Babylon 5

[Durckad]

What do people always complain about in B5? They complain about 5-6 episodes in the first half of season 5 and about 5-6 episodes scattered throughout season 1. Starting from about episode 18 or so of season 1 through the final episode of season 4 was a great run of episodes that had maybe 3-4 crummy ones in there (the hilarious Grey 17 being one of them). That is what DS9 could never match and never was able to.

Meh, most of Season 1 was pretty crap. I'd count, at most, three episodes out of that season that I would watch of my own volition. Everything else was bad.

I think too many people remember Sacrifice of Angels and especially In the Pale Moonlight and forgot just how boring and tedious many episodes were. B5 worked because it through its 3 years of greatness it rarely let up and even when they had stories that got away from the main arc the B or C story was tied to it.

That's quite probably true, though I think people over exaggerate about DS9 sometimes. Perhaps I give DS9 much more leeway because the truly horrid episodes are spread throughout the series, while they're fairly concentrated in big clumps in B5. I dunno, I'd have to watch both of them again and I'm not sure I want to make that time commitment right now.

[drawkcabi]

I love DS9 and B5 about equally but I can't compare the series by quality of individual episodes I love each series as a whole. I'm also more generous with what are called the bad episodes. With B5, when I do a rewatch I enjoy just about every episode of S1, only the pilot and "Infection" are episodes I'd really prefer skipping. I'm not saying the other episodes are great like most of seasons 2-4 but I find something enjoyable in watching them, even episodes like "TKO". Same thing with "Grey 17", it's dumb but I find it interesting enough that I don't want to skip it. I don't have any trouble with episodes again until the Byron arc in S5.

With DS9, it's the same thing almost with a couple episodes that bore me to tears in the first season, "Battle Lines" and "Progress". But also one of my favorite episodes of the series is in S1, "Duet". The other episodes while barely mediocre to mediocre I still find enjoyment in. Then past S2 just about every episode I can find something interesting about, but there are a lot of mediocre episodes with the great ones eing few in between until the Dominion war heats up.

Also, I don't mind the holosuite episodes, I rather enjoy them, and I loved the character of Vic Fontaine but that may have more to do with my affection for "The Rat Pack" era of Vegas.

[Durckad]

Also, I don't mind the holosuite episodes, I rather enjoy them, and I loved the character of Vic Fontaine but that may have more to do with my affection for "The Rat Pack" era of Vegas.

The holosuite episodes are really not that bad, mainly because they don't rely on the Voyager and tNG type of Holodeck (oh noez, the holodek has gone haywire!!111 zomg!!!). Even 'Our Man Bashir' is pretty good because everyone gets to ham it up and it plays with the cliche a bit.

[oneeye]

I wish I could expunge all holodeck episodes from my brain forcefully.

[red snow]

I wish I could expunge all holodeck episodes from my brain forcefully.

I'm with you on that one. I can see how some people like to see the actors have a bit of fun but i just couldn't see the point and they annoyed the hell out of me. The only saving grace for them was how a friend of mine said that at least in the future; health and safety hasn't gone mad and learned to chill out a bit. Whenever i happen upon trek re-runs I'll usually watch them but not if it features a holodeck. It's what made me groan with the Caprica pilot when it was revealed they have the equivalent of holodrecks. No more!

The season 1 B5 naysayers really need to watch it again (fair enough if you have) as it's really good when you discover that most of the season is merely setting the stage for events and character arcs to come. It has the shadows, Ivanova's secret, what may become of Sinclair - the vorlorns in mythology. Even if some of the things weren't set in stone, there was enough wiggle room for it still to work and it makes for interesting viewing. Granted, this doesn't absolve season one of being pretty shoddy for first time viewers.

That said I have never completed a complete rewatch of DS9, the fact I can't be bothered suggests to me how I feel about the show overall. I will say that i think it was the best of the Trek shows overall though and it can be commended for getting pretty much better every season. Maybe i should keep an eye out for box set xmas sales...

[JungianQueen]

I love DS9 and B5 about equally but I can't compare the series by quality of individual episodes I love each series as a whole. I'm also more generous with what are called the bad episodes. With B5, when I do a rewatch I enjoy just about every episode of S1, only the pilot and "Infection" are episodes I'd really prefer skipping. I'm not saying the other episodes are great like most of seasons 2-4 but I find something enjoyable in watching them, even episodes like "TKO". Same thing with "Grey 17", it's dumb but I find it interesting enough that I don't want to skip it. I don't have any trouble with episodes again until the Byron arc in S5.

With DS9, it's the same thing almost with a couple episodes that bore me to tears in the first season, "Battle Lines" and "Progress". But also one of my favorite episodes of the series is in S1, "Duet". The other episodes while barely mediocre to mediocre I still find enjoyment in. Then past S2 just about every episode I can find something interesting about, but there are a lot of mediocre episodes with the great ones eing few in between until the Dominion war heats up.

Also, I don't mind the holosuite episodes, I rather enjoy them, and I loved the character of Vic Fontaine but that may have more to do with my affection for "The Rat Pack" era of Vegas.

Ya know, it wasn't necessarily Byron for me that was annoying, it was his creepy telepath posse. They ere all unnecessarily strange and unwatchable. I didn't mind him so much personally.

[JungianQueen]

The season 1 B5 naysayers really need to watch it again (fair enough if you have) as it's really good when you discover that most of the season is merely setting the stage for events and character arcs to come. It has the shadows, Ivanova's secret, what may become of Sinclair - the vorlons in mythology. Even if some of the things weren't set in stone, there was enough wiggle room for it still to work and it makes for interesting viewing. Granted, this doesn't absolve season one of being pretty shoddy for first time viewers.

That said I have never completed a complete rewatch of DS9, the fact I can't be bothered suggests to me how I feel about the show overall. I will say that i think it was the best of the Trek shows overall though and it can be commended for getting pretty much better every season. Maybe i should keep an eye out for box set xmas sales...

Yeah, it's amazing how much is planted in season 1 and you aren't even aware. The pilot has a rather shocking revelation when Kosh meets Sinclair for the first time and says...

Spoiler

Entilzah Valen

Though, I seem to recall that it was added in after the first run of the pilot. Still, pretty cool if you ask me. :) Even some of the less than interesting episodes in season 1 (i.e. Franklin's first episode and the one where some smugglers bring in some ancient, organic technology) whispers "Shadow" and such to me. When I finished watching the entire series and went back to season 1, I was absolutely blown away at all the little things I missed the first time. And, I'm not sure they were meant to be "picked up on" as you went, but rather just helped build this unconscious "mood" or such.

[Ran]

For all its numerous flaws, "Infection" was basically the first hint of the Shadows. This alien race created these biorganic super-soldiers to defend them from ... something ... 1000 years ago? Oh-ho.

[williamjm]

I wish I could expunge all holodeck episodes from my brain forcefully.

I'm struggling to think of a good holodeck episode in any of the Star Trek series, none is springing to mind. It was also a very lazy way to avoid having to do a proper plot most of the time.

[Werthead]

I would disagree about DS9 being consistently above. What do people always complain about in B5? They complain about 5-6 episodes in the first half of season 5 and about 5-6 episodes scattered throughout season 1. Starting from about episode 18 or so of season 1 through the final episode of season 4 was a great run of episodes that had maybe 3-4 crummy ones in there (the hilarious Grey 17 being one of them). That is what DS9 could never match and never was able to.

There's also the production values (which B5 overcame, but from time to time were still painfully cheap), the dialogue (JMS could give certain characters fantastic speeches, but actual, realistic, decent dialogue was often beyond him) and the humour (JMS' sense of humour is absolutely fecking terrible), which were problems throughout. Not major problems, granted, but still things that came up and caused issues.

In addition, the pacing of Season 4, whilst necessary due to the fear of cancellation, feels artificially accelerated compared to S1-S3. Plot compression also means that some elements that needed better explanation were skipped over. The Minbari Civil War (a major casualty of the compression) felt a bit short and contrived given its build-up, and the way the various races were suddenly able to field a 10,000-ship fleet in Into the Fire simply because Sheridan simply gave a big speech was, to put it mildly, pure bullshit. With more breathing space, I'm sure JMS could have come up with a better rationale for the situation, but he had no time and had to get the story concluded ASAP, so fair enough.

There is no really forgiving, "Get the HELL out of our Galaxy!" and the Shadows' shamefaced-kiddy, contrite, "You will come with us?" to Lorien. The ending of the Shadow War arc worked very well on a philosophical basis but the actual execution was eye-wateringly bad.

I think too many people remember Sacrifice of Angels and especially In the Pale Moonlight and forgot just how boring and tedious many episodes were. B5 worked because it through its 3 years of greatness it rarely let up and even when they had stories that got away from the main arc the B or C story was tied to it.

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that I watched the whole series less than two years ago, including all of those minor episodes. I'm not basing opinions on 'remembering' anything.

Though, I seem to recall that it was added in after the first run of the pilot. Still, pretty cool if you ask me.

That was a retcon added after Season 4 aired. A stupid retcon, because it gives away the ending of Sinclair's story arc the second you realise what "Entil'Zha," means in the series itself (particularly if you are reading the books or comics alongside the series, as 'Entil'Zha' originated and was first used in them long before it was used on TV). Also, that plot point was not planned at that time: Sinclair's fate was originally very different, and only changed to the one in War Without End after Michael O'Hare left the series (because of one line in Legacies that kept making JMS go, "Hmm, interesting,").

DS9 tended to be all one or all the other.

Not so much. From fairly early on they start mentioning ongoing story elements as conversation pieces in episodes. This happened a lot earlier than I remembered, starting about halfway through Season 1 with ruminations on the election of a new Kai almost immediately after Opaka's departure in Battle Lines and continuing through to the election, or several intelligence reports on the Cardassians doing something weird in a distant star system in several episodes before it's revealed that that's where the Obsidian Order fleet is massing to attack the Dominion homeworld. Quite a few stand-alones have some mention of one ongoing story arc or another in them.

[Arakasi]

Sure the end of it was a bit silly. But equally as silly was how the Defiant was the only ship able to get through the fleet in Sacrifice to get to the wormhole, where with a massive DEM they wiped out the second Dominion fleet. If we want to compare which ending was more silly, I'd say DS9 takes the cake.

Interesting on the change to the pilot though. I've only seen the original pilot, so never saw that edit. Pretty silly.

As for the point on story A/B/C and such, still I'd disagree. A throw away line about something is much different from having 10-15% of an episode put towards a side story. Many bad B5 episodes were saved that way (like Neroon/Marcus saving Grey 17). When ST episodes do stuff they just don't really do A/B/C plotlines. They go all the way for one character and its arc, leaving only really the intro before the plot element shows up that then dominates the whole show. Occasionally they have episodes where they split things, but its pretty rare.

[Durckad]

As for the point on story A/B/C and such, still I'd disagree. A throw away line about something is much different from having 10-15% of an episode put towards a side story. Many bad B5 episodes were saved that way (like Neroon/Marcus saving Grey 17). When ST episodes do stuff they just don't really do A/B/C plotlines. They go all the way for one character and its arc, leaving only really the intro before the plot element shows up that then dominates the whole show. Occasionally they have episodes where they split things, but its pretty rare.

Most (stand-alone) episodes are split with the A/B plotlines. Unlike B5, those plotlines are usually character-focused as opposed to arc/plot focused. The Arc-episodes in DS9 pretty much go all in on the one plot, however.

[Werthead]

Sure the end of it was a bit silly. But equally as silly was how the Defiant was the only ship able to get through the fleet in Sacrifice to get to the wormhole, where with a massive DEM they wiped out the second Dominion fleet. If we want to compare which ending was more silly, I'd say DS9 takes the cake.

That isn't silly, as it was explained as a tactical maneuver in the episode. Only the Defiant and four other ships made the run: two Miranda-class starships, which by this point is a 110-year-old design (it's the Reliant from ST2, basically), and two Birds-of-Prey, which have a tendency to blow up if you sneeze at them. They and the Defiant are the only ships fast enough to be able to run the breach. The Defiant - the experimental warship with the cutting-edge armour and shields that has survived battle with entire Dominion fleets by itself before this - being the only ship to get through is not surprising. If all 900-odd Federation and Klingon ships in the assault had made the run, then only the Defiant making it would have been stupid, I agree, but then the fleet would have been cut to ribbons by the Dominion ships whilst making the run, and then of course the Dominion fleet would have been free to pursue immediately.

The whole idea was that the main Federation and Klingon force would pin the Dominion in place and try to blast open a hole to allow the fastest ships (which unfortunately also tend to be the least-protected) to slip through the lines and make a run to DS9. That tactic was carried out successfully with an on-the-spot modification (the Cardassians closing the hole as a trap, but then being hit unexpectedly on the flanks by the Klingons).

Also, Sacrifice of Angels happened 47 episodes before the end of the Dominion War. It was one of the most important battles of the war and the climax of that story arc (the Dominion occupation of DS9) but it wasn't the conclusion of the entire Dominion War storyline in the same way that Into the Fire was for the Shadow War.

A more apt comparison in terms of importance for Sacrifice of Angels would be Severed Dreams, which is unquestionably superior ;)

[KatieG]

I'm struggling to think of a good holodeck episode in any of the Star Trek series, none is springing to mind. It was also a very lazy way to avoid having to do a proper plot most of the time.

The only one I can think of is Ship in a Bottle.

Spoiler for the episode:

When you realize that they are still on the holodeck was a "oh shit" moment the first time I saw it. OK, maybe it was predictable, but I missed it...

[Werthead]

I'm struggling to think of a good holodeck episode in any of the Star Trek series, none is springing to mind. It was also a very lazy way to avoid having to do a proper plot most of the time.

I was going to address this earlier but forgot. DS9 had a ban on 'holodeck going wrong' episodes for almost its entire duration. The holosuite could only be used if it wasn't going to malfunction and try to kill the crew every five minutes, and they favoured its depiction in the correct manner, for training or recreation purposes. The nearest exception is Dr. Bashir, I Presume? where the transporter malfunctions instead and they have to store the crew's patterns in the holosuite, and if Bashir tries to end the programme he'll kill everyone. Ira Steven Behr thought that was such a clever way to get around the limitation, he gave the episode the go-ahead.

This gave rise to Take Me Out to the Holosuite where the holosuite is working absolutely fine, it's just that within the programme Vic Fontaine is about to lose his business, so the crew agree to help him out. They're not in danger, the station isn't in danger, they just decide to help this holographic guy out inside the holosuite because he's given them some good advice in the past. It's oddball, but a fairly enjoyable episode. But then I liked Vic Fontaine as an old-school Time Tunnel fan from its constant repeats on Channel 4 in the 1980s ;) And, even much moreso than the telepath storyline in B5 Season 5, Fontaine isn't in or as critical to anywhere near as many episodes as people sometimes think.

[Bronn Stone]

And, even much moreso than the telepath storyline in B5 Season 5, Fontaine isn't in or as critical to anywhere near as many episodes as people sometimes think.

This is only a testament to just how much amazingly bad suckitude the character brought to the show at a time when it was otherwise near its peak. Vic Fontaine really is the birdshit sauce on top of a filet mignon.

[red snow]

This is only a testament to just how much amazingly bad suckitude the character brought to the show at a time when it was otherwise near its peak. Vic Fontaine really is the birdshit sauce on top of a filet mignon.

I managed to completely forget that Byron existed until I rewatched B5 this year. Vic Fontaine has always haunted my memory of DS9 though.

The example that Wert mentions leaves me thinking, "why should they give a shit?". It would be like dedicating an episode of Heroes where Hiro tries to finish the latest final fantasy game. At least B5 didn't really have a rule of "X many staple stand-alones per season" although I guess that's because they were never feeling secure about a 7 year run. If they had I'm sure we would have got similar things along the lines of episodes dedicated to Minbari patronising humans whilst carrying out their own ridiculous traditions or the Londo/G'Kar comedy hour. Thankfully these were always side plots to an episode and so couldn't become too annoying.

The irony is that a hologramm was the best thing about Voyager but that's because it existed in the real world and not in a simulation (basically a helpful Rimmer).

[oneeye]

So if Mimbari are vulcans, Centauri are Romulans and Narn are Klingons,

I think I like the non star trek ones better! Narn in particular.

[red snow]

So if Mimbari are vulcans, Centauri are Romulans and Narn are Klingons,

I think I like the non star trek ones better! Narn in particular.

I'd say the narns have more in common with the Bajorans. Centauri have a lot more in common with the alien race from Dune (can't rememner the name) especially in terms of their imperial decor.

[Jaxom 1974]

The only one I can think of is Ship in a Bottle.

Spoiler for the episode:

When you realize that they are still on the holodeck was a "oh shit" moment the first time I saw it. OK, maybe it was predictable, but I missed it...

Actually, the original Moriarty episode "Elementary, Dear Data" was going to be my first choice, but I was going to pair it with the follow up as well. The two together are one of the better holodeck stories.