Believers is my least favorite episode of the whole show. They could never have made it, and it wouldn't bother me. It added nothing to the overall plot, and could be skipped on a re-watch, which of course, I never do, simply because I love babylon 5 (second only to Star Trek), and am (unfortunately in this case) a completetist.
I actually really like "By Any Means", I think it's really well written and I enjoyed both storylines a lot. I loved seeing the real world behind the scenes bit with the dock workers, and the Londo/G'Kar story was just hilarious. Trivia: By Any Means is the only episode written by JMS' wife. She also wrote one B5 novel. TKO, on the other hand, is just awful Survivors ain't that great either. And please, bring on the theorizing on the mysteries of the show! Unfortunately I started watching at the end of Season Four, so everything was utterly spoiled for me, so I have no clue what it was like to not know what was going on :sobs:
My least favourite Babylon 5 stories are A Call to Arms and Legend of the Rangers. Horrifying. This could be said of most of Season 1 though? Only a handful of episodes are vital.
Almost every Season One episode introduced some character or concept or bit of backstory... cept for Believers!
I agree that Rangers is pretty weak. I feel I can't even objectively speak to Arms because I find the soundtrack horrible to the point that it distracts me from anything else. But let's avoid getting spoilerish. I don't own S1 on DVD precisely because so much of it isn't what I consider to be the show at its best. I understand that there's a whole lot of world and storybuilding going on, I just don't find it compelling enough that I wish to watch it again. Though actually...I wouldn't mind details on what commentary tracks are available and whether they're worth the listen.
I love Season 1 a lot, especially for Michael O'Hare's excellent performance. The first season also includes the best opening title sequence of the series. So fucking epic.
I think every episode of a show that is being seen for the first time should be watched at least once, but I myself don't mind skipping weaker episodes during a re-watch. There are a ton of Trek episodes that I will never re-watch ever again.
Very much disagree with this. The first season created a universe and alien cultures that none of us had seen before and fleshed out the station so it wasn't just a military outpost, it was a 'place of commerce and diplomacy'. Agreed completely. As for Dream's comment about Ivanova dealing with her grief immediately, part of the whole point is that she didn't - she bottled it up. It wouldn't have been believable that Rabbi Koslov could show up immediately after. In the B5 universe, space travel takes some time (though sometimes it's the speed of plot). I don't think it's really a spoiler to say that each season of B5 is a year in 'real' time so the time gap makes sense. Jan
This thread is giving me the itch to revisit B5 all over again. It is my favourite live-action SF series right after Star Trek TOS. Season one is up-and-down, but I really like it and the early seasons as everything is being introduced and established. B5 hooked me with about 2-3 episodes in Season 1, "By Any Means Necessary" and "The Grail" being two of the first I saw. After a handful of B5 episodes I bailed on watching any more DS9 with any regularity---DS9 just felt so sanitized after watching B5. I, too, also have come to appreciate Sinclair as a character and O'Hare's performance. The pilot film "The Gathering" does a lot to set things up for the series, but it isn't absolutely necessary to see it first. I do recommend it, though, because it has a different feel and in comparison some of Season 1's rougher episodes don't feel quite so rough. Season 1 also has the best opening music and visuals of the whole series.
Episode 15: Grail A man comes to Babylon 5 looking for the Holy Grail. I didn't like this one. At least the B plot with with the Downbelow gangsters were more interesting. I was getting hyped with our crew going up against an evil Vorlon, and was disappointed when it turned into a bad monster called a Feeder hiding in a Vorlon suit. Episode 16: Eyes An internal affairs investigator tries to take down Sinclair. This episode really reminded me of TNG's "Coming of Age" with the investigation. It would have been perfect as a clip show, showing past scenes during the interrogation. The investigator always seemed evil from the start. We do find out Sinclair has been making powerful and dangerous enemies. Episode 17: Legacies A Minbari war cruiser comes to Babylon 5 to display the body of a recently dead Minbari leader, but it ends up getting stolen. Finally, a good episode after the last three averages eps. I liked learning more about the religious and warrior castes of the Minbari people, and how they differ from each other. This is also the first appearance of Neroon. I'm assuring this forums Neroon moderator is named after this character? I'm predicting Neroon will probably become more important in the future. It was pretty cool to see a more militarized Minbari character and the battleship from Sinclair's memories. Episode 18: A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 1) The planet below the station fires at some ships, the crew must find out why. There are riots going on the Mars colony. We finally get some planet exploration in this series. All the planet scenes were pretty cool, but I thought it was very silly how the B5 commander and first officer went into such a dangerous situation together, shades of TOS stupidly. All the alien tech seems quite advance. The B plot shows us that things aren't great at Mars. Sadly, we never get to see any of the riots. I think it would have worked much better if we got something from Mars. There is clearly some dissatisfaction from the public towards the Earth government. Episode 19: A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 2) An Earth Force warship arrives to complicate matters, meanwhile a rebel alien races returns to reclaim the planet themselves. After bringing an alien from the planet onto B5, we learn that the planet will explode without him attached to the machine there. I kept asking why they didn't just immediately go back to reconnect him back to the machine. Too much sneaking around when Delenn and Londo realized what they had to do. I learned that the station is pretty much stuck there, no magic engines like DS9 used in its pilot. They are pretty much screwed if they ever have to evacuate everyone, that's 250000 people, immediately. I just realize living on a space station really is very dangerous compared to a starship, which can always flee from danger while a space station doesn't have that advantage. The B5 crew seriously needs to think about getting their own starship, but they might not have the budget for that! The space battle was pretty cool. The twist with Delenn's friend Draal deciding to take the aliens place as caretaker of the planet was expected. But I guess its better no one gets the advanced tech.
Up next is another 'Must Watch' epsiode. "Babylon Squared". But a lot of S1 episodes are about set-up for later pay-off.
The first season is so much fun to re-watch after seeing the whole series. Even very uninteresting episodes can be seen more enjoyably when you can see the themes and ideas that will be expanded on later in the series. B5 is a 5 part novel. It's something that has always made it so very enjoyable for me.
I thought Grail, Eyes, and Legacies were all pretty terrible, but I did like the Voice two parter because it had a cool space battle in it. <<We finally get some planet exploration in this series. All the planet scenes were pretty cool, but I thought it was very silly how the B5 commander and first officer went into such a dangerous situation together, shades of TOS stupidly. All the alien tech seems quite advance.>> As established in "Soul Hunter", after the disastrous first contact resulting in the Minbari War and mankind almost being exterminated, Earthforce requires the highest ranking officers to directly deal with any potential first contact situation regardless of personal danger.
I liked "Grail" and particularly seeing the Nakaleen Feeder which a very different alien than we usually see it television sci-fi.
Speaking in general people deal with grief differently. Some might bottle it up, some might deal with it immediately.
Hey, I loved 'TKO' a lot, just because of the way the human involved with the alien sport respects it and actually wants to train for it, and perseveres long enough to win and gain respect from the aliens who fights in said sport. I'd stack it up against the other shows of the other seasons.
Of course the episode "TKO" reminded me a bit of the film "Arena" which Claudia Christian starred in.