Babylon 5 was my go-to show back when it first aired and I was an impressionable teenager.
My memories of it are fonder than the reality when I try to rewatch it these days. Youth + the realities of TV sci-fi at the time made it a bigger deal back then. After the new BSG, SG-1, The Expanse and whatever's on Netflix this week, it looks quaint.
It's hard to remember today, but B5 really did set the trend of the serialized story-arc. Early 90s TV sci-fi was all episode of the week madness, and having a story play out over multiple seasons really was original.
That said, you're right about the un-evenness of it all. The rough parts are rough indeed. But then you hit the the good parts, and many of those score hits on the Best Moments in TV list to this day. The meaty parts of seasons 3 and 4 can still send tingles up the spine.
Watching stuff like this with our daughter puts an additional Gen Z lens on the whole experience that's fascinating. She likes a lot of things that we like(d) but often for what seem to be very different reasons.
We are also watching Bab 5 and yeah, wildly uneven in many ways and yet still kinda great.
Heathers (the original movie) was particularly fascinating for me--the vast changes in sexual mores for teenagers, not to mention the pre-Columbine attitude towards guns and other violence, were a bit shocking, even though I've lived through exactly those changes. The homophobia is probably the most icky thing from today's perspective.
When Harry Met Sally has aged remarkably well and still hits me in the same places (e.g. "I'll have what she's having" is still a fantastic scene and "When he said he didn't want to get married, he meant he didn't want to marry me"...oof!).
Stargate was fun, but the white-savior aspect of it has become vastly more transparent and problematic in the intervening years.
One thing I notice a lot is how incredibly slow the pacing was, compared with today.
Babylon 5 was my go-to show back when it first aired and I was an impressionable teenager.
My memories of it are fonder than the reality when I try to rewatch it these days. Youth + the realities of TV sci-fi at the time made it a bigger deal back then. After the new BSG, SG-1, The Expanse and whatever's on Netflix this week, it looks quaint.
It's hard to remember today, but B5 really did set the trend of the serialized story-arc. Early 90s TV sci-fi was all episode of the week madness, and having a story play out over multiple seasons really was original.
That said, you're right about the un-evenness of it all. The rough parts are rough indeed. But then you hit the the good parts, and many of those score hits on the Best Moments in TV list to this day. The meaty parts of seasons 3 and 4 can still send tingles up the spine.
Watching stuff like this with our daughter puts an additional Gen Z lens on the whole experience that's fascinating. She likes a lot of things that we like(d) but often for what seem to be very different reasons.
We are also watching Bab 5 and yeah, wildly uneven in many ways and yet still kinda great.
Heathers (the original movie) was particularly fascinating for me--the vast changes in sexual mores for teenagers, not to mention the pre-Columbine attitude towards guns and other violence, were a bit shocking, even though I've lived through exactly those changes. The homophobia is probably the most icky thing from today's perspective.
When Harry Met Sally has aged remarkably well and still hits me in the same places (e.g. "I'll have what she's having" is still a fantastic scene and "When he said he didn't want to get married, he meant he didn't want to marry me"...oof!).
Stargate was fun, but the white-savior aspect of it has become vastly more transparent and problematic in the intervening years.
One thing I notice a lot is how incredibly slow the pacing was, compared with today.