Plus B5 had better makeup, aliens, and they didn't light the show like it was a softcore porno on Cinemax.

It's fun to see what our ancestors were forced to make do with, before the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Say what you want about B5, and there is a lot to criticize, it knew what the fuck it was doing season to season.

Props to JMS for keeping the story straight and mapped out, even as he had to rework things as events pulled the rug out from under him. But at the same time, the show's weaker points were all on him too. You ever see the original made-for-TV movie ... ? Apparently JMS's idea of human, flawed bridge officers were people too unstable and unprofessional to even be considered for command. That got toned down by the time the series started, but still, it should never have made it out of the gate.

And then there's the original commander, Sinclair: JMS thought he was doing an awesome job, even though he was the world's least compelling lead. The networks forced JMS to replace him or else, and so Jeffrey Sinclair was out, John Sheridan was in. (Wonder why he had a thing for leads with initials of "JS".) This meant that the whole business of Sinclair becoming Valen had to be rearranged and shoved into season 3 or so. But think about where the show would have been if JMS's vision had played out as planned: five years of Sinclair, a whole bunch of heavyhanded Jesus / Judas imagery where Sinclair gets betrayed by his best friend (Garibaldi), and a big reveal about Sinclair / Valen / B4 that could easily have fizzled, as it usually does when they try to amaze you with a time travel switcheroo.

I suppose the groan-inducing attempts at humor are all on JMS too, too many "humorous" moments that were just too broad and also too stiff and stilted in their execution, like something out of a cut-rate sitcom.

I thought B5's humor was okay with the exception of during the 5th season (which was an "oh shit TNT didn't actually cancel us" season) where the previously unseen comedy team of Rebo & Zooty made an appearance played by Penn & Teller. Up until that point, it had been a kind of meta-joke where they were established as the funniest act in the known universe and people would make (to us) nonsensical references to partial jokes we didn't know, which made it all the funnier.

Then they showed who they were and how un-funny they acted and... yeah...

I love DS9 but the first few seasons of the Dominion War were all over the place.

Babylon 5 had a really tight plot to it, and didn't veer all over the place from that main plot, and it was far more engaging.

One very good thing about "Babylon 5": that pervasive sense of "oh fuck, they're doomed, there is absolutely no way they can survive". Until you first see the White Star fleet and suddenly you know they actually have a fighting chance. It's a shame you can't ever watch the show twice with the same sense of doom, because it was pulled off really well.

When B5 was focused on its main story arc, yeah, it was pretty good. The problem was any episode where they weren't, and there were a lot of those in the first couple seasons. As a side note, that first season was the worst thing I've ever seen.

There were only two and a half seasons of Dominion War, dunno if you're doing a thing.

The night that episode aired, I even gave you props for that. Nice work!

I'll toss out another theory I had. Let's assume for a moment we're going to go with the show's bullshit last-minute claim that Walt is actually the mysterious Heisenberg ... I say that Walt is just the front man for the real masterminds behind the meth empire. We all know that Walt has a secret family where he's known as "Hal" and had four children by a woman named Lois, and I submit that those four children are the real Heisenberg. Malcolm is the genius chemist, Reese provides the muscle and thuggery, Francis helps Walt weave complex lies and keep them all straight, and Dewey supplies lateral thinking when they need to pull a rabbit out of their hat (for example that confession). It involves a lot of earpieces and ducking behind garbage cans, but they're pretty good at it.

The other way to look at it is, you know how "Peep Show" is all allegory for David Mitchell's real-life mental states? "Malcolm in the Middle" is the same thing for Walter White, where "Hal" is Walt's ego, while "Lois" is his superego trying to keep his id (Francis / Reese / Malcolm / Dewey) in line. Again, assuming the last-minute bullshit Walt / Heisenberg thing.

for beating the tattered corpse of the malcolm in the middle prequel joke

You do realize it is a series that takes place in space, right?

More like "military talk," but you'd have to actually watch the clip to know that.