I can't believe DS9 is winning - easily. I don't think many people actually watched Babylon 5. If they did, they would have seen just how superior B5 is. Perhaps it is just the enduring legacy of Star Trek? Let me make my case for Babylon 5:
Deep Space 9, like all Star Trek and pretty much all sci-fi, suffered from the problem of making it up as it goes. They do a year, and if they get it renewed, they write another year and so it goes. It has no real end and quite often they write themselves into a corner. Most characters suffer poor development and many seem to do stupid things you don't feel the character would do - different writers. On the other side, Babylon 5 was written and filmed as a complete 5 season programme - it had a beginning, a middle and an end. It is that very fact that makes B5 the most complete and truly serious sci-fi of all time. Essentially it was a book, made into a 5 season series.
When you compare the conflicts between DS9 and B5 you see that B5 has a complex structure with significant overlapping and integrated storylines that it makes DS9 look somewhat simple. Don't get me wrong, I like DS9, but I can say the only time I really enjoyed the show was when war broke out with the Dominion, but that ended so quickly, I was left unsatisfied. On B5, the conflict between the Narn and the Centauri alone was so believable, it would have made a good show on its own, but you add in the evil of The Shadow and Z'ha'dum, the politics of the humans, the power and benevolence of the Minbari and the religious significance of the Vorlen, you have a show that treats you with complete intelligence. Even the Psi-Corp used that kind of character in a way that is so readily treated in a pithy way in other show,
No amount of me explaining will get across the point of how well this show was written, It treated homosexuality as if it were completely normal (which of course it is) and a non-issue, which for its time was significant. If you have watched it and seen the explanation of God in its many ways via The Vorlen and the race that can't see the God, you cannot be left unimpressed. It also, for its time, had some of the best CGI you have seen in a television show. They still look good.
On the trivial side, Babylon 5 had Billy Mumy, Will Robinson from Lost in Space and Walter Koenig, Chekov from Star Trek and that alone makes it brilliant. On the not trivial side, the complexity of the characters and the ever evolving nature of good and evil, strength and weakness in their characters across the 5 years is a milestone in sci-fi. If you love sci-fi, Babylon 5 is the most significant series to ever be made and a must watch. It is brilliant.
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