Both shows featured a cast of humans living with aliens on a space station, trying to work out various peace deals. Neither of us was right, but it’s easy to see why fans we’re so perplexed at the time. My dad claimed he thought it was clear that Deep Space Nine (which premiered on January 3rd, 1993) had ripped-off Babylon 5 (which premiered on January 26th, 1994), and I claimed the reverse. I had an ill-informed one with my dad in 1995. If you were watching sci-fi TV in the ‘90s, you probably had at least an argument about whether or not the two TV shows about people living on a space station were ripping off each other. Here’s why… Did Deep Space Nine rip-off Babylon 5? (Or vice versa?) Like Paul McCartney being inspired by the Beach Boys in the ‘60s, Babylon 5 was the scrappy ‘90s sci-fi underdog that, in a roundabout way, inspired the best of Trekto be better. In retrospect, Babylon 5 made Star Trekbetter in the 1990s. By July 1994, Babylon was wrapping up its first season, and the future of science fiction on TV would never be the same… Buffy and DS9 probably deserve equal credit, but in terms of its influence on science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, the series that is (sometimes) overlooked is Babylon 5. And then there’s The X-Files.Īll of these examples are valid because, clearly, in the late 1990s, there was a vortex swirling that led to a revitalization of TV conventions that was most noticeable in genre shows. 
In fact, one prominent DS9 podcast - The Rules of Acquisition - has effectively argued that DS9 created the foundation for all contemporary TV that followed. Some might say Buffy’s interconnected season-long arcs are the most influential, while Trekkies tend to lean heavily on the innovation and risk-taking of Deep Space Nine ’s serialization in later seasons. Different critics will point to different examples, but when it comes to science fiction and fantasy shows, that list gets a lot smaller. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, and the so-called “golden era” of TV aren’t possible without a few under-the-radar precedents.
There are a few patient zeroes for proving serialized storytelling on TV viable.
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