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

[umbo.livejournal.com]

The problem is, it's been way too long since I've seen any of these. I mean, I didn't start watching B5 until season 2, and I only went back and watched the season 1 episodes on reruns later because I figured I would learn some things, arc-wise--seriously, the guy who plays Sinclair is so very awful that I had to force myself, plus clearly the writing improves in season 2 as well. Which is a long-winded way of saying I'm really guessing based on your descriptions, because I haven't seen any of these in years. Not that I've seen the other seasons in years, either, but you know what I mean.

Is B5 being rerun anywhere these days? Because this is making me want to watch the show again.

[eruthros]

I don't think it's being rerun anywhere. But I have a bunch of tapes off of TNT that I'm not gonna need anymore, if you want them; I'm missing a lot of the earlier part of season one, but I've got everything else.

And yeah, if you watch season two first, season one seems even MORE painful. Because there is so, so, so much awkward acting (partly because of bad direction, clearly, because Garibaldi and Ivanova and Vir improve immensely in season two), and JMS hasn't yet curbed his tendency toward constructions like "this I do not like" and people talking to themselves in ways people never talk to themselves. I mean, there's so much important character stuff, and it sets up a ton of the subsequent seasons, and it's the first appearance of MORDEN! But. Geez. "TKO."

[umbo.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'm invested enough to warrant sending a bunch of tapes off--I mean, if I were around the corner from you and could just pick them up, sure, but that's a lot of tapes, I wager, you know? I wouldn't mind seeing the show again, though.

*is wishywashy*