If you somehow missed the Babylon 5 rumpus that's been taking place around here for the past week, fear not: all the links can be found right exactly here. Last Friday, I did an overview of the show. Monday was the show's best characters, Tuesday was its worst, Wednesday was its best aspects and Thursday and Friday covered its worst aspects. Today, we wrap up the whole thing.
It occurred to me while I was writing the 'worst things' posts that I might be grading Babylon 5 on an unfair metric. Comparing B5 to the three best sci-fi shows of the 2000s--Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who and Firefly) inevitably puts it at a disadvantage, and there are all kinds of mitigating circumstances relating to why it stinks at times. Its first four seasons aired on a network (PTEN) that was relatively unknown and probably doomed from its inception, its budget was poor, it was in an era of TV sci-fi that didn't have all that many standout shows, and so on. The best sci-fi shows of the 2000s benefited from ample budgets, well-known networks and better actors than B5 could muster.
I'm not so sure that's an excuse, though. Less than two decades after its release, Babylon 5 looks extremely dated. The bad CGI, the heavily made-up cast contribute to it and the pre-HD cameras contribute to it, but there's a certain look to the footage, sets and in the directing that just stamps the show as old-fashioned. (The camera basically remains at shoulder height for the entire series.) It gained a large cult following and is remembered fondly by many sci-fi fans, but against sleeker, more modern shows it just doesn't measure up.
Ultimately, it's hard to pin the show's faults on J. Michael Straczynski or on extenuating circumstances. The actors are wooden, the directing is ordinary and the dialogue is poor: is that Straczynski's fault, or was it the fault of the era? It's hard to prove one way or the other. Ultimately, though, the only real criteria upon which I can evaluate Babylon 5 is how it looks to me, a fan of sci-fi that came of age in the 2000s.
Viewed purely on its own merits, then, Babylon 5 falls short in most ways. As I've been saying throughout this weeklong review, the show is consistently mediocre. Straczynski often likened his creation to a novel, but it's not an exciting one if that's the case. Bad writing, a lot of bad acting, bad casting, bad set design and stories that took forever to tell drag this show down, and good acting, some good universe-building and a pair of good seasons resuscitate it. I think some of the show's appeal originally lay in its serialization and consistent mediocrity: you could turn on the TV every week and know what you were getting. It wasn't going to be more than occasionally good, but it wasn't going to be horribly bad either, perhaps because there was so little at stake.
If you're a fan of the shows I mentioned at the start of this post, Babylon 5 is probably not for you. It's not remotely in their league. If your standards are lower or you're a fan of '90s sci-fi, then give it a try.
More Or Less Arbitrary Grading Scale
Acting: B-
Set Design: D
Character Development: A-
CGI: D-
Average Episode Quality Relative to Itself: C
Imagination: B
Writing: D+
Universe-Building: A-
Good Villains: C- (good in seasons 2 and 3, terrible in 4 and 5)
Good Heroes: D-
Good Characters Who Are Both: A
Series Ending: F
Arc Continuity: A
Character Continuity: D+
OVERALL SERIES GRADE: C-
4 comments:
Well, I thought your reviews were terrible enough that I'm going to comment on them. I don't have a blogspot account so I'll have to do so anonymously, but suffice to say I'm not just a dissatisfied fan of Babylon 5. I've seen the show and I liked it much more than you did, but I also recognize where other shows like Firefly and BSG were far superior to it in many places.
But yeah, your critiques were so bad that I really can't just stay silent and let you dissuade potential viewers because you failed to recognize the point of the series whatsoever.
Dear Anonymous,
Hi! Welcome to my site. Since by your comments, you're apparently going to be a permanent fixture around here, it's good to have you on board.
I'm sorry you didn't like my weeklong review of Babylon 5. I do, however, appreciate your extraordinary restraint in both language and claims in describing my utter stupidity. The comment about my 'masturbatory fantasies' with regards to Firefly and BSG was particularly, how shall I say, cultured. You certainly have a way with the English language that I have yet to even dream of.
Anyway, I was originally going to reply to each of your comments and give you the kind of good, thoughtful, cogent answers you seem to so heartily desire, but then I remembered the first rule of the Internet: 'Don't feed the trolls'.
I do think we have legitimate philosophical differences about how we approach the process of evaluating a TV show, the role of the writers' intentions vs. the importance of the finished product, the importance of providing context for the show, whether subjectivity exists and so forth. I'd be interested in exploring those sometime. For now, though, this is as much food as this particular troll shall receive. Hope it's tasty.
Take care,
Andy
Well! I'm unfortunately going to inform you that I am probably not a permanent presence on your blog, as you may have noticed by the gulf in-between your response and this one. A response which I wasn't expecting at all, I'll add!
I'm actually only replying because I wanted to make it clear that a lot of the vitriol in my comments was deliberately overwrought, though I gather that probably wasn't very apparent on a medium like the Internet.
I also don't remember what most of my points were beneath the thick lacquer of swearing, insults and internet tough guy posturing, and you've (understandably) deleted most of those posts. I also wanted to reaffirm that I am in fact not a raveous Babylon 5 fanboy who froths at the mouth at the mere hint of a view contrary to my own.
Hopefully this comment doesn't make it seem like I'm apologetic, because I'm not, though in hindsight I wish I'd made insulting you my secondary goal and pointing out what I saw as genuine flaws in your evaluation the foremost one.
If you're interested in having a debate, though, I'm fully willing to do that. Maybe I've misjudged myself and I will end up sticking around to comment on your blog, but only time will tell.
Sincerely,
the no longer Anonymous
Hey Jake,
I'm glad to hear that. I did kind of figure something of the kind. You came off more as someone who felt their show had been honestly wronged than an out-and-out troll, so I'm glad to see this as a response.
For the record, though, I really don't think I was being anti-Babylon 5. I don't hate the show at all. It was recommended to me by a friend who kind of billed it as one of the great sci-fi shows there are, up there with Battlestar, Who, Stargate etc, which probably colored my (slightly disappointed) reaction to it. For whatever reason, I decided to make it a project and spent the next three months going through the show (in days of yore when I had time to update this blog consistently).
There was one thing you said that I do remember, though, and that I tried to take into account in my posts; it isn't fair to compare B5 to modern, sleeker shows, but that was and remains my only benchmark or mode of comparison, since I'm otherwise ignorant of 1990s TV sci-fi. It never crossed my mind to evaluate B5 as a stand-alone; that's not generally how I do evaluations. So maybe you did end up pointing out at least one (probably more than one) genuine flaw in my methods.
As for permanent presences, you're welcome to stick around or not as you like. I'll try to be prompt in responding to your comments, and maybe some legitimate good conversation can come out of an Internet dispute. (By the way, I would've gotten back to you sooner after your first comments, but I was out of Internet access when they came in.)
Cheers,
Andy
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