Incidentally, for anyone who is still interested in how the Lady Watches B5 adventure has been panning out:
I finished the first season and was really struck by what images I did and did not remember, but I’m enjoying myself now! I feel like for all that DS9 is always going to be So Important to me, this show seems to have found its footing (or at least some kind of footing) much sooner. I was definitely enjoying early DS9, but I think I waited a little longer for something ‘take’, if that makes any sense.
Several of the characters are extra entertaining and, after a season, none are so irritating that I just hope it will all be over. There are plenty of women, and compared to many other shows, the number of them that are not actively after romantic entanglements in favor of political matters or personal interests or careers is really refreshing.
All the alien makeup is also really beautifully done and it’s fun to see how it’s applied to different characters of the same species. It has a really lovely balance of intriguing dramatic tension and not taking itself too seriously.
I’ll be continuing it, for sure.
SO, for the people who were watching this space wondering what Lady would be watching next so you could take my recommendation on something, if you’re a DS9 person, I think Babylon 5 is feeling like it is worth a go (I say with only a season under my belt). I like to use people on tumblr for recommendations because I see the stuff they post on their blogs and think that we probably have similar tastes and priorities, so just in case anyone is using me that way, some notes about the biggest obstacles I’ve run into so far (most of which aren’t even this show’s fault directly) have been:
- I sometimes get the feeling that this show is not 'space show written in the 90’s’ but 'The 90’s In Space’. A lot of the attitudes of the characters, the approach to dialog and writing, a lot of the hair to the point of it being distracting, the opening, and the political issues they choose to deal with all feel very much like the most often mocked and tired parts of the 90s, and I found myself getting pretty frustrated with them at times. This is stuff like knowing that the second a black guy steps onto the set he’s going to die, knowing someone’s Cool 90s Guy witty fighting banter before it happens, and cringing when someone uses generic 'Asian’ influence as a template for one off ~aliens~. There are also, as you would suspect, not really a huge amount of diversity with regard to gender, sexual orientations, or race. (Granted, I’ve seen season 1, this might change. But it’s still the 90s, so I’m not hoping too much.)
- There are some unsettling implications about how the non-human characters are treated. There are two kinds of people on the show: human and alien. Something about how they’re all floating in an random part of space that none of them are native to makes me feel kind of gross about humans being exempt from the 'alien’ label and still the norm. They also seem to have a special sector just for the aliens that feels really creepily like keeping them in a pen to me.
- And this is my own personal thing and why I had to really make some effort for the show - struggling with making inevitable comparisons to DS9. It was hard to detach myself from my other space station show when the characters were making such obvious parallels. The different approach to how things might operate on the station (there are slums on B5, for example) still really throws me, and I can’t tell if that’s, “I love DS9” or “I do not love the 90s” talking, haha.
These things have not been aggressive issues, just sort of passive ones. Most of the cringe-y stuff are parts of a one-off that I have hopes they may learn from and seem to be more minor examples of this kind of stuff than I’ve seen elsewhere. And, aside from the representational notes, each of these points has flip sides: Sometimes the 90s references are unintentionally hilarious, there are mentions of specific to non-humans bathrooms and areas of the station with different atmospheres for different species, and it can be kind of funny to mentally swap the DS9 and B5 casts into each other’s plots and see if they still work.
The show also does do some lovely things with and has so far not outright abused any of its female characters. I don’t feel attacked or uncomfortable watching it like I have with shows that treat their women like disposable sex objects, and the most Absolutely No Bullshit Will Be Had Here This Day character is female and has thus far not been accused of being 'frigid’ or somehow less of a woman. (Though they really need to stop saying over and over that she’s Russian, it’s starting to feel like 60s TOS and that we should be laughing at her, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the goal.) I’m at least mildly invested or attached to most of the characters, and the ones who were grating and irritating when the show started have turned into people who are tolerable.
So YEAH, so far, I think anyone of my DS9 crew who is looking for something else to watch, Babylon 5 should be enjoyable and friendly, even with some occasionally frustrating bits, especially because those bits for the most part aren’t even the show’s fault!
