the first season, in particular for it's worldbuilding and just how succinctly it showed what a knife's edge the races of the galaxy were balancing on.

>>13889

I don't think I'd go as far as to call the first season unwatchable, but it was struggling to find it's feet.

Having an entire season serve as an extended epilogue was kind of an interesting idea, but overall season 5 was not great. Losing Ivanova's actress hurt it also. Would have been nice to see her become captain.

If you want to talk about a show that really got fucked by the network, how about the spinoff series Crusade? If I remember, the network demanded the inclusion of a character for more sex appeal, insisted there had to be hand to hand combat in every episode, and made them change the costumes after half of the episodes had been filmed. I think ultimately that show had one good episode(the one where they parody the X-Files).

>>13953

Yeah, Paramount has a history of stealing material from projects they pass up. The giant space tardigrade in STD was "borrowed" from a point and click adventure game, and over the years a whole bunch of other shit was plucked here and there. It's why studios have teams of lawyers.

>>13887 (OP)

I watched through the original series once. I didn't see the pilot movie or anything afterward. I think the part of B5 I really liked the most was the underlying conflict between the Shadows and the Vorlons. Instead of being good vs evil, as they appeared on the surface, they turned out to be survival vs principles which is a really interesting dichotomy that has stuck with me ever since. I don't think any other modern fiction really discusses it fairly, and just assumes one is good, and the other is evil (which is the point of the two factions appearing as they do, one looks evil on the surface and the other looks good, when it is more complex than that).

Season 5 is kind of unfortunate, I don't remember if I read this, or if I just speculated it, but from what I can tell, the writers were told it would end with season 4, then the network went back and said "looks like the numbers are good, give us a fifth season" and the writers were left in a bad spot, having to create a season that had been spoiled by the original ending of the series.

>>13889

The first season has a bad rep, but honestly it does a lot of the establishment work and the setup that later seasons pay off on, so it deserves some credit. The early chapter of G'kar's development from cardboard cutout villain lizard guy to someone who merely happened to occasionally be on the other side of the humans, while also keeping to the flaws of his character is absolutely great, as is the small glimpse into Londo before the rest of the series happened.

Not to say the season was THAT good, especially the humans struggled to get to their charcters and you had a few too many meaningless episodes with the threat of the week, but overall I do like Season 1.

The problem with season 5 is that they didn't know they where going to make one when they made seasons 3 and 4 and thus rushed to finish the overarching plot by the end of season 4.

By season 5 they had no big plot left to drive the show. There's individual episodes that are great, the psi-corps one for example, butit lacks direction and the new captain can't really carry the show like Sheridan did.

At least Londo and G'Kar got to do some stuff though. Their arcs are some of the best stuff in the show after all.

>>14029

>they didn't know they where going to make one when they made seasons 3 and 4

More along the lines of the original series having been planned specifically as a 5 season arc, the latter part of which they had to cram into the fourth season under the belief they weren't going to get a fifth. They succeeded at it, to the point of getting one more season, but didn't have much beyond vague ideas of what happened later on in the timeline.

Honestly the best way forward would have been to finish the show on Season 4, then push for a spinoff show that's at least two seasons, with some of the setups from B5 paying off there. With that you chip away the unnecessary last bits of B5 and turn the screentime and money otherwise wasted on Crusade and that film setting it up, put it all towards something more comprehensive and interesting, something that could have earned some more seasons on its own right.

B-but B-Babylon 5 is terrible! The Bazinga Theory told me so!

>>14033

I still think it's a shame Crusade got cancelled so soon. Sure, it was pretty bad, but I would have liked at least one more season. Maybe they could have salvaged it.

>>14065

>the first heavily serialised TV sci-fi

>more gritty and believable than just about anything that proceeded it

>hopelessly derivative

I shouldn't expect these writers to actually know anything they're talking about, but they still piss me off.

>>14069

Especially when NASA actually approached the creators of Babylon 5 about making real Starfurys

>>14069

Things being "derivative" was one of Sheldon's catphrases. Is that show canceled yet?

>>14069

To be fair, and to give them the modicum of credit they deserve, the sperg does say that the other one likes it, so it's probably just sperg being a sperg.

>>14062

>Maybe they could have salvaged it.

I rather doubt it, honestly. I get the idea for a gimmick where for the quest they have gathered together a warrior, a thief and a wizard, but they've hardly done anything with it, the thief woman was entirely useless, the technomage only ever used for plot devices, and the warrior, Captain OfficeSpace is the blandest fuckwit to command a space ship this side of Captain Archer. It also didn't help that the chemistry was awful between pretty much all characters, and even the somewhat interesting side characters like that archeologist working for whatever company were not used in any interesting way. The only actual scene I recall from the whole show altogether was the captain and the doctor discovering that the archeologist guy accidentally submitted a report on a datacrystal that still had some Pak'Ma'Ra on human porn on it. By contrast, the first season of B5 was loaded with interesting characters and plots starting up.

>>14072

That sounds pretty damn cool. Any source on that? That's probably the neatest thing for a science fiction show to achieve, and the only other one I've ever heard of was the US navy basically borrowing the design of the bridge of the Enterprise, so that's certainly good company.

>>14073

Not yet. It's been on for a decade now.

>>14107

>J.J Abram's Babylon 5: Into Darkness

>>14103

I think it was from an AOL chat from the 90's. Story goes NASA took one look at the design and went "Shit, actually that's a good design if we ever want to make a utility vehicle in space" and then told the creator they would probably copy it if they were going to do it.

>>14107

I wouldn't mind seeing a remake someday, since there's definitely room for improvement, but now is not the time for it. The entertainment industry has to return to something resembling sanity first.

>>14107

I think its more of a shame that the President Clark saga was so hamfisted, and that Clark wasn't captured, and that the entire Civil Service wasn't purged.

>>14159

It felt rushed.

>>14108

If JJ even jokes about touching B5 I'm finding out where he lives and giving him some Religion of Peace treatment.

>>14161

It was rushed.

This thread made me pick up B5; I'm through the first three episodes and I already love half of the cast

>Garibaldi watching Looney Tunes with alien ambassadors

>Sinclair generally being a sneaky fuck who outplays everybody

>Mollari being a drunken, horny degenerate

>G'kar leaving the two adjutants to flail at each other after getting bored of playing his stolen gameboy

>>14245

Don't get too attached to Sinclair.

>>14252

Shame what happened to him in real life

>>14431

>>14252

>>14245

Yeah he went batshit crazy

>>14461

He became Dukat

>>14069

The irony is they jerk off Firefly, which is hopelessly derivative

You know it seems that a whole host of actors from Babylon 5 suffered from health problems and died young. Sinclair had mental health issues and died of a heart attack at the age of 60. Garibaldi died at 60 due to alcoholism. Franklin was partially deaf and died of cardiovascular disease at 44. G'kar died at 59 due to lung cancer. Vir died from diabetes at 63. Zack was drug addict and alcoholic and died at 60 due to an overdose of painkillers. Zathras crashed his motorcycle with no survivors aged 49. Edgars at least died naturally at 95.

Babylon 5 wasn't a show, it was an obituary.

Babylon 5 gave the actors PTSD

>>14810

Having all the seasons on DVD and having listened to many of the commentaries, the actors universally said they loved working on the show and it was one of the best experiences they've had in Hollywood.

>>14943

Most of them were on coke.

Apparently DS9 was supposed to be set up in a town on Bajor and then an asteroid colony.

Then magically DS9 was set diplomatic space station when the Babylon 5 pilot was being made.

Left a bad taste in my mouth for DS9 for quite a while I have to say.

My favorite thing about Babylon 5 was the universe acknowledged timeframes in a meaningful way.

The Vorlons influence can be seen throughout each race tracing back hundreds of thousands of years.

There are dead planets that were once homeworlds of the first ones.

Shadow wars happened on a cycle.

Fuck I love that aspect.

>>15242

Welcome to 90's Hollywood.

>>14965

why him. he was so much better than that idiot he died for.

>It's a "Vir gets married to an Einsatzgruppen enthusiast" episode

Wew.

>>14965

It was all downhill for Lenier after his first experience of open road rebellion with Garabaldi's motorcycle.

>>15345

>Garabaldi's motorcycle

I forgot about that shit.

>>14943

You only very rarely hear the actors’ true opinions, and then decades after the fact.

>>15759

>>15773

>Kosh's suit was too large to go through doors

>He was too Big of a Guy for the show

This board needs more Babylon 5 - Trek crossover memes.

>>15759

YES.

>Watch Vir gets a waifu episode

>She turns into a complete Yandere

Boner alert.