Farscape or Babylon 5?

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by kirk55555, Jul 30, 2012.

  1. Booji

    Booji Commodore Premium Member

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    what a waste of a Robert Englund appearance. I'd rather of seen him as the captain of a ship or a teep instead of the usual weird part.
     
  2. Jan

    Jan Commodore Commodore

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    ...is insane. --JMS
    Is it really necessary to discuss a third season episode before Kirk55555 even starts season 2?

    Jan
     
  3. tomswift2002

    tomswift2002 Commodore Commodore

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    Well with Season 2 you got episodes by a variety of write r's, bu then I think the last five were written solely by JMS, which leads into both Seasons 3 and 4 which were completely written by JMS as well.

    But, just on a slight OT note, another great Sci-Fi series to watch (and which unfortunately only has 2 of 3 seasons on DVD) along with B5 is seaQuest DSV (third season was renamed seaQuest 2032). "seaQuest" originally ran from 1993-96.
     
  4. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    SeaQuest?! :wtf: You may as well hold up the 1970s Logan's Run series as great TV sci fi, then.

    Well, to each his own.
     
  5. RandyS

    RandyS Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Nah, SeaQuest is MUCH better than Logan's Run.

    Well, okay, a little better.....
     
  6. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    It should be noted that SeaQuest was also created by Rockne S. O'Bannon, personally I liked the first and third seasons.
     
  7. TheMasterOfOrion

    TheMasterOfOrion Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I think Babylon-5 while slower is written far more intelligently, but Farscape, its got lovely sets, great actors, beautiful CGI, but its really far away in the cosmos and escapism with that gothic, edgy, sexy, slick, funny feel to it. Don't get me wrong I love both shows but for different reasons, I just thought the plot and subtle story arcs in Babylon-5 were better structured. B5 might visually look a little dated but you got to give JMS credit, he wrote the whole thing himself, it was the only flagship program to challenge Trek when Trek was in its prime and JMS wrote over 18 episodes per season by himself...something totally unheard of today
     
  8. tomswift2002

    tomswift2002 Commodore Commodore

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    Don't forget he also wrote all of Seasons 3 & 4 and a few episodes at the beginning of Season 5 for a straight run of about 56 episodes.
     
  9. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    So did they even have a writing staff for those seasons, or was it all just him in an office somewhere by himself?
     
  10. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Isn't Downton Abbey largely written by one guy?
     
  11. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    A lot of British shows seem to be. Of the 29 episode of Misfits that have been produced so far, only 5 of them have been written by someone other than Howard Overman and 4 of those were by Jon Brown.
     
  12. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    I believe so, although it has shorter seasons.
     
  13. Jan

    Jan Commodore Commodore

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    ...is insane. --JMS
    Pretty much. The only other writing staff that there'd been at all was Larry DiTillio, the story editor (who also wrote 7 episodes) for the first two seasons. Once it was cleared with the studio that JMS would be writing all of season 3, he was released.

    The breakdown of JMS-written episodes was
    S1 - 12
    S2 - 15
    S3 - 22
    S4 - 22
    S5 - 21

    Jan
     
  14. tomswift2002

    tomswift2002 Commodore Commodore

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    JMS even wrote about 60% of "Crusade", and I believe most of the movies were written by JMS.
     
  15. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Aaron Sorkin wrote or co-wrote almost all the episodes of West Wing until he was fired/quit after season 4. That's 88 episodes. He rote all the episodes in the first season of Sports Night. So it's not unheard of.
     
  16. Jan

    Jan Commodore Commodore

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    ...is insane. --JMS
    He wrote all of the TV movies. Of the produced and aired Crusade epiesodes, JMS wrote 10 of the 13. Two more JMS scripts were completed but not produced. Fiona Avery wrote two of the three produced scripts by other writers with Peter David writing the third. There were three scripts assigned to other writers but production was halted before most of them were finished. A spec script written by Peter Woodward would have been made in the second season.

    For those interested in the unproduced scripts, you might want to check out the 'Crusade: Other Voices' books which are still available here. Volume 1 features the Peter Woodward script and Volume 2 has early drafts of the Avery scripts as well as a draft of one of the assigned scripts by Richard Mueller. (Full disclosure: I'm part of the team that puts out these books but I don't have any financial stake in them. I just think that the history is important) Eventually, the two unproduced JMS scripts will be published in the rest of the 'Crusade: What the Hell Happened' books.

    Jan
     
  17. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Harlan Ellison was there too for all five seasons as the "conceptual consultant." From what I gather from both Joe and Harlan's interviews here and there, they would meet all the time to discuss stuff, although Joe did all the writing.
     
  18. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    To bad, JMS really needed someone to polish his dialog. Some of it really makes my ears bleed.
     
  19. ATimson

    ATimson Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I don't think that happened even during S1/S2.
     
  20. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    That I didn't find the dialog to be well written?