Wow. How did you miss out? It was never a huge hit, but it's been pretty common currency in nerddom since it aired.
I would like to direct you to websites that summarize better, but they will spoil you silly, and you have a unique opportunity to watch it unspoiled. I envy you. (I watched some later episodes when it was first airing and have sort of a patchy idea of the whole plot.) But anyway...it's science fiction, obviously, and largely takes place on a sort of diplomatic/trading station in space, so there are lots of politics, a good amount of military stuff, and also religion (alien and human) plays a big part. (It started airing the same year as DS9, and the two are frequently compared, but are really not much like each other at all.) It's often described as a "televised novel." The creator planned out the whole thing five years before it ever aired, and it's basically one long set of plot arcs. I sometimes wish it had been made as a novel, because I want to go around underlining and asterisking--there are a ton of little details that show up briefly, but become important later. The scale of the worldbuilding JMS did is beyond practically everything on TV--BSG comes close, but even it's not really the same--and his universe is utterly fascinating, IMO. It's fairly obviously indebted to LOTR, and has other influences such as Arthurian legend and Dune that are fun to look for.
That said, the individual episodes are not as good as the show as a whole. There's some painful acting, low-budget effects, and very cheesy dialogue (although all of those things have gotten much better over the season I've watched). But the ideas behind the stories make it worth it for me (and it's fun to MST3K the bad bits). Plus it has awesome characters. (You may have noticed me nattering on about Susan Ivanova, who IS MY HERO. She has perspective. And is God.) And is, you know, good with the one-liners and other amusing bits.
Anyway, if you don't love it by the time you get to G'Kar singing Narn light opera in "Parliament of Dreams," I will eat my hat. The first two seasons are on Hulu; after that, Netflix appears to have the other three and the movies and such that were made afterward.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 04:03 am (UTC)I would like to direct you to websites that summarize better, but they will spoil you silly, and you have a unique opportunity to watch it unspoiled. I envy you. (I watched some later episodes when it was first airing and have sort of a patchy idea of the whole plot.) But anyway...it's science fiction, obviously, and largely takes place on a sort of diplomatic/trading station in space, so there are lots of politics, a good amount of military stuff, and also religion (alien and human) plays a big part. (It started airing the same year as DS9, and the two are frequently compared, but are really not much like each other at all.) It's often described as a "televised novel." The creator planned out the whole thing five years before it ever aired, and it's basically one long set of plot arcs. I sometimes wish it had been made as a novel, because I want to go around underlining and asterisking--there are a ton of little details that show up briefly, but become important later. The scale of the worldbuilding JMS did is beyond practically everything on TV--BSG comes close, but even it's not really the same--and his universe is utterly fascinating, IMO. It's fairly obviously indebted to LOTR, and has other influences such as Arthurian legend and Dune that are fun to look for.
That said, the individual episodes are not as good as the show as a whole. There's some painful acting, low-budget effects, and very cheesy dialogue (although all of those things have gotten much better over the season I've watched). But the ideas behind the stories make it worth it for me (and it's fun to MST3K the bad bits). Plus it has awesome characters. (You may have noticed me nattering on about Susan Ivanova, who IS MY HERO. She has perspective. And is God.) And is, you know, good with the one-liners and other amusing bits.
Anyway, if you don't love it by the time you get to G'Kar singing Narn light opera in "Parliament of Dreams," I will eat my hat. The first two seasons are on Hulu; after that, Netflix appears to have the other three and the movies and such that were made afterward.
Waaaaaaaatch iiiiiiiiiiiiit.