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.
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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.