Babylon 5

I used to love Babylon 5 and watched it up until the end of the series where they retook earth from the corrupt president, I thnk it was the last but one but i'm not sure. After that I watched one or two episodes but nothing more. I'd rate it as a 9. I especially liked Walter Koenig's character, Bester, the evil telepath, who turned up in some of the episodes.

Babylon 5 must be one of the most ambitious sci-fi TV-series ever conceived. Writer-creator J. Michael Straczynski (or JMS as he would get known to the fans) plotted a five-year story arc in advance, drawing on all kinds of mythical and historical influences, from Babylonian creation myth to McCarthyism, from Orpheus to King Arthur, to tell an epic of war and peace, involving ethics, politics and religion. For the most part, he succeeds. Not that this series is perfect: the small budget is sometimes all too evident (it's hard to do an epic in cardboard sets) and while JMS is a great plotter, he has Van Gogh's ear for dialogue, with a tendency to write overlong speeches, most of which begin with "When I was a child, my father used to…" No matter how carefully JMS may have plotted his story, sometimes the best laid plans go awry on contract disputes and movie-offers: at least three regular cast-members jumped ship during production, which results in some plot-threads being dropped or left hanging without conclusion. The most notable cast-change is that of the lead character: in season two, Michael O'Hare, who played the captain of the space station, is replaced by another captain, played by Bruce Boxleitner. Whatever the reason for this (and both O'Hare and JMS remain vague on the subject), you can't help feeling cheated if you're promised a consistent story and after only one season you suddenly get a whole new lead character. Fortunately, O'Hare comes back in the season 3 two-parter 'War Without End' where his story-line and the mysteries surrounding his character are resolved quite satisfactory. I was initially very weary of Boxleitner, who always struck me as a very lightweight actor, and he starts off with his usual annoyingly perfect nice guy persona, but as the story grows darker and his character has to deal with hard decisions, he starts to display a depth and range I didn't think he had and by season three I had to admit: the dude can act! Season 1 serves mainly as an introduction to the characters and their surroundings and is in many ways the weakest of the five years, with lots of filler episodes whose plots never wowed me. Season 2 is where the story-arc really starts to kick in and the pace picks up. Season 3 is even better and contains the Hugo-award winning 'Severed Dreams', the best single episode of the series, which may also be one of the best sci-fi episodes ever made for television. Before season 4 began production, JMS was told by Warner Brothers that there probably wouldn't be a fifth season, so he decided to wrap up his story, which made for a very dense, fast paced season. The one drawback to this season is that in episode six something so monumental happens that the series never really recovers: a lot happens afterwards, but it's never really quite as big as what happens in that episode. At the last minute, it was decided that there*would* be a season 5, which allowed JMS to finish up his story's unfinished business, but as season 4 ends on a point where most conflicts are resolved, there's a sense that season 5 is more epilogue than conclusion. Babylon 5 may have its flaws, but after seeing all 110 episodes I was elated to have seen it and sad that it was all over.

only got to see the first two series due to Channel Four messing about with the schedulling - really liked what I saw and kept up with the plot developments for ages via sci-fi mags. Apprenntly the new character Marcus & some of his plots were a bit cheasy and if jumptheshark is right it went really bad in the last series due to Ivonova leaving and ruining the plotline

dont like shows like these

No never is it good?

I liked and still do because it was different than all of those STAR TREK series (TNG, Voyager,....) The storyline was interesting, the cast very well choosed and there are only a few episodes I didn't like that much. I'd give it 9 of 10. Mhmmm.. one of those series I always thought to myself - sad, everything has to end someday...