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.
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.
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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.
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.