Series X US Re-release

[thomasaevans]

Series X has been re-released in the US on DVD from ‘BBC Archives’ (Interesting name). Virtually the same artwork. The previous release has been out of print for some time apparently.

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

Plenty of drama and sci-fi reflect the world we live in from our perspective

Yeah and it’s really tiring. More in the way it’s done, though. In the 60s you could happily ignore that A Private Little War was about Vietnam if you really felt the need, but there’s no escaping it today. And conservative rhetoric is so tiresome that I sort of don’t want to be constantly reminded of it by whatever TV I’m watching. I’ll watch shit form the 80s where at least I’m somewhat distanced from the events they’re allegorising.

[International Debris]

To be fair, Babylon 5 gets very, very heavy going in places. It has a reputation – to some – of being a bit of a cheap, naff, lightweight show, and yet it’s one in which we watch Earth turn into an Orwellian state.

[Moonlight]

Is Blake’s 7 worth watching beyond the first couple episodes? I really enjoyed the first two but it has a reputation for totally abandoning its original premise and turning into a shit knockoff of Doctor Who almost immediately.

[Warbodog]

There’s good stuff in there eventually, especially for its time (it kind of does Star Trek’s Best of Both Worlds cliffhanger a decade early and Avon might be one of the best characters in sci-fi), but plenty of bad to sit through if you’re a completist. Like persisting with the entirety of 1980s Doctor Who, it’s an exchange of your time that could be spent on more worthwhile things in your list.

[Warbodog]

B7 defaults to more of a Star Trek rip-off that occasionally plagiarises Star Wars for an episode. Sapphire & Steel was the Doctor Who knock-off and the slowest thing I’ve ever sat through (though I just let it play in the background after a while).

If we’re collecting numbers-based series, The Prisoner is a good vintage show that doesn’t take forever. It’s not in space though.

[Hamish]

Like persisting with the entirety of 1980s Doctor Who, it’s an exchange of your time that could be spent on more worthwhile things in your list.

[Ridley]

Big Finish has a Blake’s 7 if you’re into that sort of thing.
And Sapphire & Steel.
And Doctor Who.
And Stargate.
And The Prisoner.

[Warbodog]

Babylon 5 did Future Echoes with a Parallel Universe pay-off… so I can pretend that excuses gushing about it here.

Bloody hell, Babylon 5 gets satisfying in the middle. Especially catching up with the long-teased future echoes and being gifted a whole load more. If you’ve got your story all plotted out, what better way to show off than jumping all over the coherent timeline? I can’t remember shouting at the screen so much since Heaven Sent in 2015.

Then there’s the gritty underbelly that gets way too upsettingly/depressingly real at times, depending on your life experience and personal worries. And the twisting character journeys (mainly for the aliens, who are the interesting ones from the start).

It’s made me lose some respect for juvenile favourite Deep Space Nine, but I don’t want to get too conspiratorial about ALL of the similarites beyond the blatant origins, since they were written against the same background and a lot of it’s playing with classical archetype faff anyway. Either way, that outlier in the Trek franchise makes more sense now.

[Jonathan Capps]

Bloody hell, Babylon 5 gets satisfying in the middle. Especially catching up with the long-teased future echoes and being gifted a whole load more. If you’ve got your story all plotted out, what better way to show off than jumping all over the coherent timeline? I can’t remember shouting at the screen so much since Heaven Sent in 2015.

This is what I remember standing out when I first watched it year ago. No other TV series before or since scratched that same itch of presenting this coherent longform story, it really is incredible at times.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

Bloody hell, Babylon 5 gets satisfying in the middle. Especially catching up with the long-teased future echoes and being gifted a whole load more. If you’ve got your story all plotted out, what better way to show off than jumping all over the coherent timeline? I can’t remember shouting at the screen so much since Heaven Sent in 2015.

This is what I remember standing out when I first watched it year ago. No other TV series before or since scratched that same itch of presenting this coherent longform story, it really is incredible at times.

War Without End was an absolute fucking belter.

[Hamish]

Having just finished a Babylon 5 re-watch to the end of Season 4, one thing that has always bothered me is how after months of President Clark’s propaganda about Sheridan being under the control of malign alien influences, no one makes a single comment about how he shows up to Earth with the backing of an Alien armada, or how the White Star ships are almost exclusively manned by Minbari crew.

They do at least state several times that humans should be leading the battle, but G’Kar and Londo getting the League involved could very well have caused more harm than good. Especially when this is followed by Delenn’s show of force with the White Star ships not long after when announcing the creation of the Interstellar Alliance to the new President.

Actually, maybe Clark had something of a point after all?

[Warbodog]

The station becoming a shining beacon of multiculturalism in response to xenophobia has been one of the more heartwarming messages to lighten all the gloom.

[Hamish]

The station becoming a shining beacon of multiculturalism in response to xenophobia has been one of the more heartwarming messages to lighten all the gloom.

That’s the journey the audience gets to see, but looking at it from the optics of someone on Earth who has been watching ISN for months, then Clark’s propaganda suddenly appears to become prophesy. Probably just a consequence of how condensed Season 4 was, but it feels like everyone just hand waves that away.

[Author]

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