Aborted Reboot

[Republibot 3.0]

Pebble #1: TNT screws over JMS and Crusade in the hope of getting out of paying for Crusade, so they can buy Law & Order reruns.

Pebble #2: Upon Crusade going down, Warner Brothers wants to pull all Babylon 5 universe resources back to themselves, and then they lose, destroy or sell 99% of it.

Pebble #3: Sci-Fi wants to OWN their own B5 universe TV show.

Pebble #4: Warner Brothers won't let Sci-Fi (part of Universal) own a B5 TV show.

Pebble#5: We get a half-assed TV movie (B5: LotR) which is hamstrung by Pebble #2.

Pebble #6: Five years go by and we get an even less substantial, Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales - Voices in the Dark, consisting of two 36 minute mini-episodes, on the same budget as Pebble #5.

Since Crusade, everything has been a feeble shadow of what has gone before. The avalanche has buried all hope of anything new and good in the B5/Crusade universe, UNLESS somebody gets some FAITH and ponies up the cash to do it, not some half-hearted, cheapass attempt, but a REAL, GOOD FAITH ATTEMPT.

My friend Gerald once said "B5 was like a really good vacation that you didn't expect to be any good, you just did it on a lark, and it was the most wonderful thing ever. So you go to the travel agent, and say "I want to do that again!" But it's not as good. So you try again, and eveyr time after that, what you get is a little less than you had before, and it kind of ruins your memories of how great the original vacation was."

Sci-Fi forced things in that direction when they refused to continue the Crusade storyline, wanting something new and different.

Wasn't JMS intending to use the show to pick up the Crusade storyline anyway? Or rather, to continue the storyline without the Excalibur and those characters?

I think the weapons system was JMS' fault. It feels like him.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

It's hard to do your best work when you're kicked in the balls and sabotaged at every turn by TNT. JMS didn't have that with B5. TNT tried to make life Hell making Crusade. They didn't want to improve it; they wanted JMS to quit so they could get out of paying for it and instead use the money for Law & Order reruns. That's what I call a hostile work environment, and it probably bled over into the cast and caused problems there (e.g with Gary Cole).

I'm not arguing, but who knows Joe better than Harlan? And who does Harlan respect more than Joe? It's not something he'd say lightly. The circumstances were certainly a part of that, but by the time TNT decided to murder Crusade, that final season of B5 had already let us down.

I have faith that Crusade would have become something great, but B5 had a rocky end, and Crusade had a rocky start, so it requires some faith to see that.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

YES, THEY ARE THE VILLAIN!!! They are the reason for the lower budget, the reduced shooting schedule (1 day less per episode). They forced that.

Now, wait. Wait. B5 was dead at that point. "A little of something is better than all of nothing." The smaller budget and the shortened production schedule - which are serious problems - is the kind of thing that frequently happens when shows jump network. SG1's budget went down considerably when it jumped to Skiffy. My Two Dads, Airwolf, all that crap. It's cable. They don't have as much money to throw around. Doesn't mean it doesn't suck, just means that it's standard sucking. No one's being singled out.

They did what they could with the resources available, it didn't pay off for them, so they cut their losses. No harm, no foul, though I think Crusade should have gotten a full season before they killed it, I can see their reason for not doing so.

Back when Babylon 5 and Crusade could have gone to The Sci-Fi Channel, TNT held onto them and reran B5 to death. What they asked Sci-Fi for the B5 and Crusade reruns was called a ransom note.

Ok, THAT I was unaware of.

Why would they do that? What would they have to gain?

I've thought about it a lot, and I think there's several problems with Byron:
1) His episodes all come in a block, it's like a kidney stone you can't pass, and the rest of the season can't get flowing until he's out of the way. And he won't get out of the way.
2) Byron is inherenetly a superfluous character.

Byron is the single worst character in Season 5.. Lochley is a close second.

A distant second, but that's a quibble. Essentially we agree.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Honestly, they probably could have crammed the whole Telepath war into 7 episodes if they'd tried. IT's not like there was anything of note going on in the station.

The Telepath War is set to happen between 2263 and 2266, not IN 2262. I can't remember if it was supposed to have ended before B5: LotR.

The War is whenever the writer says the war is. If he'd decided to move it up from 2266 to 2262, are you going to tell him he's wrong?

Not bad. That would've made for some tension. However,

Thankee.

Not without the funding and a venue to air the show. Warner Brothers is lacking on both counts. It is Warner Brothers that B5 should be taken away from, but THEY won't let it go anywhere else. They'd rather it DIE that go to another studio and be revived. They want it all for themselves, and if they can't make a go of it, they'll make sure nobody can. They're like TNT (a part of Warner Brothers) in that respect. It is Warner Brothers that is the problem, not JMS.

Fair enough. Not saying I agree, but it's a valid and defensable opinion that I can't really argue with.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Quantity over quality, yeah I want to watch a channel like that. NOT!!!!!!

Well, it's the standard network thinking for broadcast. It ultimately didn't work out for Skiffy.

No, I'd need a lobotomy first. No thanks.

Now, now, if we don't understand the idiots then we're going to be unable to prevent them from being idiotic in the future and screwing us again.

You have to look at WHY it failed. You can't just think that it failed there, so it will fail here, too. The audiences are different.

Oh, I agree. You also have to understand that no SF show lasts very long ONLY on fans. It has to have a lot of crossover support from casual fans and normal people. This is why Gate was so huge for so long, and why Lost was big (It stayed in the SF closet for like 5 years)

This wouldn't have happened on a sci-fi friendly channel that has an audience that wants to see sci-fi. If only Warners had such a channel, oh yeah, THE CW. Oops, no, wait, they hate B5 because they hated PTEN, so nobody wins. Ain't life grand for Warner Brothers sci-fi properties that can't get on The CW?

Said it before, say it again: Warners doesn't make much sense.

They screwed it up in damn near every possible. I think they INVENTED new ways to screw it up. "A Call to Arms" was supposed to air before the first Crusade episode, Racing the Night. However, TNT aired "A Call to Arms" in January, and then didn't air Crusade until JUNE. Then, they wanted a traditional pilot episode, instead of airing "A Call to Arms" as the intro. to Crusade. So, JMS had to write a pliot ep., War Zone." Then what does TNT do, they air War Zone, and then air A Call to Arms right after it, and then air the episodes that were meant to be aired FIRST, LAST. Then, on the first airing, Crusade was pushed around by the NBA draft (The Path of Sorrows aired at midnight, AFTER the f-ing NBA draft.), by JFK Jr.'s plain crash coverage, etc.

Yeah, all that I knew.

The creation of War Zone meant that we never got Value Judgements (the Bester episode). So, we got a superfluous episode and lost an episode which would have been a magnet for B5 fans.

Didn't think of it like that, but you're right.

We also never got To the Ends of the Earth and End of the Line, two episodes that would have been blockbusters.

They would be for us, definitely. For everyone else? Dunno. There's a tendency in fandom to assume what WE want is what everyone wants. This kind of thinking led to the final seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise, which was just one fanwank after another, and nothing that would appeal to any actual real-live humans.

Do you honestly think that JMS would stoop to pitching a reboot of TOS to somehow wheedle the Crusade storyline into it? I don't. The stories are too different.

Oh, HELL yeah! HELL yeah he would! Firstly: JMS re-uses ideas. A good deal of The Shadows turned up in his early-90s novel, then name of which escapes me now. (I read it. It was very mediocre). He almost NEVER gives away unsued bits. Ask him about the Franklin B5 movie, or the Reboot, or where LOTR was going, you will be met with stony silence. He's not giving it away unless he's paid for it, and if he went to all the trouble to come up with a storyline that no one ever got to see, you'd better believe he'd re-purpose it in a heartbeat.

Why wouldn't he? Pride? What pride is there in having a story you don't tell, much less don't get paid for?

Rule #1 of being a professional screenwriter: GET PAID
Rule # 2: KEEP WORKING
Rule #3: See Rule #1

 

[JonFrain]

Well I stated that in the moderated newsgroup after reading an early review of LOTR. I stated if it was as bad as the review indicated, that I wouldn't be against someone else taking over. He responded in a pissy way but it turned out the review was 100% fair and I still believe he isn't the best thing for the property.

Yeah...nobody'd ever take offense at this...

>A not so ringing review has been posted for the upcoming movie. I'm hoping
>the reviewer has a strong bias against B5. I unfortunately have a very
>strong bias against Crusade.

They did.

>If this telefilm tanks, I'd honestly be open to the idea of someone else
>taking over the universe from Joe.

...especially when you hadn't even seen the film yet and admitted going into it with a negative bias. </sarcasm>

As for Republibot's question, my only real issue with the execution of the telepath arc was that so few of Byron's group had speaking roles in order to become more sympathetic to the audience who'd obviously forgotten the stories told to Talia by the teeps in the Underground Railroad. The fact that the production simply couldn't afford more speaking roles is pretty immaterial. This is one of the areas where a 'previously on Babylon 5' segment would have worked well to remind viewers of things that had gone on before, particularly that long ago.

Jan

I provided the proper caveats. I said if the review is accurate, then I'm fine with someone else taking over the universe. Guess what, the review was accurate and I stand by that statement.

I still held out hope that LOTR would right the ship. The scene that was lambasted in the review was actually worse than they described. It also made zero sense to fatigue your weapons operator like that. Just asinine in all regards.

JMS always said things like "I think this is the best thing we've ever done." That was true up until season 3 but after that not so much. I'm sure he said it for LOTR.

I like quality TV and writing. JMS had lots of it and then he lost in in the B5 universe. You are just one of those fans that adore everything he does and can't see the serious decline in quality of his work. You also can't see that yes he can be a dick who doesn't work well with others and doesn't take criticism well at all. He also didn't understand why Evan Chen was a detriment and he blamed the playoff game on LOTR not getting picked up. He clearly didn't see the problems with LOTR that most could.

JMS has come to my area of the country and I never once was tempted to see him speak. I'm thankful for B5 and season 2 of Jeremiah. But I think he's too full of himself.

 

[JonFrain]

I think the biggest thing that hurt season 5 was the ending of the Earth civil war having been squeezed into the end of season 4, what with jms thinking they wouldn't even get a season 5 and all. If season 4 had ended with Sheridan's capture as the original plan was to be, then there would've been a ton of drama that we all know and love happening there in the beginning of season 5.

That happened because PTEN went down and another home for B5 Season 5 wasn't found until the last minute, long after JMS had been told to wrap things up in Season 4. If B5 would have just gone to The WB/The CW (a much better home for sci-fi/fantasy), but The/WB/The CW was spiteful re. PTEN. Warner Brothers, PTEN and The WB/The CW are like the most dysfunctional, cut-throat family you could ever imagine.

JMS also claimed that if he knew that there would be a season 5, season 4 would end around "intersections in real time". And so most of Season 5 would have remained as is. Cut out Gaimans episode, the horrible one following the two maintenance workers and "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" you only have to snip one episode from Season 5 as shown.

 

[JonFrain]

Continue and finish the Crusade storyline. Reboot it if you must, BUT DO IT and DO IT RIGHT.

Sci-Fi forced things in that direction when they refused to continue the Crusade storyline, wanting something new and different.

What hint?!? All but about five minutes of the thing was embarrassing. The best thing about the whole thing was when Martel hit his head and Dulann came back with his best line. I feel bad that Andreas was last seen in the B5 universe in that crappy thing.

The hint of something good in LOTR was the premise of them going to a strange universe. The dialogue and casting was the worst I've seen with something connected to JMS though.

There wasn't a big cry for Crusade to return honestly. SciFi likely said we don't want a continuation of Crusade, we want something new. If JMS felt he couldn't create an interesting premise other than Crusade, he could have skipped it altogether.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but SciFi paid for the widescreen format for reruns of B5. I can't hate the network after that. They aired it at a great time as well. The ratings just went below their threshold. I always thought B5 would thrive being aired 5 nights a week. And it did for a while. But it's actually much better suited to video on demand and streaming services like netflix that allow binging.

WB won't pay for new effects since there's little demand for the show as is. I think Netflix even cancels a bunch of shows every year. I remember Farscape getting canned for some reason.

ME TV isn't going to do better with B5 reruns than with the more widely appealing reruns they already show. We need a classic scifi channel with old BSG, Space 1999, Buck Rogers, B5, Dr Who, Farscape, Andromeda, Stargate, X-Files. You know, the stuff SyFy used to air in the afternoons and weekends.

My love of B5 (season 1-4 mainly) means that I don't really try getting many others to watch it because I take it personally when they don't like it. There isn't another show I feel that way about. I also know that lots of people won't get passed the effects, cheap sets and sometimes crappy dialogue and acting.

 

[JonFrain]

If JMS said that, I think that was just him trying to put a good face on things.

Then explain why he brought her back for Crusade and the Lost Tales?

He honestly convinced himself she was a good character and actress. He did not need to write her into either of those.

 

[JonFrain]

Warner Brothers who LOST all of the CGI files

I heard tell it wasn't that they lost them, it was that they deliberately demanded their return, then wiped 'em. I heard this was an intellectual property move, I've also heard it was ostensibly to prevent piracy. I've also heard that they didn't figure they'd be of any future worth. I've also heard that they just didn't trust Netter Digital.

In any event, most of the rumors I hear are that it was deliberate. But it may not be.

Any way you slice it, it comes up stupid. Honestly, Warners doesn't make much sense to me most of the time.

I haven't heard anything about how they were lost. All I will say is that there are very few Kickstarter campaigns I'd support. One would be to have the people that did BSG effects to redo them for one episode of B5 as a proof of concept.

 

[Jan]

If JMS said that, I think that was just him trying to put a good face on things.

Then explain why he brought her back for Crusade and the Lost Tales?

He honestly convinced himself she was a good character and actress. He did not need to write her into either of those.

Actually, when it comes to Crusade, he did. TNT had been adamant that there'd be no characters from B5 at all until one of the TNT execs met her at (as I recall) a sporting event and changed his mind and decreed that she should be in the show.

As for the Lost Tales, it made sense from a story perspective to have a familiar face, somebody friendly to Sheridan on the Station.

Warner Brothers who LOST all of the CGI files

I heard tell it wasn't that they lost them, it was that they deliberately demanded their return, then wiped 'em. I heard this was an intellectual property move, I've also heard it was ostensibly to prevent piracy. I've also heard that they didn't figure they'd be of any future worth. I've also heard that they just didn't trust Netter Digital.

In any event, most of the rumors I hear are that it was deliberate. But it may not be.

Any way you slice it, it comes up stupid. Honestly, Warners doesn't make much sense to me most of the time.

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." It's standard for the studio to require that all assets be turned over after any show is finished. Given that the CGI files were probably the first of their kind to be turned over to them, anything could have happened from wiping them to save money on office supplies to simply being misfiled.

Jan

 

[Republibot 3.0]

JMS also claimed that if he knew that there would be a season 5, season 4 would end around "intersections in real time". And so most of Season 5 would have remained as is. Cut out Gaimans episode, the horrible one following the two maintenance workers and "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" you only have to snip one episode from Season 5 as shown.

That doesn't really follow. If he sped up his original plan, then you have no idea where IIRT would have fallen into the original plan. It was the penultimate bit when we saw, it, but it might have been several episodes earlier in the original draft. All we know is that he intended to end the season with it.

He liked to use six and seven episode arcs, and you can seen examples of that throughout the show. He's also been fairly open about places where he intended to do it, but couldn't for whatever reason. F'rinstance, he said that had Sinclair stayed on, the mystery of The Line would have been revealed around 6 or 7 episodes in to season 2. Likewise, I recall him saying he'd intended to reveal Control about a third of the way into season 3, presumably as part of the ramp-up into independence.

My hunch is that the war would have ended about 6 or 7 episodes into season 5, leaving around 14 episodes for aftermath.

This actually is reasonably consistent with what we saw, as there are 6 or 7 useles standalone episodes in season 7: "Day of the Dead," "Secrets of the Soul," "A View from the Gallery," the Na'Toth one, etc. Take that crap out, and you're left with the 7ish episode Centauri arc, and the 7ish episode Telepath arc. Which gives us a pretty solid structure:

7 episodes of war, 7 episodes of uneasy peace, 7 episodes of the alliance cracking, but not quite crumbling.

Moving the telepath episodes up to the start really puts the whole season off balance from the gitgo, and all those 'why bother' episodes dont' help any. Basically the season feels really padded out, but if you assume a third of the season was the wrapup of the civil war, then it feels a bit more reasonable.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

If JMS said that, I think that was just him trying to put a good face on things.

Then explain why he brought her back for Crusade and the Lost Tales?

He honestly convinced himself she was a good character and actress. He did not need to write her into either of those.

Actually, when it comes to Crusade, he did. TNT had been adamant that there'd be no characters from B5 at all until one of the TNT execs met her at (as I recall) a sporting event and changed his mind and decreed that she should be in the show.

As for the Lost Tales, it made sense from a story perspective to have a familiar face, somebody friendly to Sheridan on the Station.

Warner Brothers who LOST all of the CGI files

I heard tell it wasn't that they lost them, it was that they deliberately demanded their return, then wiped 'em. I heard this was an intellectual property move, I've also heard it was ostensibly to prevent piracy. I've also heard that they didn't figure they'd be of any future worth. I've also heard that they just didn't trust Netter Digital.

In any event, most of the rumors I hear are that it was deliberate. But it may not be.

Any way you slice it, it comes up stupid. Honestly, Warners doesn't make much sense to me most of the time.

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." It's standard for the studio to require that all assets be turned over after any show is finished. Given that the CGI files were probably the first of their kind to be turned over to them, anything could have happened from wiping them to save money on office supplies to simply being misfiled.

Jan

Fair enough.

 

[JonFrain]

JMS also claimed that if he knew that there would be a season 5, season 4 would end around "intersections in real time". And so most of Season 5 would have remained as is. Cut out Gaimans episode, the horrible one following the two maintenance workers and "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" you only have to snip one episode from Season 5 as shown.

That doesn't really follow. If he sped up his original plan, then you have no idea where IIRT would have fallen into the original plan.

I'm going by what he said but it's not worth the effort to dig out the quote.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

JMS also claimed that if he knew that there would be a season 5, season 4 would end around "intersections in real time". And so most of Season 5 would have remained as is. Cut out Gaimans episode, the horrible one following the two maintenance workers and "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" you only have to snip one episode from Season 5 as shown.

That doesn't really follow. If he sped up his original plan, then you have no idea where IIRT would have fallen into the original plan.

I'm going by what he said but it's not worth the effort to dig out the quote.

I think you misunderstand me. The War essentially takes place between episodes 81 and 87, and a tiny tag at the end of 80. So that's 8 episodes, with "Realtime" at the 4th ep of that arc. You're assuming that the war arc was always intended to just last 8 episodes, and if the season had ended with "Realtime" then the war would have ended 2 episodes later, with "Stars" after that.

We have no idea what his original plan for the war was. For all we know, he might have intended the war to last 8 episodes, or 10, or 12. Dunno. He was speeding things up, after all.

My *HUNCH* is that he intended it to last for probably 6 episoes after "Realtime." This tends to be the way he tries to structure things, such as the conclusion of the shadow war in Season 4. I can't prove it, but it fits a lot of the available information.