The fandom was one of the first sci-fi fandoms born on the Internet
Created by J. Michael Straczynski and produced by Warner Bros., Babylon 5 actually created some advanced grassroots buzz on a platform that was relatively new in the early '90s: the Internet.
As early as 1991, Straczynski employed forums on Usenet, Genie, and Compuserve to essentially blog about the then-in-development series. Straczynski assumed huge sci-fi fans were early adopters of "going online," and he was right. Even after the show began airing in 1994, there was already a built-in fan base, one Straczynski could communicate with directly to answer questions about canon and continuity. The present-day corollary of this would be like there were suddenly only like 3 new sci-fi shows coming out next year, and only one of them had a Reddit AMA.
Golden Age of TV story arcs before the golden age
Sci-fi fans and television pundits alike will tell you that the biggest difference between TV "then" and TV "now" is that old school TV was usually constrained by episodic standalone episodes, rather than big serialized story arcs. These days, shows with big arcs are the norm — from Breaking Bad to Game of Thrones to Star Trek: Discovery — and it's super unlikely for shows not to invest in season-long story arcs.
When Babylon 5 started airing, doing complicated story arcs was basically unheard of; in 1994, The Sopranos was still five years away, and although Deep Space Nine did several have different story arcs, there were also plenty of standalone episodes sprinkled in the mix early on.
But, from the very start, Babylon 5 was actually pretty hard to watch if you hadn't watched the previous episodes. And unlike pretty much every single sci-fi show ever, there wasn’t really a writers’ room of any kind, as Straczynski wrote 92 of the 110 teleplays for Babylon 5’s five-season run. Keep in mind, this was the '90s, so these seasons were long. To date, no other sci-fi series has as many episodes actually written by its creator. To be clear, Straczynski doesn't just have "story credit" on these teleplays. He actually is the only person who wrote 92 of the 110 teleplays.
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/5-things-babylon-5-did-that-changed-science-fiction-forever
Created by J. Michael Straczynski and produced by Warner Bros., Babylon 5 actually created some advanced grassroots buzz on a platform that was relatively new in the early '90s: the Internet.
As early as 1991, Straczynski employed forums on Usenet, Genie, and Compuserve to essentially blog about the then-in-development series. Straczynski assumed huge sci-fi fans were early adopters of "going online," and he was right. Even after the show began airing in 1994, there was already a built-in fan base, one Straczynski could communicate with directly to answer questions about canon and continuity. The present-day corollary of this would be like there were suddenly only like 3 new sci-fi shows coming out next year, and only one of them had a Reddit AMA.
Golden Age of TV story arcs before the golden age
Sci-fi fans and television pundits alike will tell you that the biggest difference between TV "then" and TV "now" is that old school TV was usually constrained by episodic standalone episodes, rather than big serialized story arcs. These days, shows with big arcs are the norm — from Breaking Bad to Game of Thrones to Star Trek: Discovery — and it's super unlikely for shows not to invest in season-long story arcs.
When Babylon 5 started airing, doing complicated story arcs was basically unheard of; in 1994, The Sopranos was still five years away, and although Deep Space Nine did several have different story arcs, there were also plenty of standalone episodes sprinkled in the mix early on.
But, from the very start, Babylon 5 was actually pretty hard to watch if you hadn't watched the previous episodes. And unlike pretty much every single sci-fi show ever, there wasn’t really a writers’ room of any kind, as Straczynski wrote 92 of the 110 teleplays for Babylon 5’s five-season run. Keep in mind, this was the '90s, so these seasons were long. To date, no other sci-fi series has as many episodes actually written by its creator. To be clear, Straczynski doesn't just have "story credit" on these teleplays. He actually is the only person who wrote 92 of the 110 teleplays.
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/5-things-babylon-5-did-that-changed-science-fiction-forever