February 22, 1993 - Happy 20th Anniversary Babylon 5!

Couple of days early but it's a great achievement.

Might have to watch a few eps this week.

Go on, give us your memories of the show.

 

Didn't have anything to do with an anniversary (which I wasn't really aware of until now), but I re-watched "The Long Night"/"Into the Fire" from B5's Season 4 the day before yesterday.

Great for the Londo/Vir/G'Kar/Cartagia/Morden stuff.

I noticed something new and particularly odd though: The rather jolly way Sheridan says "Mr. Lennier, take us into the fire!" Sheridan really liked blowing shit up, didn't he? B5's resident pyromaniac.

 

I came in late, with the DVD releases. Back then, I was more into superhero comics than space opera, and then I read "Rising Stars" and heard that this was the guy who created B5, and since I really liked RS, I gave it a shot with season 1. And I totally fell in love with it, and re-discovered my love for space opera.

In hindsight, I'm actually glad I waited for the DVDs, because if I had catched it on TV, I'd have had to listen to that awful dub they did for Germany (complete with quite a lot of mis-translations).

If I remember the actors' commentary track on "Thirdspace" correctly, they called him "Nuke 'em" Sheridan.

 

The Starkiller.

 

I shall don my black gloves and give praise to Psicorps.

 

Holy poop. I remember seeing previews at an Amiga Computer user's group meeting!

 

I remember being so excited when The Gathering premiered and how much I loved the CGI at the time, The Vorlon Ship was awesome docking. It was such a bummer to have to wait a year for Midnight On The Firing Line, but, it was well worth the wait

 

I watched The Gathering on VHS as it didn't start screening in New Zealand until 1995 (although we did get The Gathering and the first three seasons back to back in an unbroken 68-week run so can't complain ).

 

Has it been twenty years already?

I just wish half the cast could have lived to feel the same way.

 

I just watched B5 for the first time a few years ago on DVD. I plan on starting a rewatch sometime in the next couple months.

 

The Corps is Mother. The Corps is Father.

 

What I liked most about the series was how well planned it was. The first episode is almost entirely foreshadowing of events that happened later. Contrast that with something like the newer Battlestar Galactica.

 

Agreed. The Gathering was the only episode of Babylon 5 I saw in it's first run, and at the time, saw it as just another film in the mini-explosion of sci-fi TV that occurred in the early part of 1993. I had no idea it would be a series. Of course, considering how my local station which showed The Gathering claimed to air the first four years of the series--that is to say, not at all--I was eventually happy to have a new sci-fi show to watch when TNT claimed they would air it at a set time in 1998, and actually followed through.

 

To be fair the fifth season wasn't as good as the first four. Whether you chalk that up to JMS holding stuff back for Crusade, TNT interference, JMS getting tired after five years or simply a poor story. I was expecting something amazing to finish the show but it was just lackluster.

Galactica, while obviously making it up as they went along, had a great ending.

 

Actually that's not fair. Personally, the fifth season has some of my favorite stuff of the entire show. And in other people's opinions, polls like the one on geos.tv show the fifth season ranking above the first three.

 

Expecting the Series to be cancelled, he moved stuff into the end of S4, that was meant to continue playing out in the first few episodes of S5, and S5 stuff should have begun starting in motin before S4 ended. This would have made a smoother end to S4 and S5 beginning, rather than S4 ending being too crammed (Though it did make it awesome) and S5 starting up cold again from a beginning.

Having said all that, it's only the first 8 episodes +/- of S5 that most people are unhappy with alot of it. The second half of S5 is every bit as good as the best of what the show had to offer IMHO. Did you watch all the way through, or stop watching in the first half of S5?

 

I watched all of it right the way through.

I think my main issue was I was never a fan of Telepath or Centauri stories, so season five was never going to be my cup of tea.

 

It's February 22nd today! Well ok, I'm a few hours ahead of the rest of the world, but nonetheless!

Happy birthday!

 

Indeed - HFB to everyone associated with the project!

I'm running two friends through B5 at ( of course! ) two different locations... it's wonderful....

 

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!