Babylon 5. When does it get good?
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I am fully convinced it is worth watching, as SO MANY people whose taste I trust rate it as one of their favourite shows.
But.
I'm 5 episodes into Season 1 and finding it very hard going: plodding and clunky and cheesy
I'm very willing to cut it some slack, as most shows take a bit of time to find their feet, but how long are we talking here?
Should I / can I just forget about Season 1 and go straight to Season 2?
But.
I'm 5 episodes into Season 1 and finding it very hard going: plodding and clunky and cheesy
I'm very willing to cut it some slack, as most shows take a bit of time to find their feet, but how long are we talking here?Should I / can I just forget about Season 1 and go straight to Season 2?
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Stick with it.
Or... realize that a show that begins with 5 episodes of clunky cheesy plod... is crap.
You know some SF folks aren't very discerning. Quite a lot of them actually. Genre junkies. Dr. Who, for instance, is for the very most part (Tom Baker era was better) horrrrribly cheesy in every way and... yet...
Don't waste your life. If you have watched 5 episodes of junk, you have watched more than enough. You are not "fully convinced", you just want to be convinced.
Season 1 is better judged in retrospect, when you've seen the entire series as there's a lot at work in the early episodes that you just won't pick up on at this point. On the bright side, makes for decent repeat viewing!
Luckily, you've got some decent episodes coming up (Mind War, And the Sky Full of Stars, Deathwalker, Believers). The rest of the season is mostly average episodes sprinkled with a few outstanding stories (Signs & Portents, Babylon Squared, A Voice in the Wilderness and Chrysalis).
As mentioned above, it's the second season where it starts opening out and getting going. Year one was about laying the foundations - outlining the universe, the factions, the motivations and starting to put certain things in motion.
It comes good, you just have to stick with it through the first year.
Episode 11 is where S1 improves as it sets up the Earth conspiracy arc. However there are still some poor episodes for me (ep 14-17) - I'd jump from episode 13 to 18.
Season 2 is an improvement, though the third season is where it really gets going.
There are a few of S1 you MUST watch if you want to understand the later seaons. They are major "Arc" episodes
These are:
6 - Mind War
13 - Signs and Portents
18/19 - A Voice in the Wilderness
20 - Babylon Squared
21 - The Quality of Mercy
22 - Chrysalis
Many of the others, paricularly those not written by JMS, are skippable if you really want. Avoid "Grail".
+1 to this
And episode 11
The rest is optional.
S1 was made and JMS didnt know he would get a season 2 onwards, coupled with always improving effects both digital and physical it just got better and better, stronger characters created from actors who got into their roles and "believed" in the part they had.
Its a little dated now but for the time it was groundbreaking.....Startrek followed the arc model with DS9 after the success of B5.
However, B5 does start picking up as the first season progresses and finds its feet properly in the second season. The overarching story is what really sells B5 as a show but that aspect of it is secondary to many of the first season's episodes.
Anyway, episodes 6, 8 and 9 are pretty good. After that, 13 is a pivotal one, as are 18,19, 20 and 22.
I agree with others above in that there are episodes that cannot be skipped, as without them you'll be lost later on.
Stick with it, the show really improves!
i was in same situation as you mate,watched it because of the univeral praise and jsut couldnt see the big deal
but for me mid way s2 is where it all really begins and then its v good till the end
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1015827
read along with your current pace, you might enjoy it and find the old posters responses interesting
Season 1 is better with hindsight, particularly as you progress through Seasons 2 & 3, since much of what turns out to be the "important stuff" is so underplayed and backgrounded in Season 1 that you don't spot the significance until much later on. Unlike many later shows that have teased their 'arc plot' by ostentatiously dropping hints and mysteries liberally throughout the season, much of the first season's "foreshadowing" isn't immediately obvious.
And then of course you get episodes like Babylon Squared which end on a bona fide WTF? moment that doesn't get addressed for another 40 episodes.
BTW I would definitely not regard Born to the Purple as weak - the stuff with Ivanova is very good
In general S1 suffers in part because it is a five series story so there is a lot of setup in it
Different strokes - the main plot was enough to put me to sleep. On subsequent viewings I would agree that the Ivanova subplot was actually much better than the A story. In that regard it is definitely better than Infection, which is uniformly woeful.
yours pm
Don't be ridiculous. :rolleyes: You are just venting anti-Star Trek hatred, which was always one of the most unseemly characteristics of so many Babylon 5 fans. I was a Star Trek fan when Babylon 5 started, and that didn't keep me from either "understanding" Babylon 5 or becoming an even bigger Babylon 5 fan than I was a Star Trek fan.
Massive Trekkie who absolutley loves B5 here,i even understood it:eek:,don't understand your lack of punctuation though for one so intelligent.:p
Mmmm, not sure about this. Some of my best-loved programmes had dodgy first seasons. And seeing Babylon 5 consistently rated equal to or higher than them in many "best of" lists, well, I think it's fair to assume there might be something worth watching there
And I think "wasting my life" is a bit histrionic...I like to watch some good sci-fi of an evening once my kids have gone to bed. The rest of the time I do other lifey things
http://youtu.be/vpb1OXvNNMc
Rather than speaking the truth, he said something he obviously didn't believe in order to get a Babylon 5 fan to fire him. But I suspect you aren't capable of processing so subtle a point.
Watched in that order there were quite a few "ah that makes sense" bits hidden in it, but equally there were a few stinker episodes still that waste an hour of your life.
A bit like season two of the Wire, people will argue that you need to watch it to understand the big picture. Me I say leave it to the end when your fondness for the show will carry you through the pain.
Okay you said "I'm 5 episodes into Season 1 and finding it very hard going: plodding and clunky and cheesy"
Why should you spend 5 "very hard going" hours of your life watching "plodding and clunky and cheesy" crap? This is not "good sci-fi"; this is a struggle and some convoluted nonsense about you'll understand things better if you keep watching is silly. You didn't express any lack of "understanding" at all. No, you spoke of banality...
There is a lot of great stuff -- to read, to watch, to listen to. And there's even more good stuff. So why waste your time with junk?
Because when the OP gets to season 3 it will all have been worth it.
I think the problem is that a lot of what was pioneering and fresh about Babylon 5 (arc plots; CGI space battles - as opposed to models; alien-looking aliens - as opposed to just the odd forehead wrinke or pointy ears) is no longer new.
It's still pretty unique in being a 5 year arc plot as opposed to most shows' 1 year arc plots but that doesn't kick in so much in the 1st season.
I still think B5 was something special, though. One of my favourite shows ever.
http://youtu.be/SVFFQYz_Awk