Babylon 5

[Arakasi]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1661209' date='Jan 24 2009, 17.22']All of those questions did get fleshed out, in the [b]Legions of Fire [/b]trilogy of novels by Peter David (plotted by JMS and regarded as full canon). They are very good books, covered [url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=27331&st=380"]here[/url] in the rewatch thread.

The exception is Lennier, whose fate remains a mystery.[/quote]

Well I was talking about on screen. Peter David is definitely an underrated author who has done some good work for serial sci-fi shows (TNG and B5 being the noted ones for me)

[G'Kar]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1661209' date='Jan 24 2009, 18.22']All of those questions did get fleshed out, in the [b]Legions of Fire [/b]trilogy of novels by Peter David (plotted by JMS and regarded as full canon). They are very good books, covered [url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=27331&st=380"]here[/url] in the rewatch thread.

The exception is Lennier, whose fate remains a mystery.[/quote]

Yeah I know, I mentioned them in a previous post, I would still prefer to have the actors actually depict it on screen, rather then have to imagine it. Instead of wasting his time making crap like Legend of the Rangers or River of Souls, why not actually make something that adds to the B5 storyline and is not just a stand alone movie. Or how 'bout just a Bester movie? Those books were pretty good.

[Ran]

Well, first, the B5 storyline is done. Beginning, middle, and end. I guess you mean the mythos, but [i]Thirdspace[/i] definitely added something, I thought, and of course [i]A Call to Arms[/i] and [i]Crusade[/i].

For the most part, he was constrained by TNT and Sci-fi in regards to subject matter of new offerings. Like all that martial arts crap in [i]Legend of the Rangers[/i], that was the cable network telling him to put in more action and junk. They wanted the shows (including [i]Crusade[/i]), to have as little connection to the original series as possible.

So, the answer why he did those rather than "The Further Adventurers of All Those People Whose Story Has Mostly Been Told" is that neither TNT or Sci-Fi wanted them, and I don't think B5 really wanted them either.

[G'Kar]

[quote name='Ran' post='1661832' date='Jan 25 2009, 12.42']Well, first, the B5 storyline is done. Beginning, middle, and end. I guess you mean the mythos, but [i]Thirdspace[/i] definitely added something, I thought, and of course [i]A Call to Arms[/i] and [i]Crusade[/i].[/quote]

Thats debatable. The 20 year gap makes the complete ending theory a problem. Sure, there is a series of books, but that is not the same thing. And why is Lennier's fate left ambiguous?

[quote]For the most part, he was constrained by TNT and Sci-fi in regards to subject matter of new offerings. Like all that martial arts crap in [i]Legend of the Rangers[/i], that was the cable network telling him to put in more action and junk. They wanted the shows (including [i]Crusade[/i]), to have as little connection to the original series as possible.

So, the answer why he did those rather than "The Further Adventurers of All Those People Whose Story Has Mostly Been Told" is that neither TNT or Sci-Fi wanted them, and I don't think B5 really wanted them either.[/quote]

That I'll believe. The extraneous fist fight breaking out in the opening of Crusades was ludicrous and it only went downhill from there.

[Elrostar]

I watched S1-S4 of B5 and found S1 to be painful to struggle through. And it really bothered me that it was so bad, but that it was necessary to watch in order to appreciate the later stuff.
I mean, yes, JMS has some wonderful over-arching stuff and he's able to think of some brilliant stuff. But my god they had some bad stuff in there. It's the kind of thing that makes you realize why people say SF is bad. I mean, LOST may be incoherent and rambling at times, but even it never reaches the depths of the bad acting and low production values of Bab5. But ok, it has a big budget and better actors and all that... But still.

I mean, with a show like Buffy, the first season is not up to the quality of later seasons either, but it is at least not [i]bad[/i]. I really feel like B5 is something where you watch season 1 the one time you have to, and then never again, lest the agony be endured needlessly?

And I would say that the show is completely carried by Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas. They are so much better actors than anyone else that they simply shine. Some of the others are alright, some of them are a tad painful, but they are stunning.

I guess I'm just trying to say that I agree that B5 was a great show. I really think so. I just wish that JMS would have sometimes realized his limitations and allowed it to be better? Because I think an ongoing problem was that he tried to do [i]everything[/i], and that was a mistake.

[Arakasi]

I honestly think you're nit picking. For as bad as season 1 of B5 is, it is still better than 95% of science fiction out there. There is a core of episodes in that season that really established the show and the story arc that carried on for several years. And yes it sucks that their production value was lower and they couldn't hire as good actors. Compared to the huge funding that shows like DS9 or now BSG have gotten, B5 did amazing work with limited resources. BSG and the Star Trek series for all their money and their franchises imo rarely approached the best of B5. BSG was close at the start before it declined, and while it has rebounded it is not as good as it initially was. DS9 had its moments, but never approached the tragedy and pathos that B5 had.

[G'Kar]

For the most part, I agree with you. There are many episodes in Season 1 that range from mediocre (Believers) to bad (TKO). There are some exceptions (Midnight On the Firing Line, Born to the Purple, Chrysalis, Signs and Portents). And you are right about the acting. Andreas Katsulas and to a lesser degree Peter Jurassic make all the other actors look amateurish by comparison. And there was some pretty bad acting. Worst IMO was Lyta Alexander.

Honestly though, nothing in Season 1 equals The Gathering. I finished the series before watching it, and lets just say I will never watch it again ::shudder::. I'm amazed anyone watched B5 after first seeing the pilot.

[Elrostar]

[quote name='G'Kar' post='1661866' date='Jan 25 2009, 13.32']For the most part, I agree with you. There are many episodes in Season 1 that range from mediocre (Believers) to bad (TKO). There are some exceptions (Midnight On the Firing Line, Born to the Purple, Chrysalis, Signs and Portents). And you are right about the acting. Andreas Katsulas and to a lesser degree Peter Jurassic make all the other actors look amateurish by comparison. And there was some pretty bad acting. Worst IMO was Lyta Alexander.

Honestly though, nothing in Season 1 equals The Gathering. I finished the series before watching it, and lets just say I will never watch it again ::shudder::. I'm amazed anyone watched B5 after first seeing the pilot.[/quote]

I'm now remembering back to seeing Lyta Alexander's character, and being pained by it... Patricia Tallman made Claudia Christian seem like a goddess of acting in comparison...

And I'm sure that B5 is better than a lot of SciFi out there. But what bothers me is that SciFi should have to be judged by a different metric than everything else, so to speak. It's just like the idea of judging SF/Fantasy literature on a different scale, just because it's Speculative fiction. That it doesn't have to live up to normal standards of fiction. Which is ironic, because after all, one of the things most of us like about ASOIAF is precisely that it's good as a series of books, not just as a series of fantasy books. It doesn't need to be graded on a curve.
I would hope that B5 shouldn't need to be graded on a curve either. But maybe it does?

[Ran]

I don't think it needs to be graded on a curve. S1 isn't great and has some dire episodes -- everyone can agree. And a lot of it is mediocre. But there are 5-6 episodes that are very good, and they contribute to the arc, which is the real "innovation" (it's not really one, but for U.S. dramatic TV it was). And it gets better from there on out. Even the controversial 5th season is much more consistent than the first season was.

I get the sense that JMS takes a lot of time to have his ideas "gel". Which can be a problem with networks are increasingly willing to dump shows after partial runs.

[G'Kar]

[quote name='Elrostar' post='1661903' date='Jan 25 2009, 14.11']And I'm sure that B5 is better than a lot of SciFi out there. But what bothers me is that SciFi should have to be judged by a different metric than everything else, so to speak. It's just like the idea of judging SF/Fantasy literature on a different scale, just because it's Speculative fiction. That it doesn't have to live up to normal standards of fiction. Which is ironic, because after all, one of the things most of us like about ASOIAF is precisely that it's good as a series of books, not just as a series of fantasy books. It doesn't need to be graded on a curve.
I would hope that B5 shouldn't need to be graded on a curve either. But maybe it does?[/quote]

It does. "Normal" shows do not have the make-up/special effects/set design costs that a science fiction show tends to have, so I am usually more forgiving of bad acting and weak episodes in Science Fiction (TV shows and some movies, not books). B5 is great in spite of its many flaws.

Edit: And often Sci-Fi shows only have a niche audience so they don't get the neccessary funding. If B5 was pulling CSI numbers, it would have mostly likely looked frakkin' incredible.

[Arakasi]

Yeah what G'kar says. Normal shows don't have to sink so much of their budget into makeup and special effects. Cuts have to be made somewhere. In B5 it happened to be acting talent (or graphics at some points) but still with that they got some good actors in there. I believe I remember hearing on one of the B5 casts that they had around half the budget that DS9 did. It's amazing they did so well with the limited resources they had.

[Ran]

JMS writing a B5 or [i]Crusade[/i] with a [i]Deep Space 9[/i] budget would have been something to see.

[Arakasi]

[quote name='Ran' post='1661932' date='Jan 25 2009, 13.36']JMS writing a B5 or [i]Crusade[/i] with a [i]Deep Space 9[/i] budget would have been something to see.[/quote]

It is one of my frustrations with BSG. They have a great situation there for someone to make a really great work (the support they have is very nice) but it seems like Moore just pulls stuff out of his ass. Now sure JMS wrote some clunky dialogue, but he did a great job in laying out a solid story from the start. There was room for change (like what they did with Sinclair's story) but at least you can see that JMS had a plan. BSG to my frustration not so much.

[Rimmer]

[quote name='Arakasi' post='1661930' date='Jan 25 2009, 14.35']Yeah what G'kar says. Normal shows don't have to sink so much of their budget into makeup and special effects. Cuts have to be made somewhere. In B5 it happened to be acting talent (or graphics at some points) but still with that they got some good actors in there. I believe I remember hearing on one of the B5 casts that they had around half the budget that DS9 did. It's amazing they did so well with the limited resources they had.[/quote]
Is the bad acting really just down to budget, or JMS's weird melodramatic style of dialogue, and his expectation of how it should be read? Reading his views on the early episodes as they aired, he still seemed basically 100% happy with all his regulars and guest stars. In terms of overall story arc JMS might be second-to-none, but Babylon V's dialogue is for the most part just appalling - the humour, the small chat, the big meaningful speeches, everything.

[G'Kar]

Lack of a a budget makes episodes like [i]Shattered Dreams[/i] all that more impressive. I wouldn't mind if they pulled a ST: OS and updated the graphics on the show. :drool:

[G'Kar]

[quote name='Rimmer' post='1661949' date='Jan 25 2009, 15.04']Is the bad acting really just down to budget, or JMS's weird melodramatic style of dialogue, and his expectation of how it should be read? Reading his views on the early episodes as they aired, he still seemed basically 100% happy with all his regulars and guest stars. In terms of overall story arc JMS might be second-to-none, but Babylon V's dialogue is for the most part just appalling - the humour, the small chat, the big meaningful speeches, everything.[/quote]

G'Kar says you are wrong. :pirate:

[Lord of Oop North]

For me, the speeches and 'big dialogue' were great, but it was during regular conversations and 'small dialogue' where things went awry.

[Ran]

The speeches are, on the whole, quite remarkably good. JMS could have a career writing nothing but speeches.

I think there's a bit of staginess to how JMS writes dialogue. It does indeed work well for speeches, and there are a number of exceptional speeches and extended monologues delivered in the course of the show. There are some stand-out bits of dialogue, for that matter, where you can see that JMS was looking at it as if it was theater rather than television. But ... yeah. There's a broadness to some of the dialogue and the humor that fits the stage but which seems artificial on screen and is, even, hammy.

It's sort of how [i]Deadwood[/i] really feels like Shakespeare writing a Western -- some of those speeches, conversations, etc. are _very_ theatrical, and no one in their right mind would really talk that way. I'm not going to say that JMS's dialogue in the course of the show was at the level of what [i]Deadwood[/i] had -- I'm just saying that artificiality and theatricality aren't necessarily bad things.

I kind of wonder at the humor on a show like [i]Jeremiah[/i] (which I've never seen) and whether JMS's approaches to conversation and humor were on the same order there. In comics, at least, JMS is a rather dialogue-heavy writer, again with great speeches, but he's certainly no Mamet when it comes to the back-and-forth of firey repartee.

[williamjm]

[quote name='Ran' post='1661965' date='Jan 25 2009, 20.24']I kind of wonder at the humor on a show like [i]Jeremiah[/i] (which I've never seen) and whether JMS's approaches to conversation and humor were on the same order there.[/quote]

The dialogue on Jeremiah was similar to B5. Some good dialogue mixed with some clunky attempts at ordinary conversation. Like B5 the humour is pretty hit-and-miss, sometimes JMS' scripts can be amusing, sometimes the humour just fails to work completely. Jeremiah was also better at the story arc episodes than the stand-alone episodes, again like B5.

[davos]

[quote]Yeah what G'kar says. Normal shows don't have to sink so much of their budget into makeup and special effects. Cuts have to be made somewhere. In B5 it happened to be acting talent (or graphics at some points) but still with that they got some good actors in there. I believe I remember hearing on one of the B5 casts that they had around half the budget that DS9 did. It's amazing they did so well with the limited resources they had.[/quote]

It wasn't just the budget either. At the time it would have been hard to get good acting talent, at least that which had much of a resume to back it up, to sign on to such a project. Outside of star trek at the time TV Sci Fi was a bad joke. Trying to hook an actor that had a career they wanted to keep viable to sign onto a sci-fi project that seemed like a bad rip off of DS9 and was focused around a 5 year story arc, something that was unheard of for network TV at the time, would have been paramount to asking people to commit career suicide. To most people observers the project stood small chance of seeing a second season and odds of actually completing the story arc that approaching 0. Not exactly a hard decision to make for good actors with reasonable career prospects to make. The fact that it managed to land both andreas katsulas and Peter Jurasik as well as Bruce Boxleitner for season 2 and beyond (who might not be a top notch actor but who had some decent work to his name going in and who's slightly over-the-top style worked well with JSM's style of writing).

[quote]Is the bad acting really just down to budget, or JMS's weird melodramatic style of dialogue, and his expectation of how it should be read? Reading his views on the early episodes as they aired, he still seemed basically 100% happy with all his regulars and guest stars. In terms of overall story arc JMS might be second-to-none, but Babylon V's dialogue is for the most part just appalling - the humour, the small chat, the big meaningful speeches, everything.[/quote]

There is also some outstanding acting in the series. Jurasik's and Katsulas both turned in outstanding, nuanced preformances throughout the series that was not often inhibited by JSM's dialog. They made it work, frequently in spectacular fashion. Walter Koenig's turn as Bester, which seem originally like a stunt to pull in trek viewers, turned out to be a great fit for the actor, proving he had considerable range and depth, something not previously hinted at. Most other cast members turned in solid, if not great work. The fact is that many of the speeches were great and much of the writing was very good, if stylized. Its certainly not just the big speaches that worked. I recall some of the conversations between Londo and G'Kar or Londo and Giribaldi that were not momumental occasions but were well written and well acted. There are cringe worthy moments during the series, obviously, but it stood on far more than just an outstanding storyarc.