Why bablyon 5 is better than Star Trek (or not?) Warning, spoilers from two dead TV franchises...

http://www.horus.at/~bjelli/bjelli/b5vsst.html

People stay dead on B5.
Just ask Sheridan. (He died and was resurrected in season 4... to coin a phrase for the website's author: "Whoops".)

B5 has computer generated graphics vs. Voyager has a computer generated Plot
And?

Babylon 5's name comes from an important historical reference. vs. Voyager is named after a mini-van.
LOL

B5 has Bester vs. ST has Chekov.
'nuff said. :D

On B5 Marcus is a virgin and it's a big deal. vs. On -any- ST show, they never admit to having sex.
Just ask Kirk! :7

ST: Dragging it's butt on putting in GLBT characters. vs. B5: Ivanova and Talia.
Yeah, but it's two women and therefore socially acceptable for the censors to allow. Besides, DS9 during season 4, and various other times, did the two lady routine as well - often with Dax because it was a trill operating a human host and the trill uses love in terms of the soul, not of the body. (See? ST can have some depth at times too... of course, the body Dax's trill used to operate was male, but this is ST - every time it talks sexuality, it always does so using heterosexual nomenclature... the TNG episode "The Outcast" does more to slap the GLBT cause because its story is about accepting heterosexuality in a world whose inhabitants made test tube babies the norm... yawn.)

B5:influenced by Tolkein vs. V'ger:influenced by money.
:D

Plot complexity : On b5: you miss one line and you are confused for the rest of the season. vs. On voyager: you catch last 5 minutes of the episode and you already understand the entire episode.
Ouch. But not entirely untrue.

ST: Last minute solution saves the race. vs. B5: last minute solution too late, race dies.
Also a typical truism.

Number of times B5 has been taken by hostile forces: 0 vs. Number of times V'ger has been taken by hostile forces: 3 (4 if you count holographic Nazis)!
Wow, the author of this website sat through all of Voyager?! I couldn't during the Kes era and the 7-o-9 era wasn't without problems either...

The characters on B5 are anatomicaly (sic) superior (just ask Londo)
Cool.

You don't get paid in Star Trek.
The original TV series talked of money. DS9 critters use money... the Ferengi are nothing but money.

Tell me we won't have poverty in the future !
Well, when you don't get paid, poverty ensues. :think:

I couldn't sleep the night "Zha'ha'dum" aired. vs. I sleep(sic) DURING ST:V
Big ouch! But big truth!


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And my own contribution:

B5 characters are real and change due to life experiences. ST characters are pompous, overblown, one-sided, stereotyped caricatures without depth. Just ask any Ferengi. But the website would have people summing that up anyway. :D

I will say this - both series have merit. But the website author has an amusing right-wing slant that can be annoying at times. Especially when overlooking obvious spelling and grammatical errors. Captain Sheridan would not have approved... But I digress. B5 seemed to feel authentic and real and growing, whereas ST was always preachy.

Have you watched the episode "shattered dreams" yet?
I love that show can you believe the writer worked on murder she wrote

Exceptionally good episode.

The doctor (Steven Franklin) reminded me of me.

Good moral too... live life for today.



I've started watching season 4 and it's a mix of the good and the bad. Seeing everyone's names in the title credits killed the impression they were dead or gone, despite neither character really showing up for 2 whole episodes. The Kosh/Vorlon finale in the (4th?) episode was a bit too fantastical and convenient (JMS wrote that?!), but I've been glued to the Narn/Centauri subplot. A bit OTT with the sadistic torture stuff (needlessly descriptive if they're trying to show the form of death G'Kar was to face) but fairly good on the whole. Time will tell, but I'm warming up to it. Having Sheridan return from Za'ha'dum was most impressive, and while we (the audience) was told of Sheridan's survival, Garibaldi's questioning of events does come across as natural and expected as well.



BTW: Richard Biggs recently passed away (2004). :wow: He must've been in his early 40s. :(

G'kar was my favorite charactor..He is dead as well
Andreas Katsulas February 13th, 2006.
great actor..
Too bad

spotless, it's dirty and dark and dangerous in places.

the other thing we loved about B5 was the space battles. In ST-V the ships are always along a plane with an 'up' and 'down', in B5 the ships truly used the entire axis available in deep space. The space battles rocked in B5!

I've never seen anything of B5 beyond the opening credits. It sounds pretty good.