Ouch.
What about Farscape and Firefly?
Farscape is the one with the puppets, right? I haven't seen it, but I have to imagine it would be at least a little better than Babylon 5.
I like the Reconstruction era setting for Firefly. Although while it's fun to tell the story from the perspective of a relatable character on the losing side, it's kind of cheating not to have any equivalent to slavery in the mix. I think my enjoyment of the "Heroes on both sides" trope also got hurt a little when I found out recently that the writer of The Outlaw Josie Wales (original novel Eastwood's movie was based on) was in fact a secret lifelong KKK guy who hid his identity and pretended to be part native to sell his book and hide from angry people after him. So of course he is going to write a sympathetic vet on the rebel side.
Side note to the side note, but Eastwood didn't know about the novelist's true identity when he made the movie. He found out suddenly during pre-production of a sequel to Josie Wales, at which point Eastwood said fuck that and dropped out.
Back to Firefly, I fucking loved it the first time I watched it. I don't know now. I'd have to rewatch it. Luckily it's only 13 episodes, not 8 excruciating seasons of B5 or whatever. Whedon is a guy who really can't get out of his own way, and your personal enjoyment depends a lot on being able to ignore or excuse that. And some Whedonisms really haven't aged well. Even worse in the case of Dollhouse, parts of which can make you wince now in 2024.
Firefly does actually have a good cast though. Not like Voyager.
