Your favorite characters in ...

Babylon 5

Mollari
G'Kar
Bester
Mr. Morden
Vir Cotto
Kosh
Cmdr. Sinclair
Garribaldi
Sheridan
Zack
Ivanova
Lord Refa
Zathras
Lt. Keffer (the pilot that gets lost in hyperspace and sees the shadows)
Tech David Corwin (for the fun episode with Ivanova)
The small person telepath, whose name nor charactername I cannot find on the cast-list on IMDB, even if I go to the episode that I know he was in. A bit annoying. And with that dead-end search (spent about 10 minutes searching), I'm calling an end to this list, I'm sure I forgot a few now. Feel free to add if you think of a good one (I did consider Lennier, Delenn and Marcus, but they aren't really my favorite ones).

edit: Ah found him, he's listed as "Lurker" (I guess his name is never really mentioned), actor is Gianin Loffler, who also had a role in the Stargate movie.

Honorable mentions are Neroon, Emperor Cartagia and the Minister on Cartagia's court acted by Damian London, the sweet one that isn't anything like the other scheming Centauri at the royal court (maybe Na'Toth as well, need to re-watch, hmmm maybe the Holy Grail seeker?), but I'm not sure I would put them on my favorites list. Lyta, Talia Winters and Dr. Franklin don't make it to my list of favorites and honorable mentions, then I still prefer Lennier, Delenn and Marcus, but those don't make it either, maybe Lennier. Yeah, Lennier makes it to the honorable mentons at least (he was my brother's favorite).

The whole "Thor's hammer" went sideways for me when SG1 decided to portray the Gray's as the Good Guys.
It almost seemed like propaganda or disinformation the kind we're accustomed to currently.
Pretty sure I screamed so long it went into ranges aricibo mistook for a new signal!

Bill Mumy has NEVER been a actor I could stomach, but he did a bang up job on Babylon 5.
Sheriden I liked much more than Cisco.

Really would have like to see them go into the Vorlon thing more.
altho what they did cover also seemed like propaganda/ disinformation. You had Cheyenne Mt., aliens running in & out of govt facility. The Govt hiding it again. The Gray's were good guys, the Vorlons with their organic tech something to be feared while barely comprehensible to us humans.

Which was convenient since we're just going that route in our Black Projects....
I like B5 but the whole thing smacked of "messaging" that is officially sanctioned.

BTW I'm a HUGE fan of Rocky & Bullwinkle despite it actually being anti-cold war propaganda. Which I didn't know till I purchased the box set & read the booklet that came with it! as a kid I just thought they were making fun of the Russians. SG1 I twigged onto right away.

a reply to: Caver78

Is that you Marty?

Since I already did DS9 in the Picard thread, I'll just copy-paste from there:

Funny, when it comes to DS9, I can quickly list my favorite characters, Garak, Quark, Odo, Dukat, Kira, Weyoun, Winn, General Martok, Gowron, Cretak (the Romulan assigned to DS9 after the Romulans join the war), Zekkie, "Brunt, FCA":

Since my lists in this thread are a bit more inclusive I'll add a few now:

Damar
Enabran Tain (Obsidian Order)
Sloan (Section 31)
Nog
O'Brien
Yelgrun (the Vorta in the mission where Quark has to rescue his mother from the Dominion, played by Iggy Pop)
Admiral Ross
Admiral Leyton
Adm. Alynna Nechayev

Hmm, I think I have to stop now cause I'm just going through all the admirals, no one specific comes to mind.

originally posted by: whereislogic

Stargate SG-1

Jack O'Neill
Daniel Jackson
Master Bra'tac
General Hammond
Maybourne
Selmak / Jacob Carter
Dr. Rodney McKay (although he has a bigger role and more developed character in SG Atlantis, that's why he's still low here, in Atlantis he's at the top of the list for me)
Thor
Felger
Urgo
Harlan
Lya
Colonel Chekov
Lord Zipacna
Hanno
Pallan (who plays Halling and Todd the Wraith in Atlantis, also fairly high on my list there)
Samantha Carter
Ba'al
Anubis (cloaked version and the one in the Diner with Daniel and Oma)
Teal'c
The Jaffa in charge of the Jaffa rebellion or 5th column at some point, who gets killed in Teal'c's arms by symbiote poison launched by the Trust
Aris Boch (the bounty hunter in "Deadman Switch")
Sergeant Walter
Siler (the guy that always gets electrocuted, referred to as "Sparky" by O'Neill)
Dr. Bill Lee
Maj. Samuels (but "you'll always be Sparky to me", quoting O'Neill, i.e. the original Sparky, for other reasons)
Jonas Quinn
Vala Mal Doran (Farscape)
Most of the Ori Priors (the ones with some lines)
Col. Simmons (Q in Star Trek, a much more interesting role)
Adria (Firefly)
Camulus (Andromeda)
Her'ak (First Prime of Anubis)
Dr. Robert Rothman
Woolsey (the hologram doctor in Voyager)
Maj. Davis

Made some edits there at the end after Pallan. The list of great supporting characters and guest characters is just endless for SG-1; even compared to my other 3 favorite shows. Even Quark is in SG-1 (first season, as a Nox character). Deanna Troi from Star Trek is in there as well.

Remember the lists are in order of 'my most favorite character' first (sometimes it's a bit tricky because it's close, especially once you go down further in the list, obviously there's no doubt that O'Neill stands out from the rest as pointed out by someone else on page 1).

originally posted by: whereislogic
...
Made some edits there at the end after Pallan.

Pallan should be lower in the list now though, so those I added come after Hanno, which I explained why that particular character and that episode was so enjoyable to me (towards the end of my list for Atlantis on page 2, when I was talking about the "Demons" epidose in SG-1, where the same actor had another role, also quite enjoyable).

I think I'll put Pallan just before Maj. Davis, because the character itself is not that interesting or entertaining, it's just the actor that I enjoy that makes the character just interesting and enjoyable enough to warrant a place on my favorites list. He's got a better role in Atlantis. And I'm still in doubt if Maj. Davis is actually amongst my favorites, so that one is last on the list for now.

originally posted by: FinallyAwake

Miller was brilliant, and Alex too. Without giving any spoilers away I think you need to watch all 5 seasons

I think regarding season 5 and what I said earlier regarding my preference for "the earlier seasons, more going on and less family drama or skipping larger battles in favor of showing the many annoying facial expressions of Naomi, who is quickly becoming as annoying a character as Michael Burnham in Star Trek Discovery." This review of the last episode on IMDB says it best (also in relation to something I said earlier in another comment about the build-up to a large battle being even more entertaining than the battle itself sometimes, which is neglected for the fancy-looking gate-battle in the last episode in favor of showing more Naomi and family drama scenes with lots of soaplike close-ups of facial expressions throughout the season):

Seriously?

"The big end" Screen time:

80% drama and talks.

15% action (Launch missiles, shoot bullets ... never seen before) Funny fact: We don't know anything about any of the destroyed ships. Exciting, right? The irritating character who controlled Camina and was given development all season dies from a simple random hit. Exciting, right? Alex, one of the 4 main members, dies in an abrupt and absurd and inconsequential way. Literally 100%, I'm not exaggerating one iota. Exciting right? The worst thing is that his death does not affect anyone or anything too much later. No words.

5% actually SCI FI Build up (Still probably more than all season).

All the characters separated and now come back together, but everything was pure inconsequential filler. Avasarala arc is a joke. In past seasons a fight developed where she lost her position. Now the winner dies suddenly, a new leader is developed to be eliminated after a few chapters and Avasarala returns to his same position again. More absurd filler.

The final "surprise" attack generates zero interest since the ring has been ignored all season. I don't know who fought, and a couple of random explosions hardly serve as mediocre entertainment. If they had spent 10% of the time used in crying and generic drama to develop this story maybe I would care about something. This season could easily be reduced to 3 episodes and nothing would be lost. The final 5 minutes remind us why we liked this series, but it is just the typical scam, hoping to get you excited about a possible redemption in season 6, but that in no way makes up for this absurd and boring 10-episode journey.

The last 20 seconds of CGI is an extremely cheap gimmick, showing a glimpse of what we were supposed to come to see this season, and what we got was a long and tedious family drama with no mystery or excitement on the horizon. Very ... very disappointed with the script and the decisions made.

Couldn't have said it any better. Some more remarks in the reviews for the last episode that I agree with:

I can't breath, I can't act

What a great program, what a weird series 5 this was. Derailed by as many obstacles and misjudgements as the actual plot. Really didn't like the Niaomi family show, in a universe as interesting as this with protomolecules and the ring, we get family drama and 2 episodes of trying to act out of breath and in pain, badly.

...

One horrendous writing decision...

This was a solid season, though likely the weakest of the series. But the decision to kill off Alex, a main character, in such an incredibly anticlimactic, unmoving and matter-of-fact way was stunningly bad. Firing the actor from the series is no excuse for this pathetic handling of how his character was written off. Tough pill to swallow for a major fan of this series.

Even without this one horrible writing decision, I must say, the season suffered from some pacing issues. The later third of the season seemed to drag out Naomi's storyline, only to rush at breakneck speed into a cheap cliffhanger. This could have been handled much better.

Disappointing.

The most disappointing finale of all seasons

... Alex just died, but Holden and Naomi spent their time to listen to Naomi's supposed farewell (and spent minutes on it). ...
...
This season has been nothing but a Naomi season that leads to a reunion of Rocinante crew. That incident stuck like a sore thumb, making the supposedly joyful event with all crews gathering feels really emotionally detached. Not to mention that, barring the reveal at the end, most events still happen off screen. [whereislogic: like the "skipping battles in favor of ..." I was talking about] Just like most things that happened this season. We don't get to see the impact of something big happening.

So despite being an overall decent episode, this finale closes the relatively most mediocre season The Expanse has produced. I'd even say that the quality is even lower than Season 4. [whereislogic: indicating that he already didn't like Season 4 all that much either, which I agree with, it got cheaper, because it was taken over by an online streaming network, as discussed in more detail before what tricks they use to lower production cost; more drama and talking scenes, more facial expression close-ups, less space battles or space scenes] The first four episodes were nice, but it went downhill and stagnated really fast.

Massive Disappointment

Alex heroically sacrifices himself to save the worthless Naomi, and his death is barely mentioned. No tears, no grief, the next thing you know Holden and Naomi are having a grand time at a cocktail party. I know Cas Anvar was removed from the show but that's no excuse for the way his character is treated. But no matter because we have a new crew member-Amos (untouched by Alex's death) is bringing Peaches on board-a character with about as much personality as a grape. ... I rate 2 for this episode, 5 for the season. So disappointing, the first 3 seasons were a 9.

Again we see a distinction made between the first 3 seasons and the last 2 seasons when an internet streaming network took over the show, and the usual expected thing happens, it becomes more like a Netflix production. In my opinion Netflix-like companies have ruined quality entertainment, and are primarily responsible for lowering the bar.

Mind you, those reviews were not sorted by lowest rating first, but by most helpful first. It's not that I picked the ones that didn't like this episode. As far as I can see, they're almost all negative (even the ones giving 6 stars). And it's worse for the preceding episodes (the ones even more centered around Naomi and her family, or Amos and the "grape"-personality on earth).

That being said, like somewhat mentioned before (slightly differently), of the modern still-running Sci-Fi shows, I still like The Expanse the most, in spite of season 5 (or 4). Even the last 2 seasons are better than where the storyline for Picard went. I was hoping for the Borg collective in the Delta quadrant to 'wake up' and begin a massive invasion of Federation space, for messing around with a Borg cube all season, asking for trouble. So you can get a massive war akin to DS9 with its war vs the Dominion (allowing perhaps for some DS9 characters like Garak and Quark to make their appearance in Picard + the build-up in season 2. Back when I stll had this hope I gave Picard a 7 rating in the list I shared earlier with all the ratings. But helas, the ending of season 1 made it clear that such a thing was not in the cards. So Picard dropped from 7 to 6.1 in my list, cause it is a typical modern show after all. Maybe a bit less annoying than ST Discovery, The Orville and the new BSG, but still.

originally posted by: whereislogic

The Jaffa in charge of the Jaffa rebellion or 5th column at some point, who gets killed in Teal'c's arms by symbiote poison launched by the Trust.

It's M'zel. And the episode he dies in is called Endgame. He's also the hologram version of Thor. And he was a constable in Stargate Atlantis, episode "The Tower".

originally posted by: whereislogic
OK, Stargate Atlantis now:

McKay
Lucius Lavin
Sheppard
Zelenka
Elizabeth Weir
Beckett
Todd the Wraith
Ladon Radim
Grodin
Dr. Lindsey Novak
...

Watching s02e13 right now I've decided to up Dr. Lindsey Novak in my list to just below Todd the Wraith. She's so funny in this episode. I also just realized that one of her episodes is actually in SG-1 where I thought it was an Atlantis episode when making the list above. So I should probably fit her into my SG-1 list of favorite characters as well. I'd put her just below Teal'c then.

now an new series of Babylon 5 is annouced
this topic is still alive!
yipeeee