I finished season 3 of Babylon 5.
I like it… But, it’s less self-analytical than DS9. The Minbari religion goes largely unquestioned. Whereas, the Bajoran religion was held up against scientific knowledge, and the characters were forced to grapple with questions of what it meant when science did not (or, more interestingly for examining the concept of faith) did agree with their religion. Political movements in Babylon 5, perhaps because they are so preplanned, have a certain canned feel to them. Entire races are represented by one or two characters who have, while differing personalities, almost identical socio-economic backgrounds. So, I don’t get any real feel for the cross section of these supposedly complete other cultures. Admittedly, Star Trek has done a *lot* of that in its time… but, DS9 actually started to step out of that fold and show more depth to the different alien races.
All that said, I have not finished watching B5, and I would not stand for someone who had only seen the first 3/5s of DS9 judging it. Clearly, there are large ideas behind B5, and I do not know yet how they’ll pan out.
At a more minute level, I particularly like Dr. Franklin and Psi Corps. The episodes about Franklin tend to be heavier on the science part of science-fiction, and the Psi Corps stuff is something that I haven’t seen done in much science fiction other than B5 and Anne McCaffrey. (Overall, I think I prefer seeing it in B5 to reading about it in Anne McCaffrey, but that could be due to my bias towards Star Trek actors.)
It’s not as much that I like Psi Corps as that I think the questions it raises and conflicts it creates are interesting.
Though, I do find Bester highly amusing — “A piñata, huh? So, you think of me as something bright and cheerful, full of toys and candy for young children? Thank you! That makes me feel much better about our relationship.”