Babylon 5 For the First Time - Not a Star Trek Podcast
Enjoying Your Ride
As a big B5 fan as well as a Star Trek fan, I am enjoying your ride. There is so much ahead for you on this journey, and listening to your comments reminds me of how I had to be dragged into the show by a friend and am eternally grateful for the gift he gave me. This was a show that received terrible marketing in the US, often placed at 4am on the network. I would set the VCR (yep, that old) to record it, and I missed 30 minutes of one episode because the network randomly changed the time. I was up every morning super early to watch it after that point to make sure I never missed a moment. I hope you get to that same point when each show is a roller coaster of good stuff that you can't wait until you see the next episode.
A strong start, needs more diversity in viewpoints
Two TNG+ Trek fans look at B5 through a Trek lens, placing it in the proper context for the time of its creation. I have only listened to the first 2 eps, and I like both presenters. They are going in with few TV preconceptions, and do a good job articulating their impressions about the execution, writing, and subtext in B5. In the Midnight on the Firing line episode, the cultural homogeneity, political naïveté, and lack of education of the hosts comes through in the discussion about how cultures are assimilated and homogenized. While they mention G’kar’s genocidal threat against the Centauri, they never mention genocide as one of the reasons that cultures on Earth are lost. Delenn’s speech about “where it ends” about who gets Ragesh 3 is poignant because the actress, Mira Furlan, is from the former Yugolavia, where such scores were being settled as this show was being aired. It might be helpful for them to recruit some diverse guests, maybe from B5 fandom, FemFreq, All the Asians on Star Trek, or Women at Warp, to fill in those gaps.
The podcast I never knew I needed
I watched Babylon 5 around when it first came out and I kind of left it where it was. I love Jeff and Brent’s Star Trek podcasts so I decided to check this out and I LOVE IT! They are awesome together it’s so fun to hear two grown men that know how to break down a TV show watch this classic.