Picking sides.

[gabolange]

Share your favorite piece of original canon.

My favorite?

Okay, fine. I will not overthink this. Babylon 5 is the show of my heart.

It was not my first love (Star Wars) or my first fandom (Star Trek) or the fandom where I've made and kept the most friends (BSG, Stargate, Wheel of Time) or the fandom eating my brain right now (For All Mankind) or the one that broke my heart hardest (The Doctor Blake Mysteries) or even the one where I learned the most about myself (Call the Midwife). I have never written the story of my heart for it, the way I have for so many others (what isn't on this list? Leverage!, Strange New Worlds!), though I have come close.

And yet, and yet. It is first a story about storytelling, about how the "worst first season ever" actually frames everything that comes next thoughtfully and brilliantly while still being kind of bad. (All the prophecies come true.) It is a story about choice and destiny at a personal and galactic scale, and it is a story about the kinds of choices that will allow redemption and the kinds that won't. It is a story about friendship, the complicated and messy kind that doesn't fit easily into boxes but which undergirds the universe. It is a story about love.

It has my favorite scene of anything ever filmed, when Delenn rides in with righteous fury in "Severed Dreams" and saves the station with just a few words but the power of a decade of destruction living within them. It has my favorite character of anything ever filmed, or one of a top few, because Delenn's ability to force the world to bend to her will while wearing a smile and insisting (and possibly believing) she would never do any such thing is a masterclass in point of view.

It also does this while still being kinda cheesy 90s sci-fi with some monsters of the week and a King Arthur obsession that I never think fits as well as some other people do. And, like The Next Generation before it, it uses its tone to its advantage, so when the really bad moments come, you are surprised along with the characters.

I found B5 initially in college (2003?) and watched with friends. I came back to it in my early LJ fandom days (2007?) and tore through everything on Jumpy and across webrings and on journals. I made a couple friends, though I have now lost track of them. And then I came back to it in 2021 after Mira Furlan died--I put on "Severed Dreams", which was coincidentally the first episode I ever watched--and I just kept watching. For eleven months.

I was worried it wouldn't hold up, that it would be cheesy or uncomfortable. But instead I found it even more prescient and relevant; perhaps that is the value of the archetype. G'Kar will sadly always have a proxy as the voice of an oppressed people. The fate of the Markab will always be too close for comfort. Londo, well. As I get older, the more I understand and hate Londo in equal measure.

And Susan and Delenn will always be the ones who survive, who exist with triumph and loss as equal partners in their heads and their hearts. We will with them always raise a glass to absent friends, in memory still bright.

To this show, which I love, which changed my life.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I will absolutely fight anyone about season one being the worst, lol. I've rewatched it an unhealthy number of times, and it'll always be my favourite.

Everything about this. Yes.

[gabolange]

Oh, I love season one. I just recognize that to a viewer who doesn't know what's coming, it reads as kind of terrible, and then you later go oh shit and watch it with entirely new eyes.

<3

[kanadka]

absolutely agreed with all of this! Although I co-sign Mucca above that Season 1 is SO GOOOOOD ;A; (I'll admit, though, the first time I ever saw it literally ever, S1 did leave me a bit cold.)

I wish I knew more about the way the fandom was in the 90s. I read an interview that implied that it was huge and everywhere for a couple years and then none of those sites or mailing lists were archived and within about 5 years it was all gone.

[gabolange]

I find season one fantastic, but much more on the second watch -- it does a great job setting things up that will be meaningful in ways the initial viewer doesn't expect. But I also think it's clunky and uneven? But like, that's kind of why I love it -- it can be both fantastic and not very good, and I love sitting with that dichotomy.

And yeah, I caught some of the end of the 90s fandom (in the early aughts) -- there were some really great sites and listservs. But I was in my lurker days then, so it's not as formative for me as it could have been.

[grav_ity]

My commitment to never learning what B5 is actually about remains strong, but it brings me such joy through fandom osmosis. :)

[trepkos]

I haven't watched this more than twice, but both times I couldn't help feeling bad for Londo ...

[mekare]

Beautifully written, thank you for sharing your love.

[gabolange]

I completely support your efforts and promise to never actually tell you about it in detail!

[gabolange]

He's such a tragic figure. I always feel so bad for him, and yet he had so many opportunities to change course and just couldn't take htem.

[gabolange]

Thank you! <3

[switchbladeeyes]

This is a show I’d love to re-watch eventually. I haven’t seen it in decades, but there are still moments and characters that stand out in my mind.

[gabolange]

It is really worth coming back to!

[silveradept]

B5 as a story holds up excellently over time. The CGI, perhaps less so, but the story is excellent.

I am fond of Susan throughout, especially when she gets to also start delivering ultimatums about which particular higher power has sent her and why everyone should listen to her the first time, rather than trying her patience or her mercy.

And then there's Delenn, who plays the game of politics and power masterfully all throughout the series, without all that many others realizing what kind of position she's put them in until it's too late.

(And then there's Londo and G'kar, and Vir, and the tragedy between all three of them.)

[trepkos]

Yes, that was an occasion where I was shouting at a fictional character ...

[gabolange]

I love all of them so very much!

[hamsterwoman]

I was worried it wouldn't hold up, that it would be cheesy or uncomfortable. But instead I found it even more prescient and relevant;

I also rewatched B5 around that time (introducing my kids to it while revisiting myself), after initially watching the show as s2 and onward were airing, and I was also worried it might not hold up, and was amazed by how well it did. And yeah, suddenly all the things about EarthGov that had struck me as implausible for the 23rd century when I was watching in the 90s were a lot easier to suspend disbelief for... :/

[gabolange]

Yeah, it was certainly a moment to come back to the show... somehow I think that it will hold up for a long time.