h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Reading the science fiction thread, I couldn't help noticing that other people were alluding to my favorite SF TV show: Babylon 5.

Being in the US, I had the fortune of seeing it in its initial run. I was in college at the time, and so had a bit of free time to discuss it with others while it was on. It is being replayed on the Sci Fi Channel now, to my great delight. At some point I will save an amount of money and invest in prerecorded episodes, for my future viewing pleasure.

Shall we count the ways in which we found the show entertaining, and invigorating?

The first(and unfortunately, last best hope for it) "story arc". An idea so radical it almost got the show canned before it ever started. JMS prevailed, and so we received a story with internal consistency because it was planned so. Oh, the joy for the obsessive-compulsive SF fan! A writer who wrote so well, he knew the story's ins and outs as well as the most ardent fan.
[There were regrettable lapses in the arc - some due to outside circumstances. "Mad bomber", you say? Also, the end of season 4 was changed when there was a danger that season 5 wouldn't happen. Cast changes had an impact too - I'm sure people will mention that in the fullness of time.)

The second, so basic: really interesting characters. This show had so many intriguing personalities, with complexities that prevent them from being pinned to one sentence summaries - how different from the rest of the trite TV world! Let me just list some of my favorites, in random-access order: Zathras(pick a brother), Delenn, Vir, G'Kar, Garibaldi, Kosh, Ivanovna, Lyta, Number One, Marcus(oh yes, the G&S number at the end of an episode!), the other Kosh, the Technomage... very nice.

I'm going to end the list with a third, but I'm sure there are plenty more: the SFX. Yes, this will surely be dated soon in the world of fast-paced technical changes, but for now, it is a thing of beauty. I can remember clearly the trembling that was physically communicated to me in watching the fleet battles, the truly strange aliens, and then the truly wierd things... Absolutely the best WOW factor for a TV show to date. It set the bar far higher than shows past, where an image on a viewscreen was "enough"; in this universe, it would be far more fitting to start with an image of a person through a window, then pan back to show the entire station in all its glory.

It's ironic that I am such a rabid fan(self-confessed) now, because in its first season, I dismissed it as nothing more than Star Trek imitation dross. It took a friend pulling me in to watch for me to say "Oh, now I get it it, this is something else." Looking back on it, it was at a time when Trek was starting its current decline, and I was loath to attach myself to something like it. Fortunately, it had some of the same strengths of its predecessors, while adding innovations to revitalize the genre.

You might say of me, preaching so of B5, that I have a "Very sad life, probably have very sad death... but at least there is symmetry". (Thanks to Zathras for the quote.)