Is BSG the new B5?
In several ways Babylon 5 set a new standard for how science fiction was done on television. It was for example one of the first shows to use computer graphics to any significant extent. It was also unusual in having a very strong online presence as well, with producers and viewers interacting at a number of levels, including various types of marketing now considered standard within the industry. But what really made the show standout is the way it told its story.
Prior to B5, virtually all American science fiction shows operated with what was in effect a “reset button” at the end of each episode, meaning that each episode was essentially a standalone drama unrelated to the episodes the preceded or followed it. B5 differed in having a definite beginning, middle and end that made full use of “story arcs” linking successive episodes. Characters changed over time, events in one episode influenced those in another, and things that seemed unimportant when you first saw them turned out to be of pivotal significance a number of episodes or even seasons down the line.
The obvious comparison would be like any one of the Star Trek franchises prior to Deep Space Nine, where most episodes were put together in a way that meant they could be syndicated and televised in whatever order the television station wanted to. Although Deep Space Nine broke away from this model during its later seasons especially, its arcs were considerably looser than those of B5, and never held DS9 in quite the same novel-like way.
Arc-driven plots are now much more common, and not just in science fiction. From The West Wing to Smallville, arcs are all around! But for science fiction fans, perhaps the best successor to the B5 inheritance is the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.
Deeper, darker arcs
Since its debut as a miniseries in 2003, the re-imagined version of the 1980s classic has proved itself to be a complex show that works on multiple levels. On one level its an exciting story: the humans have had their home planets destroyed by a race of machines, and the few survivors have to live by their wits and their courage, desperately seeking out a mythical colony of humans on a lost world known as Earth. There are plenty of space battles and human dramas of all sorts, ranging from the usual family feuds through to more touchy issues such as alcoholism, cancer, and even abortion.
But where BSG meets B5 is in its super-strong use of story arcs. Characters develop and change profoundly. Gaius Baltar starts of as lightly comical villain at the beginning, sympathetic in some ways but annoying in others, but over time he changes as he learns more about himself and the world around him. His journey is hard — as it should be, given his starting point — passing through loss, pain and eventually into a religious redemption of sorts. Laura Roslin would appear to be travelling in the opposite direction, starting out as a basically honourable and decent person, but over time becoming increasingly ruthless and intolerant of dissension, albeit for mostly justifiable and certainly understandable reasons.
Also like B5, BSG has a complexity that undermines the usual ‘good guys’ versus ‘bad guys’ trope popular in Hollywood. In particular, the show is very much a reflection of its time and place. The Colonials are essentially Americans, post-9/11 and post-Iraq, with all the emotional and political baggage that entails. They are a people under siege, attacked and pursued by outsiders with aims and religious beliefs they cannot understand. Unlike the real-world United States, the Colonials were attacked but lost, and the producers have deliberately crafted an allegory that involves modern day worries such as suicide bombings, torture, kangaroo courts, and the loss of rights and civil liberties. Of course, this time the spin is that its the mock-American Colonials who are the terrorists and insurgents. As viewers, we’re forced to see things from the perspective of people we wouldn’t otherwise have much sympathy for.
Just who are the good guys?
Despite the similarities, there are some major differences between the two shows. B5 was predicated on the notion that individuals can change the world. Salvation wasn’t about saving yourself, it was about being prepared to sacrifice yourself for others. Indeed, at least three of the main characters did precisely that: John Sheridan when he jumped into the pit at Z’ha’dum, and Londo Mollari and G’Kar when they killed one another to ensure that Sheridan and Delenn could escape from the Drakh and thereby save the Centauri. In other words, B5 include a lot of (often rather overt) Christ-like imagery, most obviously during the the scenes were G’Kar is tortured and placed on trial by the insane Emperor Cartagia.
What’s obvious about B5 is that the god-like figures we see at the start are actually rather flawed; powerful yes, but morally righteous, no. It’s made clear that redemption doesn’t come from obedience to a god, but through making the right moral choices.
BSG is quite different. It might be argued that it’s altogether a more realistic show. The characters are all flawed, often deeply so, and their choices are inconsistent and frequently irrational. None of them come even close to being paragons of virtue. As Lee Adama points out during the trial of Gaius Baltar at the end of Season 3, they’re not a people, but a gang. Terror, torture, political duplicity and even lynching are all seen as justifiable if they help the Colonials to stay alive; it’s very much a case of the ends justifying the means.
More strikingly, while individuals can certainly change things around them, the force of fate is much, much stronger. By the time we reach the midpoint of Season 4 it’s obvious that even the seemingly well organised Cylons don’t have a clue what’s going on, and when the Colonials and Cylons arrive on Earth, neither of them are prepared for what they find.
In Babylon 5 we have a modern day New Testament of sorts, an epic tale that tells us that individuals can make a difference. The universe revolves around personal choices, and that suffering and sacrifice, not power, are the keys to changing things for the better. Battlestar Galactica is altogether grimmer, in a much more capricious, Old Testament sort of way. Whatever god or gods exists in this world, they seem to have their own plans, and all the Colonials or Cylons can do is use those divinities to justify their actions. It’s a cold, indifferent universe where the best you can do is survive.
While I’m waiting for BSG-16.1.09, I’ve been watching Bab5 again thru iTunes. What strikes me is how they represent the utterly different times in which they were made. For Bab5, the early 90s were a time without the certainties or the anxieties of the Cold War. The West had triumphed. The economy was good. Bosnia and Darfur and many other parts of the world were small flames that didn’t really draw much attention from us. But in the shadows….
Leap ahead a decade, the Twin Towers fell. We could no longer ignore the rest of the world. On 9.11, we suuffered “blow-back”: things that our gov’ts had instigated, condoned, or just ignored were came back to bite us on the ass. And with that we had BSG. 12 colonies, prosperous, fading memories of a war that pitted us against that which we had created …
Essentially then, Bab5 represents our attempts to move forward from the Cold War. I was in my early 30s then. We actually hoped that the fall of the USSR would herald a new time of peace and understanding. But within a decade we got BSG with it’s “survive at any costs” cynicism and despair.
I would suggest that BSG is not the new B5 – mostly because of the tone and message of the series. I understand fully the comparisons that Neale draws between the shows, especially in terms of approach to the medium. But there the comparisons end.
Call me Pollyanna, but I think that Babylon 5 represents a more realistic vision of humanity past, present and future.
Why? Because in the end, Babylon 5 offered a glimmer of hope, and laughter even in the Shadow of the gallows. I’ve enjoyed BSG, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back and rewatch that series. It is so unrelentingly bleak that the ride becomes oppressive. To draw from da’Square Wheelman’s comments, BSG is of the post-9/11 era. BSG offers no light moments, no laughter. And if we can’t laugh, then the terrorists -er, the Cylons have already won.
I agree that B5 is a kind of precursor to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, though given Ron D Moore’s involvement with Star Trek TNG and DS9, I can perhaps understand why he never mentions B5. While both series have strong characters, and character development, together with a strong story arc; and both center round interplanetary war on a galactic scale, making it easy to compare with real-life political events of which they are inevitably a reflection, there is a fundamental difference between B5 and BSG. That difference is in the treatment of humanity and ‘the other’. While B5 pits humanity against aliens scale in degrees of otherness, from the almost identical to humans Centari, to the Shadows, whose only human-like attributes are their enormous hand-shaped star ships, BSG presents us with a galaxy in which there do not seem to be any intelligent alien life forms.
Babylon 5, in some respects, continued the genre convention already established by Star Trek, in having humanoid aliens, but went several light years further by having the the Vorlons, Shadows, and other First Ones, who were about as far from humanoid as you could get. When we start to build up a picture of the Vorlons and the Shadows, who are millions / billions of years older than the new yong species such as Mimbari, Narn, Centari and humans, (young species who all seem to be biologically (or according to the Mimbari, spiritually related) we get a real sense of increasing otherness. In BSG, however, there are only humans, versus the humanoid centurions, ship-like raiders, human looking cylons and human looking hybrids. The cylons do have a sufficient sense of familiarity and otherness that makes them uncanny, evoking all sorts of emotions: admiration, attraction, fear, discomfort etc but they are, ultimately, like a human-made reflection that has come to life and rebelled against its source, As a strategy it works really well, making the galaxy and universe in BSG seem all the more vast, cold, and indifferent, as it watches humanity and its reflection struggle with one another.
While I see what you mean, I do have to say that the two shows are quite different. Here are a few reasons:
1) BSG was not planned. B5 was. And it makes all the difference in the world: re-watching BSG is not half as satisfying as re-watching B5, because all the pieces are missing in the beginning and the Cylons most definitely do *not* have a plan. BSG is a series of episodes that continue on from each other. B5 is a story with a beginning, middle and end. Structurally, these are two very different beasts.
2) The characters in BSG aren’t ambiguous, they’re erratic, and their “journey” is arbitrary. As much as I adore the actors in BSG, and some of the characters, their development is at times completely random, and only there to fuel whatever the conflict of the episode is. Sometimes it’s like the writers haven’t been talking to each other, or don’t care. I remember how much that affected our enjoyment of the show: every time a character made a decision we liked, we couldn’t really be happy about it, since he/she might have a completely different mindset by the next episode, just because it was convenient.
In B5, like in real life, the characters are fully capable of taking on positions. “This is what I believe in!” they’ll say, and act accordingly. Sometimes they’re truthful, sometimes they’re not, and many times their opinions gradually shift – but they are capable of making decisions that will last for more than ten seconds, and that are motivated by the world around them.
3) In terms of politics and philosophy, B5 is both darker and more hopeful. BSG starts out with some horrible stuff, but after that things mostly remain the same. In B5, things get considerably worse before they get any better – war between the Narn and the Centauri, dictatorship on Earth, war with the Shadows, war with the Shadows and the Vorlons, etc. And for things to get better, sacrifices have to be made that have real and heartbreaking effects. In BSG, everything is dark, until suddenly the Hand of God saves everyone, or at least mostly everyone.
The politics of B5 are also much more realistic, in that they are genuinely complex, and feature groups and individuals with all sorts of motivations. BSG, while sometimes having very fascinating episodes on this matter, too often has politics as simply the result of personal issues; and, with its “wonderful” finale, completely throws the idea that any of it matters out the window.
The philosophies of the two shows seem to be
B5: Things occur as the consequence of their sociopolitical context and the actions of groups and/or individuals.
BSG: Stuff happens. Sometimes it’s God.
BSG is still one of the better shows of recent years, in that it at least tried to be serious, and it did have some really good moments. But with its amateurish and inconsistent approach to writing, and its use of “darkness” as a stylistic directive rather than a storytelling tool, it comes nowhere near to the interlocking complexity that is Babylon 5.