Following in tradition, here are a few of my thoughts around watching Babylon 5.
Spoilers to follow. Though, honestly, I know nobody is watching.
The show starts off in a strange place. The known, unaligned worlds of the galaxy have survived a long bloody war, and as a result, collectively decided that building a massive space station was the best way to build diplomatic relations. Actually, they built five stations, and as of the start of the show, the previous four have been destroyed or disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Babylon 5 is the fifth attempt, and the pseudo-militaristic beauracrats that run the place are the galaxy's "last, best hope for peace."
A quarter of a million beings live in B5, and is, oddly, largely staffed by humans, who among the known races are probably the least sophisticated, least advanced, and most war-like. The ambassadors from the larger, older worlds resent the humans, but tolerate them so far as they don't get in their way. The galaxy is filled with the relics and mysteries of the "Old Ones," races that date back to the birth of the galaxy itself. And from the outset, telepaths have a mysterious, critical function in the workings of the universe.
It's a weird place to start. For instance: how would the unaligned worlds have ever gotten to the point where they could agree to build a space station, no less five of them? And if they can build five of them, why aren't there more stations like it? And why build it in orbit around a strange, mysterious planet on which no one is allowed to set foot?
Anyhow. There are at least a few interesting questions to answer. Add a few compelling characters, decent acting, intriguing world building, and solid plot narratives, and you could go far.
This, sadly, did not happen. The acting is mostly terrible, the dialog is cheesy and stilted, and the only interesting plot narratives dry up completely 3.5 seasons in (out of 5). It was incredibly frustrating to watch. As I mentioned, I've watched the last season or so at 1.5x speed. Because I didn't want to have it take up my whole lunch hour. And because it makes it seem sort of like an Aaron Sorkin script.
But compare this to Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG? Or DS9? Honestly, the first seasons of these shows are pretty bad. Laughably bad. In shows that run some hundred or so episodes, it's guaranteed that at least a few will be crap. Add to that the amount of abuse scifi fans can tolerate, and you have more than just a few.
A better question is: when the shows are good, how do they rate?
TNG and DS9 benefitted from a solid narrative universe, and a common, understood focus. It had actors that, when they needed to, could belt it out, even if the situation or the dialog gave them nothing. And while some of the episodes were fluff and filler, a lot of the questions asked were important, and handled well. They made for memorable episodes and plotlines, which become part of the shared experience that is Star Trek.
Babylon 5, however, has 1 or 2 good episodes. In the whole thing. No kidding. They had one that was nominated for a Hugo award, but I didn't think that one was that great. The ones that shine are the ones that actually contain character development, and improvement, and not just "another day on Babylon 5." And, more or less, they are the ones that feature Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) and G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas), whose acting and delivery make the rest of the cheese worth it. What were the episodes about? What were they talking about? Who knows. Much of the show, sadly, is not memorable, just a fog. Maybe I can attribute that to my poor memory, or the fact that I was watching these mostly at work, or while riding the exercise bike. But if something really was great, it would have found some way to overcome such things, and a little more often.
The B5 universe was an original creation, whose scale and mechanics had no basis to work from other than its competitors. Immediately, it had to distance itself, which meant abandoning some of the "softer" scifi elements from the Star Trek universe (transporters, Warp drive, replicators, etc.). This means that they had an opportunity to fashion their own unique look and feel, set their own rules, and learn from the mistakes of the Trek universe. They didn't. In their place was telepathic abilities, ancient prophesy, and "souls." B5 gave up "soft" elements for "spongy" elements, for which it suffered throughout. They also suffered by throwing way too much against the wall, and having way too much of it stick. Entire, universe-driving things are posited in the early seasons that are simply forgotten or ignored later. Which is strange, given that most of the show's episodes are by a single writer, J. Michael Straczynski. Usually, this only happens with writer turnover.
The Shadow War arc up until the 3.5 season point was the most interesting, if a little predictable, being what I assume was the original intent and arc for the show. Essentially, all of the Minbari religion and its associated prophets relate back to the disappearance of the prior Babylon 4, and the original commander of Babylon 5. Traveling to the distant past he becomes a religious leader, and sets into motion things that change the course of a galactic war a thousand years later (never mind the inherent time paradoxes, which are then never addressed, or quantified the greater backdrop).
The problem becomes this: the time travel gambit works, and good guys win. They win the war they've spent three seasons building up to, and they do it mid-season. And the "bad guys" go away, disappearing past the edge of the galaxy, never to be seen again. And this is where the show becomes incredibly painful. For the last 1.5 seasons, the show has no driving force. It has no thing bigger than itself, each episode strangely detached, though still plodding along an arc. It is purely an exercise in picking through the pieces after the dust settles.
The Shadow War ends, and Babylon 5 then wages a campaign to take back Earth (which had severed ties and became a xenophobic surveillance state). They, of course, win Earth back (through a series of space battles whose CG does not hold up over the years). They ask pointed questions about what it means to be a combatant in a fight amongst those are on the same side. Then once again, they are picking up the pieces. The characters try to continue with their normal lives, but half of the characters leave, and the others suffer from some form of substance abuse (alcohol, stims, unrequited love, etc.).
The end of the Shadow War had the ancient races departing the galaxy, and leaving the younger races to fend for themselves. And, generally, they fend poorly. The ancient races represented two competing philosophies in how to survive as a species. First, to be in constant conflict, so the stronger, smarter, and more willing survive in the face of chaos. The second philosophy was one of ever increasing order and control, over oneself and others. Both species/philosophies depart the universe, leaving behind the brash, from-the-hip humans telling them about how they're both wrong despite having survived tens of thousands of years in space. Then there's a weird quiet as everyone looks around at each other with a look of "Now what?"
I feel like this is metaphor for the show's downfall. When you take away stakes, and interesting and competing philosophies, you lose your ability to maintain interest and convey a message. You can choose to completely do away with the old, but your "new" has to compete in its own right. Nevermind that they brought up souls migrating from Minbari to Humans and never again. Nevermind the concept of Thirdspace which was a threat for 1 made-for-TV movie and then never brought up again. Nevermind the planet below, a beacon of ancient technology that nobody seemed to notice until the station was built. Nevermind the prophesies and future dreams that will never be fulfilled. Nevermind that a character commits an apparent and unabashed act of terrorism, but never faces the consequences for it. The technomages, the rogue telepaths, the Zathrus creatures, the Drakh. Nevermind... a lot of things.
The final season closes with the young races squabbling, trying to make their thin alliance work. A new threat appears on the horizon, and in predictable irony, razes the planet of the race that had only two years earlier razed another. But nobody seems to care, or care that much. It's just 'nother thing. In the galactic scope of things, it's just another problem for Babylon 5 to solve for the rest of the now-aligned worlds. The Council of the Aligned Worlds is just as effective as any United Nations. Which is maybe commentary. But makes for a terrible story.
Anyhow. My favorite characters, Londo and G'Kar, have bittersweet endings. Londo becomes emperor of the aforementioned razed planet. We last see him sitting, unhappy, in a darkened throne room. G'Kar, much to his chagrine, becomes a religious icon for his people, but then seeks solitude by going out on a long-distance explorative mission. These characters had a few heartfelt goodbyes, and there was certainly more depth and weight to the end of their friendship, but I felt they deserved much more.
This goddamned show. I wanted to like it. It operates in a headspace that I love to visit. It wanted to be a darker, grittier space opera like the later Battlestar Galactica, but the context, the look and feel, they just weren't invented yet. Scifi fans didn't know what they wanted yet. And the writers weren't ready to offer any surprises that would distance themselves too far from the competition. It suffered, I feel, from its early-to-mid 90's production era, something I feel when watching it but I can't necessarily explain.
I was never part of the Babylon 5 fanbase. Growing up, Babylon 5 was always a show that somebody else watched. I would see it on elsewhere, or see its advertisements. I remember it looking interesting, but my parents never watched it, so neither did I. Asking them later, they said only, "Yeah, it wasn't very good." They made a face. Friends of friends, and parents of friend would watch it, but they also liked weird, fantasy shows I wasn't keen on. By that time, I think I had moved on to The X-Files, which was way, way more interesting. Babylon 5 was a lamer, stranger, parallel universe that I never visited. And I never felt I needed to.
And yet, the show had a fairly dedicated fanbase. They had a following. People liked it. But I have to question on what basis. Did it compete with TNG and DS9? Yes, but only to say that it went after the same market. Artistically, I would say no, it didn't compete. Would the show have worked in a vacuum? If I didn't like scifi? Or I hadn't watched Star Trek and its kind? I don't think so. They hired a bunch of soap opera actors, gave them a couple of bulkheads to act around, and interspersed mid-range 90's era computer graphics. It was a business decision. It was a Dreamworks to a Pixar. They had their own fan conventions for a time, but nothing like the longevity of the Star Trek franchise.
As somebody who likes to write and create tiny, self-contained universes, Babylon 5 is a terrifying example. Everyone can say, "Oh man, I love Star Trek, but I would fix problem X." (You may not actually say this, and it's fine, but it's a thought I've had frequently, and discussed at times) Star Trek's universe has an unrealism to it introduced by its transporters, replicators, Warp technology, and a laundry list of others. Every created universe is broken to some degree. But the question is whether it is believable despite being broken. Whether it has a good story around it. Someone like me might look at Star Trek and say, "Hey, I can do better. I'll get rid of X, and then add Y, and Z, and it'll be so much better." That person like me might fail to recognize that X worked despite it being a problem.
Babylon 5 is an example of a failure to innovate. A failure to inspire a belief. And how that can saddle you with mediocrity, even at your highest point, which you'll have to ride out to the very end.
Also, reading more into the background of the show, a weird number of cast members had bizarre and sad personal lives that affected the overall flow of the show and likely affected production:
Given how many characters and entire episodes in the show deal with substance abuse, it's weird how many cast members either ended up suffering or dying from the same.
I'm not sure where Babylon 5 fits on the spectrum of space scifi. As is my bias, I wouldn't place it above any TNG or DS9, but it would not be too far behind Voyager or Enterprise at their worst. I'd easily place B5 above Andromeda, but it'd be a tough call between B5 and Farscape. Farscape was not necessarily great, but it almost never took itself too seriously, which at least established clear expectations. Nowhere near Firefly, of course, but it's worth the comparison to demonstrate that a show with a smaller budget and more limited scope did a lot more with a lot less. I did give a shit when Firefly characters died. For B5, I celebrated the death of most. It meant that there were consequences in the universe.
The final episode of Babylon 5 is actually pretty good. They manage to revisit a lot of the themes of the show, and then do a lot of close-ups of actors in old people makeup crying and dying. It got to me a bit, admittedly. The commander, on the eve of his death, revisits Babylon 5. Where previously the sets were full of people in full alien dress and makeup, the corridors were instead quiet and deserted. The commander walks onto the ship and surprises a mechanic lazily reading a magazine. An officer hurries up to him, and salutes, telling him that he wasn't expected, and that they're just making preparations for the decommissioning of Babylon 5.
"Well, with the Alliance serving its function, Babylon 5 is redundant," the officer says.
The commander nods, glancing around the station. "Redundant," he repeats.
The show ends as they demolition Babylon 5 so that it can't pose a navigational hazard.
