Babylon 5 Rewatch

[truespock]

I just finished re-watching Babylon 5 after not having seen it for many years--brilliant, compelling and not at all dated! In many cases, the level of character development meets, and occasionally surpasses that which we typically saw in the various Trek incarnations. Good, solid story arc and overall top-flight science-fiction. My wife watched it with me (her first time) and, although she squirmed through the first season, by the second she was thoroughly hooked.

Makes me wonder what would have become of Crusade if Strazinski and Turner had been able to come to terms?

Your thoughts?

[Jan]

truespock wrote:

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Makes me wonder what would have become of Crusade if Strazinski and Turner had been able to come to terms?

Your thoughts?

JMS has always said that the arc for Crusade wouldn't have been as complex as it was for B5 but I often wonder about that, given the number of threads started in just the episodes we got. There was the plague (obviously), Gideon's quest to find out the truth about the destruction of his ship (which we would have started to find out more about in the season ender), the continuation of intrigue within the telepath community (focused on in one of the unproduced scripts), Dureena's quest for power (possibly also covered in some of the assigned but unwritten episodes) and Eilerson's conflicts between his loyalties to IPX and the people on the Excalibur.

I would have loved to see what would have happened.

Jan

[middyseafort]

Jan wrote:

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JMS has always said that the arc for Crusade wouldn't have been as complex as it was for B5 but I often wonder about that, given the number of threads started in just the episodes we got. There was the plague (obviously), Gideon's quest to find out the truth about the destruction of his ship (which we would have started to find out more about in the season ender), the continuation of intrigue within the telepath community (focused on in one of the unproduced scripts), Dureena's quest for power (possibly also covered in some of the assigned but unwritten episodes) and Eilerson's conflicts between his loyalties to IPX and the people on the Excalibur.

I would have loved to see what would have happened.

Jan

I too would've like to see how CRUSADE would've developed. In some ways, I thought the series was better made than B5, but that might mostly come from them figuring out how to refine the production.

[tomalak301]

I too am currently in a B5 rewatch and the more I watch this show, the more I actually like it. I know it's not as good as the other seasons, but there is a ton to like about Season 1. Tonight I watched Babylon Squared (The first appearance of Babylon 4) and man what a solid episode that was, especially after watching legacies and watching things build towards Delenn's Chrysalis (Which is one of my favorite season finales of any show by the way, in fact that 3, Chrysalis and the two episodes to follow to start Season 2, episode arc is really underrated in my opinion). I didn't have time tonight, but I'm really looking forward to watching The Voice in the Wilderness again.

I know we're in an era where space based sci-fi is kind of frowned upon by the networks, but the 90s gave us some awesome shows, like this, the end of Star Trek: TNG, DS9, to a lesser extent, Voyager, and my favorite Scifi show of all time, Farscape. I miss shows like that and hopefully one day they will make a comeback.

[Candlelight]

I wanted to see the Apocalypse Box arc resolved.

[EmoBorg]

I try to watch Babylon 5 every two years. It is still my favorite sci fi show of all time.

[Elemental]

The biggest mystery I wanted to see resolved is when exactly Gideon met Lochley!

[teacake]

I'm curious. Why do they keep letting people onto Babylon 5 who have no real reason for being there? Why do they let all those lurkers live below when they don't contribute to the overall mission of the station? Is earth so full they refuse to accept them back?

[Sindatur]

teacake wrote:

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I'm curious. Why do they keep letting people onto Babylon 5 who have no real reason for being there? Why do they let all those lurkers live below when they don't contribute to the overall mission of the station? Is earth so full they refuse to accept them back?

People don't go there with the intention of being stuck and homeless. They go there for legitimate reasons and then can't afford to leave for whatever reason. The young Telepath girl Alisa Beldon, lived with her dad, who passed away and then she had no one, for instance. Others have a business opportunity and spend everything they have to get there, and then the business deal doesn't work out. Others may simply be Blips running from Psi Corps

As far as sending them back to Earth, Julie Musante says in Voices of Authority "Earth doesn't have a Homeless problem", so Earth isn't likely to take these "degenerates who choose to be poor and homeless" and then of course, the whole situation with the bad blood that develops between Earth and B5

Additionally, not all The Lurkers are from Earth.

[Jan]

teacake wrote:

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I'm curious. Why do they keep letting people onto Babylon 5 who have no real reason for being there? Why do they let all those lurkers live below when they don't contribute to the overall mission of the station? Is earth so full they refuse to accept them back?

In other SF stories I've read, a colony/space station/planet might require that an arriving person have a return ticket or amount of money for one kept in escrow. Apparently the B5 universe doesn't have that policy so when whatever brought the individual out to B5 might go wrong, they have no way of getting back to Earth or their place of origin. Earth might *let* them come back, but it's not about to pay the cost of getting them there and I'm sure it's a similar situation with the other worlds.

I'm curious, though...while we saw many species in Down-Below, does anybody recall ever seeing a Minbari?

Jan