Some twenty-odd years ago a new TV series emerged called Babylon 5. It was set on a space station in the distant future where humans and aliens met up to trade and sometime fight. Star Trek had done similar themes and it seems some thought it was not a coincidence that Deep Space Nine started around the same time.
It had pioneering computer graphics for the space scenes that used the Amiga-based Video Toaster system. I was an Amiga user at the time, so that helped suck me in. They actually did space ships better than most as they didn't just fly like planes. Their fighters would rotate in flight to fire in different directions.
The characters and the story lines were what kept us coming back. The aliens were real people and not just novelties. Of course they had the same limitations of costume and make-up as most shows. There were long story arcs, but each episode was generally a separate story.
Anyway, it's back on TV in the UK on the Pick channel. I've been recording them and watching when I can, but it's on several times a week. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up. I don't think I ever saw the final ever episode, but I found part of it on Youtube if you want to go looking for it and don't mind spoilers.
There are so many science fiction series now and we take the special effects for granted. I think Babylon 5 was pretty revolutionary in its time and it's fun to re-live it. I think it stands up pretty well even if some things seem clunky now. It's hard to create a future that doesn't seem out of date pretty quickly. They use small screens for their computers that are not as good as what we have now. They even still have paper newspapers.
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