Babylon five... gawd, what tripe. One of the worst shows ever to disgrace the sci-fi genre.
Babylon Five was the absolute best Sci-Fi story-arc, the best writing, and had some of the better aliens ever put to screen.
However..
It had the worst cartoony CGI ever. They hit a really bad spot in the CGI capability curve. Way too bright and day glow color schemes.
Interior set design was like a bad combination of Buck Rogers, the original BSG, and Miami Vice.
Costume design wasn't that much better.
Acting was often wooden and/or just plain BAD and never got better. (Andreas Katsulas, Peter Jurasik, and Mira Furlan excepted)
The best Sci-Fi series EVER would have:
Story Arc Of Babylon 5.
Acting and "grittiness" of the new BSG.
Aliens of Farscape.
Politics, Witty Banter, and Dialog of Firefly.
Gunfights of Stargate.
The SFX budget of Paramount/Star Trek franchises.
(oh, and at least some lip-service to Vacuum/Newtonian motion in space/dogfights, and silence in space, like the new BSG and B5 had at times)
Rev. 1 of my SciFi TV Tripe List - numbered, but not in any particular order:
1. Anything on SyFy channel involving giant CGI monsters - including snakes (lots of giant snake movies there), megasharks, giant piranahs, a sharktopus, etc.
2. Dr. Who (No offense to fans, but I never took to this show. Maybe it was just too British.)
3. Space: 1999
4. UFO (Another British import)
5. BSG (new series)
6. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
7. Andromeda (another show with unrealized potential)
8. Quantum Leap
9. Lost (mega, MEGA tripe!)
10. Sliders
I was going to add Lost in Space, but it WAS meant to be a kid's show, after all.
I think the premise of Space:1999 was unmitigated crap. That nuclear waste on the moon could explode with sufficient force (anything THAT hot or good, we'd still be USING IT, even if it didn't defy physics), to propel it out of the Solar system at a high enough velocity that they'd visit a new star system/planet every few weeks, or months (their time) was rediculous, even from needed suspension of disbelief.
However, the actual LOOK of the show, in terms of sets and hardware, props, and the Eagle transporter spacecraft and the model-work was AMAZING.