I've read most of the reviews here, and the pattern fits what I have seen over the years. 90% of people who watch it love it, and 5% hate it, 5% are "unimpressed".
From what I've read so far, those who hate it didn't watch all the shows and likely missed the best ones, or they really didn't understand what they were watching.
This series was about the future and the people who make it. The acting in the first season, I found a little stiff. However the actors were just settling in, and I have seen the same settling in period on every science fiction show on TV over the last 40ish years. This all settled by the end of the season, and the show really hit it's stride starting in season 2.
This is the only scifi I have even seen that could make my eyes water. The only that made me really care about the characters. Star Trek (I'm a fan) hasn't done it. Spock died and it didn't really bother me. Data bites the dust and, well we could see the way they could work that out didn't we (B4). They marry and unmarry? Yawn..... I mean, they came close a few times, but never really emotionally bothered me.
Star Wars failed miserably at this aspect. It's a great scifi movie series. And I love them (saw in theater 10 times when it came out), but I didn't really care about the characters. Main characters die or are injured or captured throughout the movie series and it didn't really bother me at all.
Now B5 owes a lot to those two shows. They broke the ground that B5 followed in, and in this case the student finally out did the teacher.
When B5 came out, I didn't have any local stations carrying it. Some times I could pick it up if I wrapped tin foil over our antenna, but not on cable. So, I did see a few shows, but it wasn't for years I was finally able to see them all the way through three times on the Space channel. I remember I couldn't stop thinking about them all day at work, and I would go straight home to make dinner and watch B5. Best show I had ever seen. I loved the Star Trek series, all of them, but this show blew me away. The characters were awesome. After the first season they really jelled and became their characters. When they betrayed each other you cared about it. When they died, it made a difference.
I have the DVDs now, and I watched them several times over, always picking out things I had missed. I have all the B5 videos, and movies and give them all a 10 out of 10.
The only other scifi series that I've come this close to really caring about was a short ran series called Space Above and Beyond. Great series and actors.
From what I've read so far, those who hate it didn't watch all the shows and likely missed the best ones, or they really didn't understand what they were watching.
This series was about the future and the people who make it. The acting in the first season, I found a little stiff. However the actors were just settling in, and I have seen the same settling in period on every science fiction show on TV over the last 40ish years. This all settled by the end of the season, and the show really hit it's stride starting in season 2.
This is the only scifi I have even seen that could make my eyes water. The only that made me really care about the characters. Star Trek (I'm a fan) hasn't done it. Spock died and it didn't really bother me. Data bites the dust and, well we could see the way they could work that out didn't we (B4). They marry and unmarry? Yawn..... I mean, they came close a few times, but never really emotionally bothered me.
Star Wars failed miserably at this aspect. It's a great scifi movie series. And I love them (saw in theater 10 times when it came out), but I didn't really care about the characters. Main characters die or are injured or captured throughout the movie series and it didn't really bother me at all.
Now B5 owes a lot to those two shows. They broke the ground that B5 followed in, and in this case the student finally out did the teacher.
When B5 came out, I didn't have any local stations carrying it. Some times I could pick it up if I wrapped tin foil over our antenna, but not on cable. So, I did see a few shows, but it wasn't for years I was finally able to see them all the way through three times on the Space channel. I remember I couldn't stop thinking about them all day at work, and I would go straight home to make dinner and watch B5. Best show I had ever seen. I loved the Star Trek series, all of them, but this show blew me away. The characters were awesome. After the first season they really jelled and became their characters. When they betrayed each other you cared about it. When they died, it made a difference.
I have the DVDs now, and I watched them several times over, always picking out things I had missed. I have all the B5 videos, and movies and give them all a 10 out of 10.
The only other scifi series that I've come this close to really caring about was a short ran series called Space Above and Beyond. Great series and actors.