The Cardassian tailor Garak was one of the best characters on DS9. As I understand it, it was a bit of a fluke that they got that character going.

b5 was originally pitched to paramount as a trek series

 

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He's a great character - I'm just pointing out that his business is absurd.

 

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Where did you get that from?

Whats his face tried to pitch a trek series to paramount in 2004. And he tried to pitch B5 to them before he made it. But I don't think he tried to pitch B5 as a trek series.

He tried to pitch B5 to Paramount, Paramount told him no but used his story as a core to make DS9...thats how the writer of B5 said it anyway.

 

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The point being that the creator of B5 is butthurt that Paramount made a space station-focused series after his pitch was rejected. Because, obviously, the idea of a show based on a station that sits in space is super original and couldn't have possibly been something that the writers at Star Trek had considered before.

 

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The similarities go quite a bit beyond just that.


And actually setting a star trek series on a space station instead of a ship was a pretty big departure. I'm not sure they would have considered it before JMS tried to pitch B5 to them.

When JMS pitched B5 to paramount, he gave them a copy of his fluff bible, in which he had everything detailed, including a treatment of the first few seasons.


http://www.firstones.com/wiki/Similarities_between_Babylon_5_and_Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine

 

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I never watched DS9 but couldn't they get around all the problems by saying that replicators used a lot of energy to replicate something? Like $30 worth of energy to create a $10 T-shirt?

 

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They do.

Both series are named after a space station name with a single-digit number

Both series premiered in 1993, and were set aboard space stations that were hubs of interstellar trade and politics.

Both stations were located beside portals to distant places. (B5 guarded a hyperspace "jumpgate"; DS9 guarded the mouth of a wormhole.)

Both series originally featured a shapeshifter character; however, Babylon 5 dropped that element before filming, replacing it with occasional characters using various illusory and camouflage mechanisms.

Both Captains enjoy baseball.

Both started off with unmarried commanders haunted by a recent conflict.

Both commanders had a girlfriend who was a freighter captain, Carolyn Sykes for Commander Sinclair and Kasidy Yates for Captain Sisko.

The commander of each station eventually became a religious figure who fulfilled a prophecy, advised by enigmatic aliens who were regarded as spiritual beings.

In both series the spiritual beings (the Vorlons, the Prophets) had an enemy (the Shadows, the Pah Wraiths) generally viewed as evil spirits by other races, with whom they had been at war for millennia.

Both series build up to a war between Humans and a militarily powerful, hard-to-detect enemy (the invisible Shadows, the shapeshifting Founders).
Both series had a sarcastic, cynical but dedicated head of security who started out as perceptive and extremely competent, but later succumbed to insecurity and compulsion (Garibaldi's drinking, Odo's link with the female Shapeshifter).

Both series had an idealistic young doctor with a hidden secret (Bashir's genetic enhancement, Franklin's involvement with the Underground). Both doctors also had strained relationships with their fathers.

Both series involved the use of genetically engineered diseases, designed to work against a specific group (Changelings, Markab, Human and Narn Telepaths, others) as a means of control or genocide.

The second-in-command of each station was a woman with a hot temper who had lost a family member in a war.
Central to each series were two alien races, one of which had until recently occupied and oppressed the home planet of the other. Furthermore: The oppressed race was a deeply religious one.

The oppressors in both series were later manipulated by a powerful alien race to achieve its goals.

This manipulation occurred via a regular character in the series belonging to the oppressor race, who vacillated between 'good' and 'evil' through the course of the series, ultimately being taken over completely by powerful evil forces, which eventually led to their untimely deaths.

The plot of each series eventually centered around a war against the oppressors and those who manipulated them.

These wars resulted in the devastations of the former-oppressors' homeworlds.

Both series involved an alien race who had once been humanity's main enemies, but were now strong (but often troublesome) allies (Klingons, Minbari).

Both series involve a character who must deal with the conflict between their alien heritage, and their adopted human qualities (Worf, Delenn).

Each series added a small, tough starship, each the first of its kind, during the third season: DS9's Defiant and B5's White Star.

Each series includes a sinister organization working within the humans' government: DS9's Section 31 and B5's Bureau 13, not to mention Psi Corps and Nightwatch as well.

Each series had a male character named "Dukat" (though B5's is spelled "Dukhat" and each series had a female character named "Lyta" (although DS9's is spelled "Leeta".

Each Station was administered by an Earth based government (Earth Alliance in B5, the Federation in DS9) but was not in that government's territory.
In the first season finales of both series, the character frequently regarded as the "everyman" (Miles O'Brien on DS9, Michael Garibaldi on B5) is betrayed by his assistant in an assassination attempt.

Both series have a character who is the sidekick from an egocentric culture (Vir the Centauri and Rom the Ferengi). They both have values that are more "human" than those of their culture and are therefore seen as poor excuses for members of their race. Despite all this, they both end up as the leaders of their race by the end of the series.

Both series featured a six-episode story arc at the beginning of their penultimate seasons that chronicled a major turning point in their respective wars (the defeat of the Shadows and Vorlons in B5, and the retaking of the station from the Dominion in DS9).

 

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