One of my favorite weird parallels between Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 is that in both cases, the leader of the powerful alien empire aligned with the primary antagonist force, is featured in super low-budget sets. Like, it’s kind of necessary; DS9 already had more important sets that required attention (since Damar’s room appears only very briefly and is not thematically important) and Babylon 5 never had any money.
However, what’s canon is canon, my dudes. Emperor Cartagia is surrounded by sheer drapes and Pier 1 castoffs (what’s great is when he appears on Narn it’s the same set and he lampshades it like “Wow you guys did a great job making it look like my palace on Centari Prime!”) And Damar, leader of the Cardassian Union, is sleeping in a dorm room with like one shitty mirror he got on clearance at Home Goods.
In my mind, the implications are fun to think about (that Cardassians expect austerity of their leaders, as they value prestige and reputation over wealth; Centauri servants grift the shit out of their leaders by accepting large decorating contracts and then delivering garbage, but their leaders don’t realize because they have no taste). However, you just have to know that, if these were produced in modern times with some of the absurd TV budgets of today, Damar would probably have enjoyed, like, windows or something. The interpretation would be entirely different!
Also Weyoun’s all casting shade on Damar having ladies over but apparently no one was like “hey maybe Damar shouldn’t have his clothes on if he’s in bed” so like what was he doing with those ladies with all his clothes on?? Like at least G’kar had his I’ve-Been-Fuckin’ robe.
tags by @orlofsky laugh rule but also damn, on-point
The cooking one is interesting, too, because on B5 the person who liked to cook was Garibaldi and he definitely had a dedicated kitchen-kitchen even given the comparatively limited size of crew quarters on that show. I also liked his giant Daffy Duck poster, because sci-fi tends to assume that it’s the highbrow culture that will endure into the future, but why would we necessarily remember Vivaldi and forget Daffy Duck?
(I’ve actually been meaning to make a post comparing how they handled crew quarters; I don’t like to get into a competitive space between B5/DS9 but compare-and-contrast is always interesting to me because we get to see what was effective, in what way, and ask ourselves why)
Plot Designing 