Babylon 5 Is a Perfect, Terrible Series

Babylon 5 is incredible. Its flaws are its strengths.

I enjoyed it and I give J. Michael Straczyinski a lot of credit for being able to conceive and tell a good story even with some difficult production and casting problems. While the plot can be simplistic there are not a lot of loose threads and there are many interesting characters. I think for the time (the 1990s) it was incredibly ambitious before streaming made more dedicated audience participation possible.

So... On a slight tangent... If you enjoyed Babylon 5, but have never seen Blake's 7, then you've got some essential viewing ahead of you. Shonky sets, dubious costumes, some terrible fight choreography, and some of the best plotting and dialogue going (all credit to Terry Nation). British SciFi at it's best. And the spiritual precursor of all 'plucky group of outlaws on a stolen ship' series (such as Farscape and Lexx).

I was absolutely obsessed with Babylon 5 during it’s run, reading up on the Lurker’s Guide before and after every episode. I analyzed every plot detail and theorized about what everything meant and where it was going. I even made a mod for Strange Adventures in Infinite Space around Babylon 5. I just loved that show so much.

Then after some years after it went off the air and I was able to get digital copies of the show, I tried going back through it, and it hadn’t aged as well. The CG is pretty outdated (was great at the time), the writing and dialogue was pretty hokey, but overall I still liked all the characters, even the ones I probably disagreed with politically (I still love Garibaldi’s arc in that show). I still have fond memories of it though, just the first time I remember seeing those sort of season-long story arcs like that in almost any show. It had Trekian problems of the week, but it felt like it was building towards something in the long-term, it was just mind-blowing at the time. So many characters that felt real, who changed over time, and so many memorable lines.

"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."

I have to confess that I've never been able to get into Babylon 5. I've tried several times starting from the first episode but I've never found myself "sucked in". TBH it has always struck me as political soap opera with lots of makeup.

But as I said - I've never gotten into it, and I've read many times that it is great. So - I really want to like it.

I think I'd be in your debt if you sell me on it - at what point(s) might I be so into this show that I just can't stop watching?

Lovely and honest article.

One thing that made B5 so enjoyable for so many of us was The Lurker’s Guide — a website that broke down every episode into what came before, what happened, what it might mean, and included quotes and hints from JMS. We were such fans that I actually printed out the entire website - it’s in a binder with our DVDs.

As deep as the article is, it doesn’t address a few things behind some of the major issues: the first commander had to be replaced because the actor, Michael O’ Hare, was having severe mental/medical issues, kept private for years; the 5th season was a mess partially because the renewal came so late JMS had put some of the planned 5th season into the 4th season, meaning the telepath subplot had to be (unfortunately) expanded, and Claudia Christian had to be replaced because she had already accepted another gig.

But we are going to have to watch it again. So many amazing episodes. Mira Furlan is amazing. The music by Christopher Franke was fabulous (we own many of the soundtrack CDs). And yes, I STILL get teary-eyed listening to the music from the finale.

Right now it looks like we'll have a couple of decades of Road Warrior (any of the Mad Max series) for a couple of decades, with declining care use and rising cannibalism. And then its up to the roaches, rats and coyotes.

We're going to have to learn some serious Star Trek stuff if we're going to survive the climate crisis and plastic crisis.

I'm just finishing the last season and it's actually incredible!

I love this show so much, I even went and found the poorly made continuation/movie thing that seems more like an amateur student film project just to have more Babylon 5.

Farscape is another great scifi show that's not really brought up too often.

Babylon 5 is great so many callbacks and stories that run across the whole series

My thoughts on it is the overall plot was very good but it's aged badly.

Had never heard of this show before, but from what I read in all these comments it'll be enjoyable - thank you everyone!

I'm rewatching it right now and enjoying it. The characters are well-written, the principals were cast well, a lot of recognizable "B" and "C" actors make cameos, I honestly think some of the CGI still works (fight me).