Favorite B5 season

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JamesStaley
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Favorite B5 season

Post by JamesStaley »

My favorite B5 season is #3, which is leading up to the Shadow War and then the war with Earth. My favorite season three episode is "Severed Dreams", because it represents humanity divided in a civil war, and because it clearly shows the resulting deaths and consequences of war and battle. It deals with the reality that people die in war and battle, and B5 was not afraid to show it.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by SpottedKitty »

Mostly agree, but I'd put the whole "secession trilogy" as essentially a single episode in three parts. "Severed Dreams" is a highlight of the story, but IMHO it can't really be taken on its own apart from the other two parts.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Crazedwraith »

I'm very tempted to say S1 just the see the sparks fly.

I actually like Sinclair and build up is often, more interesting to watch than the resolution.

Sheridan was.. I don't know, a bit dull? Like the show was trying to hard to make me like him and think he was great. The only people allowed to critise him are the baddies and obviously wrong people.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Borgholio »

I'd have to say either Season 3 or 4. I liked the wide-scale politics of the whole Shadow War and Earth's civil war. Plus I'm a sucker for large space battles. I did not like season 5 very much. The whole tone and feel of it is different from the rest of the series. It almost feels tacked on as an afterthought when they realized they'd get a 5th season afterall.
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Lord Revan
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Lord Revan »

Borgholio wrote:I'd have to say either Season 3 or 4. I liked the wide-scale politics of the whole Shadow War and Earth's civil war. Plus I'm a sucker for large space battles. I did not like season 5 very much. The whole tone and feel of it is different from the rest of the series. It almost feels tacked on as an afterthought when they realized they'd get a 5th season afterall.
well it's not even feeling that's exactly what the 5th season was. As for favorite season I'd also have say 3 or 4 as they were the pay off for the build up in the first 2 seasons.
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SpottedKitty
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by SpottedKitty »

Borgholio wrote:It almost feels tacked on as an afterthought when they realized they'd get a 5th season afterall.
I think it was — the story I read way back when I was still following the B5 newsgroups (yes, Usenet, and during the original broadcasts, it was that long ago) was that the s4-5 story arc was compressed to fit into one season. This was when the Great Maker himself still occasionally posted, so I think he would have said something if that had been inaccurate.

Not sure how much of a rush job the new s5 arc turned out to be once the dust settled and they found they actually had a s5 after all...
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Borgholio »

Well yeah that's what I meant. :) It actually WAS tacked on because they really weren't sure they'd get a 5th Season. The way the last episodes of S4 were made, it was pretty much the close of the series right there. S5 should have been done as an epilogue instead of essentially a series of new adventures.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by mr friendly guy »

Season 3 and 4. Spaceabattles galore, plus the build up and resolution to the Shadow war and also ending Clarke's regime on Earth.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Highlord Laan »

Season 3 for me as well, though I also really enjoyed season 1. I've often wondered how everything would have gone with the level-headed Sinclair and his unshakable professionalism had remained in control of B5 instead of Sheriden. Have the firebrand show up as the commanding officer of an EA fleet component of a B5 multi-racial protection detail or something.

Series would have probably ended up with some political thriller mixed in.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Darth Holbytlan »

SpottedKitty wrote:
Borgholio wrote:It almost feels tacked on as an afterthought when they realized they'd get a 5th season afterall.
I think it was — the story I read way back when I was still following the B5 newsgroups (yes, Usenet, and during the original broadcasts, it was that long ago) was that the s4-5 story arc was compressed to fit into one season. This was when the Great Maker himself still occasionally posted, so I think he would have said something if that had been inaccurate.
That isn't quite accurate. Straczynski has always said that the events in season 5 were always planned, but there were changes in timing—a part of the season 5 arc was moved to the end of season 4. Specifically, everything after Sheridan's interrogation episode ("Intersections in Real Time") was supposed to be part of season 5.

Season 5 was also originally supposed to have Ivanova take over as commander of B5, with her getting in a relationship with Byron instead of Lyta, although Lyta would have still have been inspired by Byron to become a revolutionary when things went south. (Cite)

Season 5 would have had some extra material and stretched out the planned story, given the extra room that was left by the shuffling, but I have no doubt that the core fall of Centauri Prime arc would still have happened, as would the (ugh) Byron arc.

Personally, I'm split between seasons 2 and 3, although I think I give season 3 an edge, all considered. Season 5 is my least favorite.
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Re: Least Favorite B5 episode

Post by JamesStaley »

Okay, a change in direction. What is your LEAST FAVORITE/LIKED episode of the series? Without a doubt, for me it had to be "Gray 17 is Missing". I had no problem with the basic idea that there was a "phantom" deck that had gone missing because of rushed construction and missing blueprints & data or good-old-fashioned human error:, no, what I couldn't stand was that crappy attempt at a scary monster, the Zarg! Shades of a 1950's B-grade horror movie with a man in a cheap (crappy) monster suit!! And I'm REALLY supposed to believe that this nasty thing somehow got smuggled onto the station (past security) and has been living down there all this time without anybody knowing about it? (What has it been living on?).
Every series sooner or later has some stinkers, but this is the one that really made me hold my nose! :(
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Re: Least Favorite B5 episode

Post by SpottedKitty »

JamesStaley wrote:Okay, a change in direction. What is your LEAST FAVORITE/LIKED episode of the series?
Haven't rewatched it for a while, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but the boxing episode has to be a pretty good contender.
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Re: Least Favorite B5 episode

Post by Bedlam »

JamesStaley wrote:Okay, a change in direction. What is your LEAST FAVORITE/LIKED episode of the series? Without a doubt, for me it had to be "Gray 17 is Missing". I had no problem with the basic idea that there was a "phantom" deck that had gone missing because of rushed construction and missing blueprints & data or good-old-fashioned human error:, no, what I couldn't stand was that crappy attempt at a scary monster, the Zarg! Shades of a 1950's B-grade horror movie with a man in a cheap (crappy) monster suit!! And I'm REALLY supposed to believe that this nasty thing somehow got smuggled onto the station (past security) and has been living down there all this time without anybody knowing about it? (What has it been living on?).
Every series sooner or later has some stinkers, but this is the one that really made me hold my nose! :(
The thing about that episode is that yes the grey 17 plot was bad, very very bad. But there were other plots quite good in the same episode Delen was getting made official leader of the rangers and the warrior caste objected resulting in Marcus challenging one of their leaders to a fight in which he got beaten into a pulp but wouldn't give up resulting in the leader realising that the rangers would die for Delen but not him so he dropped his objections. However the other plots tend to get buried under the whole grey 17 thing.
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Re: least Favorite B5 episode

Post by JamesStaley »

"TKO" was not SPECTACULAR story writing, but I liked it because it was kind of a break from the on-going storyline, and you really don't see a lot of sports storylines in Sci-fi/fantasy. I did like the way the fight ended in a draw, with neither side clearly the winner, with BOTH OF THEM beating the crap out of each other until they were too exhausted & beat up to continue. (And what fun two guys have beating the crap out of each other I will NEVER understand!).
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by TrekkieJeff2000 »

Season 4 was by far my favorite as you really saw the Shadow War get kicked into high gear followed by the civil war with Earth.

On another note, the last episodes of season 5 (the final episodes of the series)were originally made for season 4, but when they found out they could have a season 5 he held them until the end of 5? I don't remember so well right now but I thought I had read that at one time.
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Re: Favorite B5 season

Post by Crazedwraith »

TrekkieJeff2000 wrote:Season 4 was by far my favorite as you really saw the Shadow War get kicked into high gear followed by the civil war with Earth.

On another note, the last episodes of season 5 (the final episodes of the series)were originally made for season 4, but when they found out they could have a season 5 he held them until the end of 5? I don't remember so well right now but I thought I had read that at one time.

The very last episode of Season 5 was created for season 4 and held back for season 5.

The plot of the last episodes of season 4 was supposed to be at the start of season 5 but truncated when they thought they weren't going to get a season 5. Which left them with a lack of plot when they actually did get season 5.
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