Comments on: Is BSG the new B5?

By: Jonas

Jonas — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:25:41 +0000

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.

By: Charles Benjamin

Charles Benjamin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:50:07 +0000

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.

By: tim callender

tim callender — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:40:43 +0000

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.

By: da' Square Wheeleman

da' Square Wheeleman — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:24:31 +0000

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.