Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has revealed that a single executive put Babylon 5 on the back burner… but now they’ve retired, the “floodgates opened”.
As a counterpoint to other comments here, I didn’t like Babylon 5. I gave up in the first season on the episode about religions, where each alien race shows a single religion but then humanity shows an enormous number of them.
Showing planets in sci fi as homogenous is a common trope, but such a simplistic take. This resonated poorly with me as I felt the aliens all behaved exactly like humans as well, to the point where you have stand-ins for Jehovah’s witnesses. That episode cemented for me the feeling I had when watching. Babylon 5 is racist against aliens.
Not trying to argue against your opinion whatsoever, but I would say it’s a show that grows by leaps after the first season. The story is much more intricate than you think it’s going to be at the beginning, the actors get better, the writing (IMO) gets better, and there are some very long running arcs.
I do understand your point – somewhat more superficially there’s this whole thing with Garibaldi and a motorcyle and it’s just like this cringe low-rent Bruce Willis thing he’s got going on and I can’t believe it’s even written into the show. That’s also S1 I believe.
But, it really turned around and turned out to be moving and fantastic story-wise. It’s absolutely worth “another shot” if you are ever so inclined.
I might try jumping in again on season 2, thanks.
It’s worth it. It won’t feel like it, but it’s worth slogging through Season 1 too, and make sure you see all the movies in the correct order - back in the 90s there was a fan site with a very specific viewing guide but that was the 90s.
There are hints and portents and so forth buried all over throughout the series, going all the way back to the very start, stuff that makes you go WAAAAAT on the second viewing after you finish the series for the first time. The planning was intricate and deftly executed from the very beginning.
