Why only 75 minutes running time for two episodes?
Because they aren't "episodes" and were never intended to be. JMS always envisioned the "Lost Tales" as being like short stories, little sidelights on the
B5 universe that never quite fit into the main series, closer to 20 or 30 minutes in length than the 42 or so of the broadcast shows. (Which usually had an "A" and a "B" plot, and sometimes a "C" story as well. The "Lost Tales" are intended to have only one story to tell.)
JMS had spoken rather vaguely in terms of running time. He produced television for a lot of years so he might refer to a given "unit" of story by its
broadcast (with commercials) time rather than its running time out of sheer force of habit. (Also don't forget that WB always planned to try to sell the project to broadcast television both here and abroad, so thinking in those terms makes sense.)
Anyway, on that basis the 42 minute series episodes were "one hour" shows, the 91 or 93 minute TV movies "two hour films" and a 75 minute double feature would be a "Ninety minute movie". In which case each segment would actually have run about 25 minutes if there were 3 or them, and 37.5 minutes each means that he did divvy up the time that would have gone into the Garibaldi segment between the other two stories. And in doing so created two segments that really
are almost as long each as a full-length series episode without commercials, clocking in roughtly 4.5 minutes short.
So, yeah - you're just nitpicking.
Regards,
Joe
