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I'm trying. I really am. I'm looking at netflix, I have my finger on the
button, and I see the first season of Babylon 5 right there in front of me. I
just don't think I can go through it again. It would be like facing the loss
all over again. All the pain of the destroyed fifth season relived? I'm not
sure I can do it.
-rbarry
P.S., Chronological order, anyone? B5 didn't air in the order that the units
tell the story, so....
0. "In the Beginning" Movie (IFF YOU CAN HANDLE THE SPOILERS!!! See #10)
1. "The Gathering" Movie
2. Season 1
3. Season 2
4. Season 3
5. Season 4 through "The Illusion of Truth," (Episode 8?)
6. "Thirdspace" Movie
7. Season 4 through Episode 22 (full season?)
8. Season 5 through "Objects at Rest"
9. "River of Souls" Movie
10. "In the Beginning" Movie (Not in chronological order, but SPOILERS)
11. "A Call to Arms" Movie
12. Season 5 final episode, "Sleeping in Light"
13. Crusade - if you dare.
I found myself perusing some of the dustier parts of my brain last night,
pulling the tarpaulins off of the kind of junk that we all keep in the attic.
It's fluff, trash, filler, and its taking up space that should be dedicated to
family relics and antiques.
Instead, science fiction.
That's right. We're not talking The Foundation Trilogy here, either. (By way
of confession, Foundation bored me to tears and I'll likely never suffer myself
to pick it up again.) Move over Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Clarke. No
room for the A.B.C.s here. I'm pining for Babylon 5.
When I was about 12 - setting the wayback machine for 1982 here - the local
station was doing Star Trek reruns. That show was a little over a dozen years
out of the gate and showing a bit of age, but I'd never really seen Science
Fiction television before. I liked it, I watched it, I absorbed it, I became
a Trek fan. Never a Trekkie, but I enjoyed it.
When The Next Generation hit the airwaves, I watched. I even watched weekly
for years, but as college wore on I had to stop. The show ended and I felt a
slight pang of remorse about it, but I've never put a finger on why I hated to
see it go. It had a great run - 7 years or so - and I enjoyed it, but... well,
it had had a great run and deserved to retire while at the top of its game. My
greatest regret was that I had to watch the last episode having missed most of
the preceeding two years of the show.
Star Trek Generations (I promise this will get back to Babylon 5) was FIFTEEN
years ago now. It makes me feel so old to want that kind of creativity in my
television again. Well, invoking Generations means I should expand that to
movies as well, but you know what I mean: I want my TV shows to be creative,
epic, and emotional.
This lands us squarely in the court of Babylon 5. I watched as closely as I
could through the whole series. I felt completely betrayed by the fifth season,
as Turner Network Television's 'creative' control got out of hand and destroyed
the franchise, but I still love the first four seasons. And here's the main
difference between Babylon 5 and any TV show I've ever kept up with...
I miss it.
There. I said it. I actually miss the characters. As Star-Trekkie, do-goodie
as the ending was, leaving most of the characters alive, somewhere in the back
of my mind it still seems that they had a life... and have died. As Babylon 5
has gone through a few jump-start attempts over the years, I've been able to
pretend that it would rise from its ashes. I'm only now coming to grips with
the fact that it won't.
I make chainmaile, for some reason that I've never understood. It's fun to
hold and to play with. It is a hobby that demmands nearly none of my attention,
so over the years I've watched Babylon 5 while I worked on it. I think I may
have been through the show 2 or 3 times (I tend to skip the last season) in my
years of chainmailing. I did some math last night: my very last piece of
maille ever - I'm quitting the hobby for personal reasons - will require a block
of time from me that almost exactly matches the entire run of Babylon 5,
including all 6 TV movies and the hated 5th season. It'll be a long, fond
farewell to two things that have occupied me in an obsessive way for some very
rough bits of the last 15 years.
Now this is just getting sappy.
-rbarry
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