B5 is a great example.Yeah, Babylon 5 was an ideal middle ground. Excepting season 5 for reasons listed above, they had standard length seasons with enough room left for metaplot and good fun "filler" episodes that could focus on and build up minor characters.
They had to have the big 20+ episodes a season. Now sure there are a couple bad ones.....you will have them in any show. But if you have a 22 show season, even if 5 are bad, that makes 17 at least average.
Character episodes are nice, where there is no big "action/end of the universe" plot, just a story about the character. Plus B5 did a good job of world building by putting things in the universe and establishing them, without doing the TV thing of spontaneously having something just "there and happen" for the plot of that single episode.
I wonder what the New B5 will be like....they will encounter the Shadows half way through the first episode? The Shadow War will be the season 1 finale? And if it's not cancelled, season two will be vs Earth?