P.S. I will give a full report, keep your fingers crossed fr me! Its very nerve-wracking, only having one chance to "sell" this show I love so much. How must "The Great Maker" have felt in all those TV execs offices?! Keep suggestions coming!
Are you sure you can't get this person to sit down to more than just one episode? If that's *all* they're willing to try, then they may not have their mind open to it.
Without commercials and not counting opening credits, an episode is approx. two-thirds of an hour. Most people just hanging out with friends don't mind watching a two-hour movie. That's the equivalent of three episodes.
Some of the episodes mentioned like By Any Means Necessary are about mundane things based somewhat on reality but in a futuristic setting. Episodes like Confessions & Lamentations are about extraordinary--yet believable--things in a futuristic setting. And, ones like Mind War are about truly fantastic and science-fictiony topics.
I would say a person would not get a good sense of Babylon 5 without a mixture. JMS himself has explained that Babylon 5 came from the merging of two separate concepts he had in his head. He was thinking about people living ordinary lives in a spinning canister of a space station, and he also had an idea for epic battles between ancient forces of good & evil (more correctly, order & chaos). It wasn't until he realized they were the same story that Babylon 5 was born. It's two shows wrapped up into one.
If you show your friend By Any Means, they'll see the mundane side of B5 but won't get the sense of wonder. If they see Mind War, they'll think it's all magic & psychobabble set in space with shaky cameras, special effects, and explosions.
If you show them one of each (with maybe a nice middle-ground episode like Confession & Lamentations as a third), I think only then will they get a good sense of the show and how good it is. Being willing to see only one ep isn't quite a fair shot. If after three, they still don't like it, then the show definitely wasn't meant for them.
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As an aside... Despite B5 being my #1 all-time favorite show and me doubting anything could ever beat it, I still haven't watched an episode of it in several months. It's always in the back of my mind to watch an ep or two for old time sake, but I also know the whole story already. Other people have mentioned this here before, but I kind of envy people seeing it for the first time. It'd be nice to be mind-wiped of all B5 memory so that I could watch for the first time all over again.
I'm curious to know if your friend believes B5 stands the test of time, especially since TV shows have matured lately and have been more willing to do arc storylines, something B5 paved the way for. Personally, I think Lost and Battlestar Galactica come close, arc-wise, but B5's blend of heart, humor, soul, and eloquence put it over the top in my book.
