B5's first season

[eruthros]

So here is the thing about Babylon 5: because of the kind of show it is, almost every episode contains at least five-ten minutes relevant to the arc, or crucial to characters. (Take, for example, Infection: mostly crap, with ten excellent minutes at the end. Or TKO: Soooo awful! Except the Ivanova scenes, which are great.)

So if you've got a friend who is going to watch B5, and who wants the arc, but is morally opposed to fast forwarding through the shitty parts (me: "no! honest! really! skip EVERY SCENE of Infection until the basic plot seems to be over! you can!"), what you have to do instead is instruct said friend to, you know, do some reading during the episode. Therefore:



[Poll #1004434]

Comments

[eruthros]

I try very hard!

Part of this is -- B5 is a really, really hard show to hook people on after the fact. There's too much arc, and the acting in the first season is so so wooden. There are many different strategies, most of them involving starting people at the end of season two or mid season three, but then you don't get the awesome, awesome arc coming to fruition! So you're all "you should watch it from the beginning!" except then people give up. So you can't win! And it makes you defensive. And sad.

[umbo.livejournal.com]

I think the answer really is, start with season 2, and explain some of the important stuff what's happened before. Then, later, when she's hooked, she can go back and watch season 1.

[graycastle.livejournal.com]

for serious, when it comes to scifi, I am willing to cut a lot of slack and give 'em a lot of time to grow into their show. And plus, I'm really, really easy to hook on a show, in general. I believe you that it will get better! I've watched plenty of bad scifi in my time - I used to have the space channel, which had a lot of canadian-made scifi shows, which doesn't mean they were BAD scifi shows or anything, but...uh...they were. plus, I made it through the first season of SGA! and most of the first season of SG1! so, anyhow, don't worry. I promise I will give it till the end of season three at least. *shakes on it*