Is Babylon 5 secretly the most influential TV show of the past 25 years? (2021)
I feel a lot has to do with the technology that&#x27;s available; in 1966 when Star Trek aired you couldn&#x27;t really rely that everyone had seen all the episodes; who can <i>always</i> be at home at a given date and time? People got lives to lead. You can get away with the occasional two-parter, but that&#x27;s about it.<p>VCR started to change this; you could now record that episode when you had something else to do; in 1985 about a third of people owned a VCR, by 1990 about two thirds. Later DVD and streaming changed this even more; I remember reading about a bloke who had all of TNG on videotape; it occupied an entire wall and must have cost a small fortune: 89 tapes (2 episodes per tape) it must of cost about a thousand, give or take. With DVD you can but all seven seasons for an affordable price and your girlfriend won&#x27;t hate you for taking up a wall, and with streaming it&#x27;s even easier.<p>Star Trek has a somewhat interesting broadcast history; from 1966 to 1969 it was broadcast in the traditional way: a set timeslot on a particular day and by season. It had a dedicated set of fans during the original run, but was never a phenomenon like it is today. After the series ended some regional broadcasters got the rights and started airing it ever day during meal time. There&#x27;s about two months worth of material, and after that it would just start over again. It&#x27;s that format that made Star Trek truly popular, eventually leading to the films, TNG, and all the rest of it. Today it&#x27;s a common way to air older shows.<p>In 1983 Babylon 5 would have been a non-starter, simply because few people would be able to watch all of it, and you do need to actually watch at least a significant portion of it. Even with multiple repeats it takes a lot of effort to consistently follow a show with traditional TV. I never watched Babylon 5 when it originally aired; I watched some episodes but I had missed many and I was generally just confused by it; it wasn&#x27;t until some time in the early 2000s when I downloaded and watched it that I actually followed it.<p>I think there are a few shows in the 90s leading up to the Sopranos: Twin Peaks (1990-1991), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), Babylon 5 (1993), Oz (1997), and The Sopranos (1999). Maybe some others I&#x27;m not familiar with.