Babylon 5 - 25 years old but still fresh!

Hi, just finishing up binge watching this old series.

The stories are really quite good and the story arc covered a five-year period and clearly didn't grow episode by episode, but seems to have been planned out completely, end to end. Something groundbreaking for its day.

It's got ancient aliens and great literary quotations, political intrigue, conflicted characters, space opera size wars, conspiracies and fairly deep explorations of the meanings of existence.

Babylon 5
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If you've never seen it before, give it a go. Doesn't have the latest CGI and they screwed up the video format but once you get into the stories it is immersive.

B5 is great! Some of the acting is a bit cringeworthy but as you wrote the long arc story telling was groundbreaking for it's time. I would love to see it rebooted but apparently that's not going to happen.

Is it on one of the streaming services?

I would be down to watch it.

B5 was the "cherry" at the top of all SF series ….gave an good example how humans think…
and very actuall at this moment... diddend it end with an global hostel contamination???

One of the things that really set B5 apart was the competition was Voyager...sure you might think Deep Space Nine, but DSN really upped their game due to B5.

The first season of B5 was the worst, until you hit saw that the Nightwatch had been there the entire time, in the background and their story was not being told then but they were doing stuff. Whether planned from the beginning or retconned into the story after reviewing old episodes, that really got my attention from the odd aliens and seemingly less spectacular special effects.

One of the best SF series ever,loved it.Anyonr who likes SF and hasn't seen it is missing out on a great show.

Heh, wife and I were staying in a hotel once in Vancouver. I stepped out into the hall to get some ice and saw some dude walking down the hall with an M-16 all dressed up in some futuristic military get up. Jumped back in the room and locked the door...just waiting for the shooting to start! Figured it was some crazy dude. Nothing happened.

A few minutes later I went out to see what was going on. Didn't see anything. Told the wife the coast was clear, and we left to go to dinner. Took the elevator down to the lobby and when the door opened there was an alien standing there!

Turned out it was some kind of a Babylon 5 convention going on at the same hotel. What's worse is, I never saw the show, so I didn't recognize any of them. Thought it was some crazy costume party. LOL!

a reply to: chr0naut

They made that show(rendered the space station and ships) with the 16bit Commodore Amiga if memory serves.

Quite the achievement really, i loved Babylon 5.

a reply to: andy06shake

They were the first to do it. After that everyone started doing it to include movies. A lot cheaper than big studio CGI.

originally posted by: Stupidsecrets
a reply to: andy06shake

They were the first to do it. After that everyone started doing it to include movies. A lot cheaper than big studio CGI.

The Amiga "drove" the NewTek Video Toaster rather than render itself.



Always wanted one back in the day

Time to dust off the DVDs and put a dent in some B5, not watched it for too long. Thanks for the nudge.

a reply to: chr0naut

B5 showed the world how do do a sci-fi show PROPERLY

end off .

a reply to: ignorant_ape

The spin-off "Crusade" was abysmal, mind that?

But Babalon 5 was one of the best SciFi shows from the 90s, top-notch.

I think there was even a game planed for PC that let you fly a Starfury, but it never took off, was kicking around unfinished if memory serves.

a reply to: andy06shake

Try here

www.myabandonware.com...

a reply to: Ahabstar

There was an interview somewhere where they did say that B5 was planned out, all five seasons from the start. It almost didn't get made because of that. Getting a network to commit to a five season plan is hard.

They pioneered a lot of special effects with the character work and stuff.

And yes, the Nightwatch was always intended to be there. That was part of the plan all along.

It's also why some of the movies they made and The Rangers and the season after five were so bad by comparison. They were never intended to happen. B5 was always that planned five season arc.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Conventions are awesome.

When I was running in college, the Big 8 (yes, I'm that old, but it was one of the very last ones) indoor meet was in a convention center in OKC. At the same time we were having our indoor meet there for the conference, there were a couple other events also taking place (really big place). One of them was a Star Trek convention.

I have a really vivid memory of warming up in the hallway over hurdles while a Klingon in full costume with a really nice bat'leth was walking right down the hall next to us.

originally posted by: ressiv
B5 was the "cherry" at the top of all SF series ….gave an good example how humans think…
and very actuall at this moment... diddend it end with an global hostel contamination???

Yes - a plague on Earth and .... where sequel started - didn't last long -- can't remember the name off hand..

One of the best science fiction show's of all time.

While it aired it stood right up there with Star Trek, some truly memorable characters and some very interesting alien concepts, the design of the ship's was excellent as well and perhaps my favorite spin off movie was third space.


It had everything, Earth falling to the control of a power mad military junta and becoming the bad guy's while a small group of human's led the fight for freedom with the help of alien's including some of humanity's former enemy's, exploration of fictional alien religions including a version of reincarnation and an entire race whom let themselves die out because accepting a cure would have gone against there belief's.

Also it was interesting how they used the jump gate format for there space travel were the ship's would travel through another dimension between gates.

The ancient one's were a whole other potential and it remains a vast universe that has never been used up with a vast potential for further story's to be set in it's huge tapestry.

Very few science fiction show's have come close, it may not be the apex of the genre but it is right up there with some of the best.


Remember how more dystopian science fiction vanishes from our memory and an example of another show that was reasonable if no where near as good that just vanished from our radar after a few years was Space Above and Beyond, unlike B5 that show has slipped from most people's memory, no memorable characters and the only good thing was the design of the ship's which seemed to owe more to the alien franchise style of ship design (for the human's) and really only the alien ship's were cool in that show - though some on here would disagree with me.

B5, great space opera and while it may have dated with those special effects they are arguably still good enough to make it watch worthy.

IF you were ever a space game fan on your PC then you may remember the legendary Free Space games, especially Free Space 2, well using an open source version of that old game engine fan's long ago created a simulation of the B5 universe albeit limited in scope so if you fancy flying around in a B5 fighter then have a look at this old fan made gem.

And if you can find it there was this as well.

Of course these old gem's are best with a flight stick.

a reply to: chr0naut
My favorite episode was if they solved a very tough puzzle , their civilization would end without knowing that would be the outcome, in a way it remained me of DS9

a reply to: chr0naut

in 2018 I watched Stargate SG1 and last year I got to B5, recommended

B5 was good since it was well written with a coherent plot with all the general backstory in place so things didn't feel like you would go wtf with plot turns that made no sense. The characters had enough weight and felt like they belonged where they did.

Everything just felt right since the station wasn't some sort of dirt and dust free starfleet place where everyone was happy and had all the tensions you'd expect from a town with a major international airport today.

Some say DS9 was based off B5 and you can see its influence to a point since the DS9 writers had access to B5 material and obviously liked what they saw.