Babylon 5

So does anybody else apart from me like this classic tv show?

I do, hell its one of all time fave tv shows ever!!

G'kar and Garabaldi are my two fave characters in the entire show.

Episodes like Z'ha'dum, And the Sky was Full of Stars, The Face of the Enemy, Sleeping in Light and The Long, Twilight Struggle are some of my favourite ones.

I got the first two series on DVD but when are series 3, 4 and 5 gonna come out on DVD anyone? Ditto with all six of the tv movies too.

Does anyone know when Stracynzci or however ya spell his name is gonna release a big screen movie version of B5?

If so whaddya think the movie should be about? I personally it should be one that deals with Bester and the Psi Corp or with the Drakh since JMS left those two major plot threads unresolved at the end of series 5.

 

Babylon was the best sci-fi show ever created. Once it picked up from the first couple of seasons the show was just amazing. It had a story line to the series, as opposed to Star Trek which doesn't. The Shadow War was one of the best wars in Sci-Fi, it's a pity that the show ended so soon. And it's also a shame that Crusader didn't live upto the standards that B5 set.

 

Babylon 5 is one of my favourite science-fiction shows. It was one of the most original sci-fi shows in the last 10 years including Stargate SG-1 and Farscape.

Babylon 5 had a terrific storyline, excellent and memorable characters and some of the best spaceship designs I've ever seen. I'm still saving up for the DVD Box Sets and I can't wait to few the episodes all over again.

 

Great show -- probably my favorite of the modern genre series done to date -- and the new DVDs are killer.

If you're interested, there's actually already an "official" discussion thread open, over in JC Community, so stop on over and have a look :

All the Empty Places - Babylon 5 Appreciation.

 

Definitely one of the best sci-fi series of all time. Rather than just a simple story about a space station and the stuff that happens there, Straczynski wove an amazing tale together where each race had its own identity, complexities, and in-fighting.

 

Correct...as opposed to another certain series about about a space station and the stuff that happens there.

 

Babylon 5 was one of the best written TV shows ever aired IMO. Great plot lines, great characters with just the right amount of drama & humor. My favorite character was Ivonava followed by Sheridan.

 

Great plot lines, great characters with just the right amount of drama & humor

I agree but i'd like to add bad acting to the list tho'

 

Correct...as opposed to another certain series about about a space station and the stuff that happens there.


I did my best to not mention any names.

 

Babylon 5 has been my favorite TV show (except the Simpsons, but that doesn't really count...) ever since I saw my first few episodes. Ivonova (I've never tried to spell their names before, so...) is my favorite character, and I was very disaoointed she wasn't in 5th season...

my favorite episod/episodes was the "War Without End" two parter, with all the wonderful time travel and even a few paradoxes.

 

Kyp

I agree, WWE part 1 & 2 are the 2 best epiosdes in the series. It tied up alot of loose ends but in return opened up more story archs. The best scene in WWE is when the Mimbari walking thru Babylon 4 discover Sinclair, or as he is now known as Valen, flanked by 2 Vorlons hovering above their encounter suits.
I think alot of Babylon 5's great stories had alot to do with Harrlin Ellisons input. And unlike other SPACE STATION SHOWS where all they did was hang out in a bar or holo suite during there so called war, The SHadow War & The EA Civil War were depicted in most of the later epiosdes.

 

could someone PM me with what this Other Space station show is? I'm clueless...

I'm glad someone else loved those episodes... my favorite part was when the guy... the worker guy I can't remember the name of... that's it, Zathras!!! had to remember not to call Sinclair "not the one"... so funny

 

I thought it was a great show and from the beginning it was designed to be 5 seasons long which was something that had never been done before. I do like how they did the war and the EA civil war and ship design was awesome and different. I would like to see a movie on the Telepath War someday. I plan on buying Season 3 whenever I get money again after it comes out next month along with Season 4 of THE OTHER SPACE STATION SHOW which in defense didn't spend the war spanning several seasons in bars and holosuites...

 

[image=http://www.hut.fi/~shaavist/b5/images/char/zathras.jpg]

Make Zathras Your Personal Servant!

The Order of the Sisters of Zathras

The Wisdom of Zathras

 

The other show concerning a space station has some great episodes concernings it's war, then we get some shockers that have nothing to do with the war.

 

I miss this show.

 

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The other show concerning a space station has some great episodes concernings it's war, then we get some shockers that have nothing to do with the war.[/b][hr][/blockquote]Right...you mean the "war" that was cooked up well after the fact and then very roughly shoehorned into the storyline, following about a season *after* [i]Babylon 5[/i] had been telling its story of the Shadow War on their end of things?

It was Harlan Ellison whom, errr..."speculated"...at a convention talk once that -- at the time DS9's very eerily similar "war arc" was proceeding -- whenever the DS9 staff writers got together for a story conference, it largely consisted of them popping in the tape of whichever B5 episode had just aired that week, and..."taking notes."

 

And they still couldn't make the standard of B5.

 

Please I find it hard to belive that they copied the war line from B5 for themselves... The Dominion War and the Shadow War are two completely different things to try to compare and the build up of the Dominion began with the end of Season 2 and was built up over time as each season progressed. I'm not saying I don't like B5... I love both shows and have seen every episode of them both, I'm just saying you can't really compare the two war storylines like that.

 

It goes much deeper that that, actually...there've been QUITE a few hints being dropped in recent years from participants on *both* sides that, in fact, the degrees to which certain "similarities" in story elements are strangley coincidental are actually less coincidental than has been played down all this time. JMS has even obliquely insinuated at conventions and online that there was a far stronger plagiarism case that could've been made by the B5 producers against the Trek show circa 1997 over the purloined plot-elements of the "Dominion War" arc than even he had informed fans of earlier on. It was only because of a desire not to drag Warner Brothers into costly litigation -- which they very likely could have proved in a court of law -- that he "smoothed" the matter over at the time whenever it was brought up in conversation amongst the fan community.

Spreading the bonhomie, and all that.

It's a long and tortured historical relationship 'twixt the two series, particularly with such similar formats. Y'see, from the time when DS9 was first announced, the Paramount Folks were telling syndication stations that Babylon 5 was just a "cheap rip-off" of Deep Space 9, that legal action was pending, that Babylon 5 wouldn't be able to stay on the air, and that since Babylon 5 was a "rip-off" of Deep Space 9, if the station wanted to air Paramount skiffy, it couldn't run Babylon 5.

(This last, by the way, is a violation of federal law, and stopped happening quick once it started being openly discussed on the Net, with copies aimed at various FCC folks.)

As a result of the Paramount shoot-down-the-competition campaign, the Trekkies on-line took up the crusade, howling like a pack of mutts in pursuit, and posted huge compendia of detailed similarities between the two shows, griping and grousing about Joe Straczynski's bald-faced theft, and discussing how the huge degree of format similarity and character designs and plot situations "proved" that B5 was a steal of DS9.

ONLY THEN, after someone pointed out the real-world chronology, provided citations for Stracynski's conception of the series back in '86, his on-line discussion of his series as far back as '87, for Stracyznski's pitch to Paramount in '89, how the Paramount Folks had adamantly insisted "no shows set on space stations," and suddenly firewalled the throttle on the new "DS9" after Straczynski finally found a home at WB...spending between four and five times as much on their pilot movie just to get it in the can and on the air before the WB and PTEN folks bothered to air the Babylon 5 pilot...

(and, incidentally, forcing JMS to do in-flight format revisions to avoid the most blatant similarities, in effect writing AROUND his own ideas so he wouldn't be giving viewers almost the same thing they'd seen on the overbudgeted DS9 pilot film...)

...which pilot PTEN foolishly held off for half a year until they could start with TWO shows at once....

...ONLY THEN did the Trekkies and the Paramount Folks decide there was no similarity between the shows at all.




Answer to "Who truly cares?"

Lots and lots of Silly Trekkies; lots and lots of Suits at Paramount who thought they could use the situation to shut down the "competition;" lots and lots of SF fans who just really hate seeing a large conglomerate apparently trying to shoot down a little guy so they can keep the market to themselves, *AND* apparently using the little guy's own material to do it with.

Although I do feel that there were many talented writers/producers involved with DS9 itself who have done some truly exemplary work elsewhere; and as much as I've groused upon the series itself, there is much to commend it, including some supple acting, and several well-written scripts over its run. Many of these of course involve the admittedly-fascinating Bajoran and Cardassian races and the politicking that created such a memorable atmosphere early on

 

Everything you said about B5 being pitched to Paramount several years before DS9 came out and about people on both sides yelling about one being a rip off of the other is nothing I haven't heard already. Yes both shows have similarities and I can understand why DS9 pilot cost so much more to do than B5's because Paramount was one that made it and had the money to do it and do what they wanted, so of course it cost more. I don't necessarily think that makes them guilty of conspiring against Stracyznski because they did what they wanted and released it when they were ready to.

I've never heard anything about Stracyznski having to do rewrites before B5 aired and I would like to know where you got the info from and maybe they did use some of his ideas when they created the show but the settings of both shows are completely different for how they were used. Porting a B5 setting to be used in a Trek way would be really hard because the OVERALL storylines are so different in the end.

And I still belive the Dominion were not Shadow clones and were integrated in the DS9 storyline and used in a different way than Shadows were for B5. The way they were used even if it was around the same time as B5's arc was different. You really can't drop a Shadow race into the Trek world like that, the idea was done differently and well.

B5's five season design was great and executed perfectly well and was was involving right from the start while DS9 didn't develop until late season two and three. My opinion is who cares if they used some of the basic ideas Stracyznski had, that happens all the time in the world with shows, books and movies, what matters is how they were used and DS9's seven season run was done greatly different than B5's five season run and they were both fine shows and I don't really consider eitheir one to be a clone or carbon copy of the other.

 

B5 is one of the greatest Science Fiction TV series of all time. JMS is a friggin genius!

After 2 or 3 episodes, I was hooked on B5. One of the few series I wished would go on forever...


Londo: "Mr. Garabaldi - who is that on your wall there?" (points at a wall hanging of Daffy Duck)

Garabaldi: "Oh, that's the ancient Egyptian God of Frustration."

 

Londo: What are those earth creatures with web feet that go quack?
Vir: Cats
Londo: Yes I am being nibbeled to death by cats

 

Babylon 5 is probably my favorite TV series (Next to Band of Brothers). JMS knew from the start how it was going to begin and end, that's a rare thing, especially in Sci-Fi shows.

There is not one episode of Babylon 5 I hate, they all serve some purpose to the entire story, another rare thing in Sci-Fi shows.

Sleeping in the Light would probably be my favorite episode, the music fit beautifully with the explosion of B5, I found myself crying because it felt like I was on that 5 year journey with them.

Comes the Inquisitor is another one of my favorite's. The ending by Sebastian gives me chills:

Sebastian: "The city was drowning in decay, chaos, immorality. A message needed to be sent, etched in blood, for all the world to see: a warning. In the pursuit of my?holy cause, I?did things, terrible things, unspeakable things. The world condemned me, but it didn't matter, because I believed I was right and the world was wrong. I believed I was the divine messenger. I believed I was--"

Sheridan: "Chosen?"

Sebastian: "?I was...found by the Vorlons. They showed me the terrible depth of my mistake...my crimes, my?presumption. I have done 400 years of penance in their service. A job for which they said I was ideally suited. Now, perhaps, they will finally let me die."

Sheridan: "I think that might be wise."

Sebastian: "Good luck to you in your holy cause, Captain Sheridan. May your choices have better results than mine. Remembered, not as a messenger, remembered not as a reformer, not as a prophet, not as a hero, not even as Sebastian. Remembered only...as Jack."

And like that...he's gone.

 

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Everything you said about B5 being pitched to Paramount several years before DS9 came out and about people on both sides yelling about one being a rip off of the other is nothing I haven't heard already. Yes both shows have similarities and I can understand why DS9 pilot cost so much more to do than B5's because Paramount was one that made it and had the money to do it and do what they wanted, so of course it cost more. I don't necessarily think that makes them guilty of conspiring against Stracyznski because they did what they wanted and released it when they were ready to.

I've never heard anything about Stracyznski having to do rewrites before B5 aired and I would like to know where you got the info from and maybe they did use some of his ideas when they created the show but the settings of both shows are completely different for how they were used. Porting a B5 setting to be used in a Trek way would be really hard because the OVERALL storylines are so different in the end.[/b][hr][/blockquote]Yeah, he actually ended up altering many of the more specific character designs and plot-elements prior to principal photography, so as to eschew comparisons by folks who would automatically give the new [i]Trek[/i] series the instant benefit-of-doubt. Here's a posting made by him just after B5 and DS9 received their respective green-lights for production, concerning this issue:

[blockquote][hr][color=blue][i][b]
Subject: Okay, I just read the pertinent...
From: STRACZYNSKI [Joe]
Date: 01/21/1992 05:43 PM
Forum: GEnie

-----------------------------------[/b]

Okay, I just read the pertinent notes on 21/21 regarding the new TNG spinoff, and the "Jell-O Man," clearly (as indicated in the prior messages there) a morph/shapechanger.

Guess what?

As I mentioned in 21/21, there was also a shapechanger on the B5 station in the screenplay that Paramount has had now for some time.

What *I* like is the fact that in the current version of the script, I'm omitting the shapechanger because that technology is, in my view, overexposed right now. By the time it hits the air, morphing will be so common that it's old hat. (It WASN'T old hat when I wrote the original screenplay several years back. That was the goal with the current rewrite...to make the script as far in advance NOW as it was when I first wrote it.)

And the coincidences just keep on coming....

jms[/i][hr][/color][/blockquote]


Here's another interesting quote from JMS, where he discusses some of the specifics behind the similarities of the two series:

[blockquote][hr][color=blue][b][i]
Subject: Re: DS9 vs B5 comments
From: Jms at B5
Date: 06/19/1995 01:38 PM
Forum: Usenet

-----------------------------------[/b]

Ted: I think your note is even-handed and well considered. For me, any one of the items you discuss being present isn't a big deal; it's the cumulative effect of all of them being present in both shows, at the same time, airing within weeks of one another.

The result of all this nearly killed B5 in its early stages, which I think was the desired effect. You must understand that when B5 was announced in the trades for the first time in November of that year (2-3 months prior to the announcement of DS9), in articles that described it pretty succinctly (space station, rogues, renegades, all the usual H'wood hype), it was often referred to as Warner's attempt to create a space franchise (see above re: hype).

There has *long* been bad blood between Paramount and Warner Bros. Particularly since Paramount was then already setting the blocks in place to create its own network, and PTEN was being birthed right then, setting the stage for major conflict. The number of syndicated stations is very small, and the hours available per station equally small. Faced with that kind of scenario, big guns tend to be pulled out.

Whatever the sequence of events might have been, the result was that I ended up sitting in meetings with Warner execs who said, "How am I supposed to sell this show? It's *identical*