Where were you 19 years ago?

[Jan]

"The Gathering" aired for the first time on Feb. 22, 1993 making it 19 years old this week.

Yikes... I missed the pilot completely but began watching with the first airing of "Midnight on the Firing Line" in January 1994.

Jan

[KoshN]

"The Gathering" aired for the first time on Feb. 22, 1993 making it 19 years old this week.

Yikes... I missed the pilot completely but began watching with the first airing of "Midnight on the Firing Line" in January 1994.

Jan

Looks like that was a Monday, and looking at the schedule,

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992-93_United_States_network_television_schedule

....there was nothing that I would've been watching. However, since it was syndication, there's no telling when it would've been on ....on WPGH-FOX Pittsburgh.

However, at that time, I didn't know that Babylon 5 even existed. Didn't know until Sept. 1996, when a buddy who knew that I was completely fed-up with DS9 and Voyager, recommended it to me. Then, I watched S3E21 "Shadow Dancing" and I was hooked.

[JoeD80]

If the channel followed the PTEN schedule and had it in primetime the pilot would have been on at 8 PM. As for the original run, the only one I caught was "A Race Through Dark Places."

[OmahaStar]

Am I the only one here who saw the pilot when it originally aired?

[Jan]

Am I the only one here who saw the pilot when it originally aired?

Could be. Maybe that makes you THE First One?

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

I remember two decades ago getting a call from the publicity person who was handling Time Trax for PTEN, who asked if I would interested in getting a tape of another pilot that was coming up, called Babylon 5. I remember watching that tape for the first time- the incidental sound and music hadn't been added yet, and the FX were a bit wonky, but I absolutely fell in love with it. The PR folks subsequently arranged a phone interview with the writer, some guy named J. Michael Straczynski and after hearing his plans for the show if it went to series, I was even more hooked. I couldn't be happier that I'm now looking back over the past two decades and seeing what an important part of my life and career B5 has become.

[WorkerCaste]

Am I the only one here who saw the pilot when it originally aired?

No, Omaha, I was there at the beginning.

No as early as Joe N, of course, but the first broadcast. I remember thinking it was good, but not great. It was good enough that I decided to watch it when it went to series, but then it took forever. I had forgotten about it by the time Season One began. I heard about a new SF show, so I tuned in and thought, "Hey! I've seen these guys before!"

[DeMonk]

I have no idea. I only found out Babylon 5 existed in 2005, through a collegue, a Sci-Fi fan. It was never on flemish tv as far as I know.

[Joe Nazzaro]

For the record, Mark Altman was the first journalist to write a major feature on B5. He wrote an in-depth piece on the making of 'The Gathering' that was published in Cinefantastique, which I used as reference in some of my own interviews. Some months later, I happened to be in LA on another assignment and managed to get myself invited to the pilot's cast and crew screening, so the first time I saw the finished piece was actually on a big screen. Pat Tallman was sitting next to me in the aisle because she had come straight from doing a day of stunt work on DS9 and got there late. The best part of the night was getting to say hello in person to some of the cast and crew members I had interviewed over the phone but never met. And when people thanked me for being the first journalist to cover the pilot, I made sure they knew that Mark Altman (who was also there for the screening) was there before me. If he hadn't done such a great job with that CFQ article, I don't know if I would have been able to follow it up as much as I did. After that, it was incredibly difficult to get most of the major genre magazines to publish B5-related articles, but that's a whole other story.

[Marsden]

I was there, not on that day though, because I remember watching it 3 times over the weekend. Back then I had cable and there were still TV stations, so I saw it on WWOR 9 and WPIX 11 and maybe on WPHIL 17 but I'm not sure about that last one. I think I watched again on the Wednesday after but it was certainly on a Saturday I first saw it because it was on again the next day twice, they really played it for about a week and a half, then gone. It really didn't seemed self contained and I was wondering when the hell the next episode was going to be on for a long time. Please keep in mind I had no advance warning, never heard of it before I saw it and had no knowledge it was meant to be a series so when it came back I was ready and waiting. And I'm really happy it actually took that almost a year, they really improved a lot with that time, especially Delenn and Londo. I really thought Londo looked too much like he was from the Dune movie in the pilot, I liked his look much better in the series proper.
I think I must have watched it at least 4 or 5 times, plus I have it on VHS and sometimes I like to cue up the DVD and the VHS and watch them both for the differences.
Yes, I don't what this says about me, and I'm afraid to find out actually.

[Reverend]

My first memory of Babylon 5 is seeing some promotional behind the scenes bit on breakfast TV, just before going to school in the morning. The only thing I remember clearly was a part where Claudia Christian (giving a tour of the C'n'C set) jokingly warns the cameraman not to get too close to the window lest it spoil the illusion (i.e. the black cloth and Christmas tree lights masquerading as stars.)

I'm not even certain when I started watching the show. Given that I was only 11 or twelve when the show started over here and as I recall it was mostly on Channel Four at stupid o'clock at night I only very rarely caught sight of the odd episode. I do remember seeing what I now know to have been 'TKO', 'A Voice in the Wilderness' and 'Chrysalis'. After that it's pretty spotty until I was able to start watching it regularly late in season two and pretty much religiously from then on.

I don't think I saw most of the first season until the Sci-Fi Channel (back in the good old days) did a full run of the show from start to finish that I saw most of season one and two for the first time ever. Seeing all the foreshadowing for what I knew would come later completely blew me away.

[Wyrmling]

Nineteen years ago I was probably drooling over Jurassic Park trailers. I sadly did not discover Babylon 5 until a friend of mine introduced it to me long after its airing. In fact the only B5 item I caught "live" or at release rather was The Lost Tales.

[Truth66]

I have to admit that I too missed the pilot when it first aired, eventhough I was trying to keep an eye out for it.
I first learned about B5 in a Sci Fi magazine that had on the cover something to the effect of "Babylon 5: Televisions newest space station". When I finally noticed the first episode listed in the TV Guide I realized that I didn't have that channel, but my mom did. I quickly called her and asked to go over and visit her to watch this new show. After seeing Midnight on the Firing Line for the first time, I was hooked.

[frulad]

Casting back into my fuzzy memory, I seem to recall that the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton channel that aired the pilot and the subsequent first couple of seasons of B5, did so late at night on a believe a Saturday night. I know that I videotaped it to watch the next day.* (I taped a lot of stuff back then on the theory that if it sucked I could at least enjoy taping over it.)

I do remember calling the station a few days later to see when the series proper would start airing and the poor gal answering the phone having no idea what I was talking about.

*As I was going out to the bar with some friends... Hence the fuzzy memory.

[Marsden]

Casting back into my fuzzy memory, I seem to recall that the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton channel that aired the pilot and the subsequent first couple of seasons of B5, did so late at night on a believe a Saturday night. I know that I videotaped it to watch the next day.* (I taped a lot of stuff back then on the theory that if it sucked I could at least enjoy taping over it.)

I do remember calling the station a few days later to see when the series proper would start airing and the poor gal answering the phone having no idea what I was talking about.

*As I was going out to the bar with some friends... Hence the fuzzy memory.

I think that would have been WOLF 38 (I think, now they're 56), but I didn't realise they showed it, too.