[wvenable]

Season 1 is a bit rough but there is some pay off in terms of foreshadowing/continuity in later seasons that make it better in retrospect.

Unfortunately for the 5 year arc, they weren't sure they'd get a Season 5 so much of plot ends in Season 4 and Season 5 suffers for it.

[ekidd]

Yes, Season 1 is really uneven. For new viewers, if you have someone to pick out the important episodes, then you can skip the rest and come back later. (And you can always skip "TKO".)

Seasons 2 to through 4 are still some of my all-time favorite science fiction TV. The three-episode mini-arc of "Messages from Earth", "Point of No Return" and "Severed Dreams" (IIRC) is still incredibly intense.

The closest thing I can think of today is probably The Expanse. It has the same mix of human politics in the face of aliens we cannot comprehend. Of course, The Expanse has a higher budget and more consistent acting.

In a lot of ways, Babylon 5 is the first "streaming-style" show. There's a clear series arc, viewers are expected to know what happened in previous episodes, and there's plenty of foreshadowing for the attentive viewer. (The original online Babylon 5 fandom kept track of every tiny hint.) Buffy was also moving in that direction, and Star Trek quickly followed.

[kemayo]

It's tricky even just pulling out key episodes from Season 1, because a lot of what you need is the character work. You can get all the raw plot elements that come up again later, but if you're not somewhat invested in characters like Londo and G'kar, the impact of later events is going to be dulled.

[orangecat]

The three-episode mini-arc of "Messages from Earth", "Point of No Return" and "Severed Dreams" (IIRC) is still incredibly intense.

Probably my favorite moment of 90s TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv3t86imsDI. RIP Mira Furlan.

[flopsamjetsam]

I hadn't realised she'd passed away. That is sad news.

[autoexec]

Your comment was great timing, I've been watching the first season and it's been starting to grow on me, but I really wasn't sure if I would stick with it. It's crazy that it came out 7 years after Star Trek TNG, but still somehow aged so much worse.

[Tuna-Fish]

The effects on B5 got noticeably better each season.

This was simply because it used all-digital effects in a time where the same budget would buy you twice the rendering time a year later.

[aidenn0]

I think season 1 of B5 is way better than season 1 of TNG, with the exception that TNG's pilot was way better.

I'll have to ask my wife, she hadn't seen either until adulthood.

[mcphage]

If you find anything worth watching in Season 1, then please, stick with it. The later seasons are worlds better.

[ChuckMcM]

Exactly. I felt the Expanse was similarly engaging. The shenanigans of season 5 being on again off again impacted the way B5 ended up, but even with those headwinds I highly recommend it.

[AdamJacobMuller]

> they weren't sure they'd get a Season 5

If you read the JMS script books, it wasn't that they weren't sure if they would get an S5, it was that they were 100% sure they would NOT get an S5 and he was forced to wrap everything up in S4 or it would be gone forever.

S4/S5 would have been much better had the original plan stuck, but, that wasn't even the primary reason S5 had major issues. JMS was staying in a hotel at some con and a maid helpfully cleaned up his room including trashing 100s of post-it notes containing his outlines for S5. This was the same conference where Claudia Christian blew him off and lost the last opportunity to be on the show -- not entirely her fault as she did not got bad advice -- she talks about this in her book but she thought it was a negotiating ploy and she (and her agent) wanted to raise her quote for the final season especially since it was well known it was the final season and she would immediately be job hunting after S5 and it unfortunately ended up with her off the show.

It didn't help that they had killed off XXXXX (can I spoil a 20-year-old show? not going to find out...) and saved her character.

Keep in mind JMS had been show runner for 4 years at that point and had written most of S1, almost all of S2 and all of S3/S4, something unheard of at the time and even crazier considering that they are 20+ episode seasons each, then he lost two starring actors (in variously shitty ways), lost all his notes, I'm amazed we got an S5 at all and a lesser person would have just given up.

Ultimately the final season was just shot through with challenges, despite it all, I enjoy it. The telepath situation and the conclusion of that was a great arc.

[DennisP]

Season 5 might have sucked watching one episode a week but as a binge watcher, I thought it worked out pretty well.

The whole series ended up with a narrative arc like a novel. First season was setup. Things started to pick up in season 2, then 3 and 4 built to a huge peak, and season 5 wound it down, like Lord of the Rings after the ring is destroyed.

I can't think of any other show that has a single narrative arc like this across the whole series. At most you get an arc per season. Often not even that; e.g. the new Battlestar Galactica was a continuing story but the narrative tension was pretty even throughout, with a series of small arcs, each just a few episodes long.