So I finally decided to watch Babylon 5, mostly due to the people here recommending it.
FIRST: Please NO SPOILERS past season 2, or if you must or are in doubt, put it in spoiler tags. YES, I realize how asinine it is for me to ask for no spoilers on a show that aired before some of the people reading this were born, but somehow, by some miracle I managed to make it 25 years without anyone spoiling this show for me. It would be a real shame to have it spoiled now.
I’m on Season 3 now and a few thoughts so far:
The people here were right: the writing was way ahead of its time. That’s also probably why it wasn’t more popular, or at least one reason. I just didn’t watch TV that way back then. Back then, I (and most people I think) didn’t schedule TV watching around shows. If I was home and wanted to watch, I’d look for something I liked. MAYBE I’d set aside time for something like Star Trek, but even then, I sometimes missed weeks. Shows like this need you to watch every episode and that’s just not something we did back then. It would be another decade before I even saw all the episodes of TNG and DS9.
I remember trying to watch it back then and it just couldn’t suck me in. Part of it was the fact that without seeing all of it, major parts of it don’t make any sense. That’s great now, all shows are like that now and it makes sense if you’re streaming it. Back then, it was a curse.
Another reason why I think I missed this one is a bit depressing though. I’m watching it because I needed a new show to watch. I tried to finally get into Dr. Who and couldn’t even make it through an entire episode. I’m ACTIVELY searching for a good show and ended up going back in time two decades to find one. Back then it feels like we were swimming in good shows so much that I could afford to just let one or two fall by the wayside.
That’s kind of a sad commentary on sci fi right now. I feel like the sci fi TV writers have lost their way a bit. When this aired, there were two Star Treks, a couple of Trek movies, X files, then another Trek near the end, Sliders (which started strong, even if it lost it’s way) the Stargate franchise was born in the movies during this time, and probably half a dozen others I’m forgetting. That was bad for the show, but it was great as a viewer to have so much choice.
And the last thing I want to comment on is the effects. Others have said before that it would be impossible to update without the separating the pre FX shots…I don’t think so. After watching it, in the first seasons at least, there’s almost never any blended CGI/Live shots. The vast majority of CGI seems to take place in pure cgi shots with no live action at all, and when they are blended, it’s still not a true blend, just some cg backgrounds put behind the characters. Much like old school trek, the only time it happens in front of actors is the weapons fire effects. SO it could be done, although I can’t imagine a studio wanting to spend the time and money updating a show that wasn’t that successful even in it’s day. If someone DID have the inclination to update the effects, it wouldn’t be all that hard to replace the dated CG.
Anyway…the TL;DR is: It’s better than I could have hoped it would be so far. I’m excited that there’s still so much of it for me to watch, and thought I’d come and talk about it and also thank those of you who recommended it so many times.
Also, I know there are other threads about this, but a quick scan showed that they weren’t quite was I was looking for (25 years later it’s not surprising). Also one of the ones I looked at spoiled a major character death for me, so I stopped looking and am actively trying to pretend I didn’t read that, or maybe I misunderstood it.
FIRST: Please NO SPOILERS past season 2, or if you must or are in doubt, put it in spoiler tags. YES, I realize how asinine it is for me to ask for no spoilers on a show that aired before some of the people reading this were born, but somehow, by some miracle I managed to make it 25 years without anyone spoiling this show for me. It would be a real shame to have it spoiled now.
I’m on Season 3 now and a few thoughts so far:
The people here were right: the writing was way ahead of its time. That’s also probably why it wasn’t more popular, or at least one reason. I just didn’t watch TV that way back then. Back then, I (and most people I think) didn’t schedule TV watching around shows. If I was home and wanted to watch, I’d look for something I liked. MAYBE I’d set aside time for something like Star Trek, but even then, I sometimes missed weeks. Shows like this need you to watch every episode and that’s just not something we did back then. It would be another decade before I even saw all the episodes of TNG and DS9.
I remember trying to watch it back then and it just couldn’t suck me in. Part of it was the fact that without seeing all of it, major parts of it don’t make any sense. That’s great now, all shows are like that now and it makes sense if you’re streaming it. Back then, it was a curse.
Another reason why I think I missed this one is a bit depressing though. I’m watching it because I needed a new show to watch. I tried to finally get into Dr. Who and couldn’t even make it through an entire episode. I’m ACTIVELY searching for a good show and ended up going back in time two decades to find one. Back then it feels like we were swimming in good shows so much that I could afford to just let one or two fall by the wayside.
That’s kind of a sad commentary on sci fi right now. I feel like the sci fi TV writers have lost their way a bit. When this aired, there were two Star Treks, a couple of Trek movies, X files, then another Trek near the end, Sliders (which started strong, even if it lost it’s way) the Stargate franchise was born in the movies during this time, and probably half a dozen others I’m forgetting. That was bad for the show, but it was great as a viewer to have so much choice.
And the last thing I want to comment on is the effects. Others have said before that it would be impossible to update without the separating the pre FX shots…I don’t think so. After watching it, in the first seasons at least, there’s almost never any blended CGI/Live shots. The vast majority of CGI seems to take place in pure cgi shots with no live action at all, and when they are blended, it’s still not a true blend, just some cg backgrounds put behind the characters. Much like old school trek, the only time it happens in front of actors is the weapons fire effects. SO it could be done, although I can’t imagine a studio wanting to spend the time and money updating a show that wasn’t that successful even in it’s day. If someone DID have the inclination to update the effects, it wouldn’t be all that hard to replace the dated CG.
Anyway…the TL;DR is: It’s better than I could have hoped it would be so far. I’m excited that there’s still so much of it for me to watch, and thought I’d come and talk about it and also thank those of you who recommended it so many times.
Also, I know there are other threads about this, but a quick scan showed that they weren’t quite was I was looking for (25 years later it’s not surprising). Also one of the ones I looked at spoiled a major character death for me, so I stopped looking and am actively trying to pretend I didn’t read that, or maybe I misunderstood it.