There is no way that they would do
Rangers for a couple of years and then replace it with
Crusade. TV doesn't work like that. Each show is its own "package" and the idea it to get at least five years in the can so that the show is viable in syndication being aired M-F. (Less than 100 or so episodes and you have to recycle them too often, which leads to a drop in ratings.)
If
Crusade were to come back at all it would be
in addition to
Rangers, not instead of it.
Beside, the timelines probably won't be that far apart.
To Live and Die in Starlight takes place in 2265. Odds are it takes place later in the year, rather than earlier, because it is set
after the Telepath War, which
also happens in 2265. If JMS isn't going to include the Teep War in either the movie or the proposed series, chances are he's going to want to leave a gap of at least a few months between them in story terms so that it will be plausible when everybody isn't
constantly talking about it.
If this is the case, the
Rangers series may very well start in 2266. (Assuming it is a five year series and will run on the same year-per-season schedule as
B5 did - none of which has been confirmed, but what the Hell, this is all speculation anyway.
)
So
Rangers would debut in the Fall of 2001 (or the Spring of 2002 if the season is delayed by strikes) in story year 2266.
Season two of
Rangers would air in the Fall of 2002, story year 2267. By an odd coincidence, Fall 2002 is likely the earliest date a revived
Crusade could make it onto on SFC's schedule.
But Freud said, "There
are no coincidences." I'm not saying that
Crusade is coming back, but I
am saying that JMS is smart enough to allow for that possibility in planning
Rangers. By sometime in 2002 the first season of
Rangers should have finished shooting and the first year "shake-down", when the show-runner's attention is most needed, will be over. Sci-Fi will likely have
some ratings data on the show to work with.
They could then put
Crusade back in production if they chose, and have both shows ready to go forward in sync and with the possiblity of cross-over episodes to goose the ratings.
This is almost certainly a possiblity that JMS considered, and may even have figured as one option when Warner Bros., JMS and Sci-Fi were having their first discussions and "everything [was] on the table" according to Bonnie Hammer, who was interviewed while the talks were still going on. At the time she said they were leaning towards a new TV movie, but mentioned in the same interview that Sci-Fi was considering picking up the
Crusade reruns, so obviously at least that much
was a part of the conversation with Warner Bros. at the time.
Regards,
Joe
------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division