Looking for some feedback from those who have seen the series. While I did watch a few episodes here and there, I never got a chance to follow this sci-fi series from start to finish when it was first shown on TV. I've been patiently waiting for it to be released on Netflix or Amazon Prime but it looks like that is not going to happen and the only alternative would be to buy the series on Amazon. They have a nice collector compilation of all the seasons and five of the movies (DVD only) for $104.95 and I'm seriously considering getting it. Is that collector set worth getting at that price? I do have some rewards points I can apply that will soften the blow.

I think so, it's one of the best sci-fi series IMO

One of the things that made Babylon 5 so good was that it was written with the intention of only running 5 seasons. It really allowed for the story to shine and the show to go out strong before jumping the shark. It's one of the few series that I would say is worth purchasing in its entirety.

I think that Amazon had it on sale last year. It might be worth waiting to see if it is one of their Black Friday/cyber Monday deals this year.

I watches the series live i think for a few years. Great show.

I watched the series back in the day, it was great.

I have the first four seasons on DVD. Season 5 is generally not well regarded. I guess it attempts to clear up a lot of questions raised in the first four seasons but just makes things confusing and/or complicated.

But it's one of the best sci-fi shows that has ever been released. By now, the graphics will be extremely dated, but the writing is where the show shines.

I just finished watching all 5 seasons and the movies. I had forgotten how great the writing was on that show, and the grand vision of the story arc across seasons.

Sure, the special effects are a bit dated, but the story absolutely hold up.

Phenomenal sci-fi series! It made some of the contemporary Star trek ones (Like DS 9)look aimless and uneven in comparison as concerns the individual episode writing, the overall story arc, and the various acting/performances. Get it and enjoy!

Make sure to watch the movies too.

Some of the movies take place before the main series. Watch them in order if you can

quote:

Originally posted by Kravashera:
One of the things that made Babylon 5 so good was that it was written with the intention of only running 5 seasons.

Yes, and no.

JMS (J. Michael Stravinski (sp?) ) wrote out a series of plots that would run through 5 seasons, but the network later changed it to 4 seasons. Therefore, Season 4 gets a bit rushed, as they have to wrap up the Shadow War and Earth Civil War arcs in that season. However, the network then gave him season 5 back, after everything had been resolved. This is the reason that Season 5 feels like it was pulled out of somebody's butt. I LOVE this show, but I only have a handful of Season 5 episodes on my computer. So, IMO, you can watch Seasons 1-4, and skip 5 entirely, and not really miss much.

You can see the plot line running through the entire show. For example, they had a time travel-ish episode in Season 1, where we see Babylon 4 pop into 'normal' space after disappearing with all hands years ago. Several seasons later, they go BACK to Babylon 4, and the main cast is seen stealing the station in the first place and dragging it through time to Season 1, but with the perspective now on the 'modern-day' cast. There are also prophecies and fore-shadowings (I didn't even do that on purpose ) that are shown to come to pass in later shows. There's never been a show like it, IMO.

It's still one of my all-time favorite shows. The characters were more developed than any other show I've ever seen. Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar, Vir Koto ("Flounder" from Animal House), Molari, Delenn, Lennier (before they totally screwed up his character in Season 5), Zathras (I LOVED him - he talked in the third person about himself "Very damaged. . . Zathras can never have anything nice"), Mr Morden, . . . Just about the only character I disliked was Dr Franklin, but that is because his character was mostly a pompous douche. He was still a good actor and had some excellent episodes focused on his character.

The movies are also good, though I only really like A Call To Arms, In The Beginning, The Lost Tales (this was the last one; it is basically two separate standalone 'short stories' with outstanding CGI/effects and good stories patched into one movie), and Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight (this was a pilot episode for a new show that never happened - unfortunate, as I really liked it). The other two (River of Souls and Thirdspace) don't seem to match the 'flow' of the rest of the show, IMO. I watched each once and that was it. I still watch the other movies and episodes from time to time. The Shadows were a really cool enemy, and Walter Koenig's (Chekov, from the original Star Trek) portrayal of a slimy evil telepath is outstanding.

Zarhras say... this wrong tool.


You can get more with a kind word and a two by four, than with just a kind word.

Loved that show. It holds with Farscape and Firefly as some of my faves.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Definitely a Star Wars / Star Trek fan. We are so close to the holidays that I probably will wait and see what sales materialize on the mutli disc package. From the episodes I did watch it seemed like a series I would enjoy and good to hear that my instincts are correct. I'm fine with the effects not being cutting edge (I actually remember them being quite good for the day) and one of the things I liked about the spaceships and physics I remember is that they maneuvered more like you would expect ships in zero gravity to do such as changing facing while still continuing to travel in the direction they originally were going and so forth.

I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for a good deal on the coming weeks.

Oh, and yes, a big fan of Firefly here too!

Some years ago I found myself with a severe flu (like girlfriend spoon fed me soup severe). I binge-watched the entire series on HULU.

I really, really enjoyed it, and I'll probably end up buying it in the near future for myself.

Over the years I've been tempted to buy it.

Not sure why I haven't yet, as all the positive posts here are spot on.

We could all certainly find worse ways to part with $105.00 easy enough.

I have the entire series and all the movies in my collection. I can't recommend it highly enough. The graphics may seem a bit dated by current standards but it's the stories and environment that make it.
Oh, and Star Furies are best space fighters.

And of course who could forget Sebastian

quote:

Looking for some feedback from those who have seen the series.

Well, you're only talking about the greatest and most innovative TV series of all time (and no, I'm not biased... ).

This show wrote the blueprint for the modern television show. It was the first show to shoot 16:9. It was one of the serialized TV shows with a defined beginning, middle, and end. The show was the first to make CGI a credible technology to be used and relied on for Movie/TV production. There were no physical models built for the show. It was one of the first Sci-Fi movie or TV series that used Newtonian physics in its portrayal and design of space and spacecraft. The characters were the first flawed characters in the genre. They weren't perfect, they had problems, but they weren't the full blown fuckups that we got with Battlestar Galactica and most current genre characters. All of them changed dramatically over the 5 year arc, and it took you step-by-step and showed you how each action/reaction change the characters bit by bit without you even realizing it.

Each 1 hour episode cost less than $1 million. Production was such a well oiled machine that there was very little overtime used in production. Cast members could actually have a life outside the series. In a commentary before he died, Jerry Doyle bragged that if the producers told you they would wrap on May 4, you could plan and pay for a vacation May 5 and make it, guaranteed. J. Michael Straczynski (jms for short) wrote 91 out of 110 episodes. From the midpoint of Season 2 to the end of the show (minus 1 fifth season episode written Neil Gaiman), he wrote the entire series. He also spent a lot of time talking with fans on usenet (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated if I remember right) one questions fans had with the plot, questions, whether the series was renewed, etc. Hell, to even produce the music with an orchestra, composer Christopher Franke had a T1 line installed in his house so he could oversee an orchestra he contracted over in Germany. Music was being produced while everyone was asleep in the US in order to make time and budget schedules.

ALL OF THIS WAS IN 1994!!!!

Warner Bros. spent a little more than nothing on this show and it made them over $1 billion dollars from TV, syndication, merchandise, and home video/DVD sales, but they can't be bothered to do anything with it. I guess one of the big things that pissed me off about Battlestar Galactica was all of these things they they were the "first" to do when Babylon 5 did them 10-15 years before them.

Right now, they only place you can stream this is on Verizon's go90 service. If you're in the US, it's completely free, but I don't know if they have an app or if said app supports Chromecast so you can watch it on your TV. Yes, there were a few chunky episodes (especially in the first 2 seasons), but this show invented the term "binge watching" before it was even popular. Each season was built to where every question it asked in one season was answered in the next, causing even new complications. It also never rewrote its own history unlike most genre shows/movies seem to.

For those that are also interested, The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 has been archived for your viewing with a complete episode guides and even posts from jms' usenet postings on individual episodes. This show did wiki before wikipedia did.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

I can literally talk almost forever about this series and love every single chance I can get to expose new people to it. It also goes without saying that I can just about answer any question on it you may have. While the packaging on the DVDs goes from "suck" to "blow," each season has a prologue/epilogue featurette, an examination of one aspect of the show, one commentary track of cast members (don't remember if Season 1 had this, but DVD production values skyrocketed after this set blew away its sales projections), and two commentary tracks from jms on an important episode and the season finale.

I did do some checking and if you have the go90 app on your phone, it will like to Chromecast, and according to Verizon, the only charge would be your normal data charge if you aren't a Verizon customer. If you are a Verizon customer, go90 streaming will not take anything away from your data cap. You can stream it 24/7 and you will use up 0% of your data plan. I've got each episode ripped off of my DVDs and on my home network, but I might start streaming through my Chromecast just cause.

Wow talk about some detailed and interesting info. What about other discs like The Lost Tales, Legend of the Rangers and others? Do they tie other things in the series together or do they more stand individually on their own?