is babylon 5 season 5 worth watching

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by tmosler, Aug 15, 2013.

  1. tmosler

    tmosler Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 6, 2012
    Ok so i just finished watching season 4 of babylon 5 and i was blown away by the last 4 episodes of the season. But i was wondering since i heard many people hate season 5 if its worth watching. Also looking on tv.com many of the episodes are rated highly and i know bester (whos my favorite character) returns in some episodes so i cant understand the hate for season 5.
     
  2. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2002
    Location:
    UK
    Short answer: yes, it's worth watching.

    Honestly, my advise is to watch it, don't pay any attention to what anyone says and form your own opinion. Seriously, I've seen the merits of season 5 discussed to many times I can probably describe verbatim exactly how this is going to go.
     
  3. Lindley

    Lindley Moderator with a Soul Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2001
    Location:
    Bonney Lake, WA
    Medium answer: It has some missteps early on but ends strong.
     
  4. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 20, 2001
    Location:
    West Haven, UT, USA
    "Is Babylon 5 Season 5 worth watching?"

    Yes.

    Despite the very divided opinions on it, Season 5 is actually just as critical to the overall arc of the series as the four seasons which precede it are, as it serves as an Epilogue to those seasons and deals directly with the aftermath of those events.

    In fact, it's actually my personal favorite out of the 5 seasons of the series because of how it explores the consequences and aftermath of Seasons 1-4.

    Having said that, I would echo Reverend's advice to watch the season for yourself and form your own opinion on it.
     
  5. RoJoHen

    RoJoHen Awesome Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 14, 2000
    Location:
    QC, IL, USA
    Absolutely yes. The back half of the season contains some of my favorite storylines from the entire show.
     
  6. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2009
    Location:
    Great Britain
    If you were blown away by Season 4... why would you skip Season 5? Don't listen to the opinions of others, decide for yourself.

    Byron is a good character. There, I said it. Come at me bitches.
     
  7. Ethros

    Ethros Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    1123 6536 5321
    I watched B5 for the first time a few years ago via dvd, and remember thinking after finishing season 5 what people on this board moaned about? Yeah Byron was a bit annoying, and that Penn & Teller ones wasn't so hot, but overall there were some great episodes. Some folk on the internet just love to get their panties in a twist about nothing.




    ...early 2009 I watched it all, doesn't seem that long ago. I'd love to do a rewatch someday if I ever get time
     
  8. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2004
    Location:
    Rishi's Sad Madhouse
    Season 5 is worth watching -- whether it's worth rewatching is another matter.
     
  9. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2009
    Location:
    Great Britain
    You should also watch the charmingly goofy Crusade after Season 5, and the TV movies out of curiosity.

    Ignore J. Michael Straczynski's entire career after this franchise though. It's pretty unbelievable how uninspired a writer he seemingly instantly became after he finished Babylon 5.
     
  10. Mage

    Mage Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 17, 2007
    Form your own opinion. I was going to post my thought on season 5, but no. You need to go in it unbiased, and form your own opinion about it, as you should with everything in life anyway.
     
  11. Sephiroth

    Sephiroth Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2004
    Location:
    Sephiroth
    watch it, watch crusade, form your own opinion, personally, I enjoyed both
     
  12. Saga

    Saga Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2008
    Location:
    VA
    not watching season 5 would be the same as reading about 80% of a book and never finishing it.
     
  13. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2004
    Location:
    Rishi's Sad Madhouse
    If you do watch Crusade, watch the TV movie "A Call to Arms" first. "Legend of the Rangers" and "The Lost Tales" were pretty much meh.
     
  14. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001
    Location:
    Great Britain
    Just about the only good scenes in "Legend of the Rangers" featured G'Kar.
     
  15. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 7, 1999
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Season Five is pretty bad and betrays the quality of the show in a myrriad of ways. That said, if you loved the first four years, you owe it to yourself to see how it ends! ;)

    Unfortunately a lot of it was due to outside factors. JMS was told at the start of S4 that he would not be getting a fifth year so he condensed the series to wrap up in one year instead of two. Then when he got an eleventh hour reprieve at another network, he suddenly had an empty year to fill up. (I exaggerate for effect)

    Then, he killed off Marcus thinking Ivanova would be in S5. Then in between seasons, a tragic negotation misunderstanding resulted in her being off the show. So he lost two of his best characters instead of one.

    This resulted in the inclusion of a horribly uninteresting and poorly acted new character, and the bastardization of an already terrible storyline.

    Then, at a hotel he accidently threw away his story notes for the first half of Season Five, resulting in even more subpar episodes than there might have been.

    Then, his Season Five budget was slashed to be much lower, resulting in a near total lack of CGI space battles and action. Also, they lost a day of shooting, meaning that they couldn't do complicated action-y scenes anymore.
     
  16. Fist McStrongpunch

    Fist McStrongpunch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2003
    Location:
    Milwaukeeish
    Over at Marvel he had a good run on Thor, and a seriously amazing miniseries called The Twelve. Other than that, yeah.
     
  17. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 20, 2001
    Location:
    West Haven, UT, USA
    I honestly didn't think there was any drop in quality whatsoever between Season 5 and the four previous seasons, and personally liked Tracy Scoggins' Elizabeth Lockley.
     
  18. Terror Door

    Terror Door Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2001
    Everyone please ignore this statement and read Midnight Nation.
     
  19. Lindley

    Lindley Moderator with a Soul Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2001
    Location:
    Bonney Lake, WA
    I rather liked Jeremiah, even if some of the dialog was very B5-derivative.
     
  20. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2011
    Location:
    Sacramento, CA
    Problems with S5:

    1. Some people always thought Babylon 5 was only about the Shadows and Vorlons. These people obviously were disappointed with everything that came after The Shadows and Vorlons left.

    2. Some people hate the Telepath arc, and even though it only takes up a little more than half of the episodes in the first half of the Season, many people don't remember anything else about the season than just the Telepath Arc.

    3. Season 4 ended with such a bang, it couldn't be topped. Also, as mentioned, JMS thought S4 was going to be the end, so, some of that non-stop plot explosion of the final founr episodes of S4 was meant to be stretched out through the first 3 or 4 episodes of S5, and the beginning S5 Arc of the Telepaths was meant to start weaving into the canvas in late S4, so, there would've been more of a smooth ride from Episode 4.22 to 5.01. Because of that cancelation threat, and tying some stuff up a few episodes early, and not starting stuff that should be started, you pretty much have S5 starting as a cold start and you have the Arc growing pains of early S1, which caused many people to get a bad taste in their mouths for S5.

    So, in the first half of S5, I think you have probably about half of them are pretty damned good, and a few pretty decent and a few that are fairly average. but, the second half of S5 is as good as the best point in the Series, IMHO. And remember, a fairly average Babylon 5 episode is much better than an episode of many other Series, so "fairly average" is not really a bad thing in comparison to many other shows, it's just that when compared to itself, Babylon has so many awesome episodes, it's hard for it to compete with itself.