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Babylon 5, Season 5: all the same?
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Posted by: mcdougll

I've been watching Babylon 5 (for the first time) on the SciFi channel during their re-running of the entire series, and really liked everything up through the end of season 4. I'm about 6 episodes into season 5, and have been pretty disappointed. Is all of season 5 like the first 5 or 6 episodes?
The show seems pretty aimless now after such a strong story during the first 4 seasons.

Posted by: Vesper

The season gets better than it starts out, but still isn't anywhere near as good as the others. I rank Season 5 at #5 for "best seasons." Still worth watching at least once, though. And I'm sure I'll still get the DVD set for completeness sake.

Posted by: brahamt

quote:
Originally posted by Vesper
The season gets better than it starts out, but still isn't anywhere near as good as the others. I rank Season 5 at #5 for "best seasons." Still worth watching at least once, though. And I'm sure I'll still get the DVD set for completeness sake.

Vesper, I think you are dead on. I agree that S5 is the worst of the 5 seasons. I don't think it gets any good until some of the threads start to get wrapped up and something else happens that I won't spoil here.

Unfortunately, I am obsessive about certain things, so I will definitely buy S5 on DVD, as by that time I will have the other 4.

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

The big problem with Season 5 is that it consists of storylines that were excised from Season 4 when the future of the show was in jeopardy. Since it seemed likely there wouldn't be a Season 5, JMS took the storylines that were supposed to unfold over 4 and 5, rushed some of them to end during 4, and pushed some of them back entirely to 5. As a result, 4 seems a little rushed (especially in the second half), and 5 seems more disconnected than usual for B5.

My opinion is that while 5 is the weakest of the series, it still has some very interesting ideas; it does take a while to get going (since he was starting from a dead stop), and it never has the punch of 3 and 4 (since he didn't have years to build up to it), but it's still worthwhile.

By the way, the end of the Shadow War was always supposed to be abrupt; JMS has said that he only pushed it forward about 4 episodes. He always intended the last year and a half to deal with the political fallout of the Shadow War.

Posted by: dmdeane

I agree with most comments here, however Season 5 does contain one of my favorite B5 episodes, whose name escapes me (I think it was written by Neil Gaiman, i believe?) ....the one where Rebo & Zooty visit B5, and part of the station is taken over by a "day of the dead" ceremony by ? (forgot the name of the alien species)...in which various dead people visit various live people. Great episode.

Posted by: HTH

quote:
Originally posted by dmdeane
I agree with most comments here, however Season 5 does contain one of my favorite B5 episodes, whose name escapes me (I think it was written by Neil Gaiman, i believe?) ....the one where Rebo & Zooty visit B5, and part of the station is taken over by a "day of the dead" ceremony by ? (forgot the name of the alien species)...in which various dead people visit various live people. Great episode.

♪ Because I couldn't stop for death ♪
♪ He kindly stopped for me... ♪

Posted by: gbrainin

quote:
Originally posted by dmdeane
I agree with most comments here, however Season 5 does contain one of my favorite B5 episodes, whose name escapes me (I think it was written by Neil Gaiman, i believe?) ....the one where Rebo & Zooty visit B5, and part of the station is taken over by a "day of the dead" ceremony by ? (forgot the name of the alien species)...in which various dead people visit various live people. Great episode.

Hey there, Watch City:

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/096.html

"Day of the Dead" was written by Neil Gaiman, and the aliens are the Brakiri. And I thought it was so freakin' cool that they got Penn & Teller to play Rebo & Zooty.

-Gary