<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Even worse would be bringing back the same characters but with different actors. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Why? It isn't as though
Crusade were some kind of cultural icon. It is a show that lasted 13 episodes, has aired exactly
twice in the United States and which hardly anyone (as numbers are counted in the television biz) ever saw.
One of Sci-Fi's options, depending on what everyone is up to, is simply to have Warner Bros. retire the existing 13 episodes and start all over again from scratch, with an entirely new cast. While I like many of the performers in the original version, I don't have any basic problem with the idea. I had never seen Peter Woodward in anything before. His portrayal of Galen surprised and delighted me. Who is to say that
another actor I've never seen couldn't surprise and delight me just as much.
This is a little like saying that the only version of
Hamlet that should be allowed to exist is the first one you saw because no other actor could ever "be" the prince for you other than Olivier, or Brannagh, or Mel Gibson. I enjoyed
The Fugitive when it was on TV, but I had no trouble accepting Harrison Ford in the role of Dr. Richard Kimble.
To become this fixated on particular actors - especially based on half a season of a TV show (or, in the case of
Rangers, a pilot film) strikes me as a little excessive.
There are roles and actors that do become part of the cultural landscape to such a degree that it really is hard to see anyone else in a given part.
Casablanca simply wouldn't be the same film without that amazing cast. No one could play Kirk or Spock again after 30 years of reruns except for Nimoy and Shatner. But I think either could have been replaced between the second pilot and the first episode and nobody would have
noticed. These "icon" roles and projects are few and far between.
I'm as big a fan of continuity as the next guy, but I also realize that in television real-life considerations often intrude, and accept what I cannot change. I don't think cast changes are "stupid" because I don't think they are usually done capriciously. And if anyone has proven that he can
deal with cast changes in mid-project, often improving the story as a result, it is JMS.
So while I'd be delighted to see the whole
Crusade cast return in any revival, I won't let what happens in that area color my perception of any new version of the show before I watch it.
Regards,
Joe
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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net