Science Fiction

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Should I Give Babylon 5 Another Chance? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by PlanetOfOrd@lemmy.world to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world

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As a Sci-Fi fan I've been a huge fan of shows like Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Terminator: TSCC, Star Trek, etc. I keep hearing Babylon 5 is awesome.

I was too young at the time to watch the series when it was on. But then as an older teen/ young adult I decided to give it a try. Everything was so cringe it was hard to get through 3 episodes. IMO the whole vibe was "safe..." maybe even a bit corny--not the intense, exciting, politically-tense space opera that I was told it was.

So maybe the beginning episodes are just world-building? What do other people think?

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[–] Someology@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It is much more like an old school daytime TV Soap Opera in acting style and overall production style than like other SF shows. This is really jarring. Acting very inconsistent. Crappy production values. Like, huge CRT screens being used everywhere? Really? At this same time, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine knew that hundreds of years in the future, nobody would use huge boxy CRT screens. They depicted thin tablets and terminals even though 1990s tech wasn't able to do that yet. There are so many things like this that jarred me out of the story.

The development of a few characters was cool, but it was like suffering through a mountain of junk to get the good crumbs. The plot had a lot of "I can see it coming a mile away".

Not worth it IMHO, if you already tried it and didn't like it.

The best lines are mostly Carl Sagan quotes, which I appreciated, but that isn't enough.

[–] constantokra@lemmy.one 1 points 10 months ago

You're supposed to see it coming from a mile away. And when it gets there, the character moments hit you with a depth of feeling you're totally not ready for.

The boxy CRTs and all that, aside from being a byproduct of a lower budget, are supposed to make the setting feel closer to our reality. These aren't people who have transcended their societal problems. But once they do, they're not just the people from star trek. They're something else entirely. The whole point of the show is that sometimes we're horrible, and we can be so much more than we could possibly imagine. And the same people can be both those things at the same time. It comes down to your own definition of who you are, and what you want.