Babylon 5: Should I invest my money and time? ANSWER IN POST #500 (1 Viewer)

[MatthewLouwrens]

This is where it gets really great.

The first two seasons are good, very good at times, and most enjoyable, but watching episodes from seasons 3 and (especially) 4 just leave me breathless. Hope you enjoy it.

 

[oscar_merkx]

yep and what I really like so far after 6 episodes is every scene that Londo & G'Kar appear together with each outplaying each otherplus driving the story forward.

 

[david_hu]

I bagged the show mercilously after viewing season one in this thread, but persisted with the show.
I'm now up to season 4 of the show and the show does definately improve.I suspect Season 3 may have been the show's best
All in all, it is an entertaining Scifi and I would recommend it to Scifi fans.
I still think Season one contains alot of crapola, but I may have a second look at some of it to see if it is better in reflection.
I do not worship at the altar of the show, but I do now like it with all it good points and its flaws and recommend it.
I would paste what I originally said, but I still haven't bothered to work out how, yet. I did say really nasty things!!

 

[oscar_merkx]

Just finished watching Season 4 episode 5 The Long Night

Londo finally makes a stand and I never thought that this would happen. Helping G'Kar so that in stroke, he achieves his ambition to become Prime Minister and possibly become emperor, while Vir killed the emperor. Brilliant indeed.

The Shadow war is becoming more intriguing

 

[oscar_merkx]

update re episode 6 Into the Fire

A priceless moment from Vir's wish as he waves his hand

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Oscar - I would probably spoiler that last comment, just in case.

It may not mean much to those that have never seen the show, but once you get past a certain episode in season 2, the viewer would know enough to be spoiled by the comment.

You are correct though - a great moment, and incredibly satisfying to see as a viewer.

 

[oscar_merkx]

done

 

[Kevin Grey]

The episodes after "Into the Fire" are particularly interesting to me because they tackle an area you don't necessarilly expect to see- cleaning up the mess and dealing with the consequences of the Shadow War.

 

[oscar_merkx]

question about S4 episode 16 The exercise of vital powers

Towards the end of the episode, with the three wounded poeple. Is that Sheridan's father ?

 

[david_hu]

Structurallly, I think JMS got it very wrong with the ending of the shadow war.
It is the MAIN plot of the entire show, and therefore it should climax the series wherever the series was to finish-be it the 4th-if cancelled-or the final 5th.
All other wars should have been resolved before that climax. All the post shadow war stuff is mostly anti-climactic. I don't know how he got that fundemental so wrong.

 

[Kevin Grey]

 

[Paul McElligott]

 

[Holadem]

Yes, but one might argue that there is a very good reason that part is left out, it typically is anti-climatic. Even the oft cited example of the Scouring of the Shire in the Lord of Rings is somewhat slightly (sacrilege!) disliked by this LOTR fanatic. I understand the logic behind it, it doesn't mean that I have to like it. But that might stem of the fact that the Shire in general holds no interest for me.

I loved the later part of S4 because I found the politics of Earth gov fascinating. I am a sucker for Orwellian stuff. I couldn't get enough of Psy-Corp. Still, it just does not approach the epic scope that had been the staple of the show in S2-earlyS4.

--
H

 

[Simon Massey]

Babylon 5's main plot may have been about the Shadow War but I dont agree it was the main point of the show. Surely it was more about the difficulties of maintaining peace between different races, a sort of UN if you will. And, as we all know, the end of a war does not necessarily mean peace and stories about the difficulties of building an alliance and maintaining it can be just as interesting as stories about the build-up to and occurence of a war.

Now I'll agree that he made a few mis-steps along the way in terms of the content of episodes but I dont think it was structurally wrong.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The post war events were not "tacked on". JMS was, in effect, doing a narrative history. He had laid out the events of the story in broad outline for a million years in either direction (the events of "Deconstruction" would have made it into the series one way or another) and in detail for a thousand before and after the key events of the 2250s and 60s. He selected the chunk of the larger story that he wanted to tell just as a David McCullough choses the stories from the 18th century that he wants to tell. Should McCullough have ended his John Adams with Yorktown, or with Washington's inauguration because the struggle for independence was his "main" story? Do all stories that intersect with the American Civil War have to start with Fort Sumter and end with Appamatox? You tell the story of Bleeding Kansas and the battles over slavery on Capitol Hill and end with Lincoln's election and have a perfectly valid story. You can tell a story that starts with a confederate soldier in the aftermath of Gettysburg, as the Lost Cause recedes from its high-water mark, and continues through Reconstruction. If you do are you screwing up the "fundementals" of your story?

JMS certainly isn't a perfect writer and he made any number of missteps in five seasons and an ungodly number of episodes. But he didn't get the entire structure of the work wrong.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Kevin Grey]

I don't think it's actually anti-climactic though. I certainly found the the episodes including and immediately leading up to 'Endgame' to be more climactic than those immediately leading up to 'Into the Fire.' Maybe the lull right after 'Into the Fire' would have felt more normal if 'Into the Fire' had been a season finale instead of Episode 6 of a season.

 

[david_hu]

Sorry, but you don't catch or defeat your main villian and then meander about with the more minor squabbles for an eternity afterward as far as a unified dramatic action.
I have been entertained by BAB 5, but at least with DS9 we saw the resolution to their war arc, appropriately in its final double episode.
"The killing of your parents' may have been the shows theme or underlying message, but it is not a structured dramatic plot.
Make it up as you go along plots are fine and most shows probably do that.If BAB 5 was touted as that- no problems
BAB 5 was rather touted as a fully realised pre-determined plot beginning middle and end.
IMO, he just got it wrong where he placed the resolution to his main 'action' plot.
It came way too early for this particular visual medium.

 

[Katherine_K]

Just because it doesn't follow the rules you think it should doesn't mean that it wasn't following it's own rules.

Many people who appreciate Babylon 5 aren't huge fans of Deep Space Nine for EXACTLY that reason.

 

[Vincent Matis]

I very much like them both (but not for the same reasons)

 

[DaveGTP]

Many people think the whole show should revolve around the Shadow War. Comes from typical TV thinking IMO. "The duration is longer than the war" as the show says.

It was mentioned that the Shadow War should have wrapped up later..IIRC with the Shadow War originally intended to end at the end of S4 (more spread out/interspersed with the telepath stuff). Mostly it stayed in the form it was supposed to...

The show was about the rise and fall of empires...not just the Shadows and the Vorlons. The Centauri, the Narn, and other races had their own story. As well, characters had story arcs that don't necessarily tidily finish up at the same time as the Shadow War.


Personally my favorite part of B5 is the story of Londo and G'kar - it's what I feel is at least half of the backbone of the story.

A quote from JMS:


Heck, the last half of S5 hits the denouement thing right on the mark, with the winding down feeling of the show as people leave, etc.

The old "beat the bad guy, BAM all done" way stuff like, I dunno, Independence Day, or most movies...where everyone goes "yay we won", the guy gets the girl, and everything is Happy Ever After... doesn't do it for me. Maybe you like the Star-Wars style "yay celebrate we beat the bad guys" ending, but I'm not big on it.