Which is better: B5 or DS9...

Mallus

Legend
Credit where credit's due...

Ranger REG said:
It's hard to choose. B5 have the right premise as the series developed but right at the end is when JMS kinda screwed it badly.

Actually, I give JMS an enourmous amount of credit for that... After season 3, he couldn't get a commitment for 2 more seasons {B5 was always planned as one 5 year long story arc --essentailly the longest miniseries in TV history}. So to complete his story, and give his fans closure, he finished as much of the story in season four as he could, and then got picked up by TNT.

So sure, season 4 was rushed {where seasons 2 and 3 has excellent pacing}, and season 5 was mostly filler. But when faced with cancellation, JMS got the bulk of his story told.
 

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I can`t decide what series I prefer... :)

Both were overall great (though every had some weak spots).
If you are able to get both, do it.
If you`re unable to do this, I recommend choosing the one that won`t have reruns in the next time (Here in Germay, they began to rerun DS9 at Saturday afternoon, but Babylon 5 can be see nowhere - actually, they did show only one of the B5 TV-movies until now, and Crusade seems not to be in the possession of any of the German TV stations... At least, they didn`t show it...).

For rumors:
According to what I heard, JMS wanted to sell B5 to Paramount, but not as a Trek Series - but they fact that it wasn`t meant to be a Trek Series did make them believe it couldn`t be a success, since two or more series in the Genre (with similar thematics) couldn`t work. Well, luckily, they were wrong... :)

Mustrum Ridcully
 

Gary N. Mengle

First Post
I think DS9 was the best of the four modern Trek shows (everything except TOS, that is.) There are some real gems of episodes in there.

That said, give me B5 any day. Yeah, sometimes it stumbled, but it was a far more ambitious and better thought-out show than DS9 in my opinion. It raised the bar for TV sci-fi - something I don't think DS9 did.

If you ask me, Trek is pretty much just tired at this point. It doesn't have anything further to say. This is nowhere better illustrated than in Enterprsie - which started out with a fresh, vital feel and fell back into the same Trek formula within four episodes.
 

uv23

First Post
B5 was a brilliant show, unappreciated by those without the attention span to see a long story arc through to the end. It far exceeds any Star Trek series by leaps and bounds, with the exception of TOS.
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
DocMoriartty said:
In the end their is no odd reincarnation thing going on. Just a trick played on humans and Mimbari by the Vorlons to keep the Mimbari from destroying humanity and to use both races to defeat the Shadows both in the past and the present.

That's one take on it, I suppose. However, your conclusion that there is no "reincarnation thing" going on is not explicitly confirmed or denied within the series.

The fact that Sinclair went back in time, got modified (to what degree we do not know), and became Valen in no way, shape, or form precludes the Mimbari contention that Mimbari souls were getting born in human bodies. You may conclude that it's all a trick by the Vorlons. You may also conclude that the transformation of Sinclair actually starts the migration of souls. The show doesn't decide the matter explicitly.

I note that Delenn, a fairly intelligent person who knew what happened to Sinclair, and had it happen to herself, didn't lose any faith over it - didn't see it as merely a physical trick.

Personally, I very much like both DS9 and B5. In the end, it's not quite "apples and oranges", but more "granny smiths and red delicious".
 

Chun-tzu

First Post
For me, DS9 wins by a hair.

Babylon 5 had a better overall story arc, but DS9 had more outstanding individual episodes. DS9 had some highly memorable characters, in particular Garak, the Cardassian spy, and the Quark-Odo rivalry. Some of the Odo-Kira stories were pretty good, too. The Miles-Julian friendship was fun, Sisko's father-son relationship with Jake had its moments, and Terry Farrel (Jadzia) is the hottest sci-fi actress of all time. I like Klingons, too, so they had that going for them.

I just don't have the same fondness for the B5 characters, for the most part. G'Kar was a great character, and the G'Kar-Londo rivalry was definitely an interesting one. The Marcus-Ivanova relationship had some great moments, as well. The B5 series finale was far better than the DS9 finale.
 

Mallus

Legend
Gary N. Mengle said:

That said, give me B5 any day. Yeah, sometimes it stumbled, but it was a far more ambitious and better thought-out show than DS9 in my opinion. It raised the bar for TV sci-fi - something I don't think DS9 did.

OK, this gets to the heart of the matter. I both really agree with regards to B5 and really disagree on DS9.

B5 was far more ambitious. Its a thinking man's space opera, written for all intents and purposes by one man with a massive story to tell and plenty of things to say about human nature and history and historical conflict {mind you, not always sophisticated things, but for me that's one of the chief pleasures of scifi: tackling issues and themes that the artists who work in more "sophisticated" genres/modes deem unworthy}.

B5 also had some scenes that were, for me unrivalled in their power: the bombing-back-into-the-Stone-Age of the Narn homeworld where the POV zoomed into the view plate where Londo watched what he wrought with a look of barely concealed agony. That's the finest, most dramatic use of FX I've ever seen. That's a perfect example of what FX shots should be used for. Or the scene/speech where G'Kar is stripped of his ambassadorship, or Lord Refa being killed by G'Kar's partisans beneath the Karee chambers while the POV kept cutting back to the rollicking Baptist church service on the station --a scene that's sublime and ridiculous at the same time. Delenn facing G'Kar and explaing how they essentially sacrificed his people...

But...

There's a shoddiness to a lot of it: the acting {with a few standout exceptions}, most of the "everyday" dialogue, the depictions of relationships --my favorite was between Talia and Ivannova since you had to infer most of it-- even the plotting --not the central arc, but the rest. Cheesy. Like you get used to in scifi.

This is where DS9 raised the bar, and far higher IMHO than TNG. The characters, including the bit-regulars, were exceptionally written. They grew, they acted like real human beings, by the end they were far away for the stereotypical wooden and/or 2D characters that scifi has been lousy with for years. DS9 could almost be faulted for turning its back on scifi; it was a character-driven drama, even during the height of the Dominion War arc. There was, an overall polish to the show that B5 lacked.

So let me ask another question, a semi-hijack of my own thread. What do you look for in a scifi show? B5 is excellent science fiction, but it has all the faults that traditionally goes with the genre. DS9 is far less ambitious, even when it was aping B5, but it has a level of writing, of characterization, and overall dramatic sophistication {the sheer number and type of well done relationships on DS9 astounds me} that pretty far ahead of B5's.

For me, its still damn close. I love B5. Its scope, its ideas, the risks it took.... but I can't get around the fact I think DS9 is more successful as drama.

Hmmm, I still feel bad. Time to change my wallpaper back to a Minbari cruiser.
 

Mallus

Legend
Ranger REG said:
Funny, a Trek show about a stationary space station is by far the most well-developed, well-produced of the contemporary Trek series.

I think that's exactly the reason why DS9 outstripped the other Treks: the setting forced the writers to create ongoing conflicts--both in terms of the characters and the universe outside-- as opposed to zooming around galaxy in search of conflicts easily resolved in 52 minutes or half-baked scifi "ideas" {or worse, techobabble crises} that were obsolete by then end of TOS...

By making them stay put --excepting an occastional ass-kicking foray in the Defiant-- it placed the focus back onto good character development, good dialogue, and long-term problems that prompted character growth and change.
 

Sulimo

First Post
Re: Credit where credit's due...

Mallus said:


Actually, I give JMS an enourmous amount of credit for that... After season 3, he couldn't get a commitment for 2 more seasons {B5 was always planned as one 5 year long story arc --essentailly the longest miniseries in TV history}. So to complete his story, and give his fans closure, he finished as much of the story in season four as he could, and then got picked up by TNT.

So sure, season 4 was rushed {where seasons 2 and 3 has excellent pacing}, and season 5 was mostly filler. But when faced with cancellation, JMS got the bulk of his story told.

You know, I must be one of the few who really liked all the seasons of B5. Even the Byron arc. Sure, the final season wasn't as good as previous ones but I still liked it. Even now, rewatching the final ep it brings a tear to my eye.

I even liked Crusade, well the 2nd half of the season anyway. I'm still bitter about how TNT treated that show.

But as for whats better DS9 or B5, definitely B5. Its my alltime fave SF show. Not that DS9 was bad or anything. Its probably my fave trek (since the original).
 
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Wolf72

Explorer
B5 all the way for me!

the Jack-the-Ripper episode was actually kind of cool, and while figuring him out wasn't that hard what was really cool (imo) was the why.

He had a gift that when unrealized and unused turned into a nightmare.

That episode made me realize how creepy the vorlons were.
 

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