Farscape or Babylon 5?

[Sindatur]

Kegg wrote:

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I really don't think I've encountered anyone who hated Chiana as much as you (or at all, at that matter). It's quite interesting, as I can actually see why someone might find the character grating (but I always loved her and felt the first season picked up a bit with her addition, so there's that.)

The Deadshirt - That's oversimplifying, since JMS condensed the plot arcs he planned for both seasons four and five into season four and then got picked up for a fifth season on another channel which resulted in a season that dealt with a ton of unplanned material... and that would be ignoring the way his plans for the show's future shifted radically over the years to the point the initial arc envisioned when shooting "The Gathering" is practically a different show.

When did S5 get 100% condensed into S4, certainly before the fear of S4 cancellation. To the best of my knowledge, the S4 Cancellation cost was the final Four or so episodes of S4 were supposed to stretch some things into the first four or so of S5, while the new Arc Elements that start cold at the beginning of S5 would've started slowly, more organically at S4 tail end to take their place so there was a smooth transition between seasons, rather than a Babylon5gasm at the end of S4 and a cold restart in season 5. And of course, the Actor who left had to have their arc redistributed to other characters.

[Greg Cox]

Kegg wrote:

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I really don't think I've encountered anyone who hated Chiana as much as you (or at all, at that matter). It's quite interesting, as I can actually see why someone might find the character grating (but I always loved her and felt the first season picked up a bit with her addition, so there's that.

Yeah, I admit I'm a bit intrigued and puzzled by this as well. I mean, sure, different strokes for different folks and all, but, boy, you really seem to dislike Chiana. I'm curious: what about her bugs you so much?

Personally, I always thought she was a lot of fun. What's not not to love about a monochromatic, visually striking, morally flexible, loose-cannon thief and wild child?

[kirk55555]

I just can't stand her. Her whole personality just annoys me. She's obnoxious, useless, and unentertaining. If a character is going to have an obnoxious personality on a tv show, they need to make up for it by being useful and/or entertaining (like Rygel). Instead, we get the woman who walks/moves like shes having a seizure, while doing nothing to help and, frequently, being the cause of the trouble. She's usually irrational ("No, Zhaan, you can't look at my dangerous future predicting picture, its mine", or "No, we can't sacrifice caveman Chricton, I don't care if we all die. sacrifice the evolved one instead"), and just makes situations worse. I refused to watch Taking the Stone, but summaries I've read of it just support my opinion of her. Home on the Remains would have been a pretty good episode, if half of it hadn't been about her (her parts could have been completely written out and the story would have worked fine).

I really have never hated a character in sci Fi like I hate her, she makes everything worse. The only episode of Farscape season two she wasn't able to even partially ruin is the Way We Weren't, and even then her minute or so of screen time was bad. Besides that, even the other episodes I've enjoyed a lot (like Out of their Minds) has been atleast a little less enjoyable just because of her presence. If others like her, fine, to me she just has no redeeming qualities. I never thought I'd see a character who'd make me rather watch Jar Jar or Short Round, but she makes those characters seem like well thought out, well developed, entertaining characters.

[Ar-Pharazon]

Chianna's head movements were due to those contacts she wore, she couldn't see directly out of them.

Not sure about the body movements. Probably just trying to seem alien.

I find her slightly annoying at times, but that's about it.

[kirk55555]

Her weird movements weren't a huge deal. If her character was entertaining and didn't make me want to smash my TV, I probably wouldn't even think about it. At this point, its just one more annoying trait of a character I really hate.

Also, the next farscape episodes I have to watch are Look at the Princess Parts 1-3. I'm dreading these episodes, I may just skip them. The premise is really bad, according to wikipedia John has to marry a princess to escape scorpius. Now, he's obviously not going to end up getting married, and its just to cause problems for John and aeryn for a few episodes. It just seems like a waste of almost 3 hours of my life. Then, the next two episodes after that are a Chiana episode (Beware of Dog) and Won't Get Fooled Again, an episode that seems to be in the same vein as A Human Reaction, which I hated. So, I might just skip to The Locket.

Still, 5 episodes is a lot to skip. I'm definately going to be skipping Beware of Dog, and I'm fairly sure I'll be skipping Won't Get fooled Again, but I'm wondering if there is any real reason to watch the Look At the Princess episodes? I mean real reasons, like things that effect the rest of the season/series/

[Sindatur]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Her weird movements weren't a huge deal. If her character was entertaining and didn't make me want to smash my TV, I probably wouldn't even think about it. At this point, its just one more annoying trait of a character I really hate.

Also, the next farscape episodes I have to watch are Look at the Princess Parts 1-3. I'm dreading these episodes, I may just skip them. The premise is really bad, according to wikipedia John has to marry a princess to escape scorpius. Now, he's obviously not going to end up getting married, and its just to cause problems for John and aeryn for a few episodes. It just seems like a waste of almost 3 hours of my life. Then, the next two episodes after that are a Chiana episode (Beware of Dog) and Won't Get Fooled Again, an episode that seems to be in the same vein as A Human Reaction, which I hated. So, I might just skip to The Locket.

Still, 5 episodes is a lot to skip. I'm definately going to be skipping Beware of Dog, and I'm fairly sure I'll be skipping Won't Get fooled Again, but I'm wondering if there is any real reason to watch the Look At the Princess episodes? I mean real reasons, like things that effect the rest of the season/series/

If you're not even interested in the Princess Trilogy, I don't think this show is for you, I think you're just going to get more and more miserable.

First Human Reaction you couldn't stomach, and now the Princess Trilogy, you're not going to get any of the Arc setup introductions at this rate.

[Lindley]

I had the same reaction when I heard about the Princess trilogy. It really is quite good, though, and it introduces a new race who become very important later.

[Reverend]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Her weird movements weren't a huge deal. If her character was entertaining and didn't make me want to smash my TV, I probably wouldn't even think about it. At this point, its just one more annoying trait of a character I really hate.

Also, the next farscape episodes I have to watch are Look at the Princess Parts 1-3. I'm dreading these episodes, I may just skip them. The premise is really bad, according to wikipedia John has to marry a princess to escape scorpius. Now, he's obviously not going to end up getting married, and its just to cause problems for John and aeryn for a few episodes. It just seems like a waste of almost 3 hours of my life. Then, the next two episodes after that are a Chiana episode (Beware of Dog) and Won't Get Fooled Again, an episode that seems to be in the same vein as A Human Reaction, which I hated. So, I might just skip to The Locket.

Still, 5 episodes is a lot to skip. I'm definately going to be skipping Beware of Dog, and I'm fairly sure I'll be skipping Won't Get fooled Again, but I'm wondering if there is any real reason to watch the Look At the Princess episodes? I mean real reasons, like things that effect the rest of the season/series/

You really shouldn't prejudice yourself like this. It's honestly best to just take the episodes as they come. If they're bad, then that's part of the experience. If there are too many bad ones in a row, well then it's time to find another show. Personally I have a "three strikes and out" rule. That is to say if I'm watching a new show and there are three episodes in a row that I don't enjoy, then bye-bye new show. I know some people don't even wait that long, but I like to give things a chance to improve. It's served me OK over the years, though some shows just barely squeaked through at times.

Anyway, yeah I seriously urge you to refrain from reading even a synopsis of upcoming B5 episodes because you *will* be spoiled. Big time.

[Lindley]

I actually think the Princess trilogy are some of my favorite season 2 episodes, with the possible exception of the Liars, Guns, and Money trilogy.

[kirk55555]

Sindatur wrote:

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If you're not even interested in the Princess Trilogy, I don't think this show is for you, I think you're just going to get more and more miserable.

First Human Reaction you couldn't stomach, and now the Princess Trilogy, you're not going to get any of the Arc setup introductions at this rate.

Well, I don't know if I'd dislike the princess episodes, just that the premise is really stupid and unoriginal. I don't see how it has any appeal at all, the story has been done to death. I don't think it could be more cliche if the writers had tried. I still like the main plot of the show, the main characters (besides Chiana, obviously), and other things.

At this point, I still think it can be a decent show, reguardless of Chiana or the fact that the bad episodes are becoming more common. When Farscape is good, I really like it. When its bad, its horrible. I'm willing to keep watching it because when its good, it is very enjoyable, and I really like most of the characters, and I want to see what happens to them. If that means I have to deal with Chiana and the show being very hit or miss, I'll deal with it.

Its weird, I have never seen a show with such a hit or miss quality. Every show has bad episodes, but Farscape seems to be going through a rough patch where the good to bad ration is almost 50/50. I'm just hoping that more good episodes start happening, and that the show decides that it doesn't need to do every cliche in existence.

[Sindatur]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Well, I don't know if I'd dislike the princess episodes, just that the premise is really stupid and unoriginal. I don't see how it has any appeal at all, the story has been done to death. I don't think it could be more cliche if the writers had tried. I still like the main plot of the show, the main characters (besides Chiana, obviously), and other things.

At this point, I still think it can be a decent show, reguardless of Chiana or the fact that the bad episodes are becoming more common. When Farscape is good, I really like it. When its bad, its horrible. I'm willing to keep watching it because when its good, it is very enjoyable, and I really like most of the characters, and I want to see what happens to them. If that means I have to deal with Chiana and the show being very hit or miss, I'll deal with it.

Its weird, I have never seen a show with such a hit or miss quality. Every show has bad episodes, but Farscape seems to be going through a rough patch where the good to bad ration is almost 50/50. I'm just hoping that more good episodes start happening, and that the show decides that it doesn't need to do every cliche in existence.

Personally, I think The Princess Trilogy is where the show gets consistently good, and there are very few episodes from here on out that aren't good. But, some of the episodes you haven't liked, I have so, we're starting from a different pallet. Heck, I just finished Earth Final Conflict, and I enjoyed most of it, most of the way through, and there's tons of folks who think it fell apart anywhere from S2 - S4, and almost universally folks think it had definitely fallen apart by S5.

Regarding cliches, yes, absolutely Farscape thrives on cliches, but, it thrives on peeing on the cliches, taking a cliche and turning it on it's head. You won't be able to see that though, by arbitrarily skipping episodes because some write up on it sounds cliche, or fast forwarding through the Chiana parts or the parts that you don't like

I know earlier in the thread, you were piled on pretty hard, and I don't mean to tell you what you should like, and I'm not trying to cal you out for not liking something.

[kirk55555]

I get what you mean Sindatur. I actually try to not fast forward too much through sections of episodes that aren't great (Chiana heavy parts being the exception, she has no redeeming features and her sections are almost never important to the plot of the episode, so I don't think I lose anything by skipping scenes where she is the focus). If the episode is mostly about Chiana, like Taking the stone, I just skip it completely (its also why I plan to skip "Beware of Dog"). TTS is the only episode I've completely skipped, although I heavily Fast forwarded through A Human Reaction after he arrived on obviously fake earth, and I only watched 10 minutes of Jeremiah Chrichton before turning it off.

I actually was planning to watch the first Princess episode today, I turned it on and watched a bit of it then Chiana starting getting annoying with chrichton, so I turned it off to watch it later. Then I looked on wikipedia and read the synopsis, and decided I should probably skip it, especially since the very beginning (to be fair, it was only about the first 2 minutes) was annoying me already, and that, combined with the cliche premise, made it seem like an unwatchable episode. I might just skip the first part, and see if the story evolves into something better in Part 2/3, by which point I'm guessing they abandon the "John is going to marry a princess" thing.

Reverend wrote:

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You really shouldn't prejudice yourself like this. It's honestly best to just take the episodes as they come. If they're bad, then that's part of the experience. If there are too many bad ones in a row, well then it's time to find another show. Personally I have a "three strikes and out" rule. That is to say if I'm watching a new show and there are three episodes in a row that I don't enjoy, then bye-bye new show. I know some people don't even wait that long, but I like to give things a chance to improve. It's served me OK over the years, though some shows just barely squeaked through at times.

Anyway, yeah I seriously urge you to refrain from reading even a synopsis of upcoming B5 episodes because you *will* be spoiled. Big time.

I don't really go with a strikes rule, sometimes great shows just have a bad stretch. I like Farscape too much to just drop it. Maybe if it gets a stretch of 10+ horrible episodes I'll consider it, but I don't think it will come to that. It seems like whenever I start to lose faith in the series, it has an episode that reminds me why I enjoy it.

As for B5, yeah, I won't be reading any synopsis. It seems like the kind of show that could get ruined with synopsis. I'm always very careful, since I got a HUGE spoiler for Battlestar Galactica just by looking up

Colonel Tigh on wikipedia. I wanted to know something about him (his first name, maybe? I forget) but I definately wasn't looking for anything like spoilers. Then, under his name, they listed his race as Humanoid Cylon

I mean, I am not a BSG fan, I haven't gotten past the first part of season 2, but after that spoiler I just kind of lost the desire to keep watching (although the show itself wasn't helping, half the people decided to stay on a planet because people agreed with the crazy guy with a cylon in his head that they should stay, and they end up getting captured by the cylons), but that spoiler definately didn't help my waning interest.

After that, I've been much more careful with wikipedia

[Greg Cox]

I used to think of Farscape as the anti-Voyager. Whereas Voyager tended to play things safe and strive for a certain comforting consistency, Farscape was all over the place, being wild and wacky. Once and a while, they'd come up with something that didn't quite work, but things were always popping.

[Lindley]

kirk55555 wrote:

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As for B5, yeah, I won't be reading any synopsis. It seems like the kind of show that could get ruined with synopsis.

The Lurker's Guide is a good resource for B5, since it's written as if you have only seen through the episode you are reading about so far.

[kirk55555]

Greg Cox wrote:

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I used to think of Farscape as the anti-Voyager. Whereas Voyager tended to play things safe and strive for a certain comforting consistency, Farscape was all over the place, being wild and wacky. Once and a while, they'd come up with something that didn't quite work, but things were always popping.

I actually enjoyed Voyager a lot (definately more than the average Star Trek fan seems to), and I can see what you mean. Farscape does have a tendency to be wacky, which isn't neccesarily a bad thing. Out of Their Minds was wacky, but it was very entertaining. Not counting Chiana episodes, the episodes that really annoy me are the ones that are just cliches that have been done to death, like a guy arriving on an earth that wasn't like his and was actually created by aliens, or a guy wants to live in a "paradise" without technology or worries, or a creature/person that seems peaceful is actually a killer in disguise, or a guy has to propose/marry someone he doesn't love for stupid reasons instead of the person he actually loves, etc. They've been done in shows from every genre, and Farscape doesn't even seem to try to put any new twist on the ideas. Cliches aren't always bad, if they bring something interesting to the table. I can't say if the Princess episodes do anything to be more than a cliche, but Farscape's track record with its really cliched episodes isn't good (although, to be fair, Born to Be Wild was decent, but nothing special).

Lindley wrote:

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The Lurker's Guide is a good resource for B5, since it's written as if you have only seen through the episode you are reading about so far.

Yeah, I've checked it out before (for episodes I've already watched) and it is pretty cool.