Did JMS Ruin Television SF?

Babylon 5 has been credited with many things before , but ruining skill fabrication television was n’t one of them … until British tv set writer Jonathan Wright get think about Torchwood ’s new season .

write for the Guardian newspaper , Wright bemoans the fact that Torchwood ’s third season is a five - part storyline instead of individual episodes :

I ’m sorry , but what ’s so bad about five not - so - larger-than-life - but - nevertheless - cautiously - craft - individual stories shown over five weeks – or perchance even six if you need to re - jig the schedule because of a major sporting event ? How did telly get so complicated ?

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Personally , I find fault J Michael Straczynski . Back in the former 1990s , Straczynski , or JMS as fans be intimate him , make Babylon 5 . When it was first shown on Channel 4 , it looked like a skill - fabrication series about a place station . The CGI was a bit shonky , but it snuff it the fourth dimension .

Inexorably , though , it became light that JMS , a controller freak who wrote 92 of the show ’s 110 episodes himself , had an overarching visual modality . It involved a portentous brew of braggy themes – political relation , fortune , war , peace , dear . If you tried to start watch Babylon 5 with serial three , you were entrust dispiritedly confused .

B5 set a vogue that was followed by Buffy , Battlestar Galactica and even Doctor Who , Wright argues , and soon continue storyarcs ruled television and made it increasingly unmanageable for viewing audience to cut down in and out of the show . I have to admit , I tend to like the larger storyarcs of shows like Lost and Fringe , but maybe that ’s my comic Scripture setting coming into fun – shows without large , ongoing , story ribbon seem weightless and brittle by comparison . Has the slow disappearance of the individual episode destroyed sci - fi telly for you ?

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