"Sleeping In Light" +20

"Intersections in real time" is the episode that I found most disturbing. It's the first thing that jumps into my mind when somebody mentions Babylon 5.
 
Arjen said:
"Intersections in real time" is the episode that I found most disturbing. It's the first thing that jumps into my mind when somebody mentions Babylon 5.
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That one and the episode before ("The face of the Enemy") are each disturbing in their way. Garibaldi first ratting out Sheridan in the bar, and then getting "deprogrammed" by Bester, are both rather remarkble scenes. But few episodes can trump a *number* of episodes with Londo for being disturbing. Watching the bombardment of the Narn homeworld, and describing to a couple children the last stand of Humans against the Minbari are still hair-raising.
 
"Chrysalis" was incredibly jarring in and of itself; the cast reshuffle in "Points of Departure" (aired a week later) really added to the feeling of an unsettled universe.
 
marauder2048 said:
"Chrysalis" was incredibly jarring in and of itself; the cast reshuffle in "Points of Departure" (aired a week later) really added to the feeling of an unsettled universe.
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The failure to prevent the assassination of the President seemed, at the time, quite unusual for TV, and they did a great job of showing how screwed up everyone was because of it. And the replacement of Sinclair seemed rather clumsily handled at the time - the general belief among the fandom was that he'd been replaced because O'Hare was kind of a wooden actor and Boxleitner was a bigger name. Only years later did the truth come out and that was even more disturbing.
 
O'Hare's condition was such a tragedy.

(For those who don't know, O'Hare was suffering from paranoid delusions throughout much of the filming of season one and had to leave the show for treatment. He barely managed top pull things together for his two later appearances on the show. The cast, production company, and JMS himself agreed to keep this all secret until he passed away, which happened in 2012.)
 
I will always be a Trekkie but B5 was a far grittier depiction of life in the future. For me the whole deal just worked like a well oiled watch. First heard that O'Hare was tough to work with only later getting the truth. He did more than alright under the circumstances.
 
Orionblamblam said:
But few episodes can trump a *number* of episodes with Londo for being disturbing. Watching the bombardment of the Narn homeworld, and describing to a couple children the last stand of Humans against the Minbari are still hair-raising.
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"The War. The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. Where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering.

No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage. Their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns, when they ran out guns they used knives and sticks and bare hands.
They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years they never ran out of courage but in the end, they ran out of time"
 
TomS said:
O'Hare's condition was such a tragedy.

(For those who don't know, O'Hare was suffering from paranoid delusions throughout much of the filming of season one and had to leave the show for treatment. He barely managed top pull things together for his two later appearances on the show. The cast, production company, and JMS himself agreed to keep this all secret until he passed away, which happened in 2012.)
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Biggs' and Doyle's passings were tragic as well, different circumstances of course but it's very sad how many we've lost from that show before their time.
 
Foo Fighter said:
I will always be a Trekkie but B5 was a far grittier depiction of life in the future.
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It's interesting to compare ST:TOS and B5 in terms of their optimism and their back stories. TOS is of course an optimistic, nearly utopian vision of the future, where mankind has got its stuff together and humanity is just plain better. In B5, people are still people and politicians are scumbags. What could have caused this? Well, in the background history of B5 between "now" and "then," Earth muddled through and finally, sorta, came together. In ST:TOS... we had the Eugenics Wars, Colonel Green's War, World War III, etc. Humanity Done Blowed Itself Up Good.

ST, for all it's brightness, is built on a mountain of corpses. Which is not inaccurate: the Renaissance was built on a third to a half of Europe wiped out by the plague.
 
Orionblamblam said:
In B5, people are still people and politicians are scumbags.
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I thought Sheridan, Delen and Vir were politicians too. Pretty effective at that. Kosh!
 
Arjen said:
Orionblamblam said:
In B5, people are still people and politicians are scumbags.
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I thought Sheridan, Delen and Vir were politicians too.
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Yup. Delenn started a religious war of exterminations because she was emotional. Vir thought tales of *actual* genocide were rip-roaringly hilarious (and I suspect the #MeToo tales about Emperor Vir would have been voluminous). Sheridan was nowhere near too good to use blackmail.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Foo Fighter said:
I will always be a Trekkie but B5 was a far grittier depiction of life in the future.
Click to expand...

It's interesting to compare ST:TOS and B5 in terms of their optimism and their back stories. TOS is of course an optimistic, nearly utopian vision of the future, where mankind has got its stuff together and humanity is just plain better. In B5, people are still people and politicians are scumbags. What could have caused this? Well, in the background history of B5 between "now" and "then," Earth muddled through and finally, sorta, came together. In ST:TOS... we had the Eugenics Wars, Colonel Green's War, World War III, etc. Humanity Done Blowed Itself Up Good.

ST, for all it's brightness, is built on a mountain of corpses. Which is not inaccurate: the Renaissance was built on a third to a half of Europe wiped out by the plague.
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ST:TOS is set in a period just after a major conflict with the Klingon Empire. It was that conflict that gave rise to the constitution class battle cruisers of which USS Enterprise is an example. Kirk, played by the 35 year old Shatner, would I think be very young for the command of a battle cruiser unless a lot of older more experienced commanders had already been lost or were busy with more senior roles.

Considering that setting, yes, they're definitely optimistic, they've survived a major conflict after all. The utopian, I'm not so sure of, they're still rebuilding from the last conflict and are still pressed in on two sides by the (very aggressive) Klingons and the Romulans.
 
Utopian in that all serious problems are outside the humans. Human society is pretty utopian (from a 1960s viewpoint at least).
 
JeffB said:
ST:TOS is set in a period just after a major conflict with the Klingon Empire.
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This is a bit of a retcon... I don't think any mention was made during the actual series about a major Klingon war. I'm sure all men of good faith can agree that STD is a wretched scam, best described in canon as a fever dream created for Picards benefit by Q. Other references to the "Four Years War" or "Axanar" and whatnot came from secondary non-canon/fanon sources. Sure, Garth was famed for his service at Axanar, but in the terms of TOS, just what that was all about was left undefined.

The Romulan war from a century early was described, IIRC, as being pretty bad, but it was unclear just how bad.
 
Klingons in ST-TOS represent the Soviet Union (aggressive, competing with the Federation over territory and influence) with Romulans being China (secretive and insular).

On topic: I loved B5 (first three seasons at least) at the time but it hasn't aged as well as ST:DS9 in my opinion. CGI effects are ropey and acting wooden.
 
The Trek future looks pretty bleak with all the confusion over rights etc. Looks like bean counters have ruined yet another product that should have gone on and on. RIP Star Trek.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/star-trek-discovery/feature/a860248/star-trek-discovery-franchise-movies/
 
I started out as a Star Trek fan when I was in my early teens. I lost most of my enjoyment of the series when it dawned on me that every-single-episode presented all characters fresh from the hairdresser's - apart from Picard, obviously - with most scenes that weren't outdoors looking like they were shot in a lawyer's office or a shopping mall. I liked Q from NG and Garak from DS9 - that's it. Most of the problems presented were dealt with in under an hour. DS9 had a longer story to tell eventually, but by then I had ceased to care about all the messing with alternate realities. I never bothered with anything of the TV-series after DS9. Just as I was losing interest in ST, B5 appeared.

In B5, I loved the way Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik played against each other with a storyline that I actually wanted to follow. I was drawn in by the CGI, I stayed for the story.
 
Orionblamblam said:
But few episodes can trump a *number* of episodes with Londo for being disturbing.
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There's always Londo being disturbing in a more amusing fashion.

Playing cards with Lennier.
 
Babylon 5... The best SF TV serie ever B)

One day, in the future, I will take time to review the whole series ... :)

it's a pity that the following series (Crusade -only half a season-, Rangers -only a pilot- and The lost tales -only two episodes) have not been successful...


Star Trek DS9 is my number two, far ahead of the other Star Trek series.

Lost is my number three, even though the quality has decreased in the last two seasons and, especially, in the last two episodes...
 

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