I just started watching Babylon 5. I'm like 6 episodes in and I've already seen a Nazis bad allegory, a "poor black man was experimented on by the government, and also is the only guy that the hot blonde has had any romantic interest in" episode, and a "humans saying that Earth should be for humans are evil scum maggots" episode.
I hear that the series gets good and has a cool story arc, but I'm not willing to put up with much more of this. I'm just waiting for the "men are bad" episode and then they'll pretty much have the '90s leftist propaganda bases covered.
Pay very close attention to which episodes were actually written by the lead writer, and which were not. The ones that were not are the worst, most propaganda driven episodes in the whole show.
I'm almost done with season 2 on a first time watch. Once I realised who the subversives were (and reading their bios lead you to the worst episodes of trek, and how those episodes could have been even worse if the author had gotten away with it) I started ignoring anything not written by Straczynski.
I think it's a damn good show so far, but those "filler" eps were absolutely hardcore propaganda. It was the one where "parental rights are a bad thing!" that got me looking into who was actually writing this trash, and why was it so clearly bad in every way compared to the episode before it.
For what it's worth, B5 S1 has always been notoriously terrible even leaving the propaganda aside. It quickly gets better in S2, although it's been some time since I've seen the show in its entirety.
S2-S4 in particular are what make it a glorious ride.
It's kind of funny how part of the reason for the faster and more dramatic pacing is because at one juncture they really thought they were going to get cancelled soon, so Straczynski really wanted to advance the story and get it going.
B5 is unique because the majority of the show was written by one man. Other shows have whole teams of writers, and even the "creator" of the show might only write 5% of the episodes. Straczynski wrote like 95% of the episodes, so yeah, skip the filler and get a decent show.
The preachy/propaganda stuff is pretty much gone after season 1, and the show gets a lot better. Still, there's some great content in season 1. Season 5 isn't as good as 2, 3, and 4, but it's because of studio interference, causing the creator to condense 2 seasons into 1 (resulting in a very fast paced season 4), and season 5 being quite anti climatic, and taking a while to find its feet, since the JMS had to conjure a whole new story for season 5, since the studio said they were cancelling the show at the end of season 4, and then renewing it for season 5 after JMS had told the story he wanted to tell.
Even though it's a scifi show, it has amazing characters and arcs, arguably the best in any show I've seen, like Garibaldi, Londo, and G'kar.
Just be sure to watch the show and movies in proper viewing order. Most of the movies are "meh", but In The Beginning is incredible.
While Straczynski wrote like... 90% of the episodes iirc, I think he hired some weird, VERY lefty sci-fi writers who ended up being too lazy to write as many scripts as he'd expected them to. I think one was a mega feminist if I remember correctly.
That was part of an attempted attack on Jehovah's Witnesses that the media staged in the 1990s.
It kinda backfired, because people hate JWs, and don't give a shit what happens to their fucking kids, if they don't grow up to knock on doors, great. So they dropped it.
You're going to be very pleasantly surprised when you hit the series of episodes that go into how the media manipulate and control perception and reality. Sadly, they're interspaced out over several seasons...
As others have said seasons 2-4 are the best. One has a few interesting episodes especially the last few of the season. While season 5 get more interesting at the end. Londo and G’Kar’s arc is probably one of the best in sci fi with an amazing job done by the actors. While it does tackle some social issues I always felt it did so on a higher level than Current YearTM insert politics. Concepts like order vs chaos, revenge, forgiveness, fate. How choices we make now can have a negative impact on the future as we ignore all the warning signs.
I always felt it did so on a higher level than Current YearTM insert politics
It's definitely less ham-fisted than most of Current Year masturbatory writing (minus the pro-human episode, that was just naked propaganda), but I have zero tolerance for any of it at this point.
The pro human propaganda gets a bit more subtle in subsequent seasons, but unfortunately is still present, as it becomes part of the earth government story. Still, the details that are revealed about the Earth Minbari war which occured a few years before season 1, shows that the "racist" humans had a damn good reason to think the way they did, even if the show tries hard to demonize them.
Even though JMS did a great job writing and planning out the show, it could've been even better if he spent more time on the nuance of the opposing sides, leaving more to the audience to decide for themselves, which is what some of the best Star Trek episodes did.
Related:
I just started watching Babylon 5. I'm like 6 episodes in and I've already seen a Nazis bad allegory, a "poor black man was experimented on by the government, and also is the only guy that the hot blonde has had any romantic interest in" episode, and a "humans saying that Earth should be for humans are evil scum maggots" episode.
I hear that the series gets good and has a cool story arc, but I'm not willing to put up with much more of this. I'm just waiting for the "men are bad" episode and then they'll pretty much have the '90s leftist propaganda bases covered.
Pay very close attention to which episodes were actually written by the lead writer, and which were not. The ones that were not are the worst, most propaganda driven episodes in the whole show.
I'm almost done with season 2 on a first time watch. Once I realised who the subversives were (and reading their bios lead you to the worst episodes of trek, and how those episodes could have been even worse if the author had gotten away with it) I started ignoring anything not written by Straczynski.
I think it's a damn good show so far, but those "filler" eps were absolutely hardcore propaganda. It was the one where "parental rights are a bad thing!" that got me looking into who was actually writing this trash, and why was it so clearly bad in every way compared to the episode before it.
That's a good suggestion; I might just start doing that. I'm not interested in wasting any more time with propaganda masquerading as sci-fi.
For what it's worth, B5 S1 has always been notoriously terrible even leaving the propaganda aside. It quickly gets better in S2, although it's been some time since I've seen the show in its entirety.
I like terrible sci-fi.
Give me tar monsters and aliens made of painted bubble wrap. The more bad CGI the better. Just leave the goddamn political messaging out of it.
S2-S4 in particular are what make it a glorious ride.
It's kind of funny how part of the reason for the faster and more dramatic pacing is because at one juncture they really thought they were going to get cancelled soon, so Straczynski really wanted to advance the story and get it going.
B5 is unique because the majority of the show was written by one man. Other shows have whole teams of writers, and even the "creator" of the show might only write 5% of the episodes. Straczynski wrote like 95% of the episodes, so yeah, skip the filler and get a decent show.
That's also why the Syndicated Real Ghostbusters still Slaps with real Scary Shit and his Spider-Man is still top shelf.
The preachy/propaganda stuff is pretty much gone after season 1, and the show gets a lot better. Still, there's some great content in season 1. Season 5 isn't as good as 2, 3, and 4, but it's because of studio interference, causing the creator to condense 2 seasons into 1 (resulting in a very fast paced season 4), and season 5 being quite anti climatic, and taking a while to find its feet, since the JMS had to conjure a whole new story for season 5, since the studio said they were cancelling the show at the end of season 4, and then renewing it for season 5 after JMS had told the story he wanted to tell.
Even though it's a scifi show, it has amazing characters and arcs, arguably the best in any show I've seen, like Garibaldi, Londo, and G'kar.
Just be sure to watch the show and movies in proper viewing order. Most of the movies are "meh", but In The Beginning is incredible.
While Straczynski wrote like... 90% of the episodes iirc, I think he hired some weird, VERY lefty sci-fi writers who ended up being too lazy to write as many scripts as he'd expected them to. I think one was a mega feminist if I remember correctly.
Huh, literally only knew him from Amazing Spider-man comics.
Yeah I'm gonna read those comics eventually because his writing in B5 is so good.
Can't believe I slept on the show for so long.
That was part of an attempted attack on Jehovah's Witnesses that the media staged in the 1990s.
It kinda backfired, because people hate JWs, and don't give a shit what happens to their fucking kids, if they don't grow up to knock on doors, great. So they dropped it.
Have you run into the "this is how we should treat gays" episode or was that just 80s shows?
First season really was meh, but has its moments. Second through Fourth are AMAZING.
You're going to be very pleasantly surprised when you hit the series of episodes that go into how the media manipulate and control perception and reality. Sadly, they're interspaced out over several seasons...
As others have said seasons 2-4 are the best. One has a few interesting episodes especially the last few of the season. While season 5 get more interesting at the end. Londo and G’Kar’s arc is probably one of the best in sci fi with an amazing job done by the actors. While it does tackle some social issues I always felt it did so on a higher level than Current YearTM insert politics. Concepts like order vs chaos, revenge, forgiveness, fate. How choices we make now can have a negative impact on the future as we ignore all the warning signs.
It's definitely less ham-fisted than most of Current Year masturbatory writing (minus the pro-human episode, that was just naked propaganda), but I have zero tolerance for any of it at this point.
The pro human propaganda gets a bit more subtle in subsequent seasons, but unfortunately is still present, as it becomes part of the earth government story. Still, the details that are revealed about the Earth Minbari war which occured a few years before season 1, shows that the "racist" humans had a damn good reason to think the way they did, even if the show tries hard to demonize them.
Even though JMS did a great job writing and planning out the show, it could've been even better if he spent more time on the nuance of the opposing sides, leaving more to the audience to decide for themselves, which is what some of the best Star Trek episodes did.
Telepaths and the psycorp become allegories for almost everything throughout the series.