B5: Severed Dreams

[J!!]

and then after all that, the TNT executives decided they didn't want the new show before it even started filming, and so set about deliberately sabotaging its ratings so that they wouldn't have to do a full season. so none of those plotlines ever got resolved.

It's worse than that. It was announced that the show had been cancelled before the first episode even aired, so it would not have mattered how the ratings were (of course, knowing that the show was cancelled and things would not be resolved did not help ratings).

And of course the greatest irony is that that decision was based on season 5 not performing as well as they'd wanted it to. If JMS'd focused more on wrapping things up than setting new things up, season 5 might've done better, and Crusade might've had a chance.

It's a shame too, Crusade had a great premise, and beyond that, it had fucking Galen.

[CareerKnight]

and then after all that, the TNT executives decided they didn't want the new show before it even started filming, and so set about deliberately sabotaging its ratings so that they wouldn't have to do a full season. so none of those plotlines ever got resolved.

It's worse than that. It was announced that the show had been cancelled before the first episode even aired, so it would not have mattered how the ratings were (of course, knowing that the show was cancelled and things would not be resolved did not help ratings).

And of course the greatest irony is that that decision was based on season 5 not performing as well as they'd wanted it to. If JMS'd focused more on wrapping things up than setting new things up, season 5 might've done better, and Crusade might've had a chance.

It's a shame too, Crusade had a great premise, and beyond that, it had fucking Galen.

I have heard even worse things about what was going on behind the scenes with Crusade, like TNT making arbitrary demands on what needed to be in an episode and their refusal to sell the show to SciFi who were interested despite the low ratings. (Basically they kept hiking the price to buy the show until SciFi lost interest)

[excalibur]

I was pretty sure I was too young in the 90s when this episode was aired. I was aware enough to know TNG, DS9 and Voyager, but B5 was a weird thing for the young 90s kid me.

Nonetheless, when I was able to watch the series fully as an adult, this became one of my most favorite sci fi series even over Star Trek.

[Madner Kami]

I was pretty sure I was too young in the 90s when this episode was aired. I was aware enough to know TNG, DS9 and Voyager, but B5 was a weird thing for the young 90s kid me.

Nonetheless, when I was able to watch the series fully as an adult, this became one of my most favorite sci fi series even over Star Trek.

It's simply down to how much more adult the series was, compared to Star Trek in general. The same is true for large parts of Deep Space Nine as well. In abstract one can say, neither B5 nor DS9 could rely on Technobabble to solve the problem of the week (B5 even much less than DS9), as it's the character driven drama that fuels the tension, instead of particle-stream xyz.

[excalibur]

I think it's also because B5 was less the idealized future that Star Trek has always promoted. Though, in my opinion, I still think a new series is unnecessary now considering the climate of what is trending and how most popular show always have to shoehorn the topics of the year instead of tactically the universe in the story.

[Fixer]

I was pretty sure I was too young in the 90s when this episode was aired. I was aware enough to know TNG, DS9 and Voyager, but B5 was a weird thing for the young 90s kid me.

Nonetheless, when I was able to watch the series fully as an adult, this became one of my most favorite sci fi series even over Star Trek.

I can remember this one pretty clearly. The sci-fi nerds at School all had their long running arguments over which was better, Trek or B5. Everyone unanimously agreed over how awesome this Episode was.

The space fights pantomimed with expertly mouthed sound effects by a bunch of 14 year olds taking cover from the rain in the quadrangle. Some fruitlessly tried to talk about character and story while an in depth discussion went on about how best to ram one space ship into another

Then the following agreement next week about how all the new uniforms sucked.

Likewise though I re-watched the series as an adult and found so much more to appreciate.

[MadAmosMalone]

Gawd! I feel like the old geezeroid here. I was in my late 20s and early 30s when this show came out. I loved it then, love it now. First ep I ever saw was Grail, not a particularly impressive debut for me but it was enough to get me to scope it out again the following week. That episode ("Eyes" IIRC) proved more interesting. I missed an episode or two after that but I caught back up with the two-parter "Voice in the Wilderness." That was enough to make me a regular viewer going into Season Two. By "The Geometry of Shadows" I was completely hooked.

The show, IMHO, hasn't aged that well but that does nothing to take away how groundbreaking it was. Many aspects of modern television were pioneered right here. Despite it appearing somewhat "dated" today it is still a very good story and even the show's flaws are endearing to me. Someone else in this thread pointed out the effortless combination of fantasy and sci-fi elements this show managed to pull off and I hafta agree it was one of the reasons this show is "special."

I will always love B5. Oh and, PS, Ivanova is God.

[Aotrs Commander]

I think this is arguably my favourite episode of the series (except for maybe the one where Vit gets what he wants. You know which one i mean...!)

On top of everything else, the starship battle is just perfect. I am keen to the point of obession over starships (part of my day job these days is designing 'em), so starshp battles are a keen point of interest for me. The one in Severed Dreams stands, despite the small scale, as one of the most intense I think I've ever seen; and in large part, I think to it being the culimnation of the previous arcs and the situation. (The music fits it so well, to boot.)

And I never, ever fail to watch Delenn showing up at the last minute without laughing my ass off. Not because it's *funny,* but excited laughter because it is *so freaking awesome.*

(Okay, the way the Earth Alliance ships are basically alreadu turning as soon as she says "be somewhere else!" is actually really funny, 'cos one feels the navigator/pilot must have already started, seeing which way the wind was blowing...!)

This is pretty much why I still cite B5 as my all-time favourite. SG-1 took top spot for a while... But then I watched B5 again on DVD as an adult (not a teenager) and got all the subtext and everything else.

(On top of everything else, B5 was also - at the right moments - consistently funny. That bit with Londo and the Narn at the start of Severed Dreams, for example!)

[Trinary]

In abstract one can say, neither B5 nor DS9 could rely on Technobabble to solve the problem of the week (B5 even much less than DS9), as it's the character driven drama that fuels the tension, instead of particle-stream xyz.

One of my favorite examples is "A Day in the Strife" (Season 3, Episode 3) of B5. An alien probe shows up, announces that it will bring advanced technology and medicine if they can answer some 300 very advanced questions within a certain time frame. If they can't, it explodes with 500,000 megatons of force, which would destroy the whole station (a quarter of a MILLION people, remember).

You know how Trek would solve this. Retool the tractor beam or scanners or transporters, etc. etc. to get it away or reprogram it or whatever.

What does B5 do? They have the crew, assisted by the government, frantically try to solve the questions as best they can---then when it comes down to the deadline, Sheridan recognizes that this situation makes no sense. If the aliens were truly benevolent, they wouldn't be threatening to annihilate anyone who missed a single question. He concluded it was a beserker, sent by a species anonymously seeking out potential rivals and annihilating them. So he doesn't send any answers and the probe leaves, concluding they're too low tech to bother with. Then he has a drone remotely transmit the answers once it's far enough away so the probe detonates without hurting anyone else.

That is brilliant, insightful and did not rely on technology. Sheridan RULES.

[J!!]

Yeah, I liked that one too. He's just lucky the bot didn't decide to fly back over to the station before it blowed up.