alexcat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexcat) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
babylon5_love2020-08-05 02:07 pm
alexcat) wrote in babylon5_love2020-08-05 02:07 pm
Entry tags:
Day 5 - How I Got into Babylon 5
Instead of writing an essay about B5, I decided to talk about how I got into B5 and what it means to me.
It had to have been sometime around 1999, I think. I was fairly new to the internet. Hubby resisted us getting it for a long time. We had dialup and one phone line, too. Some of you younger people may not even know what that was like.
My internet bestie was constantly sending me VHS videos of stuff she liked. She sent me season 1 of Babylon 5 home recorded video along with photocopies of Season by Season Guides. Here is the first one. SciFi (as it was then) was showing a new episode at 7 pm every night. We dove in.
Nothing was ever the same. Having a television show with an actual story arc was an amazing thing.
I started hunting B5 stuff on the internet and found a group at the old chat platform at Delphi. A guy named Make Helba had a B5 group there and I joined and helped him run it. We had lots of fun talking endlessly about B5. I was just getting into fanfiction writing in those days and I wrote a lot of stuff. Most of it is still on my hard drives.
Then 2 more things happened.
I got Crusade from Ebay. It was wasn’t on VHS or DVDs yet and there was no other way to see it. I paid something like 80 dollars for homemade VHS tapes but they were pristine. I watched them over and over and fell so in love with that short little show. I still hate that we didn’t get any more of it. I adored Max Eilerson! He was so funny.
I joined Livejournal and this was back in the day when you had to get a code to join it. I found Ruuger there with her B5 stuff and when she decided that she wanted to hand off some of her groups, I took them. I have been doing Universe Today for at least ten years and B5 Revisited for at least that long. I think we have been through 2-3 rewatches there. There is also B5 Love Month and I have a small little group at Facebook and I post links to my updates and our rewatches at Tumblr and Pillowfort.
The odd thing is I never get tired of the show. I rewatch it and still see things I missed. I still love Sinclair and Sheridan, I still wish there were more of it. There are always new fans coming into the fold and seldom does anyone ever leave completely once they get into it.
Babylon 5 has everything: romance, mystery and intrigue, surprise, character development, tragedy, and comedy. Yes, it’s a space opera but so what?
As Citizen G’kar said: I believe that when we leave a place a part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in these halls, when it is quiet and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all of our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that going will very much miss the part of you that is staying.
This is Babylon 5!
How did you all get into it? I’d love to know!
As a bonus, I found some quizzes here: https://www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/television/babylon_5_universe/babylon_5_universe_alphabetical.html
It had to have been sometime around 1999, I think. I was fairly new to the internet. Hubby resisted us getting it for a long time. We had dialup and one phone line, too. Some of you younger people may not even know what that was like.
My internet bestie was constantly sending me VHS videos of stuff she liked. She sent me season 1 of Babylon 5 home recorded video along with photocopies of Season by Season Guides. Here is the first one. SciFi (as it was then) was showing a new episode at 7 pm every night. We dove in.
Nothing was ever the same. Having a television show with an actual story arc was an amazing thing.
I started hunting B5 stuff on the internet and found a group at the old chat platform at Delphi. A guy named Make Helba had a B5 group there and I joined and helped him run it. We had lots of fun talking endlessly about B5. I was just getting into fanfiction writing in those days and I wrote a lot of stuff. Most of it is still on my hard drives.
Then 2 more things happened.
I got Crusade from Ebay. It was wasn’t on VHS or DVDs yet and there was no other way to see it. I paid something like 80 dollars for homemade VHS tapes but they were pristine. I watched them over and over and fell so in love with that short little show. I still hate that we didn’t get any more of it. I adored Max Eilerson! He was so funny.
I joined Livejournal and this was back in the day when you had to get a code to join it. I found Ruuger there with her B5 stuff and when she decided that she wanted to hand off some of her groups, I took them. I have been doing Universe Today for at least ten years and B5 Revisited for at least that long. I think we have been through 2-3 rewatches there. There is also B5 Love Month and I have a small little group at Facebook and I post links to my updates and our rewatches at Tumblr and Pillowfort.
The odd thing is I never get tired of the show. I rewatch it and still see things I missed. I still love Sinclair and Sheridan, I still wish there were more of it. There are always new fans coming into the fold and seldom does anyone ever leave completely once they get into it.
Babylon 5 has everything: romance, mystery and intrigue, surprise, character development, tragedy, and comedy. Yes, it’s a space opera but so what?
As Citizen G’kar said: I believe that when we leave a place a part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in these halls, when it is quiet and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all of our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that going will very much miss the part of you that is staying.
This is Babylon 5!
How did you all get into it? I’d love to know!
As a bonus, I found some quizzes here: https://www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/television/babylon_5_universe/babylon_5_universe_alphabetical.html