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How did we all become Babylon 5 Fans?

M

Morden

Regular
*Moderators' Note*
I know this topic shouldn't be in this Forum, but let's face it. If it were put in the General Discussion, it may not receive the attention it deserves, and if it were put in the Off-Topic Lounge, the post wouldn't be take seriously. People are crazy their.

Anyway to my question: How did you become a Babylon 5 fan?

My answer:
It started off in Iowa. My brother saw his first episode "A Late Delivery from Avalon" being a fan of King Arthur, he decides to give the show some more views.
We move to Kansas and my brother shows it too me. Being 10 years old, I didn't think fighting giant spiders as excitement, so I left the room. My brother still watches on, however.
My brother sees "Voices of Authority" and gives me the line, "Captain, you're about to go where every man as gone before." Having not seen the show, I didn't get it.

October 28, 1996. The day "Z'Ha'Dum" airs on TV.
I didn't watch the show, and it was way past my bedtime, so I was thinking about something unimportant and my brother busts open the door, scares me to clinical death, and shouts,"You killed our Captain, you killed our Security Cheif and now, WE'RE GONNA KILL YOU!"
I make note to have my brother drug tested.
"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?" airs, and I see the Sheridan's personal log, about falling off cliffs. I thought it was beautiful, then I go around and see G'Kar fight off the Centauri. A quad-barreled PPG astonished me.
This show wasn't Star Trek.
"The Summoning" airs and I watch Sheridan's speech upon returning. I almost cried. Sometimes I do when I hear it.
"The Long Night" airs and I am stunned. Just the adreniline of G'Kar,his determination to set his people free just made me love it.
Every since then, since 'my heart crossed that line', I've watched every piece of B5 I can get.

And now, "Z'Ha'Dum" is about to air on sic-fi again, when my brother is gone. I don't know where he is during Christmas time and I say this:
Thank you, Brother, for having the foresight to stick with the show. And for giving me Babylon 5, the greatest gift you've given me yet.

Now back to my question: How did you become a B5 fan?


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"Ink on a page!" -Refa describing the moral depths of a treaty.
"Life is life, whether it's wrapped in skin, scales or feathers." -Dr. Franklin
 
Nothing so dramatic as the above story.

I saw the pilot on PTEN, and thought it was okay. I was a little upset that the reptile-looking guy (G'Kar) was so cartoonishly a bad guy -- like Snidely Whiplash or Dishonest John (the bad guys from the Dudley Dooright and Beany and Cecil cartoons, for those of you that don't go back that far).

To me, it seemed like making the people who looked the least like us into the bad guys was taking the easy way out.

I was also struck by the relatively low budget, compared to the Trek syndicate.

I tuned back in for season one, and though it didn't look as good as DS9, there was something going on here.

A lot of folks aren't crazy about Season 1 (at least relative to other seasons), but there was some serious writing going on there. Sinclair was forever wrestling with his conscience, and trying to find a way to do the right thing -- regardless of the cost to his career. There were times when it was very unclear who he good and bad guys were. JMS also spent a lot of time building the deep foundations of his major players.

In so many ways, season 1 was Sinclair facing the Jesuit philosophical crisis of the week.

Here was television that encouraged using your mind. I wasn't sure if it would last, so I made sure I watched as much as I could while it was still on the air!

Season 2 saw Sinclair go bye-bye; and brought in Sheridan. Though the boundless intrigues remained, situations became more clearly "right and wrong."

Season 3: wow.

Season 4: I hated what happened to Garibaldi in Season 4. I just couldn't watch it -- it hurt too much. Other than that, it may have been better than Season 3.

Season 5: Didn't care too much for Lochley, she should have lost those arguments with Garibaldi. Without the singing, Byron wasn't that bad... Londo's simultaneous descent and ascent may have been the best television I've ever seen.



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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi
 
Saw a preview of it advertised on PTEN. Watched it, liked it, the rest is history.

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Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world. ### - Caught from Kier Darby @ vBulletin infidel_dog@rangerone.b5lr.com
 
I should discover a way to disable the back button on my browser so I stop double posting.

[This message has been edited by Delenn_is_a_hotty (edited December 19, 2001).]
 
When I was a little kid (I don't know how old) I watched an episode from the first season and loved it, I wanted more. Then a couple years later TNT started to air B5 and then I got hooked. It got a little weird because they were currently on the fifth season and the new eps where coming out and I was just starting to watch it. For the longest time I wanted to know what the heck happened to G'Kars eye, and then I finally got to the episode where they cut that baby out and I got my answer.
laugh.gif


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A proud member of the Wind Swords.
"War is life and death is the only true peace."
war-demon@b5fan.b5lr.com
 
I got into it in late season three, and watched all of season four, then it moved to cable, and at that time i did not have cable so I couldn't watch it anymore. (saddest day of my life)

Then last year I rediscovered it on SF channel after finally getting cable. I now have every episode on tape.

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I guess you could say it caught my interest right away.
I watched from the beginning.
Had to chase it all over the dial for a while but it finally settled on one station.
I had missed a couple of season one episodes because it would show up at the oddest times, like 3pm Saturday afternoon, when I was expecting to watch it at 7pm. Managed to catch up when it went into reruns.
Watched until it left the regular station then got cable so I could watch it on Space.




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"No boom to-day, boom tomorrow.
There is always a boom tomorrow."
 
As for me I was flipping through channels one day and caught an ep from the second season just can't remember which but at any rate I've been hooked ever since .
smile.gif


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As for me I was flipping through channels one day and caught an ep from the second season just can't remember which but at any rate I've been hooked ever since .
smile.gif


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The pilot "the gathering" got me hooked on B5 and have been ever since
smile.gif


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"When it is time, come to this place, call our name, we will be here" -Walkers of Sigma957
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mondo Londo:
Nothing so dramatic as the above story.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thank You.



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"Ink on a page!" -Refa describing the moral depths of a treaty.
"Life is life, whether it's wrapped in skin, scales or feathers." -Dr. Franklin
 
I know we've covered this before but there are lots of new members on the board so it doesn't hurt to repeat it. I have always been a scifi fan and watch each new show as it airs. Not all shows are winners but I had a hunch B5 was good simply because Harlan Ellison was involved. He's just too good a writer to get hooked up with a loser so I kept watching all through the first year, even though there were a few episodes I didn't care for. Finally got totally hooked when I saw Babylon 4, and from then on I couldn't bear to miss an episode.
crazy.gif


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I always seem to be diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
 
I went to a Star Trek con by Creation and the mc mentioned Babylon 5.

I assumed it was a Star Trek rip off, and didn't rush to find it on my TV schedule.
blush.gif


I think when I finally discovered it was Season three. What a ride. I'd never seen anything like it before.

Now, it's on every day I'm home. Even if I'm cooking dinner or something other than raptly glued to my TV.

Now, after seeing it so many times, I catch the foreshadowing and think again how well this show was made.

Ro

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A ship in a port is safe, but that's not what ships are for.

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
 
I saw a commercial for the pilot on FOX and so I watched it and liked it well enough then I got hooked into the series. Since it was syndicated, I had to look through the TV guide to find it during late season 3 or ealy season 4. I missed most of the season 4 (due to school) and all of season 5 (due to the fact that we didn't get TNT back then and stil don't), but then I found it airing on SPACE and I watched a few times over until WB stopped licencing it and now I'm currently waiting for the DVDs.

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No one here is exactly what he appears.
G'Kar - Andreas Katsulas

Nothing's the same anymore.
Commander Sinclair - Michael O'Hare

Babylon 5
 
Well, for me, it was two years ago, or was it three?
Anyways, we recently had gotton Space just before Christmas, the Christmas just before the Boxing Day Babylon 5 Marathon. It was, as voted by Space fans, the Ten most favourite episodes from 10 to 1, roughly, plus two telemovies, I beleive. I missed some episodes because of meals, and I was not a addict until a little later, I was 'only' a fan. I start watching at about 11:10, and it is WWEp1, and I see it from about when Sinclair gets on the station to almost the end before lunch. I know it is part one, so when I come back after lunch, it is a completlely different episode. At one it is WWEp2, and with severed dreams and z'ha'dum I become hooked, as well as the telemovies. Thankfully I missed some episodes, cause they were the WHAM DOUBLE WHAM spoiler episodes like into the fire, and endgame. I wanted to, and still do, see every episode in its entirety(either on during supper or late, late at night) from The Gathering to A Call to Arms. I have seen most parts of most episodes, but there are still holes.
Unless I am at a friends place, I cant see any B5 anymore, so I was very sad when Space aired its Farewell to B5 marathon(5 fav eps) this last summer, and rightfully ended it with SiL. That show almost always makes me cry.

That is how I got hooked to B5, seeing major spoiler episodes, but not too many of them and having no context for them.

CSR

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I wish I remembered - I have no idea (year-wise) when I started to watch it or what was the first episode I ever saw.

I guess it must have been 4-5 years ago, and I didn't start watching it from the very beginning. I know I had noticed the show title in the TV guide but not paid any attention to it, until I also noticed some people on another forum mentioning it and saying it's a show they liked, so after a while I thought I'd check it out.

I'm fairly sure it was late season one.

It looked a bit funny but it had something that made me want to see the next episode... and then the next one... and well, somehow I got hooked.
smile.gif


I became a fan on my first watching but I didn't become this crazed addict that I am now until I had the chance to rewatch the whole series, this time from the beginning, during the last year or so.

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"Isn't the universe an amazing place? I wouldn't live anywhere else." - G'Kar, B5: Rangers
Kribu's Lounge | kribu@ranger.b5lr.com
 
The year was 1998. It was my last schoolyear and sometimes immensely boring. As it was winter, I had nothing useful to do.

To decrease my boredom, I often flipped through every available TV channel and finally found something on Yleisradio 2. Picture and sound quality were awful, sometimes there was practically no sound. The station is based in Finland and barely visible in Estonia. Had to build a new and better antenna to receive at least something.

It aired on late Saturday nights, just before Earth 2, which I also occasionally watched. Unless I am mistaken, it was the beginning of the fourth season. I came to like the realistic way in which B5 treated technology and the human factor. Although the characters seemed initially quite strange, I quickly accustomed and followed their story each weekend.

Last year, I noticed that B5 was running on one of the local stations. It had got to the third season without me noticing. But as it awakened good memories, I decided to rewatch it, this time recording each episode from cable.

It impressed me. It told of things I had not considered, asked interesting questions which movies rarely ask. I also noticed a certain Minbari ambassador whose words and smile have had great effect on me.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited December 21, 2001).]
 
A buddy told me about Babylon 5 in September 1996. At the time, I was watching DS9 and Voyager, but not regularly. I didn't care for a lot of DS9, and absolutely couldn't stand most of Voyager. Frequently, I'd reach my point of being fed-up with Voyager 5 minutes into the episode, and turn it off.

Anyway, my buddy lent me a few tapes of Babylon 5 (pretty bad EP, Mono), and I then caught some episodes of Season 3 in it's first run (Fox 53 in Pitsburgh; picture was OK on cable, but the station was broadcasting in Mono at the time). The difference between 1996 Trek TV and 1996 Babylon 5 was like night and day. At that point, I quit watching DS9 and Voyager completely. I've been watching Babylon 5 ever since. I watch the current Trek (Enterprise) but don't really expect much from it, and wouldn't be terribly upset if I missed an episode. With anything Babylon 5, I make damn sure I don't miss an episode.

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

"To Live and Die in Starlight"
pilot movie for "Babylon 5 - The Legend of the Rangers"
January 19, 2002 at 9PM & 11PM EST, January 20, 2002 at 5PM on The Sci-Fi Channel (US).
http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/
 
My family became B5 fans before I did. When The Gathering was on, I was on the computer playing or talking to my at-the-time girlfriend. I saw a little of it, and it wasn't enough to tear me away from my computer.

Later that year, I moved out of the house, moved in with some friends, ran into major financial problems, got the "We should start seeing other people" discussion, lost most of those friends... over about the course of 6 months to a year. I started visiting home once a week, just to have some kind of companionship - life was pretty rough, and it was all my own darn fault, so moving back home wasn't really an option - but once a week, I went home, got a nice hot dinner and... watched Babylon 5.

It's hard not to fall deeply in love with a show that represents the only good thing about your life. And, of course, it was a damn fine show. Once a week, I got to escape EVERYTHING for an hour.

When I picked my life up and finally met someone new (my beautiful wife), I kept following B5. It was a damn fine show, but it'll always represent something better than just a TV show; it's my family.

I had a hard time getting Dawn to watch the show. In fact, when we first moved in together, we had a major problem; we had met on the Internet and I introduced her to MUDs. We only had 1 computer when we moved in together, and she would play on it constantly. Things nearly fell apart - which would have been BAD, since I had moved from Annapolis, MD to live with her in Spokane, WA. She simply was not able to understand why her playing on the computer so often was such a bad thing - ignoring the fact that she was role playing a relationship, which hurt a lot.

Finally, I managed to get her off the computer long enough to do one darn thing with me for a change... which happened to be B5. It was the episode where the Earth Alliance is trying to take back B5, and Delenn comes in with her fleet of warcruisers, and gives her oh-so-famous speech: "Only one human captain has every survived battle with the Minbari fleet. He is behind me, you are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!" She was HOOKED.

Obviously, not enough to completely repair our problems, but a good building block.

There, that's my rambling...

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