Babylon 5: The tale of a space station and everyday folk situated near a vital jump gate, commanded by a widowed officer. A galaxy spanning war with a mixture of technology and mysticism - with a prototype space ship to boot!

Deep Space Nine: The tale of a space station and everyday folk situated near a vital wormhole, commanded by a widowed officer. A galaxy spanning war with a mixture of technology and mysticism - with a prototype space ship to boot!

Definitely Babylon 5!
DS9's 1st series was so abysmal I stopped watching after about 4 episodes... I think this is because I was comparing it to The Next Generation. (I believe it got good later on, but it was too late for me by then). Whereas with Babylon 5 I was hooked from episode one. - & though series 5 wasn't nearly as good as the rest, the 1st 4 years kept entertaining & exceeding my expectations.

Third option for me. Saw about 4 DS9s and less B5s. Neither grabbed me.

Didn't watch either.

Third option for me. Though I did like DS9 once it got going, I've never seen an episode of Babylon 5, so I can't compare them.

JMS's B5 hands down. DS9 was shite to begin with but it did pick up pace later on especially during the Dominion War and produced some really good stories, The Visitor being one of my favourites.

Babylon 5 was my favourite, if hadnt been for Sci Fi fucking around with the will they wont they sceario regarding seasons 4 and 5 then I think JMS's vision of the 5 year arc wouldve been perfect, Instead, Season 5 turned out very rushed and half arsed.

DS9 Season 3 onwards is fabulous but the earlier shows are less so. Only one or two good episodes and lots of annoyingness. However, with the long-term arcs, especially in S.4 and 5 - things pick up tremendously. If Sisko is bald and Jake over 6ft, the chances of having a good episode are higher. Garak (the BEST character), the Parallel Universe and Section 31 are evidence - episodes featuring them are some of the best ST ever. Some great episodes include Improbable Cause, The Die is Cast and In The Pale Moonlight. Watch the latter and then tell me DS9 is 'errr a bit rubbish like'. Please do.

I also like that they had no heroes or no villians as good people did bad things and vice versa. The superior moral code of NG got me at times. Jadzia and Dr Bashir are the sex (even more when you find out Bashir is genetically engineered to be super dooper) .

Never got into Babylon 5 so I cannot comment much other than the few episodes I saw were reasonable but didn't grab my interest.

More or less what I thought. It's occured to me that either you like trek or you don't, & I can't imagine many trekkies who were also Babylon 5 fans voting for B5. .... so I can foresee this poll ending up as mostly votes for neither, followed by DS9 followed by B5.

DS9 for me. B5 did nothing for me.

In SPACED, when Tim said the line "Babylon 5's a big pile of sh*t!", I laughed because it's true!
Anyway, I could never get past the stupid hair in B5.

It's DS9, all the way for me.

Feel the love.
dolfyn.

I seem to be in the minority of having seen both series in their entirety!

Despite the generalisations in my original post, I don't see that much similarity between the two series. To my mind they are both very different in both theme and style, and I generally think this is backed up by most people liking one series or the other, and not both.

Personally though, I do like both series.

I admire Babylon 5 for its epic scale and the intricacies of its on-going plot line.

At the same time I like Deep Space Nine because of its darker take on the Star Trek universe and its excellent characters (especially some of the supporting ones like Garak and Dukat).

In the end, the thing that has swung it for me is that Deep Space Nine was consistently good throughout its run, where as Babylon 5, despite having two/three cracking seasons, had a lack-lustre first season and an incredibly poor fifth.

So Deep Space Nine gets my vote!

On a scale of meh to woot, I give the topic a meh.