Lost vs. Babylon 5

[SalvorHardin]

Having seen & liked both shows, I'd choose Lost if I had to.

 

[Michael Chris]

http://images.google.com/images?q=jackface

Those are all different expressions.. :?

 

[RoJoHen]

But it's still Jack's face....

 

[DevilEyes]

Lostpedia article about Jackface:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Jackface

Jackface has entered the Urban dictionary.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jackface

A few of my favorite Jackfaces:
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Carazay4py.jpg
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Scree.jpg
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jackface_lost_moments.JPG
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jackface.jpg

I particularly enjoy the last one, it looks crazy in the "I HAVE 11 MUTILATED BODIES BURIED IN MY BACK YARD!" kind of way.

 

[Michael Chris]

ok.....

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

This is a very strange comparison - the shows are radically different.

Anyways, B5 is better in arc tightness and plotting. You don't really get the "making it up as they go along" feeling from it, and it's never overly confusing.

LOST is better in almost every other way. Acting, dialogue, music, directing of episodes, SFX (though it needs far less), and so on.

 

[stonester1]

Dialogue? The dialogue in Babylon 5 reaches, at it's best, a level of poetry, profundity and wit that I almost never see on Lost.

That's not to say the dialog on Lost is bad. It's not. It's very good. But which dialog I'd rather listen to? B5, hands down.

Same with the music.

 

[Lindley]

B5 has terrific monologues. The dialog isn't nearly so hot most of the time.

 

[Neroon]

This is a very strange comparison - the shows are radically different.

My feeling as well. Even though I have watched very little of "Lost", what I have read and heard about the show indicates it's mostly an apples-to-oranges (maybe a coconuts-to-oranges is more appropriate) kind of comparison.

Anyways, B5 is better in arc tightness and plotting. You don't really get the "making it up as they go along" feeling from it, and it's never overly confusing.

Again, I can't say much towards "Lost" btu so frequently it's described as beign rather meanndering while the writers decided not only what direction to take but just what kind of show it would become. OTOH, B5, even with its well-known switch outs on cast many of them designed, had the infamous pre-planning down quite well. That's one of its defining characteristics.

LOST is better in almost every other way. Acting, dialogue, music, directing of episodes, SFX (though it needs far less), and so on.

On dialogue I will grant you this, because of what I comment with Lindley below. But on the other points its not really relevant or the comparison is bound to be much closer.

Special effects is irrelevant, because each show was developed in virtually a different era. "Lost" does look great, but then it has years of improved technology and experience to use. Plus, "B5" did win awards for its special effects at different times. On top of that, I'm willing to bet that "Lost" had a much higher budget with which to work, especially given its major network status.

Acting, by and large seemed to me to be quite good, and in some cases tremendous. Where that seemed to falter was in the secondary characters, such as the occasional "bad guy". Even then we had a few examples of superb work, such as John Vickery. This is probably the most sdubjective of any of the categories, I think.

B5 has terrific monologues. The dialog isn't nearly so hot most of the time.

Agreed. An important distinction to be sure. There are some instances where the dialogue does work rather well, but there are several where it's not so much.

 

[Blamo]

Hmm I might give Lost another try since it's supposed to have gotten better.

 

[Lindley]

Again, I can't say much towards "Lost" btu so frequently it's described as beign rather meanndering while the writers decided not only what direction to take but just what kind of show it would become.

Lost reinvents itself into a slightly different show every season. Which I think is a good thing; it keeps things fresh. The seasons can be given names in the same manner that B5's were, if you like:

1: The Crash
2: The Hatch/The Button
3: The Others
4: The Freighter/The Oceanic Six
5: The Dharma Initiative
6: ?

(And given this show, that question mark may well end up being the actual season name....)

The first three years were a bit meandering, because they had a set end-point and they didn't want to get there too fast. Once they nailed down season 6 as the end (which happened towards the end of season 3 as I recall), the storytelling accelerated significantly.

Also, seasons 1-3 were full 22-episode seasons, while seasons 4-6 are shorter, 14-16 episode seasons. That helps with the accelerated storytelling as well.

 

[Roshi]

Lost reinvents itself into a slightly different show every season. Which I think is a good thing; it keeps things fresh. The seasons can be given names in the same manner that B5's were, if you like:

1: The Crash
2: The Hatch/The Button
3: The Others
4: The Freighter/The Oceanic Six
5: The Dharma Initiative
6: ?

7: Success!!!

 

[RoJoHen]

Lost may appear to meander and lack focus, but I realized while watching it on DVD that it does actually seem to know what it's doing. I honestly never got the sense that the writers didn't know where they were going.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Dialogue? The dialogue in Babylon 5 reaches, at it's best, a level of poetry, profundity and wit that I almost never see on Lost.

That's not to say the dialog on Lost is bad. It's not. It's very good. But which dialog I'd rather listen to? B5, hands down.

Same with the music.

Did we watch the same show? The dialogue on B5 was about as hackney and cliched as they come. In the hands of talented actors like Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas it can sound like poetry (but so would the phone book). In the hands of second raters like Boxleitner and Doyle or amateurs like Christian and Biggs it's crap.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I think that a lot of the "Lost doesn't know where it's going" talk is actually backlash against the X-Files.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Dialogue? The dialogue in Babylon 5 reaches, at it's best, a level of poetry, profundity and wit that I almost never see on Lost.

That's not to say the dialog on Lost is bad. It's not. It's very good. But which dialog I'd rather listen to? B5, hands down.

Same with the music.

Did we watch the same show? The dialogue on B5 was about as hackney and cliched as they come. In the hands of talented actors like Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas it can sound like poetry (but so would the phone book). In the hands of second raters like Boxleitner and Doyle or amateurs like Christian and Biggs it's crap.

But when uttered by Jeff Conaway's character, somehow it became realistic.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

"Our last best hope for peace"!

 

[Jan]

Lost lost me by stringing things along for too long so for me it's B5. I also felt it took the multi-media thing too far by (I heard) having major plot points resolved offscreen. I did like several of the characters a lot, though.

Jan

 

[RoJoHen]

I also felt it took the multi-media thing too far by (I heard) having major plot points resolved offscreen. I did like several of the characters a lot, though.

Eh? Like what?

 

[clint g]

Definitely Babylon 5