Farscape or Babylon 5?

[USS Einstein]

kirk55555 wrote:

---

I'm planning to order some things from Amazon.com in a few days, and I'm trying to decide between buying the first season of two different shows, Farscape and Babylon 5. I've seen one episode of Farscape before and thought it was good, plus two of the actors ended up being main characters in the last season of one of my favorite sci-Fi shows, Stargate SG-1, and I like the actors. On the other hand, Babylon 5 (which I know pretty much nothing about) seems to have more of a Star Trek feel, and I like that. Both are similarly priced, I'm just wondering if anyone here who has watched them would reccomend one over the other. I'd get them both if I could, but I'm only going to be able to afford one. In case it helps, my favorite sci-fi shows are (in order) - Star trek (the whole franchise), Firefly, and Stargate SG-1.

They are both shows a sci-fi fan MUST watch.

But B5 is an arc-based show, that is one five-year long story.

You have to just keep watching all five.

Around season two, you will realise it is good.

Around season three, you will realise it is genius.

Just order both full series

[Reverend]

^Welcome to six months ago.

kirk55555 wrote:

---

Also, I didn't think about it before seeing the guard kill the Narn, but energy guns in B5 don't have stun settings, do they? They don't seem to have nonlethal weapons in the security force, atleast none I've noticed.

As it happens, those aren't actually energy weapons in the traditional sci-fi sense. IIRC "PPG" stands for Phased Plasma Gun and it fires what are essentially bullets made of super-heated gas (plasma) trapped in some sort of magnetic envelope. It may look like energy (and it certainly involves a lot of it) but it has mass. The idea behind them is that using a slug thrower on board a space station, ship or inside a pressure dome can cause a breach. While PPG's can burn though metal, they can't penetrate nearly as deep, so much less of a risk. Also, they're better from a law enforcement POV where you'll often want to shoot people without killing them. A wound from a PPG is instantly cauterised, reducing the risk of the target bleeding out and eliminating any complications from shrapnel. Of course it's still lethal if you go for the head or major organs, but that goes without saying.

[Kooz]

B5, no contest. Farscape got interesting, but B5 was a better show overall and had a better first season. Neither first season is great though.

[Greg Cox]

Kooz wrote:

---

B5, no contest. Farscape got interesting, but B5 was a better show overall and had a better first season. Neither first season is great though.

Gotta disagree. I actually gave up on B5 early on, but was persuaded to give it a second chance when friends I trusted started raving about Season Three, and, yes, there was some epic stuff in the middle seasons, once the plot finally got underway.

Farscape, on the other hand, got off to a stronger, livelier start, with plenty of colorful, exotic characters and situations.

Both shows are good, but Farscape had the edge when it came to humor and excitement and adventure.

[Takeru]

Kooz wrote:

---

B5, no contest. Farscape got interesting, but B5 was a better show overall and had a better first season.

I disagree, I like both shows but Farscape is superior in almost every way, better writing, better cast, better production design, better effects.

[JD]

I'm with Greg and Takeru on this one. I really enjoyed B5 when I watched it a few years and go, and I will gladly watch it again, but I honestly enjoyed Farscape a lot more. B5 was good, but IMO Farscape was a lot more fun, and a lot more unique.

[kirk55555]

Well, since everyone is talking about it, I guess I'll answer my first question from the first post. Based off my experience, I'd go with (and I did go with, which is obvious to anyone who followed this topic ) B5. Farscape had a good first season, and some good main characters, but then it went downhill with season 2, with a mediocre villain, a horrible addition to the cast (who came in at the very end of Season 1, actually) and a big drop in the quality of the writing. There were enough bright spots to make me keep going for awhile after season 1, but after a very jumping the shark moment

The main character, John Chrichton, gets cloned, except neither is the clone, apparently

I stopped watching. That was the last staw for me, and I gave up on the show. I still like a lot of the characters (John, Aeryn, Rygel, D'Argo, Pilot) and the basic idea of the show. I just wish different writers could have been given the chance to do something with it. There were seriously some episodes of Farscape which were the some of the worst Sci Fi TV episodes I've ever seen (although Star Trek - Voyager's "Someone to Watch Over Me " still hasn't been dethroned as the worst Sci Fi thing i've ever seen on TV). To be fair, there were also some amazing episodes, like The Way We Weren't, but it wasn't enough. Babylon 5 had a decent First Season, and I'm really enjoying Season 2. The characters are interesting, the story is good, and overall its a good show.

Speaking of season two, here's my thoughts on the last episode I watched:

Hunter, Prey - This was a good episode. Kosh's ship looked pretty cool, except when they decided they needed to zoom in on the surface, which looked like a PS1 texture.I get that the technology at the time wasn't great, but they had to have known that it looks really bad zoomed in, yet they kept doing it. When it wasn't zoomed in, it looked fine.More conspiracy stuff with Sheridan, and more mystery from Kosh. It was interesting to see another actor who played a disloyal Star Trek officer make an appearance in B5 (Bernie casey, who plays the government agent trying to get the doctor back in this episode, played the officer who joins the Maquis in DS9's "The Maquis"). The reveal about Kosh's ship was cool. Overall, a good episode.

[Forbin]

Re: your spoiler. Honestly some really interesting stories came out of that.

[kirk55555]

Maybe, but it was the final straw for me. The show had become hard to sit through, I just got no enjoyment out of the first few episodes of Season 3, and that was what finally just made me stop. Like I said, I enjoyed parts of the show a lot (I got to the beginning of the third season), but the bad stuff was taking over. I doubt what came after would have changed that. The writing was getting really bad, and had gotten to the point where I had no faith it would ever improve. That, plus characters that George Lucas would have been embarassed to create (I may hate Jar Jar and Short Round, but Chiana and Jool are just as bad, if not worse) just became too much. I may go back to it someday, but not for a while.

[Greg Cox]

Funny coincidence: I just glanced in the mirror and realized that I'm wearing a FARSCAPE tee-shirt and baseball cap at this very minute. Which I guess shows where my loyalties lie.

As I recall, I picked up both the shirt and the cap at the first official FARSCAPE convention back in Aug 2000. Probably don't want to think about how long ago that was . . . .

[hyzmarca]

kirk55555 wrote:

---

Well, since everyone is talking about it, I guess I'll answer my first question from the first post. Based off my experience, I'd go with (and I did go with, which is obvious to anyone who followed this topic ) B5. Farscape had a good first season, and some good main characters, but then it went downhill with season 2, with a mediocre villain, a horrible addition to the cast (who came in at the very end of Season 1, actually) and a big drop in the quality of the writing. There were enough bright spots to make me keep going for awhile after season 1, but after a very jumping the shark moment

The main character, John Chrichton, gets cloned, except neither is the clone, apparently

I stopped watching. That was the last staw for me, and I gave up on the show.

I don't want to put this in spoiler tags, but I will just to be polite.

The only reason that he's split is so that Ben Browder can appear in most of this season's episodes, instead of merely half after the group is forced to split up. It gets resolved before the end of the season, and is handled quite well. It has a huge impact and everyone's character arcs.

Hunter, Prey - This was a good episode. Kosh's ship looked pretty cool, except when they decided they needed to zoom in on the surface, which looked like a PS1 texture.I get that the technology at the time wasn't great, but they had to have known that it looks really bad zoomed in, yet they kept doing it. When it wasn't zoomed in, it looked fine.More conspiracy stuff with Sheridan, and more mystery from Kosh. It was interesting to see another actor who played a disloyal Star Trek officer make an appearance in B5 (Bernie casey, who plays the government agent trying to get the doctor back in this episode, played the officer who joins the Maquis in DS9's "The Maquis"). The reveal about Kosh's ship was cool. Overall, a good episode.

At the time, it looked awesome zoomed in, incredibly realistic graphics those were.

[Kegg]

Kooz wrote:

---

B5, no contest. Farscape got interesting, but B5 was a better show overall and had a better first season.

That's the first time I've ever seen that statement to be honest. I can understand liking Babylon 5 better overall, but Farscape's first season was actually pretty damn good, while Babylon 5's was mostly dire.

[kirk55555]

hyzmarca wrote:

---

I don't want to put this in spoiler tags, but I will just to be polite.

The only reason that he's split is so that Ben Browder can appear in most of this season's episodes, instead of merely half after the group is forced to split up. It gets resolved before the end of the season, and is handled quite well. It has a huge impact and everyone's character arcs.

Well, the crew didn't have to be split up. The writers chose to do that.They could just have not split them up, and not cloned Chricton. Still, if it had happened without all the other things about the show that were making mke angry (bad writing, chiana, Jool) it wouldn't have made me stop. But, I probably wouldn't have lasted much longer, anyway. The bad writing would have found something else to finally make me fed up. Farscape is one of the biggest Sci fi dissappointments for me. A good concept with some good characters ruined by horrible writing and the things that writing led to, like horrible characters.

[Rowan Sjet]

You could just say its not your cup of tea.

[Lindley]

Season 3 is easily my favourite year of Farscape.