B5 and the mainstream

[SpooRancher]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
This is probably a discussion for another place and time, but why do you drive at all to buy the latest DVD's?

Because I live in a basackwards county that doesn't even have a bookstore, let alone a decent Borders or some such multi-media outlet. I have to either drive or live by the whims of Wal-Mart.

[Spirit]

Ditto

All my intention was to make more people familliar with B5 - I don't want B5 to dry out - I want it the way it is - I want it alive.

[Dr Maturin]

Are we sure Target was carrying B5?

[FuryPilot]

Originally posted by Capt.Montoya
From the book of J'Caart:

And thou shall know the day Babylon 5 became part of the mainstream consciousness by this sign: thine eyes will behold the DVD sets in Target and Wal-Mart and thou hast not the need to travel leagues for them.


Who knows... maybe after the movie it could happen.

Actually, the WalMart near my house has 3 of the B5 Movie sets still on the shelf. Not bad for a small town in Northern Colorado.

FP

[Capt.Montoya]

From the book of J'Caart:

And thou shall know the day Babylon 5 became part of the mainstream consciousness by this sign: thine eyes will behold the DVD sets in Target and Wal-Mart and thou hast not the need to travel leagues for them.


Who knows... maybe after the movie it could happen.

I must say that sometimes watching TV that does not require you to think is a welcome respite from the daily grind... that's why I watch some sitcoms. However my current favorite sitcom, Arrested Development, is much more intelligent than usual... maybe that's why its ratings haven't been stellar.

On the other hand, for me B5 used to be a respite from the daily grind too. Submerging oneself in the story and drama can be a a way to forget about the daily problems and the rest of the world too...

In the end all TV and fiction is escapism, but some escapism can be smarter.

[Dr Maturin]

<<Does that mean that I have to travel nearly 100 miles in order to get the latest B5 DVD's on their first sale day?>>

This is probably a discussion for another place and time, but why do you drive at all to buy the latest DVD's?

[SpooRancher]

Misunderstood?

OK, let's go back to what I said.

I did not say Star Trek was BAD, I said it never lived up to it's promises. I also said that B5 did deliver on Star Trek's promises. I agree that for it's time, Trek was the best we had ever been given, and, I understand that without it, a lot of good Sci-Fi would never have seen the light of day. Kind of like the way I feel about Dungeons and Dragons. A kind of a "love-hate" relationship. D&D has never been the "best" of the RPG's (although it is a lot better in the 3rd edition), but, it was able to keep the interest there until the better ones came along (like the current Star Trek RPG and Shadowrun, sorry, but the current B5 RPG is based on D&D's system, so it does have, IMNSHO, some problems).

I was not comparing B5 to Friends and Seinfeld in quality, I was saying that those shows are considered "mainstream", that I did not care for them, and that the reason B5 did not do so well in the ratings was that it was different. I theorized that the reason for B5's lack of reaching beyond it's "niche" was that it was SO different from what standard television formula programming was. It was not sitcom, it is not reality (like Survivor), so, it doesn't get press, and it doesn't get a lot of the viewers who are channel surfing, find something interesting, and leave it there. In fact, I have known some people who thought B5 was interesting until they saw an alien or a space shot, and then turned it away because "I hate Science Fiction, it's all stupid."

Can we expand the B5 audience? Should we? These are loaded questions. We certainly can campaign our friends with our Season set DVD's in hand, and they will likely look at us the way they do the Jehovah's Witness missionaries that they chase away from their homes. And DO we really want people who don't get "good" television watching it and criticizing it? We really don't need a letter writing campaign to Time Warner asking for more romance in the next project, do we? By keeping it small, and the fan base loyal and secure, we actually need LESS tampering with the project (the tampering that was done in Crusade was, if you remember, at TNT's behest in order to secure MORE VIEWERS). Does that mean that I have to travel nearly 100 miles in order to get the latest B5 DVD's on their first sale day? Yup. Does it mean that I believe that a lot of people are missing out on great television? Yup. Does it mean I would change a thing? Not really.

[Andrew_Swallow]

Babylon 5 viewers need to remember more than the last 2 episodes. In most soap operas you can normally work out who has just had sex with whom. Even the writers have forgotten what happened a year ago.

[Spirit]

Re: Lost in Sci-Fi-Space

Originally posted by SpooRancher

Plus, a lot of people don't want to think when watching TV. That is obvious by the kind of television that DOES well in the ratings (I'm sorry folks, but I NEVER liked Roseanne, Friends or Seinfeld). IMNSHO, the only shows ranking in the top of the ratings that are worth much are the CSI shows (at least they have good story lines, and drama produced right out of real life).

So, why doesn't B5 appeal to more in the mainstream? Frankly, I believe it was near a miracle that it did appeal to as many as it did, with the average attention span of the American consumer.

American consumer - B5 went worldwide long time ago.
I'm from Israel, and originaly I saw B5 in Russia!

Friends and Seinfeld have nothing to do with B5 - all of us do like to have a good laught, and it also have drama (Friends for instance)

Mainstream? Heh... What mainstream? Can you determine one?
Nowdays it's impossible! What I can say is that B5 is not a part of it...

Why? It's another question... Not everyone has time in his life to stop and ask himself questions that we find in B5 - people are more pragmatic - they like something that speaks to them - like Ricky Lake (god, help her show die!).

In someway I see that it is our fault - fault of B5 fans.

Let's take star wars for example and put it in the place of B5 - imagine the Star Wars is "only for geeks" show.
Now how does it go mainstream from here?

I say - we have to have a part in this. We can change the way B5 is treated by other. And we have a new movie comming. Let's make the best of it and draw some attention to B5!
This saga hasn't come to it's finish!

[RaySeventy8]

Here's a question for all
Why does someone enjoy reading a (good) book? So I think the concept of B5, beeing a really large book not to read but to see on the sceen, is not the only answer to the question of why it reached not as many people as Star Trek did.

I also disagree to the quote, that most viewers dont wont to think about what they see, because this is something Star Trek did accomplish. Especially TNG. After Roddenberry's death everything called Star Trek was much more action-orientated and much less a good story. Especially Voyager and Enterprise.

Time seems to be the key here. The time in wich Star Trek & TNG was concepted were totally different to the time in which B5 got on the sketchboard. The Aspects of Society and globalisation changed a lot. B5 does reflect on it. ST doesn't.

But as I mentioned yesterday, for me personally, I can not see a glimpse of B5's magic in any other SciFi. And if there is no magic so there is no curiosity. Don't you think?

[WorkerCaste]

Re: Lost in Sci-Fi-Space

Originally posted by SpooRancher
The original Star Trek series was campy, easily as campy in it's own way as Lost in Space. (Who can't imagine Kirk and his staccato delivery of lines?). It even fell into a formula by the third season.

It also had, in the opinion of many people, a big problem. It was much more Fiction than Science Fiction. The science was, to put it mildly, pathetic. Add to that the fact that episodes were written by different writers, with no knowledge of the rest of the episodes, so continuity errors abounded. It became so much of a phenomenon that the series of books called the Nitpicker's Guides cover that area.

Don't forget to place Star Trek in the context of its time, though. Dramatic TV was still young, and actors were still learning how to play to the small screen. On stage, every gesture needs to be overdone in order to be seen and appreciated from the balcony. TV, even the smaller screens that predominated then, is a much more intimate medium. Shatner and others were trained stage actors, so what you interpret as camp was, I believe, an ernest attempt at drama. Also, they did better with the science than what had gone before. But even if they had the best science advisors possible, they would still have had to entertained an audience that was as scientifically informed, in general, as in B5's time.

B5 was different, yes, but at the time of it's first run, Star Trek was very different from everything else on, too.

[bakana]

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
H.L. Mencken

[SpooRancher]

Lost in Sci-Fi-Space

I remember reading some of the stuff in David Gerrold's "Making of Star Trek". It was supposed to be intelligent science fiction. It was supposed to be drama, so that it would appeal to the masses in a way Sci-Fi never had. There were no robots yelling "Danger", and no annoying children solving all of the problems week in and out. Well, that changed by the second installment (Data may never have yelled out "Danger Will Robinson", but he had his annoying catch phrases, and EVERYBODY hated Wesley Crusher).

The original Star Trek series was campy, easily as campy in it's own way as Lost in Space. (Who can't imagine Kirk and his staccato delivery of lines?). It even fell into a formula by the third season.

It also had, in the opinion of many people, a big problem. It was much more Fiction than Science Fiction. The science was, to put it mildly, pathetic. Add to that the fact that episodes were written by different writers, with no knowledge of the rest of the episodes, so continuity errors abounded. It became so much of a phenomenon that the series of books called the Nitpicker's Guides cover that area.

Babylon 5 was different. The guidelines for the entire series were laid out from the beginning by jms, and he maintained creative control throughout. There WERE no annoying children solving all the problems, there WERE no robots waving their arms about. Babylon 5 was everything the Star Trek saga promised but failed to deliver on.

The biggest problem with people inside the industry accepting B5 is envy! The biggest problem with people outside is that they have been promised intelligent sci-fi/drama before and have been consistently disappointed (need I remind us all of "V the Series" and "Space:1999"). If they are my age, they may be disillusioned, if younger, they may believe Sci-Fi isn't cool and is only watched by nerds, geeks and other glasses-wearing and pocket protector sporting kids with good grades.

Plus, a lot of people don't want to think when watching TV. That is obvious by the kind of television that DOES well in the ratings (I'm sorry folks, but I NEVER liked Roseanne, Friends or Seinfeld). IMNSHO, the only shows ranking in the top of the ratings that are worth much are the CSI shows (at least they have good story lines, and drama produced right out of real life).

So, why doesn't B5 appeal to more in the mainstream? Frankly, I believe it was near a miracle that it did appeal to as many as it did, with the average attention span of the American consumer.

[Capt.Montoya]

I think that B5 is currently in the situation in which Star Trek was around the time of the first ST movie...
The series was over, but the movie revitalized the franchise.

But I see some differences.
Star Trek became a cultural phenomenon in syndication reruns, through several years, in many countries.

B5 was originally run in syndication, thus the schedules were different in each city, it was scheduled at odd hours, etc.

Babylon 5 was re-run on cable, not on open TV syndication. This does limit exposure, even if you could argue that most people have cable, I'll say that among those with cable the competition with other tens and even hundreds of channels might be a problem.
The reruns and S5 on TNT didn't appeal the "mainstream" public of that cable network. B5's most "succesful" re-run was in the SciFi channel, so that already put it out of the radar for the mainstream public.

Maybe if after TMoS B5 is put back into open TV syndication, or re-run on a less specialized cable channel, it will enter the mainstream consciousness more effectively.

But it still has to contend with the mainstream impression that SF is not serious drama and it's juvenile stuff (and most sci-fi series and movies don't help dispel that notion)... written SF still has to battle that stigma, to me is no wonder that the most intelligent and complex SF TV series can have that problem.

[RaySeventy8]

I was just looking around here and then saw this unusual title "B5 and the mainstream". I was thinking about that...do you really think B5 is comparable to ANY other SciFi show? I defenitly don't. Although I was a star trek fan for some 15 years, but since B5 came across everything changed. of course not in an instant but in the very first moments of that show I was already fascinated why the opening voice-over (by londo in "the gathering") called it "the last of the babylon stations". Know what I mean. There is already something in the air, just by saying that. the getting of answers was half of getting new questions. that was really the best aspect of a 5 year-story arc. Who ever would start a star trek series with "it was the last of the starships called enterprise". smile.

what do you think? so B5 is a standart of its own. right?