Most of Babylon 5’s first season really feels like discount store-brand Star Trek substitute. The show really starts to get its feet under itself somewhere around A Voice in the Wilderness and the Season 1 finale Chrysalis is the episode for which the term “wham episode” was coined.
B5 has the unique problem that it’s crap season 1 is kind of necessary homework for the rest of the show; it’s one continuous story, but on first watch the first season doesn’t feel like that because it’s a bunch of stuff that happens that comes into play later. So unlike TNG you can’t tell someone “just start at season 2.” You have to sit through the first season.
Not a unique problem. Farscape has the same issue. Most of season 1 is kinda mediocre, but you need to watch it for the good stuff later to make sense.
I mostly disagree, I can see where you’re coming from. Farscape has a lot of adventure of the week episodes that don’t really matter…and they genuinely don’t. Like I, E.T or Thank God It’s Friday, Again. Those keep happening though, like Take The Stone in Season 2. Farscape occasionally makes episodes that are good sci-fi but not very good television.
Most of the way through Season 1, Scorpius is introduced. Crais’ story has no froo froo symbolism, it’s a simple tale of a man who hates a guy. Scorpius is much more interesting as an overall villain because 1. he has motivations beyond the main cast, 2. he’s actually right and we’d be on his side if he wasn’t such an apocalyptic shitbastard about everything and 3. Harvey is the best character on the show. The overall plot kinda doesn’t exist until Scorpius shows up. But most of the season before it isn’t mandatory homework. There’s even an episode, I think it’s the three parter Liars, Guns and Money, where they recruit a bunch of the enemies they met over the early episodes, and kill most of them off, they head off to a different region and a lot of the lore built up to then is discarded.
Most of Babylon 5’s first season really feels like discount store-brand Star Trek substitute. The show really starts to get its feet under itself somewhere around A Voice in the Wilderness and the Season 1 finale Chrysalis is the episode for which the term “wham episode” was coined.
B5 has the unique problem that it’s crap season 1 is kind of necessary homework for the rest of the show; it’s one continuous story, but on first watch the first season doesn’t feel like that because it’s a bunch of stuff that happens that comes into play later. So unlike TNG you can’t tell someone “just start at season 2.” You have to sit through the first season.
Not a unique problem. Farscape has the same issue. Most of season 1 is kinda mediocre, but you need to watch it for the good stuff later to make sense.
I mostly disagree, I can see where you’re coming from. Farscape has a lot of adventure of the week episodes that don’t really matter…and they genuinely don’t. Like I, E.T or Thank God It’s Friday, Again. Those keep happening though, like Take The Stone in Season 2. Farscape occasionally makes episodes that are good sci-fi but not very good television.
Most of the way through Season 1, Scorpius is introduced. Crais’ story has no froo froo symbolism, it’s a simple tale of a man who hates a guy. Scorpius is much more interesting as an overall villain because 1. he has motivations beyond the main cast, 2. he’s actually right and we’d be on his side if he wasn’t such an apocalyptic shitbastard about everything and 3. Harvey is the best character on the show. The overall plot kinda doesn’t exist until Scorpius shows up. But most of the season before it isn’t mandatory homework. There’s even an episode, I think it’s the three parter Liars, Guns and Money, where they recruit a bunch of the enemies they met over the early episodes, and kill most of them off, they head off to a different region and a lot of the lore built up to then is discarded.