[tomkarho]

Kind of. What is an interesting topic of debate is that B5 aired at the same time with Deep Space 9 (pilots were released a month apart). DS9 switched out the "adventure of the week" formula from Star Trek for a long form storytelling and it is fought over to this day if one copied from another.

B5 is known for the fact JMS had a full five year arch planned from the start (due to O'Hare's unfortunate state of mind he was forced to pivot with Boxleitner as well as season 4-5 got gutted for other reasons) but I can't recall if DS9 had similar aspirations from the get go or if they eased into it as the story progressed. For comparison: was the Dominion War in the cards all the way from episode 1 or did it come into play later?

[ndsipa_pomu]

For some reason, I didn't watch DS9 at the time, though I've watched all the other Treks and am a big fan - must have been shown at the wrong time for me or something. However, DS9 only had the dominion arc in the last three seasons, so I'm definitely in the B5 was first camp.

What I find fascinating is that JMS wrote in all kinds of escape hatches for if major characters left and of course, there's the time travelling shenanigans that are shown in season 1, but not resolved to much later which show just how planned out it was. Of course his 5 season arc was tied up in 4 seasons when the studios threatened to cancel the 5th season, and then when they changed their mind, it led to a somewhat tacked on season 5 as the main story had been resolved.

It seems like a common factor of having a static space stations that lends itself well to story arcs. The other Treks were based on exploration, so they make sense to reset each episode as they travel to a new region.

[account42]

> It seems like a common factor of having a static space stations that lends itself well to story arcs. The other Treks were based on exploration, so they make sense to reset each episode as they travel to a new region.

I think it's more a industry trends thing - Voyager also had longer story arcs as did many other sci-fi series released after B5.