I think its safe to say we're thrashing the Star Trek and Stargate forums...

TCamen

Yes you should. B5 is consistently - and with good reason - hailed as one of the Sci-Fi greats and in terms of vision and consistency, it's yet to be matched. It's got the longest planned arc of practically any show that I've seen.

Mmmm B5. Re-watching it at the moment. Last episode I watched was 'Mind War'...I've missed Bester

I think the big difference with my own personal viewing habits -- I've bought 'Babylon 5' DVDS, I wouldn't buy 'Star Trek' ones. I like Trek, esp. DS9 & Voyager (and Enterprise, don't kill me!), but I just wouldn't buy it!

Stargate...I absolutely LOATHE Richard Dean Anderson, and he's the main reason I could never watch the show in the early years. I generally dip in for the season finales, most recently because it was setting up Atlantis, but I'm not able to sit through a whole series of light, standalone SG1.

Atlantis...I made it halfway through the pilot before switching off, it just utterly failed to grab me, even if the lead guy is a lot better to look at than RDA

BSG...It's by far the best scifi series that's currently on TV. Yes I tolerate Enterprise, but it's hardly outstanding (though S3 was pretty damn good!). Whether it maintains that standard remains to be seen, but I have faith in the God(s)

Sherifu

TNG kicks everythings ass, havent seen BSG so wont comment on that.

Haruspex

TCamen wrote:

BSG...It's by far the best scifi series that's currently on TV.

Have to agree, TCamen. Nothing has ignited my interest more this year than BSG. I've only ever had a passing interest in SG1/SGA [sorry, ixoy! ] and just dip into it when there's nothing else on.

What I think stands in our favour is that we are seeing the episodes before they are aired in North America. We have a critical mass of avid viewers from the start and this lends itself to much livelier forum debates.

Ivan

In fairness the only thing that really counts is the people who sit in front of the t.v. to watch the show.

And since Stargate AND Atlantis, having both already been aired in the states, are getting more viewers than BSG, you'd have to wonder...

Fenster

Ivan wrote:

In fairness the only thing that really counts is the people who sit in front of the t.v. to watch the show.

And since Stargate AND Atlantis, having both already been aired in the states, are getting more viewers than BSG, you'd have to wonder...

Well the BSG pilot has only been aired a few times, and most of those in the states who've actually seen the series grabbed it from Bittorrent. I think the real test will be when the pilot is rerun (see the letter thread) on NBC and when the series proper begins on January 13.

Not to mention the fact that SG1 is a massively popular show and SGA its big spin-off that arrived in a blaze of hype (I really tried to like SGA personally, but the whole thing comes accross as too...camp).

Fenster

On B5:

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=7515

:eek: :eek:

ixoy

Fenster wrote:

On B5:

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=7515

:eek: :eek:

Keep up Fenster. I posted this over an hour ago here on the main Sci-Fi board

It's good news isn't it? All those rumours which - if you go trawling - have been around since '98 are finally going somewhere. Hope it's good.

Ivan

Gah, smells like a cash in.
Still, they've been doing that for a while, what with Rangers et al., will be nice to see a nice big budget cash in.

Stark

B5, okay it was good storyline arc and had its moments but it was let down badly by production values, dialogue, acting, individual storylines etc. BSG looks like it's following a long-term storyline arc and this time round it has the goods to go with it. If it continues in the current vein, it may surpass B5. Though so far they've it somewhat easy as they're just taking ideas from the original Battlestar Galactica. For the second season, they'll be on their own.

Nukem

Please dont let the B5 movie be anything like the Ranger drivel they brought out.Damn hope someone got fired for that idea

c0y0te

I'm sure I've said this before, but it seems appropriate to mention it here in the context of this thread again:)

If you liked Babylon 5..... then get into Farscape!!! :eek:

Those two shows are the only sci-fi shows I've seen that keep a decent multi year story arc going and actually discover some depth along the way. They deal with all the usual themes the other shows do, except in a more realistic and adult way.

If you like the quick fix shows of single-episode resolutions or the odd two parter.. then by all means love your star trek or SG1 shows, but if you like something with a bit more meat, get into B5 or Farscape NOW!!

c0y0te

Johnny Storm

Stark wrote:

B5, okay it was good storyline arc and had its moments but it was let down badly by production values, dialogue, acting, individual storylines etc. .

I agree 100%. No offense to any B5 fans but I could never understand how it had such a strong following.

Azza

I still like Stargate SG1 and I don't find atlantis too bad. Having a quite time in a work at the moment and both stargates and BSG are on at the time I work....both show help kill the time. I'm getting payed to watch em.

TCamen

B5, okay it was good storyline arc and had its moments but it was let down badly by production values, dialogue, acting, individual storylines etc. .

Ultimately, the reason I liked it was for the strong arc that began in the pilot, and ended in the finale.
I'm re-watching S1 @ the moment, and there are some pretty lame stand-alone episodes, and sure the production values are a little shoddy to begin with, but I think the series found its feet creatively towards the end of S1.
The FX certainly became a lot better, but really, the big space battles only mattered to me because they were so important to the story, not because they had flashy FX (but they were damn cool )

I watched all of Farscape, and really enjoyed it, but for me, the story arc wasn't as strong as with B5, so regardless of the higher production values, B5 is far and away my favourite scifi series to date.
AND, before anyone pastes in that line & starts going on about Farscape being great -- I think it is too!! I just prefer B5

Of course, so far, BSG has the potential for a great arc (esp. after last week's episode) AND killer production values so who knows

Though so far they've it somewhat easy as they're just taking ideas from the original Battlestar Galactica

Hmm, not sure I totally agree with that. I think that with any remake, there's gonna be a certain amount of looking back over what was successful about the original, and trying to incorporate that. However, I think the writers of the new BSG have done a great job of making it nicely different yet still contain recognisable elements.
Since I'm avoiding spoilers, I can only say future episode titles look similar to original BSG episode titles, so whether they're re-interpreting them, I'm not sure -- I don't want to know til I get there