I was about to go to bed, and then I remembered the TV meme!

[lizbee]

Day 02 - A show you wish more people were watching

Babylon 5. For purely selfish reasons: then I would have more friends who would understand what I'm talking about when I wibble about it, and more fic would be being written, and I wouldn't find myself staring sadly at the B5 page on AO3, sadly wishing it would update more often. Even though it is currently notable for the fact that Ivanova/Talia fic outnumbers all other pairings with 39 works (Sheridan/Delenn is the only pairing that comes close with 37), making it the only time I have ever seen a fandom where femslash outnumbered the canon het ship. Of course, both pairings are canon. Go, you little red fire engine fandom!

If I were going to do this properly, I would now cut to my own brilliant and witty pimping post. Only I am not certain I'm a fit person to try and promote the show, because I keep going, "Well, it has some rubbish bits, and is kind of embarrassing in places, and then it makes me cry, and also Delenn is one of my ur-characters, so obviously I'm biased but I think she is AWESOME LIKE ROMANA ONLY BETTERER, and Lennier is constantly one bad day away from a killing spree, and my other favourite character is basically a giant lampshade attached to a sparkly curtain, so, y'know, ymmv. I don't know, you should look it up and see if it hits any of your kinks, I don't want to be one of those people who pimps things so indiscriminately that she puts everyone off it. Did I mention that I love Delenn? Because I do."

aria has a much better post here. Go read hers; I have spammed enough for one day, and am going to bed. I SAID GOOD NIGHT, SIR!

Comments

[aria]

To be fair, I feel like your summation of the show would induce me to watch it, because I like things that make me cry, and things with ROMANA ONLY BETTERER, and also I love the giant lampshade attached to a sparkly curtain (although I usually say "walking carpet with Christmas lights") but ... honestly I'm not sure anyone who loves B5 is actually fit to promote it, because I suspect we might all be INSANE.

On the other hand, one of my summer goals is to stick more stuff on the B5 page at the AO3. :D?

[lizbee]

On the other hand, one of my summer goals is to stick more stuff on the B5 page at the AO3. :D?

EPIC YAY!

My dream is to see more Sheridan/Delenn that is not Made Of Heteronormative. Which, I know a lot of that comes from the show, especially the first half of season five, but what is the point of fandom if we can't improve on the text? I like a damsel in distress storyline as much as anyone, but I especially enjoy it when the damsel is playing headgames with her captors and planning her escape.

[aria]

Well, right now I mostly want to write reams of Londo/G'Kar, but I feel that if I take a look at the Sheridan/Delenn offerings I may be scrambling to write them, too. I want fic that is like season three! By which I mean, I want fic where Sheridan is Very Serious and trying to Save The World, and Delenn's all "By the way, darling, I MADE YOU A FLEET. :D" We should just ignore the first half of season five, anyway.

[lizbee]

"By the way, darling, I MADE YOU A FLEET. :D"

Best. Courtship gift. Ever.

[nolivingman]

She started a genocidal holy war and scared away Earthforce pretty much single handedly; why-oh-why does fandom think that she needs her soulmate (gag!) to save her?

[yunitsa]

Babylon 5 is kind of hard to rec for me too, because it's all shiny brilliant and yet often embarrassingly terrible, and you have to watch the first series to get the full significance of everything except the first series kind of sucks. People who stick with it will be rewarded, except for the times they're not? *shrugs, waves a little B5 flag* The Londo and G'Kar storyline, it is so amazing. Also Delenn. And many other things.

[lizbee]

Yeah, the first season has a lot of good moments, but I watched it and sort of went, "...Okay. What's here that I couldn't get from another sci-fi series?" Of course, when I went back and watched it again, all the pieces fell into place, and things like Garibaldi being incredibly annoying, and Claudia Christian and Michael O'Hare being (let's say) not so great at the acting worked in context for their characters.

[yunitsa]

I think I came across it at just the right moment when I needed something episodic to watch and had time on my hands, so I was willing to stick with it even through the dullness and obvious moral moments of S1. And then by halfway through S2 I was totally hooked and began to see how it might all fit together (and also shipping Sheridan/Delenn like a shippy thing).

[ase]

Despite B5's many issues, it's incredibly awesome. It was pretty much the only thing I bought on DVD in college (if by "buy" you mean, "requested for holiday gifts") because I loved it that much. S1 was rough, but it included episodes like "Legacies" which passed the Bechdel test without even trying. S5 had the Byron arc, which let's all pretend never happened, but it also had "Day of the Dead" and "Sleeping in Light".

[rembrandtswife]

I love B5 oh so much. I think it's as much a part of my brain now as Original Trek, even though Trek comes from childhood and B5 from my thirties. Also Bill Mumy was my Original TV Boyfriend from his Lost in Space role. (Dr. Smith/Robot are my snarktastic Original OTP.)

Why *don't* people talk about it more?

[amaresu]

I love your description of Kosh. That is wonderful.

I rewatched the first 2 1/2 seasons like a year ago. I'm just not particularly fannish about B5. Also settiai has convinced me to watch DS9, so once I finish Cleopatra 2525 and that finishes downloading I'll be watching a bunch of Trek.

[bessemerprocess]

I love B5 so much, though I tend to write rarepairs and not very often. It is hard to rec to people because that first season is a pretty big hurdle. I tend to cruelly offering something at the height of the season three arc, just one ep, and then say, okay, now that you have something to look forward to, we start at the beginning.

[kerravonsen]

My feelings towards Babylon 5 are very much love-hate. I really liked the first two seasons. But "The Rock Cried Out" and "Za'ha'dum" were like a punch in the gut with their subtext, particularly "Rock Cried Out". Unlike many shows, where one turns away because they jump the shark with bad writing, this show's writing quality wasn't what turned me away, but what the show was actually saying. I know that most people don't see it, but when you have this scene of someone being beaten to a bloody pulp and killed for revenge, intercut with a scene where people in a Gospel Revival service are joyfully singing "And the rock cried out, no hiding place", it's clear to me that what is being said is, in JMS's own words, that "God is a malign thug". (Yes, he did say that, at a Worldcon that I attended; a different context, obviously, but he truly meant it). I stopped watching after "Za'ha'dum".

For a very interesting analysis of B5, see the "Mythic Well" series of articles here.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of writing fic for B5, and then I get sort of worried it's all Been Done Before, and thus, I end up not doing it at all. For my brain is odd.

BUT. going on comments you've made, I'm going to assume there is a LACK of Lyta and G'Kar being space pirates and stuff. So there's some niches I can fill. =D

[matgb]

Heh, see, last night in the pub, miss_s_b and innerbrat were talking about your Amy post, while I was telling burkesworks about how he'd probably like B5 because it was his sort of crappy telly.

I still love it, despite all the really bad acting, scripting, plotting and rushedness, just a damn shame that they rushed to finish the main plot in S4, then had to stretch out the remains in S5. Ah well.

[jesuswasbatman]

Forgot to respond to this, but when I was in B5 fandom (at the time I was strictly in analytical boyfandom so my experience of fanfic written while the show was on is limited) my understanding is that the big fannish ships where the two canon hetships: John/Delenn and Susan/Marcus. I don't think there was very much Susan/Talia at the time.

Susan/Marcus seems to get much less fic now. That might be because it's a very conventional hot boy/hot girl ship and the people who used to write it were immature writers who didn't have a lot of commitment. Or it might be because the incredibly creepy post-show short story JMS wrote about them put people off the ship.