Babylon 5: My Decent into Geekdom

I recently watched the first season of Babylon 5. To be honest I never would have watched an episode if my dad hadn’t picked it at a discount. I’ve been avoiding it due to its similarities to Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, which I have never warmed to. However, contrary to what I thought Babylon 5 has very little resemblance to those shows.

The first season was addicting and well written. The second season was intense, invocative and also extremely well written. The deep incite and impressive storylines are not what you expect from an outwardly generic looking sci-fi program. I was expecting the western style storylines, Zen quoting and random violence you get in sci-fi shows such as star trek and Battlestar Galactica. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the characters although cold and militarist at first were layered flawed and flexible. Even the alien inhabitants feel very human. They deal with emotional problems that are very much like our own and the circumvent emergencies with to the best of there abilities. This does not mean things always go right or even that they make the right dissections. Ever one of them at their core is good and every one of then contains the seed of corruption. Much like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings there is no real bad guys (with the exception of greed and evil itself a.k.a. Soron or the shadows). There are only people who have made the wrong choices. Even when some characters make bad choices they are not portrayed are evil till the end there are still some aspects of good in them. I’ve mentioned before how much I admire this in writing of any kind. It is so difficult not to fall back on a bad and a good and it so easy to say that someone does bad things because “that’s what they do”.

I also admire Babylon 5’s the peace agenda. The reason I avoid most American sci-fi programs is there overuse of violence sometimes even glorifying it. The fight against insurmountable evil and even the exploration rigmarole gets old read fast. It’s the same glorified propaganda empires have been producing since the Persians. Amidst all this Babylon 5 is a breath of fresh air.

I may be descending deep into the dark abyss of geekdom by watching this TV series but it’s different, its intelligent, and its epic what more can you ask for.

There will probably be more mentions of this show in the future.

Minerva