Babylon 5 on DVD [NO SPOILERS for Season 5, please]

[Staffan]

The show was made on a shoestring budget (especially early on)

I recall seeing a statement from JMS to the effect of "Voyager's pilot cost 20 millions? Dang, I could make a full season of B5 for that, and still have enough left for one hell of a wrap party."

 

[Crothian]

I'm watching the third season now and while the Green Screen parts have been less then great the poure CGI parts are looking pretty good.

 

[John Crichton]

Just finished Season 1 and am 3 eps into Season 2. I really liked the first season.

Sinclair was really a great character. I was waiting to see how he would be written out (I didn't see him on the cover of the Season 2 boxed set plus I knew Boxleitner was on the show eventually) and it looks like they did a in-between season dump for him. From a web-search, I guess that many audiences didn't take too kindly to Michael O'Hare's acting so they replaced him? I thought he played a career military man living on the frontier great. Sheridan is a cool character and the actor certainly has the charisma to make me forget about Sinclair (almost) but it was a little jarring to have the Commander's entire storyline basically chucked to the wind. I know he pops up again a little later on (checked his imdb profile, which I really shouldn't have because then I saw the entry for Boxleitner which lead to a spoiler) but still. After a few more DVDs I'm sure I won't miss him as much.

I tried watching one of the commentaries by JMS but the damn thing was FULL OF SPOILERS. Gah, they were peppered in there pretty hard-core so I had to shut it off after 10 minutes. I should have known better as I am not at all new to TV on DVD.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I was really disappointed that (for whatever reason) Sinclair didn't work out. He had the most convincing gravitas of a commander that I'd seen in any space epic. I particularly liked the resolution he came up with for the dock strike in "by any means necessary) (observing the no spoilers request, naturally).

To my mind the big significance of Babylon 5 was that JMS changed the way that TV sci-fi would be done forever. Gone were the bad old days when basically every episode started from a blank slate. In came story arcs, foreshadowing and all the stuff that is expected in intelligent TV sci-fi nowadays.

I just got series 1-4 on DVD before Christmas and watched my way through all of them, and still loved it.

Its just great.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Actually, my understanding is that O'Hare wasn't dumped, per se. Rather, he wanted to go off and do his own thing, and JMS knew that he was bringing in Capt. Sheridan eventually anyway, so they mutually agreed to take advantage of the opportunity and up the time-table.

Of course, that could just be PC cover for the fact that O'Hare was fired, but I tend to doubt it, due to--well, other things.

 

[John Crichton]

There are actually a bunch of sites I'd like to read on the topic of Sinclair, including one that showed what the show would/could have been with him as the central character for all 5 seasons. Just google it to see what I mean. The reason I didn't read the site was the massive spoiler warning they gave at the start. Kudos to them for that.

Ah, just found it again: http://www.webcs.com/b5/neverwas.html

I'll have to come back to that page after the rest of the DVDs are done.

The one thing I got from that commentary before I shut it off was that JMS had trapdoors for all the characters, which was smart.

Plane Sailing: Feel free to talk about Season 1, it has been watched (maybe just spoiler tags for those new to the thread). I really liked the ep that you mentioned. The way he handled things at the end was very outside the box and solidified that it was his station.

 

[Zog]

After you've finished watching the series, listen to the commentaries. They have far more info, and more correct info, than that 'what may have been' website. Some of the statements on that site are directly contridicted by JMS's commentaries on episodes.

A better bet would be to check out The Lurker's Guide.


But, yeah, enjoy the series! DVDs- the only way to watch good television.

 

[Staffan]

Another reason for dumping O'Hare was that he was already linked to the Minbari and Battle of the Line and probably some other things I don't remember, and it would be too much to also link him to (big upcoming thing). So JMS put in someone who could be linked to said thing instead.

 

[LightPhoenix]

There's also a couple of points in that article which actually would have been addressed, with Crusade. Not that you would really know from the series as it aired, but the additional scripts that were online.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Just keep watching. One of the things I loved the most about this series was realizing that an episode I enjoyed for itself from season I was tied to events in later seasons.

That and Bester. Gotta love to hate Bester.