Introducing New Ships on DS9 & B5
The similarities of Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 have been talked about quite a bit, and usually in arguments to talk about how one is so much better than the other, but I find their similarities to be something which drew me and still draws me to both shows like no TV has done since.
There really hasn’t been much in terms of sweeping space opera on the air, with a few exceptions here and there, and in recent decades everything has gotten so dark and edgy it’s been hard to watch.
But both of these shows managed to maintain a gripping pace while keeping their souls.
Each also had watershed events where the dynamic of the series changed because of the addition of ships to the conflict.
The first seasons of both shows had a very “police procedure” feel to them as they dealt with trouble on their stationary stations. It was divergent from the usual exploration tropes of Star Trek (even though DS9 did have a few episodes where they did their exploratory missions on runabouts), and what that did was serve to make the shows feel a little slower than their predecessors had been.
Both shows also ironically in their third seasons introduced warships into their arsenals to change the dynamic of the shows forever. Babylon 5 introduced The White Star, a ship for them to use against the overwhelming alien forces manipulating the younger species, and Deep Space 9 brought in the Defiant.
The pacing of the shows changed so quickly into one of frantic wartime melodrama. This is where I and many others connected to these shows, giving them their enduring legacy today. It was amazing, the station base plus the warship on the frontlines creates a dynamic which allows a show to really flex different storytelling muscles, but also to pull back and do less expensive shows “on station” which require less special effects budget. The result was a masterpiece of two series.
It’s something I haven’t seen really replicated in fiction,
though it’s something I’ve thought about doing in my Stars Entwined universe,
as I introduced Palmer Station (named after sci-fi writer David R. Palmer) to
be a warfront location. I never got around to giving my characters a starship,
though. Perhaps next season…
--There really hasn’t been much in terms of sweeping space opera on the air, with a few exceptions here and there, and in recent decades everything has gotten so dark and edgy it’s been hard to watch.--
ReplyDeleteThis is something I completely agree with and the reason I took my most popular series into a branch of space opera more in line with those shows I loved in the 90's and early 2000's.
The gritty, edgy, dark, and graphic (and now SJW) tone of current shows do not appeal to me. I am always going back to B5, ST (not just DS9), Stargate, and others of that era. I wish entertainment would return to that lighter tone and less pound-you-over-the-head-with-leftist-dogma garbage. I'm more of a B5 fan and followed the online forums back in the day. The story holds up well, even if the effects don't.