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

[sineala.livejournal.com]

I think I cut up S1 a slightly different way: the arc eps you must see, the not so arc eps I personally enjoy, and everything else, most of which has some kind of B-plot that means you need to know later (e.g, Quality of Mercy).

I apparently wrote this up for someone once, and I concluded that the absolute non-skippable arc episodes were And the Sky Full of Stars, Signs and Portents, A Voice in the Wilderness, Babylon Squared, and Chrysalis.

I also have a soft spot for Mind War (I [heart] telepaths), but I don't think it counts as arc because the, um, super special powers foreshadowing didn't pay off due to cast changes and, um, the one with the sick kid -- Believers. Because "Believers" is all, we are not Trek, and it is awesome. And, yes, I like Deathwalker.

There's also a bunch of stuff I don't much like. I'm not sure one needs to watch Quality of Mercy, but everything you need to know gets reexplained later. I also really hate Soul Hunter, but I know it's important.

I started with the final five of S3 (well, when I was paying attention -- I watched most of S1 and the pilot and gave up). Another option might be to just start with "The Coming of Shadows," and catch up later. :)

[eruthros]

Well, that's more-or-less how I cut up season one, too. But I figured I could roll the first two categories together when I asked people how they felt about episodes. :)

I call Parliament of Dreams, And the Sky Full of Stars, Signs and Portents, Voice in the Wilderness I+II, B2, and Chrysalis the crucial arc episodes, with maybe some Midnight on the Firing Line.

But I quite enjoy War Prayer (because of the scene with Londo and Vir in the garden), Born to the Purple (which really is kinda arc-like, but has an incredibly long payoff), Survivors (despite the crap acting of the guest stars, because it sets up the ideas of the President and of Garibaldi), By Any Means Necessary (speaking of things Star Trek would never do), and maybe some other ones I'm not remembering right now.

And my "bunch of stuff I don't much like" includes the A-plots of Infection, TKO, Deathwalker, aaaaand a lot of other things as well. :)