television!

[jazzfish]

I have a vague desire to drown myself in television. Which of these, o lazyweb, would you recommend? (ETA: I've seen none of these except the BSG pilot)

• Babylon 5
  
• Farscape
  
• Battlestar Galactica
  
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  
• Something else entirely

(No poll because I'm more interested in the Whys.)

Not that this will be happening anytime soon: the next four months or so are kinda busy. But once we get settled I may do something like 'i made my wordcount for the week so i get another episode of X.'

Comments

[blaisepascal]

Of the group, I have watched B5 and A:TLA more than the others. I have seen most of BSG, and very little of Farscape.

I am currently rewatching B5 season 1, and I find that it ages fairly well. It's themes are big, and it's world-building was complete enough that it doesn't appear to be a snapshot of early 90's TV. The effects work were ahead of their time, and don't appear too far behind todays work either.

B5 and A:TLA both have the advantage that they appear to have been thought out, beginning to end, before the story started. There is a broad, consistent story arc from beginning to end. I know about the season 4 crunch in B5 (I watched it in real-time, as it were), but I don't feel like JMS ended up pulling important plot details out of his ass. BSG, on the other hand, did feel like they ended up making it up as they went along.

I would recommend B5 or A:TLA for the above reasons.

[jazzfish]

I am really annoyed that BSG reportedly came apart at the seams. I liked the miniseries.

The 'coherent story' is a big part of what I'm looking for. I think the lack of that is why my watching of Due South has petered out. It sounds like Farscape has that as well, from what I've heard.

I think the thing to do is start with Avatar and go from there.

Thanks!

[blaisepascal]

For "coherent story", B5 has that in spades. B5 held (and probably still holds) the record for number of consecutive episodes of a TV series written by the same writer. From episode 40 near the end of the 2nd season to episode 95 about a third of the way in the 5th season, JMS was the sole writer for 56 episodes straight, not counting the series finale filmed but not shown during that stretch. Story coherency was the main reason for that stretch.

[jazzfish]

Honestly, that's a lot of what's attracted me to B5: knowing that there was a big huge story that JMS wanted to tell, and that he mostly got the chance to do so.