JMS pitched B5 to Paramount, and then Paramount mysteriously made DS9, a show with no similarities at all....
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
192 points (95.3% liked)
TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name
7400 readers
660 users here now
/c/TenForward: Your home-away-from-home for all things Star Trek!
Re-route power to the shields, emit a tachyon pulse through the deflector, and post all the nonsense you want. Within reason of course.
~ 1. No bigotry. This is a Star Trek community. Remember that diversity and coexistence are Star Trek values. Any post/comments that are racist, anti-LGBT, or generally "othering" of a group will result in removal/ban.
~ 2. Keep it civil. Disagreements will happen both on lore and preferences. That's okay! Just don't let it make you forget that the person you are talking to is also a person.
~ 3. Use spoiler tags.
Use spoiler tags in comments, and NSFW checkbox for posts.
This applies to any episodes that have dropped within 3 months prior of your posting. After that it's free game.
~ 4. Keep it Trek related. This one is kind of a gimme but keep as on topic as possible.
~ 5. Keep posts to a limit. We all love Star Trek stuff but 3-4 posts in an hour is plenty enough.
~ 6. Try to not repost. Mistakes happen, we get it! But try to not repost anything from within the past 1-2 months.
~ 7. No General AI Art. Posts of simple AI art do not 'inspire jamaharon'
~ 8. No Political Upheaval. Political commentary is allowed, but please keep discussions civil. Read here for our community's expectations.
Fun will now commence.
Sister Communities:
Want your community to be added to the sidebar? Just ask one of our mods!
Creator Resources:
Looking for a Star Trek screencap? (TrekCore)
Looking for the right Star Trek typeface/font for your meme? (Thank you @kellyaster for putting this together!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I’ve never seen Babylon 5.. am I missing out?
Definitely. It was a groundbreaking show with some of the best character development and plot arcs on television, including everything that has come after. Incredible performances, deep lore, and fantastic writing.
You’ll have to get past the dated effects and synth soundtrack, but that’s easy after a few episodes. If you like sci-fi, you’ll love Babylon 5.
But I love dated effects and synth soundtracks!
don't threaten me with a good time!
Have I got good news for you…
B5 also had the best space combat with speed vectors or whatever is closer to real physics instead of shops and shuttles flying like boats and airplanes.
With the quirk that only most ships fly like that. Ships with gravimetric drives (ships made by the Vorlons, Minbari, and Centauri) fly like boats and aircraft. Which then gets really cool when you notice both types of ship behaving correctly in the same shot.
I was thinking of the human fighters and forgot that the alien ships did move in a more alien way!
Babylon 5 also seemed to write better space combat with the larger ships. Spacedock has a good video about the Battle of Proxima 3 where it goes through how the show wrote a believable naval civil war battle including understanding the geography of the area, the tactics of the different forces, and the politics behind the battle.
If you like sci-fi political drama mixed with action and intrigue, yes.
Otherwise, yes.
I love DS9 so I guess Babylon is up next
Yes.
It’s the first TV show with actual character arcs - planned out from the start
Offhand remarks from S1 will realise into actual actions in S4
It's good and an easy watch, only 5 seasons. SURE you can watch all the movies too and maybe the spin off series but in all honestly you can probably skip the spin off.
The first season can be a struggle to get through for many people but you kinda have to watch it as everything ties together. and there's a major plot point you won't understand or appreciate in the last couple seasons unless you watch season 1. But once the Shadow War kicks off man that show hits its stride, starts running, and just doesn't stop until the very last episode.
The space combat is probably the absolute best. The best part in that series is seeing jump gates open at JUST the right time and wondering whose coming out of them.
Not to mention the graphic design of the whole thing. Those black ships gave me the absolute creeps back in the day. And obviously there's no sound in space, luckily the ships are telepathic and scream in your mind as they go by. Fucking sci-fi Aztec Death Whistles, jikes!
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
The CGI is of course dated at this point, especially the space battle stuff. Characters are largely practical though, so they look fine still.
Otherwise IMO the first season starts a little slow and there's a ton exposition heavy stuff early to introduce the world. It does pick up soon though and it avoids the returning to status quo after episode quite well. Pretty much every episode moves some of the bigger background plots forward
I love deep lore and exposition so this will be fun.
Definitely don’t mind older effects either.
B5 wins for being the only serious sci fi series that had a species that flew actual stereotypical flying saucers
Also the gag about the species that own those things look like greys and really did abduct humans for experimentation, and now the descendants of those humans are suing.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
Me watching the first episode: Wow, the budget for these episodes is someone’s lunch money.
Me watching the last episode: 🫡😭
B5 is a more honest tale (feels handmade and passionate), that you might not appreciate if you need high production values to keep interested.
B5 is less accessible, and sometimes you need to be paying attention. DS9 is better at spoon feeding you and making sure you have what you need. B5 is trying to tell the B5 story. DS9 is trying to expand its region of Star Trek story telling, and occasionally wanders into expert episodes of single story high sci-fi. B5 is a different kind of epic (more like a Space Opera)
They both do great things but some people want the backing and polish of a Star Trek univese, which can make DS9 feel more like home, whilst also preventing it from feeling alien. B5 feels more alien and like there's something unknown going on, as scifi maybe should?
You need the 4:3 4k rescan version, it’s so unbelievably crispy and correct.
Which is honestly too bad because the show was originally filmed for 16:9 with the expectation that 16:9 TVs would become common in the near future, which they did. The 4k version is only 4:3 because the effects were done on the cheap and mastered for 4:3 standard definition and nobody that could afford it wants to redo all the effects work.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Just like DS9 takes 3 seasons to find its footing, B5 takes almost the whole first season. But then the rewards are so, so good...
load more comments
(5 replies)
While I'm a DS9 fan Babylon 5 is not a TV show its a Novel and D&D campaign that took the form of a TV show. The amount of forethought he took was amazing.
load more comments
(1 replies)
It will either change your world, or help you accept that you are really a simple person at heart.
Tried watching the first episode a couple of times but it didn't really capture my interest. Plus somehow the video quality managed to be even worse than DS9.
S1 starts a bit slow, but it's most certainly worth watching this amazing show.
It's definitely a slow start - lots of world building being done.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The space station show where an alien religious cast helps the station commander fight a large scale political and physical war against an insidious enemy not detectable to the human eye, even though a genocidal race aiding them may be sacrificed?
....wait, which one am I talking about?
spoiler
The one that's pro-union, has large character arcs, and a conspiracy that plays out back home.
Wait, which one?
spoiler
The one where ancient text profecy it all.
spoiler
The one where the Station Commander actually belonged to that part of space after all. You know, he wasn't really like other humans.
...i give up.
They both match these descriptions... But interestingly enough B5 often ends up feeling like it's telling the bigger story! Sometimes it feels like DS9 is just trying to keep up with it (albeit with much higher production values).
...and the B5 aliens are somehow, more alien. It's got a lot going for it, and is an underdog that punches above its weight class.
B5 from the getgo had the whole mythic arc written out. Ds9 had to play the trek serialisation until B&B were distracted enough for ISB to go ham
They're my two favorite Sci-fi shows, and I have room in my heart for both!
Same here, but B5 will always be my number one.
It's both 10% sillier and 10% darker at the same time 🙂
I heard about the story about how Paramount turned down the Babylon 5 pitch, then turned around and made Deep Space 9. Of course the two shows went in different directions, and are each great in different ways. But there are eyebrow-raising surface similarities. Both shows are named after a numbered space station, feature a commander who is a prophesized savior, have long story arcs, explore moral complexity.
Yesterday I watched the movie pilot, The Gathering. There is another similarity I hadn't realized before: both commanders are romantically involved with a freighter caption whose name starts with "Ca"!
it's interesting the ways they got more similar as they went on, too. there's one particular plot point that B5 does later on, after realizing they had accidentally been foreshadowing it, that comes from the pilot of DS9. i'm not saying they copied it but they couldn't exactly unwatch it either. the suits at Paramount definitely fucked over JMS when they stole the basic premise, but once both shows were on the air i think they both benefitted from the unintentional dialogue between them
and fun fact: Lyta's actress was also an extra and stunt double on DS9. reportedly she got a lot of complements on B5 in very hushed tones on the Paramount lot
load more comments
(1 replies)
I've only seen 1 episode of Babylon 5, the union episode that was floating around Lemmy yesterday. It definitely beats Bar Association, but I have a hard time imagining that it could beat episodes like Past Tense
Babylon 5s pay off comes in season 3 and 4. There are some great episodes at the end of season 1 and season 2. But S3 and S4 are the best television I’ve seen. It’s hard to imagine but still the case.
view more: next ›