Discovering Babylon 5

As a geek I am absolutely, positively, embarrassed to admit that I have never watched Babylon 5. Yes, yes, I know, I have probably lost a few of my dedicated readers but then again by admitting that I've probably picked up a few. If you were like me you passed this seemingly low-budget space opera by the first time around because it delved just a little too much into geek land. I mean, sure I'll watch Star Trek: TNG (That's Star Trek: The Next Generation for the uninitiated.) I am also a huge Star Wars geek but in the early to mid-nineties, if you were like me at all, you were consuming mass quantities of beer and hanging out in cool joints that played only the most ironic alternative music. Nobody I knew was geeking out about Babylon 5. None of the girls I was trying to pick up while whipping my long mane around and brandishing my NIN (again that's Nine Inch Nails!) t-shirt, were following the adventures of the last outpost of galactic accord.

The first breath I heard of Babylon 5 came from a former employer who was a huge science fiction fan. I mean, she collected Star Wars figures before ebay ever existed! She also had to hide the fact that she was a huge geek. I remember once, her speaking in whispers to a college of ours about the show and how the creator promised a five-year story arc, a virtual novel on television. If you remember the time when Babylon 5 was in its first run the television was owned by king Seinfeld, and rightfully so. The show had innovative comedy. It reinvented the sitcom the way Nirvana reinvented rock and roll. Seinfeld for all its greatness was not a science fiction show even if Jerry did have a fascination with Superman. When I heard that Babylon 5 had a long arc that spanned seasons and was not a reset show like Star Trek but a continuing storyline more like Star Wars, I was intrigued but not enough. I thought, that's a great thing but it can't happen.

How could a show have a five-year plan? Star Trek TOS (The Original Season) promised a five-year mission right up front in its prologue and you remember how that worked out. It seemed like a waste of an investment of my time since the show was bound to be cancelled. I mean the closest show on T.V. (Television) at the time with the hint of a story arc was the X-Files and those stand-alone episodes were painful to get through just to get to the ones dealing with the main storyline. I promptly forgot about my brief brush with Babylon 5.

Recently, I've been feeling a little nostalgic for the old sci-fi shows and find myself lingering longer in the TV series aisle at Best Buy looking at the economics of paying hundreds of dollars for a series I am only going to watch once. I always pick up the first season of B5 (That's Babylon 5 for those of us in the know...) and then put it down. I had been a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I came in around season five or six so I missed a lot. I went back and bought the entire series from start to finish plus the earlier theatrical release staring the girl from Skating With Celebrities. I went out and spent too much money for every season as they came out and promptly caught up on the entire series. I loved every minute of it. Joss Wheaton is a genius. He took the B5 idea of a novel for television one step further. I dare anyone to find one episode that doesn't advance the arc. I dare you. He crafted a brilliant story and kept me hooked from season to season. It was like the second coming.

My biggest gripe with ST (Star Trek) was that it was episodic. Very rarely did one episode affect the other. Yes, they had hints and some characters did things that came to fruition many episodes later like when Q blasted the Enterprise out to Borg space and then the Borg found them many episodes later. That was cool but it took way too long for that to come together. Personally I'd have preferred an entire season dealing just with the Borg war instead of just a few episodes (which were the pinnacle of that series as far as I'm concerned.)

After rediscovering Buffy and Angel with their overarching storylines, I remembered my old boss and her little series Babylon 5. I remembered on the periphery that the show actually made it to five seasons plus some made-for-TV movies. But there was still the high price per season. I couldn't justify the cost. First it was Buffy, then Angel, and now B5. But what about Farscape? I never watched that series either. Or what about Stargate? Or the second and third season of 24 that took the continuing story to a whole new level?

Then, G-d invented Netflix and I subscribed.

I had been avoiding Netflix in much the same manner that I had avoided B5. I heard it was not worth the money, the distribution was a problem, etc... But after hearing that Netflix had a superior selection of disks that surpassed Blockbuster, I acquiesced. On their site I found not only B5 but all the other series I had been looking to catch up on, in addition to the films I always wanted to watch or re-watch. It was a virtual goldmine of couch potato goodness. I promptly signed on for the three-at-a-time service. My queue is over 200 strong and I have every episode of B5 lined up, raring to go.

After finishing disk three which is approximately 12 episodes from the first season, I'm hooked. Sure the production is cheap and the acting, overacted and the characters a little cardboard so far, there is a hint of greatness there. The characters are starting to break out with their own dimensions becoming apparent and the conflicts are growing more intense and personal. I realize that the first season had more independent episodes and I hope the special effects get a little better but I am definitely in for the long haul. I even began thinking about rearranging my queue so that I only get B5 disks continually until the last TV movie is delivered.

Then I can move on to Farscape.