Diplomats, Hustlers, Entrepreneurs, and Wanderers

Okay, so I said I've been feeling my geek quite a bit more lately, right? Well, here's a perfect example -- I've gotten completely addicted to the Babylon 5 DVDs. I blame this completely on the Racoon Fink.

Now I know that I've shut down my cable access and haven't watched TV in over two months. I know that I've come out and said that I "hate" TV, but c'mon, there's sometimes still good TV out there, just precious little. The problem is I didn't have the time or the desire to search out good TV from all the crap, and so what little I did watch was always an annoyance. However, I'm a sucker for a good story, especially a science fiction one (because there's so few good ones!), and B5's got it. And since it's on DVD, I can watch them when I want and without commercials!

To my mind, it's got three very imporant features: 1) Great characters. I don't care what kind of story you're writing, whether it's a movie, book, or a song -- great characters are what keep people coming back to your story. 2) Lots of back story. Most of my favorite stories bring you in right at the end of the story, and just teasingly give you the back story in little delicious morsels. 3) A true story arc. Now this doesn't mean much compared to books and movies, which always have them, but for TV it's really something. The writer/producer had a five season story laid out from the beginning, and he knew how it would end before he even started filming the first episode. From the very first episode, they lay the foundation for a huge plot with probably a dozen large subplots. There is none of this "wandering on endlessly" that most shows suffer from pretty quickly. (That's what bored me away from the Sopranos.)

The first season starts out pretty badly with some pretty bad acting and filler episodes -- it takes a bit for the actors and writers to define the characters and set the plot lines in motion. However, by the end of the first season I was hooked, and it's a rollercoaster ride running through the second season at a breakneck pace. I can't wait for the third season DVD coming out next month!