I am a Star Trek fan (not the new stuff) and I always heard Deep Space 9 is a ripoff of Babylon 5. Have the DS9 writers ever admitted as much or acknowledged an influence? I’m 19 episodes in and I’m liking it. I can see the concept for sure that DS9 uses.
Comments (34)
sorted by:
If you're into sci-fi, make sure to give Farscape a try. It's more adventure than thought-provoking, but it has some very interesting and unique science fiction elements sprinkled around and it has a heart. It also gets so much better with each passing season.
It's good at the beginning but they completely threw it away at the end and it makes the whole thing not worth watching. Lead becomes completely insufferable and the writing / direction is insulting.
Gotta agree. I just finished the entire series and was rolling my eyes nearly every episode.
First, we'll just ignore the number of times that the characters space walk with no suits. I don't give a shit that Dargo was an alien, he still has lungs and blood. But Crichton is fucking human.
The characters have no consistent traits. Do we need Dargo to be violent so that the plot can happen? Ok, he's in violent hyper rage now. Do we need him to be peaceful? Sure, he's peaceful now. Does Zan need to be angry? Ok, now she's angry and unreasonable. Now we don't need her to be angry? Ok good, she can be motherly again.
Same can be said for every other character, except maybe Rigel, who was just consistently a selfish idiot who nearly gets people killed by his actions on a regular basis.
Oh, Aryn's baby is a super growing Peacekeeper baby so it will be born in 4 days? (Also Rigel can gestate said baby in his stomach?) So why the fuck does cleavage chick's baby not pop out over the course of the miniseries? She was extremely pregnant on day 1 of the story, and still extremely pregnant at the end of the story.
And the entire premise for Aryn's exile from the Peacekeepers was that she was "tainted" by alien contact. Ok... Well explain fucking Scorpio? Does he not "taint" people in his presence by being alien? What about the other alien species we see later in the series that are present on Peacekeeper ships, like the one working on the wormhole technology? Or all the other times we see Peacekeepers interacting with various aliens.
Also ... why do the Peacekeepers bother with living ships to be used as prisoner transports in the first place? Wouldn't it be easier to just, y'know, build a prison ship that doesn't need to be restrained and piloted by an alien pilot? Also, don't the seemingly all-powerful aliens who originally made these living ships have a problem with them being enslaved?
And the crying... The fucking crying. Every goddamn episode, someone cries.
I liked the puppets. The make up and other practical effects were very impressive. Even the CGI was pretty respectable for its time and didn't look dated.
The stories all had plot holes big enough for Skaran battlecruisers to fly through.
Yes it's a shame because the visual effects were amazing. Many of the stories though were written by retards, faggots or women, or some combination thereof.
The girl who plays the red headed alien is extremely attractive.
Read between the lines. She was suspected of being a sympathizer.
Scorpio is a person that would climb the ranks of your organization with superhuman ruthlessness. Only reason he isn't Peacekeeper ruler, is that ruler can't spend all their time plotting to eradicate Scarrans.
Also he is something of a war hero. Accusing him of being tainted by foreign influence is like accusing Churchill of being a Nazi.
They are very cheap to build. Because they cost nothing and can reproduce. But they are usually cargo ships. Guess whoever transported them in Moya fucked up.
Peacekeeper race, doesn't gestate until triggered by doctor. Aryn was triggered under torture.
Rigel can gestate, because it's Cool or something.
Cleavage chick used her baby as leverage and gestation can be accelerated, and is usually accelerated for troopers to minimize sick leave.
It's not. Dargo is always violent. He's Klingon to Zan's Vulcan. Zan can be pissed, but takes great effort to prevent it. Dargo otoh defaults to violence, unless sexed or drugged.
Yeah, I saw that. What reason did he have to suspect that? Oh that's right -- because it makes the plot happen.
Except they had to invent some sort of control collar to get them to do what they want. Those probably weren't free. And they take time to grow. And it's just a dumb idea to begin with.
Also, I notice you dodged the most important question: why did the creators of this race of ships allow it to continue?
And? So? That doesn't have anything to do with the duration of gestation.
Can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic here. Either way, it was insultingly stupid. A baby is going to gestate in digestive fluid? It's in space so it's science fiction! Durrrr.
No he fucking wasn't. And Zaan wasn't always insane. But when the plot needed them to be, they sure were.
Look, if you like a shitty sci fi series, that's fine. You do you. Hell, I watched the whole thing just to see if it ever "grew the beard." But this series was not well written. They pulled an embarrassing number of Deus Ex Machina out of their asses to get out of the corners that they'd written themselves into in those 4 seasons.
It's like people who like Twilight: it might have been entertaining, but IT WAS NOT GOOD. If you're entertained by people crying all the time because that's the only way the writers know how to make sure you understand that the situation is serious, well, you go for it. I prefer to not be insulted.
It's just their effed up culture. He was both crazy from grief and in charge. He could do whatever he wanted.
It's still cheaper than building an entire ship. And most Pilot/Leviathan are ok with moving cargo. Moving passengers does seem to not gel well with their nature. They have special consideration for crew.
Scarrans wanted baby to extract DNA memory, hence they wanted it speed up. Plus she got crystalized and reassembled. It's not a standard pregnancy. By any stretch.
Every series has some amount of breaks from reality. Them having Rigel be mom is either being PC or wanting to show their doll off. Hence comment.
I explained. He always defaults to it. Zhann default to peace. Doesn't mean they are 1-dimensional and always like that. People aren't always slothful or always hard working.
Look, if you hate it, that is also fine, but just say I hate it, don't imagine bizzare reasons why.
"Except they had to invent some sort of control collar to get them to do what they want. Those probably weren't free. And they take time to grow. And it's just a dumb idea to begin with.
Also, I notice you dodged the most important question: why did the creators of this race of ships allow it to continue?"
Never bothered to watch Farscape, but ...... the idea of enslaving living ships seems to kind of ... defeat the purpose? I know I wouldn't trust walking around inside the body of an unwilling slave ....
The space whale from Doctor Who: The Beast Below was trying to help, and was enslaved and abused instead (it was the entire upshot of the episode. Way to go, black queen!) Not really a living ship, I guess, but it was forced to act as an engine. The only reason it didn't rebel against its lot was because it was kind.
The Lexx seemed to just ... accept what it was in the same way one accepts being what they're born as a matter of course. It wants its food, orders and pilot, and it's a happy individual. It's not stupid, just simple. Kind of like a big dog that'll take you anywhere in the multiverse and can wreck planets, but looks like a bug. One of the scarier concepts in sci-fi.
The ones in No Man's Sky seem similar to the Lexx, with an even bigger "touch of alien" about them.
And I don't think people stop to think of what a "living ship" means beyond "potential slave for human use" - it's a species that doesn't need weak-ass monkey tech to get to Earth.
I'm of the complete opposite opinion. First season felt generic, but later the story gets way more engaging.
I’ve finished Farscape. Loved it. Can’t believe it was canceled so soon. I heard they may bring it back but in this era I don’t trust any show.
They made the peacekeeper wars that synthesize 1-2 seasons into movie length so as to finish the story, and then there were a bunch of comics.
Cool! Are there any books that take place in that universe?
I don't really know about that. Haven't read the comics yet.
It's at least as thought provoking as the clumsy Communist and Egalitarianism morality tales of Star Trek.
I can't talk too much about the similarities without getting into spoilers. There are a lot of similarities, and B5 was pitched to Paramount before Warner Brothers.
JMS(the writer for B5) never filed a lawsuit, as it would have damaged both shows more than helped. To my knowledge, DS9 tried never to acknowledge B5.
I'm inclined to think they took some of the basic framework of the idea and ran with it in their own way, making it distinct enough that both stand on their own(though B5 is frankly superior IMO, mostly because DS9 is still a star trek show with a lot of baggage that comes with that).
Thanks for explaining. I’ve seen DS9 and I’m looking forward to finishing Babylon 5
Yeah it was a textbook "I made this" incident.
They both kind of came out at the same time. Neither ripped the other off, it was just a matter of two shows about space stations happening to drop simultaneously. If anything, it'd be B5 that "copied", since it and other sci-fi at the time were riding high on ST:TNG good-will. But it's definitely it's own thing, and not "Star Trek Wannabe". For one thing, look at its VASTLY different attitude towards, say, religion.
Although that "no one is pure human" still gets me every time. What a load of hilarity. I don't think they realized what he said when they wrote that. (So, some humans are a little bit more chimpy or orangy-tangy, then? rofl.)
JMS literally went to Paramount, Paramount said "Nah", and then immediately Rick Berman came out with DS9.
This is apparently somewhat well documented:
https://archive.vn/jG1F5
OK, well, I doubt many people knew or cared at the time. The arguments on the BBSes were mostly just nerdwanking about which show was "better".
And they were still more or less different enough that arguments of being "ripoffs" didn't go very far.
Also, this was an era where you didn't get one movie about asteroids, or dinosaurs, or whatever thing of the week there was - you got multiples of it. So more than one show about space stations wasn't that out of place in an early version of CopyCat Hollywood.
I'm currently rewatching B5 too. Almost kicked it in the trash during season 1 when they started the usual "muh earth first racist extremist terrorist nationalists ermagerd!!1". They really haven't come up with anything new for decades.
Yeah, I'm having some real trouble getting through the first season. I like Sinclair well enough but the Home Guard plots and the open sucking of commie schlong are tiresome. I forgot how lefty it all was.
So far I'm at the end of seaon 3 and luckily the whole home guard thing doesn't really come up after season 1. They still occasionally bitch about how earth is too isolationist and "we all just have to get along" but it's getting barely any screentime at that point.
Amusingly the earth government starts developing parallels to the current US government. Like with the Ministry of Peace and the Nightwatch hunting down wrong think. Except in this fictional universe the military at least partially stood up to the usurper. It's basically hopium-porn at that point :D
I was hoping and half remembering this was the case. I wasn't as remotely politically aware on my first watch through about 20 years ago though! Thanks for the reassurance.
Season 1 isn't the best, but 2-4 is terrific, season is necessary for the world building.
There are several mediocre episodes in B5 season 1. When you get into Season 2 and on, it is some of the best TV ever produced IMO. Decades ahead of its time in terms of telling a story throughout the show vs the typical 1-shot episodes that made syndication easier.
I watched them contemporaneously and also participated in online (dial-up modem!) chats with JMS and can affirm that they developed independently.
“A space station” is about all they share.
I dont think either is a ripoff. They both take a similar premise of a big, important space station where lots of stuff happens then they go different directions.
You really have to suspend your disbelief with b5 as the ship CG is like ps1 era graphics. But I think over all they are both worth watching and enjoyable in their own way but never great.
Comment Reported for: Rule 16
Comment Removed