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How did we all become Babylon 5 Fans?

This one's a toughy. I can't actually remember not loving B5. Literally. I figure it started somwhere between 91 and 93, which for me would be age 7-9. I watched it then and loved it then. I have grown up with it. I can't honestly remember exactly how I started. But that's cos I was wee. Very wee.

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Lyta had a little Vorlon
Her skin was pale as snow
And everywhere that Lyta went
Her Vorlon was sure to go.
 
I was in college and looking for something to kill time one night before I had to go to a class. It happened to be the night they were playing the pilot movie, "The Gathering". I was drawn in immediately and probably would have skipped class if it wasn't for my VCR. When I heard it was to be series, I couldn't wait. I even managed to get some of my friends hooked. We started having B5 watching parties during season 4 and season 5. :)

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I know that this thread is really old and dusty but I thought that it deserves to be resurrected for the new members.

I personally watched "Midnight At The Firing Line" when I was 11 years old and it was like nothing I had seen before on TV.The TV channel that aired the first season decided they won't air the next seasons so at that time I thought that there were only 22 episodes filmed(in 1994 there was no Internet in my country).I had forgotten about the show for nearly 6 years when suddenly another tv channel aired the second season in 2000(a pretty long time from "Chrysalis" to "Points Of Departure" but it was worth the waiting)I suppose I became "addicted" to the show somewhere around "And The Sky Full Of Stars" and never missed an episode from that moment on.
 
For me it was simple, Babylon 5 challenged me, it was not like Trek or any other science fiction show that I had seen before. The stories were linked together so that you had to watch each and every episode otherwise you might miss some important detail, and I found liked that a whole lot better then the typical trek stand alone stories. In B5 the actions and choices of characters had actual consequences for the character,maybe not right away, but somewhere down the line. In a typical trek episode, it did not matter what the character did because the following week, everything would reset to zero.there was no consequences and thus no significant character development or growth, Boring. Half the fun was trying to guess which way the story was heading and trying to figure out which were the arcs and which were the cleverly place false leads,red herrings and dead ends(classic example of this latter being the whole Bureau 13 bit.) My best friend was the first one to figure out that the Vorlons were not the nice guys they pretended to be and that Shadows might only be half of the problem. This:mad: is to me Pound for pound the greatest science fiction show of all.
 
For me it was simple, Babylon 5 challenged me, it was not like Trek or any other science fiction show that I had seen before. The stories were linked together so that you had to watch each and every episode otherwise you might miss some important detail, and I found liked that a whole lot better then the typical trek stand alone stories. In B5 the actions and choices of characters had actual consequences for the character,maybe not right away, but somewhere down the line. In a typical trek episode, it did not matter what the character did because the following week, everything would reset to zero.there was no consequences and thus no significant character development or growth, Boring. Half the fun was trying to guess which way the story was heading and trying to figure out which were the arcs and which were the cleverly place false leads,red herrings and dead ends(classic example of this latter being the whole Bureau 13 bit.) My best friend was the first one to figure out that the Vorlons were not the nice guys they pretended to be and that Shadows might only be half of the problem. This:mad: is to me Pound for pound the greatest science fiction show of all.
 
I also didn't like that Trek had no story arc and character development and as you said it had only stand alones where everything is resolved at the end of each episode.Next week nobody talks about that like it never happened and it doesn't influence the following episodes.It can't be compared to B5.The first time I saw the Walkers Of Sigma 957,Zathras,Bester,Morden,Neroon,Draal and many others in S1 I could never guess how important their characters would be in the following seasons.Even in the episodes which are not part of the main story arc we can always find something important like for example the line "You talk like a Minbari, commander" in "Legacies" or "Leave.They are not for you." in "Signs And Portents".This is what makes B5 unique.
 
I almost didn't even watch it because it seemed that every time I started watching a new SF program it would disappear after a few episodes. I happened to read an interview with JMS about it, though, and it sounded intriguing so I decided to give one last show one last chance. It took a few episodes to go from 'if I think about it I'll watch' to 'Must See' but once that happened I found it no matter where on the schedule they moved it.

Jan
 
My friends showed me some episodes, but it's been so long since then that I can't remember which episodes they were or which ones hooked me. It's not like my more recent addictions, where my friends hooked me on Buffy in the first week of college, or Firefly, where my buddies and I watched the entire series in one night.
 
I don't know how I missed this thread the first time. I have loved space stories since my oldest brother sat me down next to him to watch original Trek when it first aired. I was very angry when they moved the show to Thursday nights at 10, which was past my bedtime. ;)

When I saw a few ads for the pilot film, I wrote it down on my calendar as a "not to miss" date. So, my story is that I saw the first airing of B5 and enjoyed it. I didn't love it then, but saw some possibilities. When I heard it was being made into a series, I couldn't wait to see it. I remember watching B5 and DS9 at the same time and thought "here are two shows about space stations illustrating a good story vs. a dull story."

That was something...coming from a card-carrying Trek-lover.
 
Itoo seem to have bypassed this thread.

I'm proud to consider myself among the British "First Ones". B5 was first broadcast at the time I normally got home from college and I watched it right from Midnight on the Firing Line. I loved the stories and the concepts... and by the time we hit Signs and Portents I knew we were watching something special. This was shortly followed by Babylon Squared and from then it was clear that this was not going to be your run of the mill science fiction show.
 
I saw it when it first aired in Germany, in 1995. I'm not sure whether I saw the pilot at the first airing, or the first few episodes. We were a group of friends at the University and one of them taped it regularily from the start, so this wasn't a problem, as we would watch them together. Later a colleaque who was in the UK for a stay at the time lent us the non-dubbed versions on VHS, which was the start of monthly evenings of B5 group watch :).

I remember having been really bored and frustrated at the time with Trek, especially DS9, which was in the second season when B5 came on air in my country, so B5 was a very welcome change.
 
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I got into B5 'cause I was hooking up with this chick back in the day who told me she had a Centauri-dancer/slave-girl fetish. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, so she made me watch B5. This created a problem because it made me develop a N'Grath fetish, and our differences were unresolvable. Alas, another tale of psycho-sexual heartbreak.
 
Saw ads for Season 2 on PTEN touting Bruce B. Always like him and love SciFi. Tuned in irregularly at 1st since the airtimes kept changing. Got hooked midway through season 2 and watched every ep after that. Was aching to see season 1 and was happy when TNT started airing reruns.
Am at the end of season 4 in my annual re-watch of the entire series. Even the eps I didn't care for look great. Like seeing an old friend again!
 
GKarsEye said:
I got into B5 'cause I was hooking up with this chick back in the day who told me she had a Centauri-dancer/slave-girl fetish. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, so she made me watch B5. This created a problem because it made me develop a N'Grath fetish, and our differences were unresolvable. Alas, another tale of psycho-sexual heartbreak.
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That's the most beautiful BS I've seen in a week.

... Centauri dancing girl, huh? Who knew bald could be so hot?
 
KoshFan said:
That's the most beautiful BS I've seen in a week.

... Centauri dancing girl, huh? Who knew bald could be so hot?
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Yes "Born To The Purple" is a classic.The dance of Adira is very sexy and the music theme during the conversation in bed is one of the best.
 
It was after the show finished airing on television--2002, I believe. I sprained my ankle (very very severely--they said I was lucky it wasn't broken.) I was in bed for a few months. I was self-employed at the time (freelance writing,) so I had my laptop, my crutches, and some cool roomies to get me food now and then.

Well, I didn't want to go downstairs all the time to watch television, so I bought a portable dvd player. I bought some dvd television series sets: La Femme Nikita, "24," etc. A friend bought me the first season of Babylon 5 and said, "you HAVE TO WATCH THIS."

I put in the first disk for B1 season 1 and fell asleep about halfway through the first episode. To me, it was just like Star Trek. I finished the first episode, then tried to get through the second one. I started "24" (which I burned through in 2 days) and then "La Femme Nikita" which I watched over the next few weeks on and off. When I was desperate and had nothing else to watch, I began Babylon 5 again.

It took me a few episodes to get into. I think it was "Deathwalker" where I really started to get interested, then "And a Sky Full of Stars" got me utterly hooked. I knew something was going on. "Signs and Portents" sealed the deal. I finished season 1 around midnight and freaked OUT. I had to know what happened to Delenn. I made my roomie drive me to a 24 hour Walmart to get me season 2. I found it and also bought season 3 as well.

I consumed them in a matter of weeks. I was obsessed. When season 3 ended, I screamed! I had no season 4 and it wasn't out on DVD yet.

The next day, I mentioned my dilemma to a friend and she said, "I have them all on VHS." So, she gave me seasons 4 and 5 on VHS. Thing is, I didn't have a VCR. So, I bought one. Got home. Got it set up and it didn't track correctly. So, I had to take it back, get another one. The second one didn't WORK! I thought, "god, why are you punishing me?" My roomie dug out his old VCR from the garage and we got it up and running. I think I watched the last two seasons in less than a week.

Then, I found the movies and watched them.

Bought some books, some comics and here I am a big ole B5 nerd.

(bows)

I'm glad I didn't give in and that I opened my mind enough to get through those first few episodes.
 
Alluveal said:
I finished season 1 around midnight and freaked OUT. I had to know what happened to Delenn. I made my roomie drive me to a 24 hour Walmart to get me season 2. I found it and also bought season 3 as well.
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I think that this seperates the good tv shows from the boring ones.The more you watch the more interesting it gets.And B5 season finales of the first three seasons are the best example.
 
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