ruuger: My hand with the nails painted red and black resting on the keyboard of my laptop (Default)
Ruuger ([personal profile] ruuger) wrote in [community profile] b5_revisited2009-01-18 04:16 pm
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Introductions before we start

Sunday is here and it's time to get this thing on the road. The response to [livejournal.com profile] b5_revisited has been amazing with over 100 people watching the community already! Thank you to all the people who have pimped the community.

While we wait for the discussion posts to go up (or you wait and I make the posts), how about some introductions first.

I'll go first: I started watching B5 in 1997 when it began showing on Finnish tv. I'd never heard of the show before, but was a 17-year-old who loved scifi, and in those days we were lucky to get any scifi on tv so the fact that it had aliens in it was enough for me.

I can't actually remember what I thought about the first episode, but I do remember the moment when I became a fan of the show, which was when I saw "And the Sky Full of Stars". The episode that sealed the deal for me, though, was - and all you old fans are going to laugh at me now - "GROPOS" in season 2. And by season 4 I had already started my own B5 fansite, 190 Bester Place (which is still up even if I haven't remembered to update it for about three years and celebrates its 10 birthday next month).

In fandom I used to lurk at the Finnish B5 fans' group on Usenet, but was at my most active on the About.com Babylon 5 fans forum and the fabulous JumpNow forums. The last few years my fannish activity has been mostly on LJ, and has included running [livejournal.com profile] universe_today and [livejournal.com profile] babylon5_love and couple of ficathons.

I can also often be found hanging around in the Buffyverse and X-Files corners of Internet.

How about you? Are you an old fan from the first age of usenet, or a newbie watching the show for the first time? How did you first heard about the show? Where do you hang out, what are your other fandoms?

And remember, no spoilers! Because one of the best parts of Babylon 5 fandom is, after all, watching the reactions of the unspoiled newbies when they reach that episode where that character does that thing and it is revealed that the thing is actually a thing. You know that thing I mean ;)

[identity profile] lilliew.livejournal.com 2009-01-18 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm an old timer who's watched B5 from the very beginning. I used to follow SciFi shows and news and learned about this new SciFi show coming up that was going to have 5 years all planned out, was different than Star Trek, and they weren't sure if it was going to fly or not. I was intrigued by the concept, tired of Star Trek's endless cycle of same episodes.

I remember watching the pilot and being unsure, but kept with it when it started up again full time. I was on Compuserve following the conversations with JMS and even had a few posts exchanged with him. I followed newsgroups when I could. I think it really hit me that I was a hardcore fan after the Fall of Night and I was totally floored at how extensive this universe was and how I began to put the pieces of the puzzle together on what was going on.

Realize that was before the Web really took off, so we didn't have websites or forums or much in the way of spoilers. Most of our discovery of the universe came from JMS himself. I read the newsgroups a little bit but it was too much volume to keep up with (for me back then, in comparison to today, it wasn't all much, hah).

I had most of the eps on video tape. When the DVDs came out, I slowly bought all of them. Now, I rewatch the entire show at least once a year. I'm so glad that B5 has continued to have such a strong base after all these years and more and more people are coming to love it thanks to DVDs. I measure all other shows (especially scifi) against it and so far, nothing has measured up (probably the closest is Lost, but its different really).

As for now, I'm not very involved in fandoms anymore. I played MMPPORGs for a number of years so I wasn't watching TV much. I've been in one or two over the years off and on, most recently Jericho, but I've gotten tired of shows getting canceled so now I just watch for my own enjoyment. Right now, I'm watching Burn Notice, Leverage, Life, Lost, House and catching up on some other shows on DVD and Hulu.

Looking forward to the great rewatch. Always wonderful sharig this show with others.