Promotional consideration paid for by the Babylon Project

G'Kar was the wrong character to show for the prosthetics poke. The Narn prosthetics are actually shockingly good with a surprisingly high degree of articulation allowing for lots of emoting and facial expressions. Some of Delenn's head bone prosthetics, on the other hand, are just terrible.
- Optic Nerve won a damn Emmy for their prosthetic work on B5, not sure what op's on about with that one...
  
  Shoulda gone meta with the drazi and the human mask
- Given the budget that Fox gave them to film this, I'm not going to whine about it when I've watched community theater productions and enjoyed them. If the visual realism is a hard sticking point, then unfortunately, you just kinda have to sigh and live with it. Enjoy the story, and maybe try making fandom cosplay and give it a try for yourself.
  That isn't a dig, btw. Being able to make costumes of similar (but lesser) quality made me appreciate the hard work that goes into this more. And being involved in it helped me learn willfull suspension of disbelief. Or course you can see the seams in the costume. The actor is ignoring them and doing their damn best for a good script. I think that effort deserves a little grace.
- G'Kar can't even turn his neck. Reminds me of how the Cardassian prosthetics pull me out of the realism and make me painfully aware that I am watching TV.
  
  Why must an alien species have developed the ability to turn their head?

You forgot fighting against fascism
- Kirk fought literal Nazis. Sheridan fought future Nazis. Why did you get downvoted for this comment?
  
  Obviously for bringing politics into a discussion about my beloved politics show
  
  Probably Dukat's account downvoted.
  
  Don’t forget Archer fighting literal Nazis
- This was one of the shows that taught me what it looks like and why I should fight like my life depends on it.

When I think of Walter Koenig, I think of Bester, not Chekov.
To be blunt, whenever I watched Trek I never got the impression he was particularly good. But then when I saw him in B5, I thought "Damn he can act. Why didn't the Trek show runners take advantage of this?!"
- Bester was supposed to be a one-off villain! They brought him back because he was amazing!
- Bester is also still a unique character, and Koenigs delivery is unique.

"Mom, can we get some Babylon 5?"
Mom:

Pretty much every scene involving Londo and G'Kar is solid gold. Although every time Peter Jurasik appears on screen with his very odd accent for Londo, my mind goes like: "Oh, here's The (space) Count from Sesame Street again!"

goofy hairstyles
Look how they massacred my boy Londo.
First real character I remember in sci-fi. He's a highfalutin blowhard from a noble house, who's fucking broke and has to lose two of his wives.
Then he picks the one that treats him the worst because she lies the least.
Then he goes on to sell his soul to make his planet great again which of course if goes all monkey paw on him.
The dude is a walking pile of contradictions. There's nobody like him in star trek sadly.
- And the show blew me away with how it showed exactly how Londo would die in the first season, and his death was both exactly, and nothing at all, like it was foretold.
- The way he gained a soul the hard way just to trade it, fucking amazing journey

Fuck. I have to start another rewatch of the series now.

See, that was their problem. Their last best hope for peace was a truck stop? That is not where you get peace. That is where you get the opposite of peace. They could have only done worse if it were a space waffle house.
- last best hope for peace was a truck stop
  Picture I found of Babylon-5:
- To be fair, while "truck stop" is a fairly accurate term for DS9 and its location along a major trade route, the primary purpose of Babylon 5 was really just being a neutral location for political relations and whatnot. Though maybe there are important meetings that are conducted at Waffle House, idk
- Ds9 was a truck stop, the babylon stations were UN convention centres with bazaars did you even watch the show
  
  The Centauri: "You call this a convention center? I would not host my second cousin's baby shower here; it stinks of commoners."
  (which is to say, i watched it two decades ago)
- Tbf their first attempt resulted in the near extinction of humanity...
  
  Recently did another marathon but this time in in-universe chronological order and goddamn, late delivery from Avalon hits so much harder (delenn's reaction) if you watched In the Beginning first
- space waffle house
  Stop everything else, this is the show I want. Let's see a strung out avian fist fighting a drunk grey across the counter, while a little green man twerks in the background.
  
  Okay yeah but... that sounds like a lotta work.
  So here's Homer Simpson eating a waffle, wrapped around a stick of butter. Bonus: it's fried:-P

It has been a while since my last rewatch.
It was the dawn of the third age of mankind – ten years after my last rewatch.

You had me at "20th century understanding on how eye contact works in a video call".
- One of the wonderful little details from B5 was the holographic recording Londo made for [REDACTED] where he's making his grand speech about how and why he's having him [REDACTED]. The recording is constantly looking in the wrong direction, pointing accusingly at the wall, moving through people, and just obviously not lining up with the room it's being played in because it's just a recording.
  Then the gospel choir kicks in and the episode officially becomes my all time favorite.
  
  An account created three months ago, named after a Babylon 5 character, and your very first comment is under this post about Babylon 5. Checks out.
- That is something that has bugged me since I started watching sci-fi (yes, I am relatively new to the genre), and I don't think I have ever seen anybody talk about it.
- I came to write exactly this, I laughed out loud at it
- Star Wars is so much worse on that than anything Trek-like... so much that some times people mention it. But yeah, I've never seen anybody mention it about Star Trek or B5.
  
  I assume the logistics are entirely different with a hologram compared to a 2D viewscreen. Or are there viewscreens in Star Wars as well?
  EDIT: Oh, this question probably does a good job summarizing the type of inconsistencies you are talking about
  https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/108609/how-do-star-wars-hologram-communications-work
  Starting at 2:46 in Clones Wars season 2 episode 7 we see both ends of a hologram communication. I've always wondered how people somehow manage to maintain eye contact while using holograms to communicate since often, as in this case, each are viewing images of the other that greatly vary in size. Obi-wan Kenobi and Ki-Adi-Mundi are in a large room looking down on a 2-3 foot image of Luminara Unduli.
  Master Unduli however is holding a mobile jedi holoprojector looking down at 1 foot images of Kenobi and Mundi.
  How can they both be looking down at projections less than half the height of an average humanoid while still maintaining eye contact with the person on the other end?
  Stranger still, at 3:16 when Anakin Skywalker enters the room, joining the other two Jedi, we see the 2-3 foot image of Unduli in the center of the room turn her entire body about 90 degrees to face Skywalker.
  Then Mundi speaks up at 3:25, prompting the small Unduli image to do a 180 degree turn to face Mundi.
  However we then immediately see at 3:29 that she never needed to turn since they've only been two little images in her hand all along.
  It makes no sense for Unduli to turn right and left to face people she's essentially holding in her hand. Curiously, Skywalker's image is absent from Unduli's mobile holoprojector even though we saw her turn to face him. Did he race out of the room the nanosecond he finished talking?
  
  It's how its shot. Star Trek (and anything modern I guess) is green screen and the second person edited in later. The actors are talking to nobody
  B5 uses CRTs, both actors are sitting in different parts of the set talking to each other live, because they could record that.
  The difference it makes is crazy. So much conversation is so much more natural due to it. Wish shows would make it happen again somehow

S4 is a really interesting watch given the current political climate in the US. I just embarked on a re-watch this month. Agree G’kar and Londo scenes were great. My favorite duo in the show.
- God, this. This fucking show was absolutely prophetic. I wish more politicians watched it in the 90s and got the fucking hint.

Came for the interspecies sex, stayed for the drug addicts.
- I don't have a stim problem. They're legal. I have it under control.
  
  RIP Garibaldi
- Dude, the way that show handled not one but two addiction arcs. In the 90s.

You know what? You convinced me, I'll give it a try.
- The first season is pretty bad, but necessary to set up the various arcs.
  Season 4 crammed the final two major plot arcs into it because they thought they were getting cancelled. But then they didn’t. Season 5 is almost entirely filler.
  In fact, once you finish Season 4, I’d recommend jumping right to the series finale (last episode of S5) and watching that. Then watch Season 5 from the beginning and think of it as a spin-off show that didn’t go anywhere.
  This was how I went through my last rewatch of the series a few years ago and it was perfect.
  
  S1 is overall more watchable than I usually give it credit for, but there is some atrocious acting at times. And some of the sets are rough
  And maybe just skip the pilot.
- It is, wholeheartedly, one of my most favorite shows of all time. It's one of the ones that shaped me as a human being.
  Just try and give the exiting actors and resulting plot hiccups a little mercy. There was a lot happening in the real world for all of them, and some things are more important than television.
  
  Just try and give the exiting actors and resulting plot hiccups a little mercy
  Sinclair > Sheridan
  Though I get that the actor had mental health issues and decided he would rather quit entirely than stall production and possibly lead to the show's premature cancellation.
- You know the episode of DS9 where Sisko and Garrick commit war crimes?
  It's like that episode, the show.
  
  Only scifi show I can think of to present peace negotiations with the same degree of dramatic tension as they give to the rest of the war.
- It took me a while, so I'll tell you it starts to pick up steam halfway through first season and hooks you before the first season finale.

Familiar Faces
G'Kar and Tomalak
General Gauge and Admiral Layton/V'Las
Captain Braxton and Major Ryan
- Don't forget Brad Dourif as a creepy murderer and Brad Dourif as a creepy murderer
  
  Brad Dourif as a creepy murderer
- I did not grab the character names when I had made this chart, but here is a list of Babylon 5 actors who appeared in Star Trek. Data sourced from IMDb
  
  That listing was just off the top of my head. Though the funnier connection is Hague (Robert Foxworth) "died" in B5 because his agent double booked him on DS9 as Layton so they brought in Ryan (Bruce McGill). There is even a funny outtake where McGill references it. Even funnier is the producers intended to get Everett McGill but got names mixed up and got Bruce instead
  
  Missed opportunity to make the first column "Jeffery Combs as:"

Is there a Babylon 5 Lemmy community? If not, can someone please create one? Thanks.
- !babylon5@sh.itjust.works

Love Babylon5, excellent series!

I have always wanted to like b5, I have tried to watch it multiple times over the years. I get 3 or 4 episodes into it and lose interest. Maybe it is time to try it out again
- It definitely blends action, drama, politics, and philosophy like Stat Trek does, but leans far more into drama/politics. I can understand why one might lose interest early on.
- From what I remember it start a little slow, but it starts to pick up around half way of the first season and it's pretty consistenly great after that. It has been while since I rewatched it though
- First season? Yeah that one is a bit rough. But the payoff is worth the setup.
- Get to episode 8, "And the Sky Full of Stars." If that doesn't grab you, then rest assured that the show is just not your thing.
- I feel this. Sometimes I have to remind myself it took, like, 5 tries on Breaking Bad to get past Walter standing in a desert in his tightie whities.
  I think B5 is the one where the test pilot goes too fast and winds up on a big alien spaceship?
  
  I think B5 is the one where the test pilot goes too fast and winds up on a big alien spaceship?
  That almost sounds like Farscape
  
  Like OP said, that's Farscape, sort of an antithesis to B5. Farscape is action in a ship. B5 is politics in a station.
  
  I had the bonus watching Breaking Bad, of being from NM but living in Maryland when I watched it. I was enjoying seeing all the stuff from home.
  And yup that is Farscape, another really great sci-fi show.
- Hmm give this one a go
  https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0517627/
  While it's not quite the style of the show, it still a fun way to see the whole station and get a taste of the over arching plot stuff.

There is an animated spin off? How is it?
- It's just a one-off film from 2023, not a series. And it is also not really a true "spinoff" like Crusade, as it does focus on the same main characters from the series, just during an unexplored time period that had been glossed over before the series finale.
  As for how enjoyable it is, I thought it was fine, but I am no film critic. Taken from Wikipedia:
  On Rotten Tomatoes it has a score of 83% based on reviews from 6 critics.[12] Tara Bennett of IGN Movies rated it 7 out of 10 and wrote: "J. Michael Straczynski’s script stridently wears its heart on its sleeve, which will likely land for nostalgic old-timers but play a little cloying for those without prior investment."[13] Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote: "As stories go, The Road Home is pretty meh, standard sci-fi fare with a sappy, humanistic overlay."[14]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_the_Road_Home
- Nah it was the latest film, done in animated form
- I thought it was pretty bad. I got together with some friends to watch and we barely made it through. It was just boring.

I'd love to watch it (I only caught a few episodes when it was first on TV), but I haven't been able to find a cheapy DVD boxed set nor a useable copy on the dodgy streaming sites :-/
- It's available for free with ads, though thankfully the ad breaks are where they are supposed to be, on Tubi
  
  Thanks for the tip, unfortunately tubi isn't available in my country and when I've tried going through a proxy I've run into problems :-(
- https://www.amazon.com/Babylon-5-Season-1/dp/B000I5SYHS
  Here. If you want it legally, at least. Believe it or not, Pirate Bay has the fandom-produced 1080p upscale. It looks really good, whoever did the render really put some love into it.
  
  Thanks, unfortunately the shipping on a boxed set from the US would be brutal :-/ (and the last thing I bought direct from the US got "lost" at customs)
  I'm not able to torrent stuff because I live in the middle of nowhere and use my phone for internet ... the dodgy streaming sites have been a godsend TBH, since I can nibble lower res copies of things one episode at a time without the expectation of seeding :-)
  
  It looks like there is an official 1080p Blu-ray. Is the fandom version better, or is it just that it came first?