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Seeking Opinions about Babylon 5 and Andromeda
djf021
Member Posts: 1,382 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Hello everyone,
I never got a chance to watch Babylon 5 or Andromeda. Now, thanks to HBO Max and Amazon Prime video, I can.
While I have no doubt Star Trek is better of course, what are your opinions on these two?
Worth it?
I never got a chance to watch Babylon 5 or Andromeda. Now, thanks to HBO Max and Amazon Prime video, I can.
While I have no doubt Star Trek is better of course, what are your opinions on these two?
Worth it?
Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there... you can make a difference.
-Captain James T. Kirk
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Comments
Babylon5 is the better of the two I think, it was one of the very early examples of a series using a comprehensive story arc while still being episodic, and is still the gold standard for that format. You might have to give it a few episodes because there is so much going on that it takes a bit to get all the groundwork in, and it may seem a bit random early on but stick with it and it all comes together soon enough.
Andromeda is the other way around, it is best at the start but gets rather rocky later on because high writer turnover and other behind the scenes problems caused a lot of plotline thrashing so the story quality is erratic and it keeps retconning itself near the end. It's good enough that even those problems do not drag it down too far to be watchable.
I'm not saying it was THE first to make heavy use of CG. I kinda wanna say that honor may go to seaQuest.
Andromeda... personally I would say ignore the existance of Season 5 entirely. That whole season just made NO sense whatsoever.
Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there... you can make a difference.
-Captain James T. Kirk
B5, though, is worth it all the way through, and according to Joe Stracynski the newly-released version did the CGI effects much better than the DVD. (Had to do with rights, and the fact that somebody's ego at the old network is heavily involved. Probably won't get a truly remastered version until whoever was offended by it finally dies or quits.)
1. Babylon 5
2. Farscape
3. Andromeda
No scene in any other Science Fiction series comes close to this.
Personally I would set Firefly and Earth Final Conflict before Andromeda.
Last one hit the wall too, but not as hard in my opinion.
Maybe even Lexx, but that one was hard to swallow sometimes.
And don't get me started about Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 and 2202. Those had something.
But when talking about Babylon 5 I always have to think about one of later the movies, that was a prequel to the series.
Mostly spoiler free.
> If you have Amazon Prime, then Farscape is another good option. Overall, I would rank them:
>
> 1. Babylon 5
> 2. Farscape
> 3. Andromeda
>
> No scene in any other Science Fiction series comes close to this.
>
>
As I recall that did eventually happen
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Which is what makes it so much better.
Andromeda ... eh, what I watched of Hercules in SPAAACE was OK but I never finished it.
Farscape started out decent and got weird but great as it went on.
We don't talk about season 5.
Andromeda was a more action-oriented show than Star Trek or Babylon 5, but it also had some really cool world-building and little fun details. Unfortunately, the main actor wanted it to be more Hercelus in space than what the lead writer wanted, which lead to him being forced out (or leaving?). My favorite character on the show, Tyr Anasazi, was also getting sidelined. Really a shame we didn't get to see Keith Hamilton Cobb more in genre TV shows or movies. I think he had at least the potential to be a Jason Momoa a decade or two earlier than Momoa. But hey, if he enjoys theater work more, more power to him.
Like Farscape, one of the characters in the show had to take a seat back because the actor started getting health problem from the prosthetics. Another real shame, but the loss in writing quality is what really caused the show to decline.