S1: Overwrought?

[KoshFan]

2. Older cast of characters. Everything is youth-oriented. Teenage space aliens, high-school vampires and their slayers, etc.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

(Although ironically... all the vampire franchises I can think of also hinge on the love-interest vampire being an older, more experience male with a troubled past. I will grant you, however, that despite all their age and experience they still somehow come across as 22.)

My biggest problem with B5 is that it does occasionally run to preaching. But having now seen some TNG, I think it's safe to say that B5 did it with far more nuance than some.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

(Although ironically... all the vampire franchises I can think of also hinge on the love-interest vampire being an older, more experience male with a troubled past. .

Well, most vampires tend to be very old, but in looks at least, you are forgetting that hot book franchise about teenage vampires.

 

[Boredom]

The big criticism of O'Hare that my buddies and I had was that he's almost always smiling faintly...

Hmm yeah, my first impression was most of the actors were wooden during the season 1. But it gets better with time. But hey, try to watch any season 1, they are wooden too. Star Trek comes to mind.

And by the way, the outside station scenery looks cartoonish. Even by the standard of the production time. Budget maybe the reason for that.

My biggest problem with B5 is that it does occasionally run to preaching. But having now seen some TNG, I think it's safe to say that B5 did it with far more nuance than some.

Yeah, TNG was notorious for it's outright hostility toward religion and capitalism.

 

[Jan]

And by the way, the outside station scenery looks cartoonish. Even by the standard of the production time. Budget maybe the reason for that.

The production standards of the time were models. B5 was the first TV to use CGI on a major scale and basically paved the road they were using.

Jan

 

[GaribaldisHair]

And by the way, the outside station scenery looks cartoonish. Even by the standard of the production time. Budget maybe the reason for that.

Not to mention that JMS/Foundation Imaging were deliberately going for something more colourful and organic than viewers were used to seeing in their SFTV. Note, for example, that the earth ships tended to be grey and metallic and functional whereas the longer standing space-faring races had moved on from there to sleeker, better looking and more colourful vessels.

I have never considered the FX "cartoony" even by today's standards. Different, certainly. Limited by the technology available, of course. Viewing CGI from Tron to date, through B5, shows how the results have become more realistic and less "cartoony" (except where deliberate) as the tech has improved, and in comparison with Tron, B5 is not cartoony at all.

Making the behaviour of the ships more in keeping with the actual science of manouevring through space was also a big step up from other shows of its time.