Post by B5Erik on Jan 23, 2021 0:34:10 GMT
With the passing of yet another Babylon 5 cast member (Mira Furlan, in this case), I feel a great sense of loss.
But why?
Babylon 5 was just a TV show, right? Just another Science Fiction show from the 90's, right?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, it was a TV show. Yes it was one of many Science Fiction shows in the 90's. But, no, it wasn't JUST at Science Fiction TV show from the 90's. It was more, much more.
Most people don't understand why I am (as a lot of others are) so attached to Babylon 5. They just don't get it. Some of them have never seen the show, so they have no frame of reference, but others have, and they still don't get it. For them, Babylon 5 WAS just another Science Fiction TV show from the 90's. OK, for those that have seen it, most of them agree it was great, but they don't get the undying love for B5, or the near obsession with the show.
There are some, though, who do get it.
There is a group of Babylon 5 fans for whom this show is the be all and end all of Science Fiction on television.
But why has this show, one that ended well over twenty years ago, resonated so much with these people?
I can only speak for myself, but for me it comes down to a lot of things.
I was introduced to Babylon 5 at a Star Trek convention in 1992. Series creator, producer, and writer J. Michael Straczynski (Joe, to his friends - and many fans), was there giving a presentation to probably a thousand people or more in the main hall. He was explaining this new show that was coming. It wasn't Star Trek, and it wasn't part of the Star Wars universe, but it was big. It was ambitious. Joe's presentation was captivating. He described a show that was about both the people in this small, isolated city in space as they engaged in business and diplomacy. It was going to be about this core group of people and what they went through. But it was also going to be about massive wars and this giant space opera that would span most of the galaxy. It was both large and small. Personal and galactic. And it wasn't going to be a perfect universe, either.
The people were going to be flawed (and BOY were they flawed). And the people were going to be heroic (BOY were they heroic). And no one was going to be what they appeared to be in the beginning. Not completely, anyway. Some characters hid small secrets, some characters became larger, and more important, and some characters would become the near opposite of what they would initially appear to be.
Casablanca in space. With characters that would resonate the way that Rick, Ilsa, Victor, and Captain Renault did. At the same time larger stories - ones that would span the entire series - would occur as well, and all of these things would intertwine to make one giant five year tapestry.
I was sold on that Spring day in 1992. I was a Babylon 5 fanatic. Joe did a phenomenal job of explaining the concepts, the characters, and the designs (it didn't look like Trek or Star Wars, other than being in space).
Impatiently I waited for that early 1993 day when the Babylon 5 pilot - The Gathering - first aired.
While the pilot was most definitely imperfect, it was far better than the pilots for The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine. And just like Star Trek: The Next Generation had become something FAR greater as a series than it was as a pilot, so, too, did Babylon 5 show that potential.
A year later the series finally rolled out. And it WAS better than the pilot. Much better. And the show just kept getting better and better, more and more intriguing and entertaining as it went along. Finally, by the third season it was, in my humble opinion, the best show ever on television. Now, that IS a bold statement, one borne out of hyperbole, but it was what I firmly believed when the show was in it's first run on TV - and what I still believe to this day.
But why? Why Babylon 5 over all others?
Well, for one thing the characters were just perfect for the show. They had those flaws I mentioned before, but they also had interesting quirks, and they just felt real within that universe. And they grew and changed over time. Captain Picard, although a great character, didn't grow at all over the seven seasons that The Next Generation was on. He had moments here and there that showed something a little different, but nothing had a lasting impact, and the Picard of All Good Things was basically still the same Picard from Encounter At Farpoint. Better written, even better acted, but the same basic character. None of the characters on Babylon 5 were the same at the end as they were at the beginning.
G'Kar and Londo, the ambassadors for the Narn and Centauri, respectively, and the characters talked about most when it comes to Babylon 5, and rightly so. I would go so far as to say no single character has ever had an arc as remarkable as G'Kar. Then again, Londo is awfully close! The performances by Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik made that growth work. Without their amazing acting, the changes in those characters wouldn't have been believable. The fact that those characters played off of each other so much made it all the more intriguing and entertaining.
But the other characters grew and changed, too. Captain Sheridan, Commander Ivanova, Chief Garibaldi, Lennier, Vir, and Doctor Franklin all had arcs of their own, and they were almost as compelling as those of G'Kar and Londo!
But, still, that's just well written and acted TV stuff. Why Babylon 5 over all others?
Because the stories were amazing. The Earth Government was made up of bad guys doing bad things. WE were the bad guys, more or less. The Federation was never presented as anything other than perfect until after Babylon 5 hit it's third year. Coincidence? I think not!
You had multiple wars, wars that made sense, wars with seriously detailed backstories. Wars that felt real, with real consequences.
The effects, too, were groundbreaking. No, you can't see it now on an HDTV with the poorly mastered DVD's. But in it's original run on broadcast TV the effects were something special. Babylon 5 was the first show to exclusively use CGI for it's visual effects, and it gave the producers and writers the freedom to write epic scale space battles, as well as show realistic motion in space (the Starfuries moved exactly like actual NASA engineers describe motion of ships in space - with the ability to do a 180 or a 360 on a dime).
Even all of that, though, only makes for an outstanding TV show. Why did Babylon 5 click so deeply with so many fans?
For me, I can explain it this way: Babylon 5 is EXACTLY the show that I always wanted to see, and what I still want to see. If I had been able to describe the TV show I wanted to see in 1992, I would have described a Science Fiction show with great characters, real peril (characters die, and don't come back), serious twists, a grand scale on one hand, and great personal stories on the other, all told with a great sense of adventure and just enough humor to make the show as fun as possible while still having dark, ominous overall themes.
I always loved Star Trek, going back to it's initial run in syndication in the early 70's. And I love Star Trek: The Next Generation. But the one thing that bugged me about The Next Generation was the fact that there was very little real peril. You know by the next episode everything would be fine. And the Federation was perfect. Too perfect. Yes, it was the ideal government to have, but real life just doesn't work that way. Not everything is going to be shiny and new, and not everyone will get along. Things will get dirty, and people will have conflict. People will have serious personal flaws, just like we have today.
And Babylon 5 gave that to us. In spades.
Beyond that, the casting was perfect. If I had been in on the casting decisions, those were the actors I would have chosen. Michael O'Hare, Claudia Christian, Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Andreas Katsulas, Peter Jurasik, Mira Furlan, Bill Mumy, Stephen Furst, Jeff Conaway, etc - those are the people I would have chosen for those roles.
These are MY characters. Babylon 5 is MY show. It is the show I always wanted to see, and these are the characters I always wanted to watch. It just took Joe to get them on the screen. No wonder I'm so attached to B5 on such a deep level.
Between getting in on the ground floor (before the show ever aired), and the show being exactly what I always wanted to see with the great characters and both big and small stories, I formed a strong attachment to the show that hasn't waned at all in the last twenty-eight years, and isn't likely to wane in the next 28 years.
Babylon 5 was, and is, something special.