What Makes Babylon 5 so Great??

OK, this might sound like a strange question but what does make Babylon 5 such ground breaking fantastic television. In my opinion Babylon 5 is the best sci-fi show around and quite possibily the best TV show around.
So what is it that makes B5 so fantastic. In my opinion its a mixture of a lot of things.
<ul type="square">[*] The great over arcing storying of course. The best thing was how you know that it was all pre-planned and how looking back over the series after it has ended it all fits together almost perfectly. And the fact that it wasn't just one over arcing theme such as the Shadow War, but there were lots of themes, character arcs, subplots and mini arcs, lots of different interconnecting plots. Now that is the way to do a good TV show.
[*] Great characters. I thought that the vast majority of all of Babylon 5's characters were very well drawn out people, seeming like very real people, and with some astonishing perfomances from all people involved.
[*] The great mix of genres that were there. (I don't know if genres is the right word) Of course it was sci-fi but there was lots of action and drama and comedy and everything in there. It was great.
[*] This might sound a bit strange, but the music. I LOVE all the Babylon 5 music. Especially all the dramatic tones that they use. The dramatic effect of Season Three's title theme is superb. Also, the music in the last few minutes of "Z'ha'dum" is really great and very well suited to that particular moment and sends shivers down my spine.
[*] I also love the way that each individual episode can deal with several different parallel plotlines. Not many series do that particularly well but B5 did it brilliantly. A true Sci-fi soap opera /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif (Although of course a lot better than soaps /ubbthreads/images/icons/grin.gif )
[/list]

Thats about all I can think of right now. Great stories, characters, music, oh and some pretty darned good special effects at times /ubbthreads/images/icons/wink.gif
So what does everyone else think? Anything you'd like to add or disagree with? /ubbthreads/images/icons/grin.gif

Icarus
PS: I'm not sure if I've done the list thing right, first time I've tried it /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

Well said Icarus! /ubbthreads/images/icons/grin.gif

There is just so much that is good about B5 that you touched on like the characters, the storyline, and the music. These are some of the main reasons why I love this show. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

I think that the fact that so many of the episodes were writen by JMS. I think that B5 was the first or one of the first to have an entire season done by one person.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mike G:
<font color=yellow>I think that the fact that so many of the episodes were writen by JMS. I think that B5 was the first or one of the first to have an entire season done by one person.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
You are correct, he was the first to ever write every episode of a season of a series. Even more interesting to me, is that he wrote ALL of season 3, ALL of season 4, and all but one of season 5 (he didnt write Day of the Dead).

In addition to everything you mentioned: The CG.

I've always been very impressed with B5's computer graphics. Although sometimes rough around the edges compared to big-budget shows like the newer Star Treks, the B5 crew made great use of the technology that they had, resulting in very ambitious and visually stunning large-scale battle sequences.

The fact that there is not any cute kids or robot operating C&C.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

You know what? I would rather spend an evening with Bester deep scanning me than watch cutsie pie Wesley saving the friggin day! (fights off waves of nausea).
Icarus, to expand on your story arcing point. I love the show, characters, cgi, you name it. The thing that I enjoyed the most is the retrospect. Watching season one didn't impress me all that much. It was good and for lack of anything better to do, followed the series. When everything started riolling in S2 my interest was really growing. By the end of S3 I was going banana for the next installment. At the end of it all every episode fell neatly into place from day one!
To me that was amazing

About this Star Trek - B5 difference. I am just so glad that problems that characters face in Babylon 5 are NOT solved by 'multiplexing an inversed tachion beam in order to refurnish the transwarp coils' but just by things that we could think of ourselves. For me, this makes the show much more believable than Star Trek. Furthermore, I personally prefer the Babylon 5 decoration over Star Trek. Somehow, Star Trek has an extremely clinical environment, just too clean for me I guess /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif.

Sterile is the word I would use. Both the story and the effect. the thing that I liked about B5 was the lack of force feilds. What a cop out on star treks side. Oooooooh lets put up a sheild and kill what little story we have and to add insult to injury we'll include an annoying boy child called wesley (jumps up and down in impotent rage)
B5 is sci-fi but so much more believable!

I agree with GenevaRanger. It seems that the Star Trek characters only had problems that lasted for one episode, problems that could be fixed in engineering or by doing some fancy-sounding tech thing. The problems the B5 characters faced were much more complex, and took a lot longer to fix at times. Rarely did you see Ivanova, for example, having to re-modulate the warp core or whatever when she was fighting for her life in a battle with the Shadows or President Clark's flunkies. She just went out and fought them plain and simple. Comparisons like this would make me choose B5 every time.

B5 characters are more human and have problems that we can relate to. My heart went out to poor Marcus in every bloody episode. Always the gentleman with Ivonova, always sidestepping her brush offs and replying with even more determination. Nevermind the fact that the universe is on the brink of chaos! Each character had real problems to deal with. It made B5 more immediate and real than star trek ever was!

One thing about B5 that really stands out to me is that it has a continuous storyline, with things in one episode carry over to another episode. Some examples:

G'Kar gets thrown into a holding cell for a period of time. The next couple of episodes, he's still in the holding cell. If it had been Star Trek, that character would have been out and back to normal by the next episode, as though nothing had happened.

After Garibaldi wakes from being shot by Jack, he spends the next few episodes recovering.

Franklin goes on his walkabout. He doesn't do it for just one episode, but several. Most TV shows would have that character solve his/her problem in that same episode.

It's little things like that that help make it more believable and make you have a deeper understanding and more feeling for the characters. They have real problems, and they carry over throughout the rest of the series.

To my mind the worst was with Garibaldi when the Psycor get hold of him and bester reprograms him, I came close to hating the guy, although I knew there was something suspiscious I still really disliked him. And like you said, nobody there to fix the warp engine!

The character that I find the most impressive is Londo. I have now watched the whole babylon 5 series two times and every time, during the seasons, my opinion about him changes from admirable to hatred to pity and so on. Try and watch two Star Trek TNG episodes, say one from the first season and one from the fifth. You would probably not encounter any problems. Ok, maybe Riker's beard will be surprising, but anyhow /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif.
When you watch just one ep. of Babylon 5 season 1 and then one of season 5, you would probably be thinking that they were from two different series (assuming you don't already know Babylon 5 of course). This is what illustrates for me the difference between Babylon 5 and most other Sci-fi series.

GenevaRanger

Or Wesley becoming more dorkified! It's true the degree that Londo changed was mind boggling. But then again all the characters went through huge emotional changes. JMS was brilliant in the way he wrote the story casting the people so that you view them as stereotypes. And within a season breaks down all those preconcieved ideas you had a helps you see them as ordinary people in extraordinary circamstances. From an aspiring writers point of view it is truly a master piece!

This threads title should have been "What makes Star Trek so crap?"

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by nosh:
<font color=yellow>This threads title should have been "What makes Star Trek so crap?"</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
But thats the whole point. There is no annoying brat to save the day. It's like a bloody home alone in space!

For me is the way the characters develop over time as the story unfolds and also the great cgi /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

The CGI battle scenes, I loved them! In my opinion the best I've ever scene.