3 main reasons why you will get Season 5 dvd

[grumbler]

Originally posted by RCmodeler
You know, if viewers felt "alienated" and/or "got lost" watching B5, you would expect the ratings to gradually decline, because viewers would abandon ship.

Yet the ratings are consistent. From season 2 to season 3 to season 4 the rating for B5 was a constant ~3.0%. In other words, the viewers stayed with the show.

I think we need to stop assuming that American viewers are too dumb to understand/follow a novel for TV. Clearly they understood B5 well enough to stick with it.

Its funny how the world works, because your numbers showing that the system worked were the same as my numbers showing that it didn't!

Consider this: a TV show starts as almost a "guerilla TV" campaign, given a look by some 3% of the viewers, simply because it is SF. Over time, it wins some of the top awards in the field, gets critical acclaim, some TV guide coverage to die for... and new viewers are barely enough to make up for the loss.

Don't get me wrong. I love the format and wish there were some way to make it work for evry show out there with the writing quality and vision we enjoyed in B5. B5 was simply the best thing on television, ever (for people like me at least), BECAUSE of the five-year format. In fact, I discovered only today what Delenn actually meant when she told Sinclair "I knew you would come for me" in Season 1's Soulhunter - and the secret is a seemingly unrelated story she tells in Season 3's Confessions and Lamentations! Five years after the show went off the air I am still getting new "gotcha" moments!

However, I think people like us are rare, and it is hard to imagine that we make up a "market." Wish I was wrong.

[RCmodeler]

Well, it's probably trivial, but B5 *did* grow some. From episode 310 to episode 406 (Shadows leave) it slowly climbed from 3.0% to 3.6%. The audience was growing.

It then immediately dropped to 3.0% at episode 407. It's obvious that the viewers had been "caught up" in the war story... stayed to see how it ended... and left. So in the span from 310-406, the continuing story WORKED. It attracted and held onto new viewers.

Exactly what you're looking for.

.

Also, considering B5 was shuffled around, sometimes landing at 2 a.m. on the dial, and yet still held 3.0% from episode 201 to 501... I consider that a success.
Why?
Because most shows, even major hits like X-Files/TNG/Seinfeld, will slowly but surely LOSE viewers over time. Babylon 5 did not.

.

One of my female friends once said, "Ahhhh... I see... it's like a soap opera for sci-fi!" Yep. And I think, if soap operas can (and do) attract a loyal enough audience to follow the complicated, twisty plots of soap operas..... the same tactic can work for evening television.
24
Angel
Dawson's Creek
e.r.
All successful series with ongoing plots. The TV novel is viable. It works.

[Dr Maturin]

<<I think we need to stop assuming that American viewers are too dumb to understand/follow a novel for TV. Clearly they understood B5 well enough to stick with it.>>

Even stupid, uneducated and socially unequal conservatives.

Seriously, 3.0 is a great number for a cable show. WWE wrestling was pulling high numbers then (like 7's and low 8's, I believe). Now they are doing high 3's. WCW, also on TNT, was doing big numbers, too. But wrestling appeals to the innermost human nature (like UFC and boxing) to watch people beat on each other. For a sci-fi show to pull 3.0's is downright awesome. Right now, WWE Raw on Spike, Sponge Bob and Fairly Odd Parents take turns as the top cable rated shows, and they get high 3's and the occasional 4. SG-1 is considered a success and gets 1.8's on average. But maybe TNT is more widespread than Sci-Fi channel is, I don't know. But 3.0 is great.

[e5comp]

I can't watch SIL, it breaks me down into a big crying baby. I remember watching it the morning of Thanksgiving before going over to my In-Laws. For the rest of the day nothing else existed in my mind. My wife didn't and couldn't understand the emotion I had/have invested in this show. SIL was the payoff, even if she could have *got it* I would have preferred to keep it inside of me in its own special part of my mind.

Pat

[e5comp]

I actually have a reason, my S5 Laserdiscs are a wee bit long in the tooth.

Pat

[RCmodeler]

I'm not. I just spent ~$800 buying all seven seasons of Star Trek: DS9 and don't have any spare cash!

[KoshN]

Originally posted by grumbler
Agreed. It wasn't until I had it all on tape, and so could change the order, that I started to really warm up to it (though I thought it was "okay" from day one).

And the music, which I thought substandard on the first go-around, turned out to be one of the strengths of the show upon re-viewing without prejudice.

Regarding the music, I find the main titles to be really catchy. They are buzzing around in my head long after the episode has finished.

Some of the "music" though is, to me, just noise. The only episodic example I can think of at the moment is the end "music" from "Ruling from the Tomb." That's stuff's just plain awful. There are also some points where the "music" sounds like clay pots being struck together and other points where it almost drowns out Eilerson's lines. Not good.