Some thoughts on Babylon 5

Karl Hungus

Right, well as of now I'm about the watch the final episode of season 4, and all I can say is, WHOAH what a ****ing phenominal sci-fi series altogether! It absolutely eclipses all else, even Farscape (just about)! So that's pretty damned high praise from me.

Utterly gripping aside from a few duffer episodes here and there, and most of the first season.

ixoy

Glad to hear you enjoyed it KarlH. I'm just after watching 4x16, so I'm very close to where you are. After a rather shaky rewatch of S1, I was glad to see that the show did live up easily to nostalgic memories and S2-S4 have been excellent, with little in the way of annoying filler episodes. It always makes me pine for proper long-term plotting in sci-fi shows again. As good as BSG is, it's still not as story-driven as B5.

I will say to you, try not to expect as much from the fifth season, which was more problematic. I'll be starting into it soon (it's been sitting on my shelf for months) but I do recall that it's not quite as cohesive. Having said that, it definetely picks up towards the end so never despair...

azezil

Yeah season 5 isn't great, it seemed to be rushed and less organised. Should have ended it with season 4, final episode of season 4 was a lot better than 5.

LSLFAN

Season 5 is released this month (17th I think), unless you have a multi region player - it was released in Region 1 early in 2004.

I only saw S5 when it originally aired. Have bought all the other seasons and am looking forward to seeing S5 again.

As far as I recall, it was not as good as the others but I remember that the last 5 or 6 episodes were fantastic - if you are not in tears after "Sleeping in Light" then you are not human!!

Trouble with S5 I think is that JMS did not know if he was going to get a final Season and tried to tie up all the loose ends in S4. When TNT came to his rescue he had to rejig the rest of the series. I think most of the major issues had been resolved by the end of S4 (Shadow War/President Clarke) so S5 seemed a bit of an anti climax.

Having said that, the whole series is, in my view, the greatest sci fi ever on TV and I watch it regularly on DVD.

There is an active B5 board on Warnerbros.com which attracts fans from around the world, if anyone is interested.

Cheers.

Karl Hungus

I'm just finished with Season 5 now. No, it wasn't great, but there were indeed moments of greatness, and damned if the final episode didn't get to me.

Not what I was expecting at all really, I kinda thought everything was going to go down the ****ter by the end. Don't ask why.

I've yet to see the movies, but I'm looking farward to it muchly.

ixoy

I'm almost finished S5 (3 episodes left)... I'm almost reluctant to watch them because that'll be it (for the second time).

S5 wasn't as weak as I remembered. I think it worked in patches - the first four were decent, then you had a weak run, then you had 3 decent episodes as the Byron story culminated, then a few more weak ones, and finally you headed into the last six which were finally up to the previous seasons' standards. I particularly enjoyed Londo's arc.

As to what you say Karl:

It still didn't end great for lots of characters. G'Kar finds a measure of peace but Londo very much doesn't, nor does Lennier. Sheridan must leave behind the one he loves and Delenn is left alone. Lyta is off on her sole crusade, fighting against immeasurable forces. Only Garibaldi, to my mind, finds the end to all his demons

.

From here you can go a number of ways. There's the movies, of which 'In the Beginning' is well worth seeing, 'Thirdspace' is pretty decent, 'River of Souls' is just bad, and 'A Call to Arms' is good and acts as a setup to 'Crusade'.

Do you plan to check out 'Crusade' if only to see where he had intended taking the B5 universe? Or what about 'Legend of the Rangers' (the one B5 flick I ain't seen 'coz it's not on DVD)?

And finally, if you're really keen, there's a series of books that clean up some of the plot lines. Bester has his own trilogy, there's a techno mage trilogy, and finally a trilogy dealing with what happens to Centauri Prime, Londo, etc. after the events of "The Fall of Centauri Prime". I've just purchased the latter two trilogies and am going to nab the Bester series off of Amazon...

azezil

I've watched the Legend of the Rangers, not bad but its more like a pilot episode than a movie.

The Corinthian

azezil wrote:

I've watched the Legend of the Rangers, not bad but its more like a pilot episode than a movie.

As with 'A Call to Arms' it was a pilot to a spin-off, only that it never got picked up. By that stage the B5 franchise had lost momentum, the TV movies were getting progressively worse and unimaginative. By the time we got to 'Legend of the Rangers' we were just seeing reworkings of the same ideas we saw in the original series.

One of the problems with B5 was always its Tolkienesque story ark - once completed there was nowhere to really go.

ixoy

The Corinthian wrote:

One of the problems with B5 was always its Tolkienesque story ark - once completed there was nowhere to really go.

I can see your point and kind of agree. However, I hope the novels will wrap up some arcs that were left open - David Sheridan/Centauri Prime being one for example (JMS said he'd have picked it up if he ever did a sequel series) and then Lyta's telepath war on Psi Core (which I assume is picked up in the Psi Core trilogy).

However, those stories are more wrapups, tidying up existing ends and I don't think there's a full story to be told. Even the forthcoming "The Memory of Shadows" isn't so much telling a new story as probably finalizing elements of an old one.

LSLFAN

Have just started on Season 5 - last time I saw it was when it originally aired. I'm looking forward to the last 6 episodes. Can't believe Lyta fell for that Byron dork but then I was not available

Crusade is out on DVD in late March.

By the way, the Centauri trilogy is very good and worth reading.

Karl Hungus

ixoy wrote:

I'm almost finished S5 (3 episodes left)... I'm almost reluctant to watch them because that'll be it (for the second time).

S5 wasn't as weak as I remembered. I think it worked in patches - the first four were decent, then you had a weak run, then you had 3 decent episodes as the Byron story culminated, then a few more weak ones, and finally you headed into the last six which were finally up to the previous seasons' standards. I particularly enjoyed Londo's arc.

As to what you say Karl:

It still didn't end great for lots of characters. G'Kar finds a measure of peace but Londo very much doesn't, nor does Lennier. Sheridan must leave behind the one he loves and Delenn is left alone. Lyta is off on her sole crusade, fighting against immeasurable forces. Only Garibaldi, to my mind, finds the end to all his demons

.

From here you can go a number of ways. There's the movies, of which 'In the Beginning' is well worth seeing, 'Thirdspace' is pretty decent, 'River of Souls' is just bad, and 'A Call to Arms' is good and acts as a setup to 'Crusade'.

Do you plan to check out 'Crusade' if only to see where he had intended taking the B5 universe? Or what about 'Legend of the Rangers' (the one B5 flick I ain't seen 'coz it's not on DVD)?

And finally, if you're really keen, there's a series of books that clean up some of the plot lines. Bester has his own trilogy, there's a techno mage trilogy, and finally a trilogy dealing with what happens to Centauri Prime, Londo, etc. after the events of "The Fall of Centauri Prime". I've just purchased the latter two trilogies and am going to nab the Bester series off of Amazon...

Well, I had the B5 Movie collection order a while back, so I shall indeed be seeing those soon. It doesn't include In The Begging Though, so I'll have to track that one down aswell. I'm not sure if I want to see Crusade, or Legend of the Rangers anytime soon, but perhaps some day out of sheer curiosity, but its hardly on my to do list.

Books, for me, are problematic at best. I do love to read, but the thing is that I'm dyslexic, and despite the fact that I'm fairly well composed, and have quite a large vocabulary, it often takes me ages to read a book, months even! So much so that I've a nice little collection of books that I've only half read. I'm not going to invest in any more books, because there's simply loads there I've yet to read. Funny story, I always read Ford Prefect as Ford 'Perfect' and never realised it untill fairly recently. D'oh!

Ba_barbaraAnne

I watched all the B5 series over the last year and just finished Crusade last week. It was great! I'm very sorry they only made one series as it's a shame we don't get to see how the story-line develops.

Where can i get the books? Would be nice to get more background on the characters.

ixoy

Ba_barbaraAnne wrote:

Where can i get the books? Would be nice to get more background on the characters.

Ahh Amazon are good. However, the .co.uk site doesn't have all of the Psi Cops trilogy and nowhere has the final installment of the Centauri trilogy (I can't get it anywhere!).

For what it's worth, first there were 9 B5 novels, made during the filming of the series. They are:

"Voices" by John Vornholt
"Accusations" by Lois Tilton
"Blood Oath" by John Vornholt
"Clark's Law" by Jim Mortimore
"The Touch of Your Shadow, the Whisper of Your Name" by Neil Barret Jr.
"Betrayals" by S.M. Stirling
"The Shadow Within" by Jeanne Cavelos
"Personal Agendas" by Al Sarrantino
"To Dream in the City of Sorrows" by Kathryn Drennan

Of these nine, only two are worth looking into - "The Shadow Within", which is a precussor to the Technomage trilogy and deals with what happened to Anna Sheridan aboard the Icarus (FWIW, the Sheridan bit is considered "canon").
The other is "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" which tells the story of Sinclair and the Rangers.

Next up is the Psi Cops trilogy, all by J. Gregory Keyes:

Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps
Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant
Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester

.. As the name implies, the first book deals with the beginnings of the Psi Cops, and the other two with Bester.

Then we have the "Legions of Fire" series, by Peter David. It details what happens to Centauri Prime post-Season 5 up to, and including, the fate of David Sheridan, Londo, the Drakh influence, etc:

Legions of Fire: The Long Night of Centauri Prime
Legions of Fire: Armies of Light and Dark
Legions of Fire: Out of Darkness

- It's worth noting that "Out of Darkness" is out of print and impossible to locate. I'm still trying to get my hands on it.

Finally, there's the Technomage trilogy, all by Jeanne Cavelos, dealing with the technomages and their leaving our galaxy (as touched on in "Crusade"). The books are:

The Passing of the Techno-Mages: Casting Shadows
The Passing of the Techno-Mages: Summoning Light
The Passing of the Techno-Mages: Invoking Darkness

The later three trilogies have much more of JMS' approval than the earlier nine and are considered "what happened" (he touches on them in the DVD commentaries). Unfortunately, as stated, some of these books are trickier to come by and you may have to switch between suppliers or use the Amazon.co.uk marketplace which is a killer when it comes to P&P.

Hope that helps ya out - I'm off shortly to collect a bunch of the B5 books that have arrived at home

c0y0te

I'm a confirmed B5 fan. Anyone who knows me on these boards will testify to that. I've got all the episodes, all the movies etc.

Up until recently B5 was the very best sci-fi show I'd ever seen due to it's vision, depth and story arc. Farscape (as already pointed out by someone above) came close and indeed is worthy of mention in the same sentance.

Now however I feel confident in predicting a successor. Having seen the first season of Battlestar Galactica, I am massively interested in the rest of the series. When you consider how iffy the first seasons of B5 and Farscape were - while they found their feet so to speak - and then compare it to BSG season 1; well there actually is no comparison.

If you haven't already done so - get your ass over to the BSG forum on these boards, and get a copy of the mini-series that launched the actual series. In fact, season one of BSG is hitting the DVD shelves as well so go get 'em.

Coyote

Stark

Just got to see the 4th season of Babylon 5 this weekend (eventually). Fantastic, watched the whole thing in one sitting practically. Straight after watching it I went to straight into watching "In the Beginning". It's much better than previous seasons I think, the acting seems better, there are no crap B-stories and it's made totally compelling by the fact that we're now in "Endgame".

The Centauri Prime storyline was great, I loved that evil emperor. Sheridan recruiting all the defectors from Earth Force and then swarming in around Earth with a fleet of ships for a final assault, then having the defence grid turned in on Earth("Scorched Earth") was awe inspiring. It was good to see Dr. Franklin getting a compelling story too in the Mars resistance arc (makes a nice change from stim-addiction and "Walkabout" *shudder*).

Last episode was totally strange though

The Corinthian

Stark wrote:

Last episode was totally strange though

That’s because it was written / shot at the last minute.

It was uncertain; perhaps even unlikely that B5 was going to get a fifth season at the time. And so, with the principle two story arcs ending in season four, the final episode of the series, “Sleeping in Light” was actually written to appear at the end of the fourth season. You’ll note that in the penultimate episode, “Rising Star”, ends with a narrative discussing future events and conflicts - this was meant to bridge the gap between it and the next episode “Sleeping in Light”, which was set twenty years later.

When a fifth season was announced, they rapidly cobbled together a replacement finale for season four, leaving us with the enigmatic “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars”.

AFAIR, the episode “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars” is still officially numbered 501 (i.e. episode 1 of season 5), while “Sleeping in Light” remained episode 422 (i.e. episode 22 of season 4) officially.

Yes, I am a nerd.

Stark

Does that mean Season 5 runs over a time period of 20 years as opposed to the usual time period of a year?

The Corinthian

Stark wrote:

Does that mean Season 5 runs over a time period of 20 years as opposed to the usual time period of a year?

Not really. Only the final episode jumps ahead 20 years.

Nevyn

It jumps forward to show Sheridans demise as for told for he was living on
a certain ammount of aloted 'borrowed' time.

Still I would have liked to have seen the tale of Sheridans Son,
esp when he gets his long awaited coming of age gift from Londo.

ixoy

Thaed wrote:

Still I would have liked to have seen the tale of Sheridans Son,
esp when he gets his long awaited coming of age gift from Londo.

JMS said he would've covered it given a new crack at a series. He didn't so instead you have to make do with the "Legions of Fire" trilogy by Peter David that includes the story of what happened to David. Only prob. is that the third book is impossible to find...

Kevok

I have the third book, it's very good, and the entire incident with David is covered in detail. The Legion of Fire trilogy is extremely well written and horribly poignant at the end. Londo is such a tragic character.

Nevyn

thank you will keep an eye out for them.

RicardoSmith

Have to admit I was a B5 fan. Though some of the acting and storylines where cringe worthy at times. It wasn't as predicable as Star Trek, and the characters were more interesting. You all buying it all on DVD now or what? Is it repeated anywhere?

ixoy

It was repeated on Bravo a few months ago RicardoSmith, the entire series I think. Myself though - I just bought the show on DVD. And the movies. And the bleedin' Crusade spin-off.

Currently reading "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" which is 100% canon (i.e. the events in the book are official) and explains all about Sinclair post-S1. If you want to go hardcore though, you'll need to supplement it by reading the B5 comic books because they're tied in to. Damned money makers!