Late this year, a series of direct-to-DVD movies is scheduled to begin for Babylon 5.I was a huge fan of this show. Before "Joss Whedon was my master now," I though J. Michael Straczynski and his creation, Babylon 5, were the bomb. And the stuff holds up. The epic five-year story of the series is a truly incredible feat of storytelling that has not been matched on television, and may never be. Sure, there are some great serialized series on the air right now, but do they know where they're heading five years in advance, and do they lay down threads in season one that get paid off in season five? No. We could only dream that Lost had this kind of foresight being put into it.
However, I can't say that I'm entirely enthusiastic about these new DVD movies. This is because it was that grand five-year arc of storytelling that made Babylon 5 so compelling. The acting was hit and miss. The writing of certain episodes was pretty terrible -- the whole being much, much greater than the sum of the parts.
Indeed, though Babylon 5 has not yet done direct-to-DVD movies, they did several television movies throughout the show's original run. And with only one exception (In the Beginning), they were all terrible. They didn't further the show's story arc. They were, ultimately, knockoffs of Star Trek -- sci-fi "problems of the week" in the form of glorified two-part episodes. You can watch the series, not watch those movies, and not have missed a thing. And since the series story arc was concluded, is there really much that these movies can hope to offer?
Add to that the fact that two of the cast members of Babylon 5 have died since the conclusion of the series. While I suppose a new movie can get by without Dr. Stephen Franklin, it will be a shame not to have G'Kar.
I hope I'm wrong, and that JMS has come up with a neat new chapter of the story to tell. I guess I will see... I'm enough of the fan of the series to probably check it out anyway, despite my reservations.
3 comments:
Oh, I'll check out the first one, at least. But I fully expect to be disappointed.
And yes, the TV movies were all pretty bad. Especially "Legend of the Rangers"!!!
(And "Crusade" was quite crappy, too...)
FKL
The quality is what kept me away from Babylon 5. With Deep Space Nine, you get better acting, decent writing, and an assortment of character and plot arcs.
Is the payoff of a big story worth it if you have to suffer through mediocrity? Does this make me a TV Snob?
While I'm looking forward to the new DVDs because they are apparently spending a lot of money on them to do them right, my problem with them is that each DVD tells two twenty minute stories. That's it. Not even a full episode of story length.
Now, I love short stories as much as the next guy--more probably, since I write them--but you have to give us more than forty minutes of new stuff to get me excited.
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