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Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

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Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#151

Post by macintux »

Notable for this audience but perhaps not widely known: JMS engaged with Usenet to promote and discuss the show; if I remember correctly, the B5 newsgroup was active even before the pilot aired.

Obviously there was no social media at the time, and I would bet that was the first time a U.S. TV show’s creator was communicating directly with fans via the Internet.

(Update: more that I reflect on it, I think he was engaging with the community even while shopping the show around, but that was before my participation.)

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#152

Post by Telemakhos »

nephihaha wrote: post #136
dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

It's let down by its effects which even appeared ropey at the time. However, some good storylines.

Having been alive at the time, I can tell you that the effects were amazing then. B5 was one of the first shows to use computer graphics and partially-virtual sets. It wasn't limited by the number of times you could re-composite a handful of models together, so it showed whole armadas of ships. Windows didn't open onto a black felt field of stars but a green screen that allowed ships to pull up right outside the window.

The effects don't hold up to what has followed in the past quarter century, and they weren't preserved in a good resolution, so they'll never look very good on a high-resolution monitor instead of an old CRT. But, at the time, they were amazing.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#153

Post by wiradikusuma »

dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

Isn't the linked YouTube video title literally "Season 1, Episode 1"?

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#154

Post by zelphirkalt »

jefc1111 wrote: post #6

If you decide to watch Babylon 5 for the first time, I suggest giving it a chance to get under your skin. There is quite a lot to get in the way of that such as mediocre acting, cringey humour, low budget fx (all particularly prominent in season 1). But the pay off in seasons 3 and 4 is huge if you take the time to let affection grow for the characters. Babylon 5 was my first 'favourite series' that 'changed my life'…

When I watched Farscape for the first time, I got a similar feeling. Costumes seemed weird, compared to Star Trek or Star Gate and some others. But I still watched and became a fan. Recently, I rewatched it and nothing seemed particularly weird or strange or low quality. I guess for Babylon 5 it will be a similar experience. Might watch that soon.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#155

Post by thinkingemote »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #153
dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

Isn't the linked YouTube video title literally "Season 1, Episode 1"?

yes, somewhat incorrectly as its the pilot / first movie, that came out before season 1 started

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5#Pilot_film_(1993)

The numbering of the uploaded episodes seems to be off by one versus wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Babylon_5_episodes#Sea...

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#156

Post by wartywhoa23 »

prmoustache wrote: post #147
tracker1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found the acting in the first season really, "soap opera" like. I'm not sure how to describe it better. It's still one of my all time favorite shows. I wish they'd do a corrected bluray release with even a bit more effort... when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes. Maybe AI upscale to 4k, with training data for newer ship models, actor photos, etc then reducing b…

Do we really need to upscale everything? I don't think image quality really is an important thing to enjoy old movies / series as long as the story is good.

Just wait, they'll soon demand that their favorite soap operas be AI-restarted to generate slop streams indefinitely, and will throw their hard-sat-on-a-sofa UBI credits at that.

- Hey, have you watched that Game of Thrones S1723E1122?

- Nope, I'm not paying until they upscale it to 64K!

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#157

Post by Telemakhos »

moomin wrote: post #113
tracker1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found the acting in the first season really, "soap opera" like. I'm not sure how to describe it better. It's still one of my all time favorite shows. I wish they'd do a corrected bluray release with even a bit more effort... when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes. Maybe AI upscale to 4k, with training data for newer ship models, actor photos, etc then reducing b…

It’s partly that JMS favoured stage actors. Partly that he grabbed a number of his favourite actors from “Murder She Wrote”. Honestly brilliant, taking a couple of murderers of the week and giving them lead roles in a show.

There's more to this line of thought. The pilot movie isn't space opera so much as it is a murder mystery in space, and it's not the only episode like that. The security chief, Garibaldi, is a hard-bitten alcoholic detective from film noir (and there are plenty of film-noir-like visual elements: fans, shadows, run-down industrial sectors unimaginable in Star Trek), and he plays a much larger role solving crimes than do his counterparts in other science fiction shows. The writing style, a long arc that drops clues up front to pay off in revelations down the line, also leans heavily on mystery writing.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#158

Post by zelphirkalt »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #21
jeffwask wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rewatched it last year during an old sci-fi binge, I had watched bits as a kid but never got it. I grew up on TNG and DS9 was my favorite, so I was probably biased. It's probably now number 2 for me behind DS9. I watched it again a few month later to catch all the foreshadowing I missed the first time. You are spot on that season 1 is a slow burn that ramps up to the amazing seasons 3 and 4. Best part, it has a cle…

As a DS9 fan myself I felt like B5 was the better show. DS9 had greater variance throughout its run, the standout episodes were phenomenal but also lots of weak episodes & filler. If there was tighter editorial control over the episodes & at least 30% of them got cut then it could be a contender.

I watched all of TNG, Voyager and DS9. To me DS9 will always be behind the other ST series.

I felt like it was a bit too much of the social stuff, maybe because it plays mostly on a station instead of an exploration vessel, but I guess that is exactly what people like about it. The characters and their development and so on. I liked the Garak character for example, but disliked Zisko being some chosen one for the wormhole gods or something. I much prefer Data, or Picard or most of their crew, even if they don't develop as much.

Well, to each their own, they are all good series to watch.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#159

Post by roywiggins »

Akronymus wrote: post #140
dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

Also, it seems like piracy is still yhe superior form to watch it over YT because, quite frankly, YT's quality is crap.

fwiw the whole thing is free to watch on Tubi and the quality there is very nice.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#160

Post by nobody9999 »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #153
dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

Isn't the linked YouTube video title literally "Season 1, Episode 1"?

>Isn't the linked YouTube video title literally "Season 1, Episode 1"?

Yes and no It's the pilot (and consequently the first[2]) episode "The Gathering", which actually doesn't have an episode number.[0]

The first aired episode was S1E1 "Midnight on the Firing Line".

The former was released as a "TV Movie" even though it was the pilot episode.

[0] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html for the episode listings.[1]

[1] Be careful, a wrong click can end up giving you spoilers. :(

[2] I'd note that the pilot episode has significant personnel, prop and make-up differences from the rest of the series.

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