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The Bloop posted:I watched bits of Bab5 when it was on TV, but never the whole thing. Basically every episode of B5 has something relevant to character growth or the main plot, though a lot of it you won't notice until later or a rewatch. I actually really like the feeling of vague menace in season one and missed it later in the show. Also the main throughline of the entire show are the characters Londo and G'Kar and their relationship, and without the first season you'd lose a lot of that. Both characters are fully formed and good from the first minute they're on screen. I would, however, skip the pilot. It is real bad and all the necessary info from it is supplied later. If you get into the show you can watch it later for a laugh.
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Jul 27, 2017 14:44
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Arglebargle III posted:B5 season 1 is painfully bad, it slow rolls its plot for two seasons and then goes "Oh poo poo we're getting canceled" and throws the whole show into fast forward. Then oops we're not canceled after all and they have a pointless last season with the lead gone and new annoying characters. And the finale is like a bad short story that could be from any anthology. "The Centauri are preparing to attack the station!" *fades to black* *show resumes* "We're in serious trouble now that the Centauri are preparing to attack the station after we pissed off the ambassador!" Garibaldi screaming as the transport tube on Mars careens into the darkness after Bester breaks his mind is still one of the best scenes in any sci-fi series ever though. Grand Fromage posted:I actually really like the feeling of vague menace in season one and missed it later in the show. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Jul 27, 2017 |
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Jul 27, 2017 14:45
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shadok posted:Counterpoint: if B5 were made today, there would no longer be the studio insistence on 26-episode seasons (well, 22 in the case of Babylon 5). HBO or SyFy or whatever would let Straczynski just make 10- or 12-episode seasons and all the filler and monster-of-the-week episodes would fall away, just leaving the good stuff without feeling rushed. Season 1 in particular suffers from this. That's a fair point, although as Grand Fromage says there's a lot of worthwhile character and world building in at least the B plots of even the most "filler" episodes. I'm obviously biased but I'd go so far as to say the B plot in those cases is really the A plot. However, could you keep almost all of the really good stuff in a shorter season? Probably so, at least for season 1, and probably 5 too. 2-4 would be very difficult to squeeze much further though, but then maybe it would end up being 7-8 shorter seasons or something. The Bloop posted:I watched bits of Bab5 when it was on TV, but never the whole thing. If you're not intrigued enough by the end of season 1 or especially the middle of season 2, it's likely not going to click with you and you can probably safely give it up. Some have had success starting with season 2, but I'm not sure I would recommend that. I'd rather counsel you to watch it all with a lot of patience and expectation that it really does improve, than have you miss so much of value even if it is a little rougher at the start.
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Jul 27, 2017 15:00
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The Bloop posted:I watched bits of Bab5 when it was on TV, but never the whole thing. It's not like Trek. The blessing and curse of B5 is that the even bad episodes have hints, clues, foreshadowing and setup for the overall storyline and all of it pays off. This starts right in the pilot "Babylon 5: The Gathering" which is awful but contains setups that pay off two, three and four years later and those reveals are all the more awesome for clearly having been plotted from the beginning, like a good novel. There have been many attempts in the B5 threads over the years to make "essential episode" lists, especially for season 1, to try and help new viewers get into it. I think that they do more harm than good, though, because it means that when you start getting the big reveals later on, you lose some of the "ohhhhh, so THAT'S what was going on" impact and it diminishes the best part of the show. In my opinion, obviously. Lots of smart people with good taste have watched the show in good faith and not liked it. Hey, did you know that Ira Behr is making a DS9 documentary? Because I somehow had not heard about it until I came across videos on YouTube talking about it yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eqUNL5AdL8 shadok fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Jul 27, 2017 |
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Jul 27, 2017 15:30
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:I just watched I, Borg and they hosed up slightly by having him say "I" several scenes before his big encounter with Picard. Oops I hate that episode so much, because everyone looks so goddamn stupid for refusing to end a galaxy-wide existential threat because one of them looks sad and lonely. When there's a later episode where an Admiral chews out Picard for not doing it, I was on her side. Not only that, there's no change to the overall narrative. The Borg still remain the Borg, and all that happened was an entirely forgettable Lore Episode(s) about the dangers of cults.
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Jul 27, 2017 15:35
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Yeah, even weak episodes of B5 have stuff that's significant and good. People generally aren't fond of "Grey 17 is Missing", but the confrontation between Neroon and Marcus is both fantastic and extremely relevant to the long term Ranger arc.
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Jul 27, 2017 16:50
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah, O'Hare was severely mentally ill and had to leave the show because of it. He asked everyone to keep it secret until after his death. For years I was convinced that O'Hare was fired--Jerry Doyle said he was--and given the way he ballooned up, I figured he had a drinking problem or something like that. When Straczynski finally told the story about his paranoid delusions and hallucinations, it was heartbreaking. 
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Jul 27, 2017 17:10
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MisterBibs posted:I hate that episode so much, because everyone looks so goddamn stupid for refusing to end a galaxy-wide existential threat because one of them looks sad and lonely. When there's a later episode where an Admiral chews out Picard for not doing it, I was on her side. I honestly thought there would be a final scene of Hugh being plugged in and all the other borgs getting a twitch in their eye or something (as a result of them all downloading a taste of Hugh's individuality) because that's what I remember from 15 years ago when I last watched it. Maybe I made that up though. The episode does seem to lack something like that at the end - but scene or no scene, it wouldn't help explain Picard's (and the rest's) extremely questionable decision (except to validate the idea in the eyes of the audience, I guess) I was also hoping that while they quibbled about the merits of exterminating the Borg, someone would point out - incorrectly or not - that the Borg isn't a "race". So yeah it could have been better but I greatly enjoyed it all the same.
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Jul 27, 2017 17:15
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I am not a fan of genocide but I think the Borg make for a good exception. Not exterminating them when they had the chance was dumb and also allowed the Borg to hang around long enough to be rendered toothless by Voyager.
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Jul 27, 2017 17:17
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The Borg is effectively one organism, so killing it is essentially genocide. Also, once Hugh got out and said "i" and was friends with Geordi, he was no longer part of it, but instead his own thing, which they thought they were killing, like Tuvix, by resetting him to his previous state. Unlike Tuvix, he just vanishes rather than making two people exist instead so it's actually far worse. Granted that's not what happened, but it's what they expected to happen, so the intent was there. Edit: thanks for the Bab5 tips
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Jul 27, 2017 17:24
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Grand Fromage posted:I am not a fan of genocide but I think the Borg make for a good exception. Not exterminating them when they had the chance was dumb and also allowed the Borg to hang around long enough to be rendered toothless by Voyager. The Borg were rendered toothless by them returning after Best Of Both Worlds, not Voyager. Voyager was just continuing the trend that TNG established of them having a new weakness every time they showed up. First Q saved them, then Picard put them to sleep so they'd blow up. Then it took Picard firing at one point to blow up a Cube. You can't simultaneously have an unstoppable, unwatered down threat and have Our Heroes always win against them. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jul 27, 2017 |
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Jul 27, 2017 17:25
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Grand Fromage posted:I am not a fan of genocide but I think the Borg make for a good exception. The Borg are not a race, they're the victims of an infectious disease. Eradicating polio was not genocide.
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Jul 27, 2017 17:52
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Grand Fromage posted:I am not a fan of genocide but Probably not a great way to start a sentence.
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Jul 27, 2017 17:53
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shadok posted:The Borg are not a race, they're the victims of an infectious disease. Eradicating polio was not genocide. Eradicating polio was also not achieved by shooting everyone with polio in the head.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:06
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Arglebargle III posted:Probably not a great way to start a sentence. Or is it the best way?
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Jul 27, 2017 18:09
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Gaz-L posted:Eradicating polio was also not achieved by shooting everyone with polio in the head. Yeah, but because we didn't need to. Think of it more like killing as many mosquitoes as we can because malaria. Except this time, when you kill all of them, the food chain doesn't collapse because I'm pretty nothing eats the Borg. Unlike mosquitoes.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:14
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The Borg are zombies. You don't save zombies - whoever they were before is gone - and the only thing to do is wipe them out.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:16
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Except we've seen that if you do disconnect them they can be fine, other than a weird obsession with incredibly impractical high heels and catsuits. We only see rescued borg that had lives previous to being a borg, but what about the billions grown in vats or what ever? I think hugh was a borg-from-birth, but Voyager abandoned the idea of the borg reproducing as needed because it's more scary if they're SPACE ZOMBIES.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:17
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MisterBibs posted:The Borg are zombies. You don't save zombies - whoever they were before is gone - and the only thing to do is wipe them out. I was agreeing with you until this point, but under your logic they should have killed Captain Picard rather than try to rescue him.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:19
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shadok posted:Eradicating polio was not genocide. Tell that to poliovirus
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Jul 27, 2017 18:19
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WampaLord posted:I was agreeing with you until this point, but under your logic they should have killed Captain Picard rather than try to rescue him. They did prioritize killing Picard over rescuing him.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:21
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One thing I have always liked about TNG is that the running theme throughout the series is upholding your core values and principles even when it's the hardest thing in the world. I don't know that any other show has ever done this more powerfully. Like, I get the rational arguments for exterminating the Borg. But my human impulse also wanted to see the Pakled crew exterminated for being terrorists, so...
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Jul 27, 2017 18:23
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MisterBibs posted:They did prioritize killing Picard over rescuing him. But if it were up to you, they would never even consider rescuing him at all. Bad idea.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:23
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WampaLord posted:But if it were up to you, they would never even consider rescuing him at all. They only considered it after their kill-Picard weapon didn't work. A desperate gamble because they had no way to stop the Borg from going to Earth. They were always prioritizing Defeat Borg over Save Picard. Let's not ignore the proverbial elephant in the room when discussing this: they had to rescue him because the contract negotiations with Stewart actually succeeded, and they needed to find a way to get Picard back. The writers didn't know how they were going to resolve the cliffhanger, according to The Fifty Year Mission, because it was a unknown if they were going to have the character when they came back to writing.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:33
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shadok posted:Eradicating polio was not genocide. Only in the sense that viruses aren't alive. Eradicating the Guinea Worm is most certainly genocide unless you are being human-centric with your definition (if you are eliminating the Bajorans isn't genocide either) but it is still a Good Thing In any case, it's also arguable that there is only one The Borg and that drones truly aren't individuals. So killing that one would be genocide, but exterminating zillions of drones is nbd, morally speaking
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Jul 27, 2017 18:33
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WampaLord posted:But if it were up to you, they would never even consider rescuing him at all. Bad idea. "Captain Bibs, we're receiving a distress si-" "Arm torpedoes" "Sir they've just run out of fue-" "THEY CAN'T BE SAVED"
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Jul 27, 2017 18:34
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And your parents let you live?!
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Jul 27, 2017 18:36
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At least rescuing Picard from the Borg didn't involve the prime directive
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Jul 27, 2017 18:44
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:"Captain Bibs, we're receiving a distress si-" I'm surprised they didn't do a "ship fakes distress, winds up being Borg" episode, come to think of it. E: The Greatest Generation podcast has ruined me. I read the above quote, and I heard their "rapid fire torpedos" sound bite in my head. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jul 27, 2017 |
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Jul 27, 2017 18:45
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I think all their ideas for destroying the Borg via Hugh would have failed, anyway.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:47
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WampaLord posted:I was agreeing with you until this point, but under your logic they should have killed Captain Picard rather than try to rescue him. Needs of the many, etc.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:55
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Sash! posted:Needs of the many, etc. That's a totally different context. If Picard were sacrificing himself to stop the Borg, that'd be one thing, but that's not at all what's going on. "Leave no man behind" is the better slogan for this situation.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:57
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Strictly speaking they weren't rescuing Picard, they were kidnapping Locutus in order to learn more about the Borg and get another angle on fighting them since conventional warfare wasn't cutting it. Technically correct, etc. 
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Jul 27, 2017 18:58
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IDIC, but not you.
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Jul 27, 2017 18:58
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WampaLord posted:"Leave no man behind" is the better slogan for this situation. Do you want everyone you know to become a zombie or a Borg? Because that's how you get everyone you know to be a zombie or a Borg.
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Jul 27, 2017 19:06
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It's been a while but I remember the objections to borgicide that actually stuck were framed as "we can't use Hugh that way" rather than "killing borg bad" (those arguments were brought up and dismissed as I recall). It is absolutely in keeping with the tone and moral center of the show that once Hugh became a Person, they couldn't use him as an instrument of destruction against his will
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Jul 27, 2017 19:29
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"No Jean, we are Borg." And then Jean was Borg.
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Jul 27, 2017 19:30
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cheetah7071 posted:It's been a while but I remember the objections to borgicide that actually stuck were framed as "we can't use Hugh that way" rather than "killing borg bad" (those arguments were brought up and dismissed as I recall). This was it exactly. I watched it last week. Crusher was still against it but everyone else was like KILL BORG
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Jul 27, 2017 19:34
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This is why Pale Moonlight is a good episode because it shows a generally upstanding starfleet officer basically choosing the other path. When Sisko did what he did it had a lot of gravity and it affected him. When Janeway though flagrantly violated everything starfleet stands for she seems to revel in it.
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Jul 27, 2017 19:37
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cheetah7071 posted:It is absolutely in keeping with the tone and moral center of the show that once Hugh became a Person, they couldn't use him as an instrument of destruction against his will Hugh was as much a "person" as Bub from Day Of The Dead was. Bub was trained to say ullo auhnt uhleeca, Hugh was trained to say its a person. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jul 27, 2017 |
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Jul 27, 2017 19:47
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