"Babylon 5 has been credited with many things before, but ruining science fiction television wasn't one of them... until British television writer Jonathan Wright started thinking about Torchwood's new season." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

This guy is on crack. - Steven Perez

What the? How could..? Ruin?! ::head explodes:: - invariant

Personally, the bigger story arcs are the only reason I've stuck with shows. - Jonathan Hardesty

Imagine BSG without a big story arc...that would get boring REALLY fast - Jonathan Hardesty

WTF? B5 was (mostly) great! - Joe The Sausage

Dollhouse was saved IMO by having a season arc - Jonathan Hardesty

His whole screed is pretty much, "oh my poor widdle head can't handle all these tv shows with long storyarcs". - Steven Perez

He would like Reality television, methinks. :P - Jonathan Hardesty

gotta love a critic with a short attention span. - Joe The Sausage

My favorite bit: "Inexorably, though, it became clear that JMS, a control freak who wrote 92 of the show's 110 episodes himself, had an overarching vision." Right. Because when you've put in the long hours to create a sweeping TV show from scratch, you're a "control freak". - Steven Perez

God, this guy is a moron. I think I might write up a response to the post! - Jonathan Hardesty

I want to see a show's characters change and grow. Episodic SF can work in a show like Twilight Zone where you really are telling short stories with new characters every week. On the other hand, as much as I love TNG it drove me CRAZY to see the "reset button" pressed every episode - especially during the last season. - invariant

Babylon 5 MADE sci-fi TV in the 90s. Wow. - iTad

Continuing story lines are so common these days, and in just about every genre. But nowadays we have DVRs, streaming and DVD box sets that allow us to easily stay up-to-date with shows. B5 took a huge risk on this back in the day when the VCR and reruns were the only tools we had. Not to mention he pioneered social marketing via internet, using GEnie and newsgroups to interact with the fans before the pilot even aired. Imagine, a SF writer envisioning the future :-D. - invariant

I think that the show that can be picked up in the middle without too much extra explanation is an underappreciated thing. OTOH, if there were a simple set of rules to get awesome TV, I'd actually bother watching TV more than whenever my wife straps me down and forces me to watch with her. - Wirehead