So I just started watching it for the first time, having missed it completely the first time round. I wasn't sure what to expect, all I could remember were some wacky hairdos and lurid accents. With that said, I was pleasantly surprised to find a pithy and occasionally insightful bit of pulpish Saturday afternoon entertainment, not exactly well developed characters but a few flashes of potential.

The woeful CGI lets it down badly though, they would have been far better off to take a few pages from the book of the original Star Wars movies which have aged much better in terms of effects, despite being twenty years older.

All in all, its looking promising, every episode has a few original quirks which I haven't seen much of so far from other series. Game inspiration? 7 out of 10 to date, I've filled a couple of notebook pages with offshoot ideas. What I like most about it is it doesn't have the preachy moralism of DS9, with a lesson for the viewer at the end of every episode, something it holds in common with Firefly. Hopefully the graphics will mature a bit over the course of the show.

Just wrapping up season one now.

Ah jeez peacock hair just got caught, cheating at poker by stealing cards with one of his six penises. Quirky little show this. Did not see that coming.

Oh I love B-5, one of my favorite shows, it gets better than it is now for you.
Its fantastic and builds slow, but when it hit it can hit hard.

Quote from: The Traveller;548580The woeful CGI lets it down badly though, they would have been far better off to take a few pages from the book of the original Star Wars movies which have aged much better in terms of effects, despite being twenty years older.

The CGI was chosen to keep the special effects affordable and it was fairly state-of-the-art at the time.  J. Michael Straczynski had started working CGI on the Captain Power show, and it of course improved over time as the technology improved.  Babylon 5 was purposely designed to be an affordable show to make, since the cost on so many science fiction shows had budgets that easily got out of hand with special effects (for example, this -- the discussed the millions spent on models and sets on the Today Show here).  To keep costs down, it was set primarily on a space station, with sets that could be easily broken down and repurposed and, of course, CGI special effects which were cheaper than models and blue screen.

If you can enjoy Season 1 that much then you're in for a really pleasant surprise. Most people skip Season 1 entirely in the rewatching. It gets much better as it goes.

//Panjumanju

Babylon 5 is easily one of my favorite shows ever, and yes it gets SO much better. It's also one of the most quotable TV shows ever, at least if you like deep, philosophical quotes.

As to the effects, consider the time period - early-mid 90's, CGI was pretty novel back then. You'll find it less important as you get more into the story and characters anyway.

Quote from: Panjumanju;548692If you can enjoy Season 1 that much then you're in for a really pleasant surprise. Most people skip Season 1 entirely in the rewatching. It gets much better as it goes.

Its the originality that's keeping my attention so far, its rare to find many if any original ideas in TV shows, let alone every episode.

If you loved Season 1 of Babylon 5, you will fall in love with the rest of the Seasons.

And the movies.

And Crusade.

Quote from: The Traveller;548580The woeful CGI lets it down badly though, they would have been far better off to take a few pages from the book of the original Star Wars movies which have aged much better in terms of effects, despite being twenty years older.

Not really. The special effects required by the Babylon 5 story simply could not be done with models on a TV show's budget. Biting the bullet and being a major pioneer for CGI effects was the only way to make it happen. You'll find that the CGI effects (along with everything else) improve dramatically as the series progresses.

The CGI isn't that bad, certainly not for its time, and that it's on a TV budget.

A few years after it finished I decided I hated it. B5 is so cheesy in places (Mr Garibaldi in one scene actually says this "...because hell is coming five steps behind me"!)

However I've come to enjoy it more: mainly it's main sequence (seasons 2-4). It tells its story quite well and there are some interesting moments of reflection and philosophy. There is also the excellent G'Kar who is a superb character. Ok the Centauri look ridiculous, but again they have a culture of their own. Plus, Earth is far from a perfect culture and in many ways less advanced than it's peers.

Season 1 is worth the time so as to get to know the character of Jeffrey Sinclair. This becomes very important in season 3. The first season is just scene setting however.

It's interesting to me how the story shifts and changes with when the producers think they're going to be cancelled, literally every couple of seasons. So, every few seasons you have this massive interesting ending that ties everything together. Then poor J. Michael Stravinsky has to come up with wholly new plots, and it happens all over again.

The series certainly benefits from the fact that J. Michael Stravinsky wrote every episode but, I think two - both of which were written by original Star Trek writers like D. C. Fontana.

Although I am a devoute Star Trek fan, I much preferred Babylon 5 - although I didn't see it all, and not consistently - to Deep Space 9, which was "Rick Berman does Babylon 5 (and Gene Roddenberry disapproves)".

//Panjumanju

Babylon 5 was a real pioneer when it came to multi-season story arcs. Seasons 1-4 form a complete arc. You'll find characters from season 1 transform throughout.

B5 was a true pioneer when it came to CGI. They used Amigas with early 3D software to do things previously not possible in television. A lot of it looks not so hot now, but it was something back then.

I never gave this show credit when it was first on and I only got some of it through re-runs; stupid me.

The Narn-Centauri back story, the actors involved (particularly G'Kar's and Mollari's), the less-than-savory aspects of damn near all species involved and the way the story lines actually went somewhere.  Also, that spaceships seemed to work via actual physics - minus the Mimbari, I think - was a big, big "wow," in my book.

Yeah they've stepped up the graphics in season two, much less dodgy now. Other observations, the commander's fiancee is a little hottie, and one ambassador looks like she's been glued to the wall by the world's largest spitball. Not in and of itself an unduly worrying development, except her aide de camp doesn't know what its all about either. Actually I liked his moves in the barfight in the penis poker episode, authentic looking martial arts.

This is a great show. I'm not surprised it ran as long as it did.