{"id":372,"date":"2015-07-08T18:40:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T22:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/?p=372"},"modified":"2015-10-18T08:14:36","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T12:14:36","slug":"new-to-b5-the-joy-of-jumping-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/?p=372","title":{"rendered":"New to B5? The Joy of Jumping In"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while back,\u00a0Shannon guested on Random Trek <\/em><\/a>with Scott McNulty<\/span><\/a>. Scott and Shannon compared Babylon 5<\/em> and Star Trek<\/em> (as we often do on this show!), and they observed that B5<\/em> is a commitment. We’ve talked about this here ourselves.\u00a0The idea is this: In order to truly appreciate the show and know what\u2019s going on, one must start at the beginning and watch the story unfurl episode-by-episode. You can\u2019t just jump in in the middle and appreciate what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

But you know what? I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Now wait a second. Before you jump down my throat, know that I fully support the idea of starting from the beginning of a serialized show. (That shouldn’t be a surprise, as\u00a0that’s kinda how our podcast is laid out.)\u00a0It\u2019s the best way to see a property play out the way the creator envisioned it. In fact, I have trouble purposely doing anything different myself. My nerd-brain just does not like\u00a0it. But honestly, I sometimes think my nerd-brain exerts too much control. What am I missing out on because of it? Possibly a lot.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not just talking about B5<\/em>\u00a0here. This goes for any serialized media.<\/p>\n

Shannon and Scott mentioned the soap-opera aspect of B5<\/em>, and I think that phrase perfectly illustrates my point. You don\u2019t go back to the beginning of a soap opera. My great grandma started listening to The Guiding Light<\/em> as a radio show back in the 40s.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Can you imagine trying to go back to start at the beginning? It\u2019s a thing you\u2019re simply not meant to do. (Nor can<\/em> you, I suspect.)\u00a0The same is true of long-running comic book series.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to Babylon 5<\/em>\u00a0in particular, I happen to know jumping in mid-stream works like gangbusters! In B5\u2019s<\/em> case, it may actually be preferable.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Season 1 does a great job of building the world, but it\u2019s undoubtedly\u00a0rocky, as they were (understandably)\u00a0still\u00a0finding their feet.<\/p>\n

I discovered the show by accident during season two.\u00a0My friends Max and Jeff and I got together to watch Star Trek: Deep Space 9<\/em> every week. Babylon 5<\/em>\u00a0was on just before that. Eventually we caught enough B5<\/em>\u00a0that we started watching entire episodes. Deep Space 9<\/em> night quickly became Babylon 5<\/em>\u00a0night. Would that have happened had we started at the beginning of the series? I very much doubt it. We dipped our toes just as the show\u2019s arc was starting to heat up. That\u2019s what drew us in.<\/p>\n

Not only did it draw us in, but it held on tight. All three of us became proper hooked. So much so that as soon as earlier episodes were available (thank you TNT marathons), we did go back and watch from the beginning. I have to say it again: If we\u2019d started from there, I really doubt we\u2019d\u2019ve stuck with it long enough to get hooked.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

B5<\/em>\u00a0is not alone in this. I\u2019ve dived into a few shows mid-series. I never saw an episode of The Good Wife<\/em> until last year when Twitter scuttlebutt told me Something Huge had happened.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> That made me curious, so I jumped in with the earliest episode available On Demand. (It was only a handful of eps back from The Big Thing.) I enjoyed it so much I\u2019m still watching the series. And no, I feel no need to go back and watch the first 4 seasons. The writers did an excellent job of including backstory and flashbacks, so I feel like I\u2019m caught up.<\/p>\n

If I had balked at jumping in, I would never have watched The Good Wife<\/em>. Four seasons before I even got to That Thing everyone was talking about? Nah. Way too daunting. I wouldn\u2019t have committed that heavily just to investigate the buzz.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying watching from the beginning is a bad thing. It\u2019s great! But if the need to start at episode 1 will\u00a0keep you from trying something, think real hard about that. Regardless what your nerd-brain might tell you, it is<\/em> possible to enjoy something without consuming ALL of it in order\u2013even if it is highly serialized like Babylon 5<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So I\u00a0encourage you, dear reader, to jump into\u00a0B5<\/em> with us right here and now. If you’re somewhat interested, but daunted by our back catalogue, ignore it! Throw nerd-caution to the wind and dive in with “The Coming of Shadows”. I strongly suspect you won’t be disappointed.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This blog originally appeared in a slightly different form on Erika’s personal blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back,\u00a0Shannon guested on Random Trek with Scott McNulty. Scott and Shannon compared Babylon 5 and Star Trek (as we often do on this show!), and they observed that B5 is a commitment. We’ve talked about this here ourselves.\u00a0The idea is this: In order to truly appreciate the show and know what\u2019s going on, … Continue reading New to B5? The Joy of Jumping In<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[67],"tags":[30,26],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-acquiring-the-show","tag-extra-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Diver2.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p74nkr-60","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}