One of the best shows out there. The whole concept of it being approached as a series of five books (each season ='s one book) with the story arcs and the ending already worked out from the beginning makes it a truly epic story. All the characters go through major transitions, especially the two shown here. One who is practically a bit character at the beginning becomes so much more by the show's end.

I hope some day WB's goes back and re-creates all the CG effects (faithfully, with JMS fully involved). The show was shot on widescreen film, while the effects where rendered in standard video format. When you watch the show on DVD, all the effect shots are zoomed in, missing chunks of the top and bottom. But otherwise brilliant show.

If anyone decides to dive into this monster, I suggest starting with the In the Beginning TV Movie prequel. Does a great job of setting things up. First season is definitely it's weakest, and can seem a bit of a chore to some to get through, but it's absolutely essential. Nearly every episode pays off in some way later. Not to mention watching first season a second time around is a slightly different experience. Most of all though, avoid spoilers. The twists and changes this show goes through as you watch it is the real power that pulls you in like a good book that keeps you up hours past when you where planning to fall asleep. It starts a little slow, but by third season you're on a roller coaster.

That was an awesome scene... but as you have said it's hard to get in to..
Everytime i tried to watch this series it felt hmm ... cheap.

>> ^Lego123:
That was an awesome scene... but as you have said it's hard to get in to..
Everytime i tried to watch this series it felt hmm ... cheap.


If you've been a bit spoiled by the newer Sci-Fi shows (I'll admit I have to a degree) B5 can seem that way initially, the show was running on an extremely tight budget, much smaller than other shows at the time. I'm actually re-watching the series again at the moment, just started into season 4.

Once you get past the slightly wooden performances by some of the cast in season 1, it really does pick up though, such a brilliant story by JMS that's still relevant even today.

"This clip is given new meaning in the face of recent conflict."

I understand how a conversation could apply to a number of current conflicts (Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan...). Can anyone familiar with the show give some (brief) context within for its story for people like me who haven't seen it? High-hair people bomb the crap out of innocent red-eye people for land/oil pipeline/no good reason?

Drax! Thank God someone else gets it! That show really was the best! There's a whole series of novels, including what the fifth season was supposed to be. Frigging heart wrenching. Okay, Notarobot. You know how on Star Trek, they encounter some Klingons in some uncharted territory, and the whole episode is really tense, and then they find some key at the last minute, and then everyone goes home and noone dies? That doesn't happen on Bab5. Instead of dink and dunk episode plots, the story arcs take entire seasons to develop, but when they get it on, whole fleets, casualties in the thousands. Body parts and debris floating through space. Entire friggin planets, decimated. In Star Trek, nobody dies. In Bab5, everyone in clinging by their bloody fingernails and the skin of their teeth the whole time.
With the high hair Centauri and the red eye Narn, from what I recall the Narn were an intelligent, but semi developed culture until the Centauri came along, hooked them up with some interstellar technology, gave them the smallpox blankets and slavery treatment, and the whole thing degenerated in to an orgy of slaugher. The guy ol whatshisname (high hair guy in the clip there was the nerd in Animal House) answers to is one of my all time favorite characters in anything: Ambassador Londo Mollari, who is a backstabbing Machivellian scumbag diplomat (who just so happens to have a tiny glimmer of a conscience that utterly rips him to shreds). Crap, one station cancelled it halfway through, and they managed to pick up with another, so the whole time their telling this GENIUS story, they're putting 75% of their effort into just surviving their own executives, so at a glance it's easy to laugh at the hair, and the already Ed Wood looking tech and all, BUT DON'T LET THAT FOOL YOU. Rather than either trying to start from season one, or not watching any of it, I suggest watching season 3, (SPOILER HERE!!!) which is civil war with Earth (and Earth's $%&%$^ douchebag dictator), and you'll be hooked well enought not only to sustain all five seasons, but hunt down the novels afterward. Bab 5 is better than the total sum of all Star Treks and Battlestars put together. I love this show and I'm not even into the genre! Bab 5 really is as f-ing awesome as great stories get. (There's even a hot crustacean lady played by the gal who plays Rousseau in Lost). Drax, you posted this? I love you!
Hey. Londo's in that clip down there, G'Kar's epiphany.
Also! One of my all time favorite quotes is from this show: "The avalanche has already begun. it is too late for the snowflakes to vote." -Ambassador Kosh

Frigging brilliant series, widely acclaimed in Australia and Britain (I don't think it did well in the US), which fought for a long time just to keep going.

The lack of modern effects compared to newer shows really hurts it for first time viewers but the storyline is just brilliant (only thing that I find a bit meh is the long speeches ; )

Well worth a watch and great clip.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I felt about Babylon 5 the same way I fee about something like Eve Online - I know it's probably a lot of fun, but I can't afford the investment in time for something so massive.

>> ^notarobot:
I understand how a conversation could apply to a number of current conflicts (Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan...). Can anyone familiar with the show give some (brief) context within for its story for people like me who haven't seen it? High-hair people bomb the crap out of innocent red-eye people for land/oil pipeline/no good reason?


The High-hair people are the Centauri, and the red-eye people are the Narn. The backstory is that hundreds of years ago, the Centauri were a major power in the galaxy, and the Narn home planet was of strategic importance to the Centauri, so they decided they'd invade the planet, and enslave the Narn, who were at an iron-age level of technology at the time.

The Narn, being strong-spirited people, never truly submitted to Centauri rule, and some decades ago rose up in rebellion and managed to throw the Centauri off their world. Afterwards the Narn, flush with their victory over the Centauri, as well as the technology they captured in the process have grown rapidly and are now a major power in the galaxy in their own right.

Bablyon 5 is something like the U.N. and these two guys are sharing an elevator ride not long after...let's call it an "incident" happened between the two races' governments.

It's very much worth watching the series to drink it all in. The plot line about the government on Earth is especially scary in how many parallels there are to what's been going on in the US for the last 8 years. Scarier still that this series aired its last episode in 1998.

>> ^Drax:
First season is definitely it's weakest, and can seem a bit of a chore to some to get through, but it's absolutely essential. Nearly every episode pays off in some way later.


Ah good to know. I think I watched the first six or seven episodes and was wondering why the series was so highly recommended. It was just so cheesy and the standalone stories in the beginning weren't at all interesting.

Will give it another try sometime.

I'm going to go ahead and acquire this. It looks very intriguing.

>> ^jdoe:
>> ^NetRunner:

Thanks for your replies, (and enthusiasm) about the show. I may try to track it down sometime. It sounds like a worthwhile story.