What has anyone heard about Babylon 5 ?

278 responses total.

It debuts March 1st on Channel 20, it's science fiction, I read
an interview with the creator in _Science_Fiction_Age_ and he
sounds like a good person to have creating an SF series.  I
look forward to it.

Come on, guys, I know at least a few of you saw it last night.
What did you think?

My full opinions on the subject of B5 and stupid Star Trek fans
shouting while I was trying to watch could grow to many pages, but my
quick review is, "Looks good.  I want to see more, but get a new
script-writer and lose a few of the actors."

I'd like to see more, also, but the "coincidences" and "parallels"
b/t B5 and DS9 were too obvious.  The special effects were good, but
sometimes the lighting was a bit too garish for my taste.

Re #3 - The similarities aren't surprising, since J. Michael
Stracynski (sp?) originally pitched the idea for DS9 to
Paramount.  If anything, B5 came first.

I don't think the similarities are surprising, either, but they are
obvious and thus tug at the mind when watching.  And, at least with
television, it's not so much who was first on paper, but who aired it
first, so DS9 takes precedence in viewers minds in any comparison.
It appears that B5 is the copycat and this means B5 will have to be
twice as good at writing and acting and special effects to make a
successful series.  I don't know that that's impossible at this point
because DS9 hasn't settled down quite yet, either.  B5 has potential,
but they've got to be so good that viewers put B5 first in the
comparison.  

ok, here comes the series!  Why do you await it with such bated breath, Rob?
I didn't think the movie was so hot, but I bet I'll get another chance at
the start of the regular series to see the movie again and possibly re-
evaluate my opinion... (the current star trek quality may be a positive
influence in this case...)

How come I've never seen this show before?  I'm a SciFi addict.

When exactly is the show premiering next week?

Wednesday, January 26th, 8 PM, Channel 20.  It's been in my events calendar
for months...

Das ist sehr gut.

dam, I think the b5 pilot movie was lousy.  I don't need to see it again.
I don't need to re-evaluate it.  I just hope that the series is good
despite the movie.  Yes, I plan to watch the series.

That is quite interesting.

Re 11 - Jeff, check response #2, and ask yourself if you would have
enjoyed the pilot more if people hadn't been shouting (I do not
kid) when you and I were watching it.

If you still feel that way, try watching "Encounter at Farpoint"
again and tell us what you think.

I thought farpoint was pretty good the first time, but my opinion of
the episode dropped after future viewings...  but that is just because
I don't like seeing all the 'spectacularisms' in farpoint - the saucer
seperation, the dramatic reunion on troi and riker, the holodeck, data,
etc...
 
the previews for B5 the Series look pretty good, like they have a lot
more computer graphic animations in them.  looks like they have something
like xwing fighters, too... tomorrow night will tell the true tale...

robh, what did I say?  I agree with you that B5 has potential.  That's
why I said I'm planning to watch the series.  I was unimpressed with
the pilot movie and you must have been too 'cause you said thay should
get rid of the writers and some of the actors.  I seem to remember that
we watched the TNG pilot together, and I think you liked it more than
I did.  I did not regularly watch TNG until the 4th season.  It might
be interesting to watch the B5 and TNG pilots back to back and try
to decide which is more lousy.  But I've wathced the TNG pilot at least
three times and I watched the B5 pilot a second time after the evening
when the room was too noisy and I don't think that my opinion could
be changed.  Both were lousy.

Well, we should keep in mind that that's what pilots are for.
It's like the first pancake, the one you always throw out.  >8)

Aaaaargh!  I just missed it!  Did anybody tape B5 tonight?

Of course!  What are VCRs for?  >8)

This response has been erased.

I originally had high hopes for B5 when I saw the trailers for it 
at a Visions convention, and I still think it has many promising ideas. But 
after seeing the pilot, I've lowered my expectations considerably. While 
it's true that pilot shows are often lame (the first episodes of both TNG
and DS9 were pretty lackluster),the B5 pilot had to be the most 
incomprehensible piece of TV I had seen since -- well, ever. Clearly the 
thing was envsioned as a complex epic, but the writers and producers bit 
off far more than they could chew in the space of two hours. I watched it  
with and without the "screaming Trek fans" in the room, and it had the
same effect on me both times....ZZZzzzzz....The most important event in 
the whole bloody mess seemed to be a war that had taken place several 
years EARLIER. Okay, I can appreciate a good backstory, but not when it
becomes apparent that all the dramatic stuff is the stuff that we AREN'T
seeing, rather than the stuff that we are. The first dictum of writing 
fiction is to SHOW, not tell. The writers of the B5 pilot seem to have 
ignored that precept entirely.

Having said that, I still hope that the series will improve over time.
It was loaded with engaging ideas and I certainly don't object to more
science fiction on TV. I do take exception to the idea that "Trek fans"
will accept anything Paramount throws in front of them and won't give 
anything else a try. Most of the Star Trek fans I know are hypercritical
of all the Trek shows. Trek may indeed be watered down science fiction 
at times (okay, lots of the time). But frankly, I watch almost all TV,
including sf TV for interesting characters. Trek has managed to do that 
well most of the time over the years, and B5 will not survive unless the
writers can breathe some life into the wooden characters that I saw 
sleepwalking through that pilot.

  So how was the premier episode ?  I've been waiting to see it
for months, but didn't know when it was on. (And now I've missed
it !)

 
it is on again, this time on channel 36 from Toledo, if you get that,
at 12:30 or 1 saturday night (technically sunday morning).

Sadly I don't get that channel.  Ah well, it will re-rrun eventually

ahh well, it seems you didn't miss it (and I didn't see it) afterall - 
apparently the station had a change of heart after the publication of
the ann arbor news tv guide...  no b5...  

Or you can come over to my place and watch whatever you haven't seen.
(No lending of tapes yet, I haven't used up the blank space and I'm
trying to keep the episodes together.)

I'm looking for a list of B5 episode titles and air dates.  Didn't
see anything on alt.tv.babylon-5 today.  Anyone have a list hany?
Is there an FTP site?

Guides and lots of other stuff at ftp.uml.edu (preferred) or
ftp.hyperion.com.

I've downloaded some stuff from ftp.uml.edu and put it in /u/kaplan/TV .
Feel free to take a look.

Had to make some comments about B5 after tonight's episode. At the end,
when Garibaldi looks at at the jumpgate and says "What the hell?", and then
those 3 immortal words that *everyone* hates, appeared at the bottom of
the screen: "To BE CONTINUED...", I thought I was going to scream...

Anyway, I've had a suspicion about something I think the B5 creators are
trying to do and tonight's episode clinches it. I've had this feeling that they
are trying to sort of pay homage to the past history of TV and film SF
by working in classic scenes, actors, dialogue, etc, into the various
episodes. So far, these are the things I've caught:
1.) Garibaldi's "second most favorite thing in the whole world" is to
    watch old warner brother's _Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half
    Century_ Cartoons.
2.) Walter Koenig was in the episode with the telepath Ironhorse.
3.) In the episode in which the 2 guys kidnap Sinclair and put him into
    the virtual reality chair, in an attempt to "get at the truth" about the 
    battle of the line. The blond haired guy, who plays the main bad guy's
    assistant, is also the actor who played Kahn's son in Star Trek II.
4.) Sombody mentioned in another item here that the "fishy" ammbasador
    from one of the "non-aligned worlds" is also the same actress who 
    played Savik in Star Trek III.
5.) D'Linn's new assistant, Lineer(sp?), is played by Billy Mumy. Who also
    played Will Robinson in _Lost in Space_.
Tonight's clincher was when Sinclair and Ivanova find the "Huge underground
machine" inside the planet that B5 orbits. If that wasn't the Krell Machine
from _Forbidden Planet_ I will eat an entire VHS tape of one B5 episode!
It wasn't just how the scene looked, but how they shot it, the camera
angles, the perspectives, the similarty was amazing.
BTW, if you've never seen _Forbidden Planet_, what are you doing in
htis conference? :-) Seriously, if you've never seen it, go rent it,
it's one of the classics of the genre. It suffers from some corny mid-50's
dialoge and sterotypes, but on the whole, it's the 2001 of it's
era.

It might not only be to pay homage, but also to lend a feeling of
legitimacy to what at first glance seems to be a ripoff of DS9.
By having ties to other ST episodes and actors, as well as ties to
other SF shows, the producers help us feel at right at home.  Not to
mention that astute people like gregc look for those sorts of
references :)

Actually, it *wasn't* that I was actively looking for them, I've just watched
*alot* of SF, both on TV and in films, and I have a good memory, after
awhile I found myself saying: "Hey, isn't that so-and-so, and isn't that from
such-and-such?". When It finnally became conscious I started peicing
together all the things I've seen. There were more, I just can't remember them 
right off. . Maybe it's their idea of a kind of SF in-joke?
(yuck, typo city, sorry about that, slow link tonight.)

Five words to add to Greg's list:
   "We've come unstuck in time!"

Caught another one in an episode the other night: Ivanova is reading a
book by Harlan Ellison. cute.

In the episode where Garibaldi's fighter friend comes to B5
for a big fight that is off-limits to humans, did anyone notice
the ad for ZIMA in the backround of the bar scene? If this is not
the right episode, it may be the one where Garibaldi falls off
the wagon.
BTW: I enjoy this series much more than I do DS9.

No, the episode where Garibaldi drinks is "Surviviors", with the
attempt to assassinate the President of the Earth Alliance.

June Lockhart was in the last episode.  I was disappointed that they didn't
do a scene where she and Billy Mumy ran into one another and said "Don't
I know you from somewhere?"

Ha! Anyway, yeah I caught the fact that Mrs. Robin..., er, June Lockhart
was in that episode. Other new tidbits I've seen:
These are all from the episode in which they find B4, the B4 commander
says something about "becoming unstuck in time", which I think is a
direct quote from _Slaughter House 5_, the space suit that the future
Sinclair wears *really* looks like it's from _2001_, and I'm sure I've
seen the actor that played the B4 commander in a scifi movie somewhere,
I just can't remember which.

Yes, the "unstuck in time" bit is directly from _Slaughterhouse_5_.
Neat book!

<aruba is a bit huffy that #32 doesn't seem to have been noticed>

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss