Yeah, I'm bored.

[dr_nebula]

In Lieu of *real* content..

What is the best 'space opera' series? About a week and a half ago, I started watching the entire Babylon 5 series beginning with year 1. Unlike the other years, I've never seen *all* of the episodes so there were a few minor 'surprises' and revelations that I haven't seen before. IMHO, Sinclair was a much better

Comments

[unixronin]

I agree Sinclair was never allowed to develop to his full potential. (Basically because the network execs got cold feet - he was too cerebral for them; they didn't understand the character.) Sheridan stepped up to the plate magnificently, though, and I think Sheridan/Boxleitner pulled off some of the later arc developments better than Sinclair/O'Hare would have. O'Hare's Sinclair was almost ideal as the enigmatic later-to-be-messianic figure, but he really didn't do "military commander" well. I honestly think it was better in the end that the succession of command went as it did. From season 2 on, Babylon 5 didn't need an enigmatic diplomat-with-a-mysterious-past in command, it needed a hard-nosed no-quarter-given-nor-asked brawler, and that's what Boxleitner brought to the table as Sheridan.

I find it hard to get a good grasp of any of the TNG characters, because the format of the series almost forced the characters to be shallow through the near-absence of any continuing storylines of any depth. Oh, there were a few backplots that periodically got exhumed and revisited as a time-filler, but in general, the moment each episode ended, they hit the reset-universe button. IMHO, Roddenberry's original diktat that each episode must stand on its own, without referencing any other, was a major mistake that crippled SF on TV for decades.

[dr_nebula]

Yeah, I agree on Sinclair - he wasn't as good a military commander as Sheridan needed after season 2. Still, I think he was phased out too abruptly in the series.

As for a Messianic figure - it was interesting to see DS9's Sisko evolve into that same sort of character. They used to accuse B5 as a ripoff of DS9 - but after awhile it really was the other way around.

[skellington]

B5 was pitched as a star trek series, I've heard. Let's not go there. :-)

And I think, but I'm not sure, that the actor who played Sinclair had health issues of some kind. We saw him at one of the DragonCon's while B5 was still going, and he didn't look well.

And I wouldn't put them as best (although I haven't watched them all), but you left off BSG, Stargate, Dr. Who, Lex... What else am I missing?

(Space 1999, the original BSG, Blake 7...)

[dr_nebula]

Yeah, the new BSG probably should be in that list. But since I don't have cable (I watch the DVD's when they do come out) - I forgot to include it.

As for Stargate series - I don't think of it as the same sort of 'space opera' as the others (though it obviously has alien worlds -etc).

[unixronin]

The accusations of B5 being a ripoff of DS9 have always amused me, considering that the boot is exactly and precisely on the other foot.

J. Michael Straczynski, operating on the not unreasonable expectation that since Paramount operated Star Trek, they might be open to operating another space-SF series, actually took his Babylon 5 concept and pilot to Paramount before he took it to Warner Bros and the eventual PTEN. Paramount pretty much told him in no uncertain terms that so far as they were concerned, space-SF on TV meant Star Trek and nothing else, and they didn't want anything to "dilute the Star Trek brand". Nevertheless, they asked Straczynski to leave the copy of the proposal with them, which he did. At that time, all the buzz in the industry was that the successor to ST:TNG would be a series about the crew of a Federation starship that was accidentally transported through a black hole to a distant quadrant of the galaxy, and their subsequent adventures on their quest to return home.
(Does that sound ... kinda familiar? Like, is this describing ST:Voyager, the series after DS9, or what?)

After Straczynski left to go talk to TNT and Warner, that B5 proposal "somehow" found its way into the hands of Star Trek's writers, where the serial numbers got filed off, Voyager got suddenly back-burnered, and Paramount threw together DS9 in a rush effort that managed to actually beat the Babylon 5 pilot to air by about six weeks (Deep Space 9: Emissary aired January 3, 1993, while Babylon 5: The Gathering aired February 22). All the Star Trek fanboys promptly set up a clamor insisting that Babylon 5 was a rip-off of Deep Space 9. After the extent of the conceptual copying became clear, Warner Bros sued Paramount.

Eventually, some time around 1996 if memory serves, Paramount finally responded to the ongoing legal action from Warner Brothers by admitting that Deep Space 9 had been "influenced" by the Babylon 5 proposal, "material from which" had "inadvertently" found its way into the hands of "members of the Star Trek creative team", and paid Warner Brothers a large, but undisclosed, settlement. The Star Trek fanboys still won't admit that it was their show which was the conceptual thief.