Babylon 5 influenced Ds9, is Ron Moore the New JMS of this decade

[Garovorkin]

In B5 so many memorable scenes, one that that come to mind was in the fifth season Londo knows that in order to save his people from destruction at the hands of the Drak he has to become their willing Puppet, which means having the keeper put on him. And before it happens we have him and JKar. and tells JKar "Once I had all of the Choices and none of the power and now I have all of the Power and none of the choices." Then JKar gave his forgiveness to Londo. That was a great moment one of many in this series. The mark of a good producer and writer is if they can make you care about the characters and the dilemma that they find themselves in.

In BSG in the Pegesus Detention cell, Baltar is trying to comfort Gina who had been brutalized and raped. Yeah she was the enemy, but to see that done to her, its hard to hate her in light of what was done to her. Baltar telling Gina the truth about himself , for all Balter did and failed to do, I found very difficult to hate and Six as well especially when she told Coloniel Tigh that she felt the pain of what she done every day because she wanted to feel , because she guilty of killing so many and wanted to suffer as way penance. Tigh wanted punishment for killing his wife but six tried to help him heal. Ron Moore makes it hard for you to completely had the bad guys, or like the good guys.
Shades of Grey very good writing.

In Buffy well one of Spikes finest moments was telling Glory of. " you may be a God in your Dimension but in ours your an Idiot "and goes on to " that the slayer was going to kick her skanky lopsided ass back into whatever hell dimension would take a whorish fashion victim like you" i don't know if i got that Quite correct its been a while since ive seen this episode That scene rocked, Spike was Cool ! Again great writing.

 

[GKarsEye]

I remember DS9 used to get a lot of shit from some fans for the many stories and references about the Cardassian-Bajoran conflict, but that was one of my favorite parts about the show. That it aired around the time of the Balkan conflicts gave it added resonance. Even if it possibly borrowed that element from the Centauri/Narn conflict, it did some really nice things with it, and was different enough from B5.

 

[Garovorkin]

In Ds9 you also had character making life changing choices.
Gul Dukat went from Bad guy to good guy rebel ,to bad guy sellout. He made choices , he wanted power, but in the beginning he did try to change direction but in the end He was not strong enough in his convictions about reforming. In the end He sold sold his soul and free will to the Par wraith, he achieved damnation of his soul. Demar and Garak both bad guys both make the hard choices necessary to become good guys, Demar when He saw what Dominion, was really like, and over his guilt for zee, aal, He did the right thing even at the cost of the lives of wife and son and the sacrifice of his best friend , for the sake of saving major Kira. Garak we find that he had real nasty occupation in the obsidian OOrder and it was amazing how he change how he learned to value his friends on the station.

Ben Sisko one of his finest moments was when he was trying to justify the action that resulted in the death of the Romulan senator, life. The whole scheme to fake evidence that the dominion was planning on going after the Romulan Empire. And knowing deep down that Garak was planning to kill the Romulan politician to give the bogus evidence authenticity. as Sisko Said" If the Price of saving the Alpha Quadrant is a Guilty Conscience, I can live with it" of course he had to repeat the last part of the line to re assure himself. then he deletes the recording.

 

[Recoil]

I have trouble making those comparisons with DS9. I liked the show for what it was, but it was well below the level of B5 or any Whedon show.

DS9 had some interesting characters, many of which were "borrowed" from B5. But DS9's problem is that they never DID anything with them.

Garak was really cool at the start of the series...but if you watch that last season, you feel like he never really went anywhere other than telling a couple cool spy stories.

Odo was worse. He started off interesting enough, but then got really lame in later seasons when he had that puppy love for Kira.

Dukat was pretty cool as well, and he did go through SOME interesting changes...but not dramatically.

The rest of the Starfleet folks didn't change a bit really. Kira really didn't change either, except that she stopped hating Starfleet so much.

NONE of the DS9 characters could hold a candle to the changes that Londo and G'Kar made, or Lyta and even Sheridan. Those characters were literally different PEOPLE at the end of B5. Almost unrecognizable since when the series started.

And Whedon...what he does well is take a bunch of interesting characters, and completely turn them inside out. He isn't big with the grand story-arcs...he usually has sort of season-ish arcs. His characters, however, do grow and develop. But what I always found most fascinating about his shows is how he takes those characters relationships and literally turns them on end and puts them through the ringer.

Angel did this the best of any of his shows. Man, Season 2 and 3 just completely turned their little group inside out and against each other. You went from loving to hating some people, and then back to sort of comrades by the end. It was quite a roller coaster ride.

DS9 never really did anything of the sort. It had some neat stand-alone stories that I liked, and it was fun for Trek, but wasn't on the same level of storytelling and character development of some of these other shows.

 

[Garovorkin]

Granted The character development in B5 does exceed what is found in Ds9. but really in the the case of Sisko went from Bitter and diillusioned to one of the prophets of the temple, If that doesn't count as a signifcant growth of character then what does, He did not end like he started, What about Nog and his journey from would be thief working for his uncle to star fleet officer , along the way he had become some different from when he started, He got his leg shot off in battle went through a period of despondency and managed to climb out of it. What about Rom his father he went from a man of no self worth always under the thumb of his brother Quark, to Grand Nagus of Freenginar, along the way he discovered his own self worth as a person thats not significant development? yeah he did stay a nice guy but so what. Some like cheif O'brien did not change much at all Ill give you that but there charters experienced more growth then what you would find in anyy other trek episodes. Look Im not saying its as good as B5, it isn't

 

[Recoil]

To read those descriptions one would believe that they were great swings and changes. But to actually have watched it, all of those you mentioned seemed extremely forced. All tossed in quickly in their final season. Just my opinion...

 

[Alluveal]

Cell said:

Ron Moore's best work, at least for the year he was involved in it, was Carnivale.

Hands down agree, but I'm also a total Carnivale nerd. I love BSG, but I'm not sure I can really compare the two. Carnivale was far more intimate in some ways and had some of the red tape removed due to being on HBO (nudity, swearing, etc.)

Jan said:

I also wouldn't equate major commercial success as a valid measure of greatness. After all, 'reality' shows are a huge commercial success but I don't know anybody with taste who'd refer to them as great.

Amen. BSG has pretty dismal ratings. B5 outshone it in terms of viewership by two times (at least.) Carnivale did not pull in great ratings either on HBO, but I think they were better than BSG, truth be told. I think sci-fi has issues with promoting. They promote heavily on their station, but I rarely watch the station except for BSG. Most of the programming is crap. The miniseries had nice ratings, but it also got a lot of promotion in movie theaters and on other channels.

(back on target, Alluveal!)

I don't think it's unfair to make comparisons, but I'm of the frame of mind that if it's sci-fi, I'm probably going to watch it. If I'm not watching it on television, I'm renting the dvds from Netflix at some point. I am just glad to get it when I can.

I do plan to watch DS9 again soon, maybe over the summer before I start grad school and become a zombie to schoolwork. I'm sure I'll see similarities, but I'm excited to watch. If it entertains and is enjoyable, I'm ok with it.

Koshfan said:

JMS was good, and from what I've seen of B5 and BSG, JMS kept his show running closer to the "big idea" than Ron Moore ever has. BSG is still pretty episodic, and they mess with the continuity now and then.

It tends to rely on more filler episodes, I agree, with a thin over-layer of story arc holding pieces together. It gets frustrating for me as a fan. They're spending time on all this other stuff, when they could be exploring the meatiest parts of the story. Let your writers play. Let the actors go for broke.

Vacantlook said:

Well, for one, I'd say he can't be considered the new jms because Moore didn't create a show whole cloth. He's played with others' ideas, reconfigured and refined them to fit whatever story he wanted to tell, but still they originated from someone else.

+10000

Couldn't agree more. I appreciate Moore immensely and think he has it in him. I just think it's comparing apples to oranges in a sense.