u/F11SuperTiger

The omni-present claim within the fandom is that Season 1 is bad, that Season 1 is terrible, that Season 1 is unwatchable, that no one in their right mind would ever watch Season 1 in a million years if it wasn't followed by Seasons 2, 3, and 4, even that new viewers should just outright skip Season 1.

I was well aware of this discourse, so, when I decided to rewatch Babylon 5 a few years ago for the first time in many years, I was fully expecting Season 1 to be outright terrible. Yet I ended up being pleasantly surprised at the quality the episodes. They represented good TV.

Season 1 lacks the degree of arc based story telling found in later seasons, but what it did have is competently and effectively executed individual episodes. Compared to early 1990s Star Trek, the average quality is significantly higher. Moreover, the season extremely effectively introduces the characters and universes.

It has its share of lackluster episodes (Infection, Soul Hunter, TKO, Born to the Purple, etc.), but that's true of all Babylon 5 seasons (aside maybe from Season 4, where episodes no longer really had individual plots anymore and the good and bad basically became completely blended across episodes). And, in true Babylon 5 fashion, some of the episodes with lacking A plots are saved by having really good B plots. "Mind War" has the G'Kar, Catherine, and First Ones plot. "Born to the Purple" and "TKO" have Ivanova dealing with her father's death.

Season 1 also has some really good episodes.

"Midnight on the Firing Line" is a very effective pilot (and is in fact way better at being a pilot than "The Gathering").

"The Parliament of Dreams" recontextualizes G'Kar and centers religion as a critical element of the show.

"Believers" was simply far beyond anything shown on TV at the time.

"Signs and Portents" and "Babylon Squared," well, I don't think I need to say anything about them (and a lot people cite "Signs and Portents" as the first time they realized the show was going somewhere far bigger).

And "Chrysalis" had the balls to do what no other TV show of the time would have considered.

The simple reality is that Babylon 5 was a show operating in a very marginal place. Unlike Star Trek, it had no brand name to carry it through troubles. If Season 1 was really as unwatchable as people claim, Babylon 5 never would have got Season 2.

Every story needs exposition to establish who and what the characters and setting were. JMS needed to define the universe and the characters before he could begin changing them. People like to praise how Babylon 5 is "like a novel" while simultaneously disparaging Season 1 since it lacks the tight plotting of later seasons, but the reality is that Seasons 2 through 5 were only able to tell the stories they did since Season 1 set up everything first. Season 1 is an integral, critical part to the Babylon 5 "novel."

I don't think fans necessarily appreciate the degree Iroh is a passive person, who goes with the flow and lets the world happen to him rather than actively try shape his path through it.

1. Let's look at Iroh's life: 1. We don't have many official depictions of Iroh's early life (to this day his wife is unnamed!), but this old interview with Bryke implies that the whole reason Iroh became a general and a conqueror was that getting in the "family business" was the easy thing to do and the path of least resistance, rather than any particular conviction on his part. If you want a more official source, I think the Legacy of the Fire Nation scrapbook more or less implies the same.
2. When Iroh gets home from the war and finds that his brother his murdered his father and seized his throne, he just sort of accepts it and roles with it. Yes, Lu Ten's death plays into Iroh's reaction, but a different sort of character still wouldn't have surrendered so easily to it.
3. Iroh seems to have been entirely to hang around the court afterwards, attending war meetings and probably even offering useful military advice there rather than doing anything to oppose Ozai or try to bring an end to the war. A lot of people headcanon Iroh being a White Lotus spy then, but there's no reason to believe the White Lotus was doing anything to actively oppose the Fire Nation back then.
4. Iroh lets Ozai burn Zuko in front of him while doing nothing to try to stop him. You can argue whether it would be have been a good idea to do anything or whether Iroh trying to do something would have only made things worse, but there are other characters I can think of, like Zuko himself, who would never let their nephew be burned in front of him while doing nothing.
5. Iroh goes with Zuko in exile for three years, but despite spending that time practically alone with Zuko, apparently never manages to or bothers to talk to Zuko about imperialism being bad or about Ozai being bad news. I think the reason for that is that having those sorts of conversations would have been difficult and awkward, and by Iroh's nature he is inherently disinclined from getting into difficult or awkward situations.
6. Yes, Iroh does try to stop Zhao, but only because Zhao is about to permanently massively screw up the world.
7. When Ozai declares Iroh and Zuko traitors, Iroh's natural reaction is to try to run and hide as a fugitive, rather to, for instance, try to start a rebellion against Ozai. Again, very understandable on Iroh's part, but other characters would have made a different decision.
8. When we get to the end of the series, Iroh finally plans major action against the Fire Nation. However, even then Iroh refuses to fight Ozai or to help seize the Fire Nation throne. Again, different characters would have made very different decisions here.
9. Finally, Iroh chooses to retire to Ba Sing Se, rather than to return home and participate in rebuilding the Fire Nation.

I think when we put this all together, we get a passive character who likes to take things as they come and follow the current wherever it will take him, instead of trying to chart his own path forward through the world. This is not a moral judgement, yet it is easy to think of many other characters in the show who, like Zuko, Sokka, or Ozai, take a far more active approach in trying to chart their own path.