<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I always thought that Christian was off the show before JMS wrote Deconstruction. In fact, that was part of the reason he wrote it in the first place. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Not quite. We're talking about a couple of different issues here, although they are related.
1) At the start of S4 it was pretty much certain that there would be no S5. PTEN was in the process of shutting down and Warner Bros. wasn't having any luck placing
B5 with another network. JMS therefore pulled several stand-alone shows from early in S4, allowing him to wrap up the main story threads in 4 seasons, skipping over other story lines and ending with "SiL" rather than the planned S4 cliff-hanger, "Intersections in Realtime."
2) Early in S4 TNT agreed to buy the four seasons of reruns, which Warner Bros. was now in a position to offer as a block, since they were sure the series was over.
3) TNT later decided to add a couple of original TV movies to make its early evening
B5 reruns more of an "event." They commissioned
Thirdspace and
In the Beginning (which allowed JMS to trim "Atonement" from a two-parter to a single episode, since part of the story would be covered in the movie.) A bit later than that they agreed to finance the re-edit, new F/X and new score for
The Gathering.
4)
Thirdspace was the first TV movie shot because it took place on Babylon 5, and could be shot on the still-standing sets. These were then struck and stored while
In the Beginning was filmed. They were stored, rather than destroyed, because TNT was impressed by the
Thirdspace dailies and started negotiations with Warner Bros. about S5.
5) The actors (except Claudia) signed an extension of their exisitng S4 contracts while the negotiations were going on. These were not the final contracts for S5 - new contracts had to be signed for S5 because the move to TNT was a move from first-run syndication to first-run basic cable.
The basic Screen Actor's Guild contract treats network, syndication and basic cable differently, so the PTEN contracts would not apply to the TNT deal. But new contracts could not be issued until TNT and WB came to terms about producing the series. A deadline was established for the cast members to sign the new contracts, based on the proposed start of production. Once TNT and WB made their deal, the various actors signed new contracts for S5 over the summer, with Claudia Christian being the last unsigned cast member by the time most of the cast was in the U.K. for an SF convention in Blackpool England.
6) It was after the TNT/WB deal was made that JMS outlined S5 and started writing scripts, including "Deconstruction." Now that S5 was a certainty he needed something to replace "SiL" as the S4 finale, and he needed to get it done quickly because S4 had not yet finished airing in the U.S. He wanted to get 501 shot in time to substitute it for 422, scheduled to air in the fall on the remaining PTEN stations.
(BTW, he was still very much working on the shape of S5 during the con in Blackpool. He lost his only copy of the original hand-written S5 outline when the housekeeping staff in his hotel threw it away that weekend.)
At this point the show lost Claudia, and JMS had to rewrite several existing or partially written scripts, as well as "adjust" the overall S5 arc - with way too little time before cameras rolled. I think these last minute changes, and the loss of the dramatic "Ivanova latent telepath" arc substantially weakened S5.
Regards,
Joe
------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
