Babylon 5 vs. (the new) Battlestar Galactica

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If you had the time to view only one of these series, which would it be? Why?
 
I’m an SF fan [all good Catholics should have enough latin to realize that ‘sci fi’ is the plural of ‘scum fum’], and loved Babylon 5, but Galactica was mind blowing, redefined what TV SF could be.
 
Babylon 5 all the way! I got the entire set last Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a series that was more satisfying and engrossing. I think its what all sci-fi should aspire to.

“The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace…”
 
ConcernedApathy said:
Babylon 5 all the way! I got the entire set last Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a series that was more satisfying and engrossing. I think its what all sci-fi should aspire to.

“The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace…”
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I’m in the process of building my collection 😃 Each month = another box set.

DaveBj
 
Babylon 5 is not just my favorite sci fi program, it’s my favorite TV show of all time. It’s just amazing. I own all 5 seasons, the movie set and the Lost Episodes. The new BSG is very, very good, but Babylon 5 is still better, despite it’s poor effects early on.
 
I’ve never seen Babylon 5, but given the alternative, I’d have to recommend it. We tried to get into BG, we really did, but it was just sooooo bad. Starbuck was so whiny and troubled it overshadowed the very cool Cylons. Such a waste of time.
 
I find this a very hard choice, but I picked Babylon 5 since in fact I have watched the first four seasons via Netflix. Since I have the lowest Netflix subscription (2 movies per month) this is in fact a significant choice. Mind you, I also have cable (which is why I only get two movies per month from Netflix), and I’ve watched most of the first three seasons of the new BG as they came out. Which I’d have put first if I didn’t have any other access to BG I don’t really know. But in general if two shows/books/movies are equally interesting I’ll go for the older one first. And there is the fact that BG has more sensationalistic sex and violence (which of course has something to do with being more recent). Perhaps of the two BG is more consistently high-quality. Bab5 is often quite cheesy. But I like cheese.

Right now I’m watching DS9 with my wife. I hope to go back and watch season 5 of Bab5 and some more of the movies eventually (I’ve seen Call to Arms and The Beginning), but I decided to take a break for a while.

Edwin
 
Babylon 5, because the new Battlestar Galactica just changed too much for me. The original BG yes awesome show!
 
B5 is lame. BSG is not just great sci fi, it’s great tv and great drama, period.
 
Recently moved to my new house, unpacking today I came across my autographed photos of Virginia Hey…

Farscape was infinetly better than B5, IMO, and since it was canceled to make room for Stargate, I’ve never actually sat through an entire Stargate episode.
 
Oh B5 was so wonderful! It was like reading a long novel. to the poster who said he/'she had not seen season 5 yet, you gotta watch it. it ties up all the story lines with Lando, Gerabaldi, and Sharidon.

I loved the love story between John S and Delyn. it was so romantic and not trashy at all. There wasn’t much sex at all in B5 and not much swearing or people getting nakid just to get nakid. it was a classy, fun show. And I liked it that some of the charactors had faith. it was more real in certain ways than Star Trek. I love Trek, and it was my fave show until I watched B5. I hope to own the series some day.

Anyone read any of the B5 novels?
 
The first season of BSG was great, but it just seemed to get more angsty and soap opera-ish from there. Plus, the whole occupation of Iraq series where souless, murdering drones stood in for American soldiers was inexcusable. On the other hand, it had the best space battles of any show I’ve ever seen. The whole WWII carrier fight feel was perfectly done and there’s something just so great about the lumbering, unstoppable jugernaught of Galactica that you just don’t see as much in most modern scifi shows.

Still in all, I’d take Stargate or Firefly over either.

Forget where I saw it, but more science fiction authors have been Catholic than any other religion.
 
zeppflyer said:
The first season of BSG was great, but it just seemed to get more angsty and soap opera-ish from there. Plus, the whole occupation of Iraq series where souless, murdering drones stood in for American soldiers was inexcusable. On the other hand, it had the best space battles of any show I’ve ever seen. The whole WWII carrier fight feel was perfectly done and there’s something just so great about the lumbering, unstoppable jugernaught of Galactica that you just don’t see as much in most modern scifi shows.

Still in all, I’d take Stargate or Firefly over either.

Forget where I saw it, but more science fiction authors have been Catholic than any other religion.
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Thats a huge stretch. How in the world did you come up with that?
 
wabrams said:
Thats a huge stretch. How in the world did you come up with that?
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The occupation of New Caprica by the Cylons was meant to be a parody of the American occupation of Iraq. The writers have said so. (I think the interview is in Rolling Stone?)

Elements used included the puppet government, the human
Resistance which the writers glorified and used to justify suicide bombings , and the traitorous human police who were stand ins for the Iraqis who collaborated with Americans.

The Cylon raiders were the parallels of American Soldiers. Were we perfect over there? Obviously not. But this was not a reasonable comparison at all.
 
zeppflyer said:
The occupation of New Caprica by the Cylons was meant to be a parody of the American occupation of Iraq. The writers have said so. (I think the interview is in Rolling Stone?)

Elements used included the puppet government, the human
Resistance which the writers glorified and used to justify suicide bombings , and the traitorous human police who were stand ins for the Iraqis who collaborated with Americans.

The Cylon raiders were the parallels of American Soldiers. Were we perfect over there? Obviously not. But this was not a reasonable comparison at all.
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Some of the writers at National Review Online [consevative site] were big BSG fans, but were really angry about this part of the story arc.

But it isn’t nearly as anti-american as the show’s critics have claimed.

I never felt they were trying ot draw a direct paralel between the US and Cylons. In BSG, the collaboration of the government was central to the story, not so in Iraq. The Cylons intention was to keep humans and study them like lab rats [having first reduced our poplulation from hundreds of billions to around 50,000]. No one seriously beleives the US was up to anything similar.

The real question these episodes asked was a familar one for Catholics: how much evil can we do, in the hope that good will come of it? The human resistence frequently targeted other human beings, using weapons common to today’s terrorists. They aren’t exactly celebrated for it, either.

But neither are the collaborators: the only heros in this section of the story are those left on BSG who risk every thing to rescue the humans, even though they could have just abandoned them.
 
zeppflyer said:
The occupation of New Caprica by the Cylons was meant to be a parody of the American occupation of Iraq. The writers have said so. (I think the interview is in Rolling Stone?)

Elements used included the puppet government, the human
Resistance which the writers glorified and used to justify suicide bombings , and the traitorous human police who were stand ins for the Iraqis who collaborated with Americans.

The Cylon raiders were the parallels of American Soldiers. Were we perfect over there? Obviously not. But this was not a reasonable comparison at all.
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I don’t believe any of this, especially about the Rolling Stone interview (liberal bias as nauseam).

I’ve heard the producer/writer commentary that went along with those episodes and NOTHING of what you described was ever hinted at, much less discussed.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
Some of the writers at National Review Online [consevative site] were big BSG fans, but were really angry about this part of the story arc.

But it isn’t nearly as anti-american as the show’s critics have claimed.

I never felt they were trying ot draw a direct paralel between the US and Cylons. In BSG, the collaboration of the government was central to the story, not so in Iraq. The Cylons intention was to keep humans and study them like lab rats [having first reduced our poplulation from hundreds of billions to around 50,000]. No one seriously beleives the US was up to anything similar.

The real question these episodes asked was a familar one for Catholics: how much evil can we do, in the hope that good will come of it? The human resistence frequently targeted other human beings, using weapons common to today’s terrorists. They aren’t exactly celebrated for it, either.

But neither are the collaborators: the only heros in this section of the story are those left on BSG who risk every thing to rescue the humans, even though they could have just abandoned them.
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One of the best parts of that story arc was the resistance. I loved it when someone questioned Tigh about using suicide bombers and his response was that it really wasn’t any different that sending pilots on one way missions where there was no chance of survival.
 
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