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▲ tomkarho a day ago

Those who come to this magnificent piece of Sci-Fi for the first time, a word of advice: Pay attention. There are things set in motion in season 1 that are resolved multiple seasons later and there's a lot of foreshadowing (pun very much intended) both subtle and overt.

Oh and, enjoy the ride. It's a good one.

▲chasil 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The primary thing to know is that the actor who played Sinclair in season one, Michael O'Hare, suffered from mental illness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Hare

His treatments were only partially successful. He reappeared in a cameo appearance early in season two ("The Coming of Shadows") and returned in season three for a two-part episode ("War Without End") which closed his character's story arc. At that time, Straczynski promised O'Hare to keep his condition secret "to my grave". O'Hare told him to instead "keep the secret to my grave", arguing that fans deserved to eventually learn the real reason for his departure, and that his experience could raise awareness and understanding for people with mental illness. He made no further appearances on Babylon 5 but continued to support the show and appeared at conventions and signing events until his retirement from public appearances in 2000.

On September 28, 2012, Straczynski posted that O'Hare had had a heart attack in New York City five days earlier and had remained in a coma until his death that day.[48] Eight months later, Straczynski revealed the circumstances of O'Hare's departure from Babylon 5 at a presentation about the series at the Phoenix Comicon.

▲gspetr 21 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

You should delete the spoilers. O'Hare's personal history is important, but the part of the comment about his chronological appearances in the show is not.

▲chasil 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Claudia Christian, who played Susan Ivanova, is also well known for her documentary on alcohol addiction.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=crYU4xT1aRI

▲TiredOfLife 7 hours ago | parent [-]

It would be easier to list b5 actors without drug or alcohol issues.

▲chasil 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Look at what she has to say.

It is of profound significance.

▲normie3000 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You've linked to a 50+ minute video. Is it recommending naltrexone for alcoholism?

▲chasil 6 hours ago | parent [-]

It is, after the well-known book by Roy Eskapa.

https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Alcoholism-Willpower-Abstinence-...

▲sandworm101 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are actors, young people paid to display exaggerated emotion while living in a world that values youth and appearance over everything. Then we ask them to constantly adopt new characters and shower them with on-again off-again false praise based on whether or not they are working on a given day. Frankly, i am impressed that any of them manage to walk away without profound mental health issues.

▲thaumasiotes an hour ago | parent [-]

> Frankly, i am impressed that any of them manage to walk away without profound mental health issues.

My impression is that there's not much causation from being an actor to mental fragility. It's the other way around; the pool of people who make good actors is already prone to mental fragility before they become actors.

▲danaris 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And sadly, so many of the main cast are no longer with us—far more than one would expect from their ages.

I know that some of them, indeed, died due to substance abuse issues; I don't know the circumstances of all of them. They will all be greatly missed.

▲Findecanor 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Being a B5 fan, I found it heart-breaking to see Jeff Conaway on the reality show Celebrity Rehab a decade later. (the fact that there even existed a TV show called "Celebrity Rehab" ...)

Too many others of the main cast had died relatively young, of "natural causes" though. Richard Biggs, Mira Furlan and Stephen Furst stand out.

▲RobotToaster 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The curse of Babylon 5 https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056207990/

▲danaris an hour ago | parent [-]

Indeed—and Mira Furlan died just a few years ago, at 65.

▲chasil 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In the lingo of the show, they have "gone beyond the rim" (of our galaxy).

▲danaris 5 hours ago | parent [-]

And we will see them again in the place where no shadows fall.

▲TiredOfLife 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Could you list more spoilers!?

▲chasil 6 hours ago | parent [-]

If you want to know something about the series, then ask.

I will upvote you now.

Edit: Vir waves.

▲YinglingHeavy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

▲2muchcoffeeman 4 hours ago | parent [-]

This is the first loony conspiracy theory I’ve seen posted on HN

▲YinglingHeavy 4 hours ago | parent [-]

You never forget your first.

▲tracker1 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I just found the acting in the first season really, "soap opera" like. I'm not sure how to describe it better. It's still one of my all time favorite shows.

I wish they'd do a corrected bluray release with even a bit more effort... when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes.

Maybe AI upscale to 4k, with training data for newer ship models, actor photos, etc then reducing back to 1080p for a final BluRay set. Probably enough people that would do this as a passion project if the studio would let them.

▲st_goliath 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I just found the acting in the first season really, "soap opera" like. I'm not sure how to describe it better.

When I first started watching, season 1 with its gratuitous 90s CGI, the dramatic musical cues, and Michael O'Hares rather stiff, wooden demeanor reminded me a lot of those live action cut scenes that some early CD-ROM games had. I remember thinking at first, that this is probably the kind of thing the local basement theater troupe would pull off if they were suddenly told to make a TV show.

> It's still one of my all time favorite shows.

Fully agree. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd highly recommend as well.

▲moomin 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s partly that JMS favoured stage actors. Partly that he grabbed a number of his favourite actors from “Murder She Wrote”. Honestly brilliant, taking a couple of murderers of the week and giving them lead roles in a show.

▲Telemakhos 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There's more to this line of thought. The pilot movie isn't space opera so much as it is a murder mystery in space, and it's not the only episode like that. The security chief, Garibaldi, is a hard-bitten alcoholic detective from film noir (and there are plenty of film-noir-like visual elements: fans, shadows, run-down industrial sectors unimaginable in Star Trek), and he plays a much larger role solving crimes than do his counterparts in other science fiction shows. The writing style, a long arc that drops clues up front to pay off in revelations down the line, also leans heavily on mystery writing.

▲prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do we really need to upscale everything?

I don't think image quality really is an important thing to enjoy old movies / series as long as the story is good.

▲driscoll42 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

While I agree, there's plenty of people who refuse to watch anything that's not sharp. I think there's room for both to exist, just clearly labeled as "original" and "AI Upscaled to 4K"

▲wartywhoa23 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Just wait, they'll soon demand that their favorite soap operas be AI-restarted to generate slop streams indefinitely, and will throw their hard-sat-on-a-sofa UBI credits at that.

- Hey, have you watched that Game of Thrones S1723E1122?

- Nope, I'm not paying until they upscale it to 64K!

▲conception 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Season one it was a traditional adventure of the week style show that was popular at the time and before. because having a multi season story arc was unheard of and still more or less is today so the first season was traditional TV and only when mildly successful did it have the ability to spread its wings. and it did so so well that it forced other shows like DS9 to also have seasonal story arcs.

▲fao_ 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Season one it was a traditional adventure of the week style show that was popular at the time and before. because having a multi season story arc was unheard of and still more or less is today so the first season was traditional TV and only when mildly successful did it have the ability to spread its wings. and it did so so well that it forced other shows like DS9 to also have seasonal story arcs.

Unfortunately incorrect! JMS had the entire plot and "bible" written out start to finish before the show was produced, and the show was approved based on that bible. It had all the room it planned for and needed at the start. There were even built-in "escape hatches" planned for if actors had to drop out (which happened to Michael O'Hare, unfortunately)

▲MindSpunk 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The first season is definitely the most conventional (for the time) and I think that reflects in some of JMS's statements saying the show was still getting onto its feet through the first season. Having the serialized story was very unfamiliar territory for Hollywood television back then, they were learning on their feet.

If I recall correctly JMS wrote basically every episode after season 1, where as season 1 had a few guest writers. The guest written episodes did not do well, including episode 14 which is probably the worst episode in the entire series.

▲yrro 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The "TKO" 'A' plot is silly but it has one of the most moving and memorable 'B' plots of the series!

▲Uvix 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Season 2 had a similar writer split to season 1. It's season 3 where he took the reins entirely.

▲wdkrnls 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I heard the original story with O'Hare was for Babylon 5 to blow up after an alien attack and for the Babylon 4 to be sent forward from the past to replace it. We saw hints for that in two different premonitions in season 1. That's a pretty big departure from the story we actually got.

▲wdkrnls 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

From what I've read, DS9 was heavily based on the Babylon 5 Bible which was pitched by JMS to Paramount years before. You might charitably say DS9 was the Guix to the Nix of Babylon 5: Same core ideas mapped onto different story universes. The earlier B5 Bible apparently even had a changeling security officer which evolved into the "changeling net" plot shown in the pilot episode.

▲bjackman 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think weird acting styles can be part of the joy of watching older media. Seems like films mostly switched over to "modern" acting in the 70s (?) and TV had a lot more variety in style (and quality lol) way up into the "modern era".

I'm not gonna say "it's not worse it's just different", coz TBH... It's worse lol. If modern acting was a rare minority style of practice I would seek it out voraciously. But, for the variety I do think it's fun to watch old stuff too!

▲tracker1 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Honestly if it were some with live models even at SD it wouldn't be so bad... I just find it's from a time that's kind of painful to watch... Much like Transformers: Beast Wars.

I enjoy the story, but the FX are IMO literally worse than pre-60s serial Sci-fi content. The blurry, low res CGI just detracts from the show today. I'm not asking for a reboot or change of the material marathon... Just the special effects and CGI to what it should have been at the time.

▲thisislife2 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are some AI upscaled versions of Babylon 5, Star Trek Voyager etc. on torrent. Pretty decent.

▲RupertSalt 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera

▲TiredOfLife 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes.

Those were not upscales.

▲tracker1 an hour ago | parent [-]

They definitely aren't 1/4 SD (DVD) though... The original series was SD, shot in SD for the early seasons with 1/4 res CGI.

The HBO Max release was 1080p with some wife screen usage... The extra pixels came from somewhere.

▲duxup 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's great how many of those little important things there are and foreshadowing ... and yet a great deal of surprises, sub plots, a characters go in some surprising directions.

▲ndsipa_pomu an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I believe B5 was the first sci-fi show to do this kind of multi-season story arc. For all the poor acting and filler episodes, it is still hugely influential.