I think it was. During season 4 they did not know if they were going to get renewed so they broke the bank and ratings were great and then they got renewed for season 5 and were like, 'shit what are we supposed to do now?'
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
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There was plenty of stuff left and in theory it could have been interesting.
Although some of those things listed JMS didn't really use in the fifth season and when he did... well, yeah. Telepaths. 'nuff said. The Drakh War? More like just the Drakh pulling all the strings and no one has any ideas and after that they go to sleep for five years because the show is over and that's it. Mars situation? Ummm, Number One is in some of the episodes so I guess that counts for something. Edgars? Edgars who? What? Where? Maybe the black projects were saved for Crusade and we all know how that turned out. Fallout from the civil war? Well, mostly that boils down to two characters: Garibaldi and Lochley and honestly that's not much. Love triangle? Whoa, that's interesting.
Something feels off with that season and I don't know what. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that they had less money to work with (if I have understood it correctly) and also they had less days to film an episode. Not to mention JMS loosing all of his notes, all the problems between him and Claudia, etc. etc.
jms said:
Although some of those things listed JMS didn't really use in the fifth season and when he did... well, yeah. Telepaths. 'nuff said. The Drakh War? More like just the Drakh pulling all the strings and no one has any ideas and after that they go to sleep for five years because the show is over and that's it. Mars situation? Ummm, Number One is in some of the episodes so I guess that counts for something. Edgars? Edgars who? What? Where? Maybe the black projects were saved for Crusade and we all know how that turned out. Fallout from the civil war? Well, mostly that boils down to two characters: Garibaldi and Lochley and honestly that's not much. Love triangle? Whoa, that's interesting.
Something feels off with that season and I don't know what. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that they had less money to work with (if I have understood it correctly) and also they had less days to film an episode. Not to mention JMS loosing all of his notes, all the problems between him and Claudia, etc. etc.
I wonder if we would have ever seen the Telepath War had B5 continued.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but the war was not normals (i.e. "mundanes") vs. telepaths, was it? It was normals AND telepaths vs. the Psi Corps, amirite?
And correct me if I'm wrong, but the war was not normals (i.e. "mundanes") vs. telepaths, was it? It was normals AND telepaths vs. the Psi Corps, amirite?
If Foxworth had been booked, then he'd have been locked in, money up front, unavailable for DS9.Remember what I just said - Foxworth's agent booked him on both shows simultaneously. And while I don't doubt that B5 expected him to be available well in advance - I'm sure DS9 did the same. So who's right?
And remember, this is TV. You don't seriously expect that the concept of "honorable" ever figures into it, do ya?
More likely, he'd said 'Yes, I'll come back next season.' But they didn't pay any sort of retainer (B5 never had enough money for that), so if he took another job in the meantime, then... actors have to work.
Yeah, there were different factions involved. Lyta and Garibaldi were building up a resistance through the "blips" and normals were somewhat expecting the situation with the PSI Corps to blow over.
Now this is just speculation from my part, but if I remember correctly in the beginning of A Call To Arms the newsanchor mentions the recent Telepath Crisis, which is an interesting choice of words. And since there was a Crusade script where it is revealed that there is potentially a huge PSI Corps fleet hiding in hyperspace plotting to strike back, I wonder if we would have seen the actual war during that show.
Your source? because this is what JMS said about it in the B5 script books:
You can lay fault with an incompetent agent, perhaps but I doubt there was any simultaneity to it.JMS said:
That's not how it works. It's done via a 'deal memo', not any kind of retainer or pre-payment. And the show doesn't talk officially to the actor, only to their agent. But in the end, one doesn't want an unwilling actor so the production had to change plans.
Actually, when you look at the show as a whole, it makes perfect sense the way it played out.
Season 1: build-up
Seasons 2-4: the story (stories) play out.
Season 5: Clean-up (wrap-up).
Season 5 is a great season. It's not as good as the previous 4, but that whole Centauri storyline could have fit right in with anything in the prior seasons, especially with the way Lando's arc wrapped up, which was so sad. Also, I'm not sure if this is blasphamy or not, but I found the "Objects in..." two episodes a better closing than Sleeping in Light. I liked SIL, but it felt more of an epilogue than series finale.
Interesting point. I'd have to reflect on that to decide whether I agree or not.
In any case, both are better series finales than DS9's What You Leave Behind, which just crammed too much into too little time.
I think I got more emotional watching Garibaldi's firing method, or G'Kar's goodbye to Sharidan, or just seeing the entire crew spread apart than watching Delenn looking at a sunrise, or Sharidan meeting his destiny.
I do agree though, What You Leave Behind, while a decent finale, was a little disappointing.
I agree with Mr. Laser Beam, the casting of Major Ryan is an interesting story. Despite the miscommunication, the actual casting, nevertheless, worked out well.
It probably helps that OiM & OaR had a chance to say goodbye to almost the entire cast individually, whereas for story reasons (half of them were dead) that wasn't possible for SiL. So yes, I would agree that those two episodes constitute the "real" finale of the show with SiL functioning more like a coda. Mind you, I've occasionally been of the mindset that the entirety of season 5 constitutes the finale. One of the benefits of a well planned story arc is that when you do finally get to the end, it feels like everything has been leading here. On arc shows where they haven't planned ahead very far like DS9, Voyager & BSG, the finales tend to come off very haphazardly.
Speaking of which, I thought 'What You Leave Behind,'...well it wasn't the worst do a Star Trek finale (Enterprise has us covered on that front) but it wasn't exactly memorable either. I'd argue that as silly and ultimately unsatisfying as it was, Voyager's finale was at least more fun and memorable that DS9's (and I'm generally much more of a DS9 fan.)
Actually, I think the only good Star Trek finale was TNG's.
I find it difficult to be objective about 'All Good Things' as it's one of my favourite Star Trek episodes ever and I think the first finale to a TV show--that I'd seen up until that point--that truly felt like a actual finale. Before that, shows just seemed to stop.
I'm not sure when this became a thing. I know the last episode of M*A*S*H was something special (which I didn't see until years after TNG was off the air), but that was a very long running and popular show. I'm sure there are others, but AGT felt like when it started to become expected in a TV show.
But yes, I think it's safe to say AGT was the best finale if for no other reason than the bar just isn't that high. TOS just stopped (twice.) DS9's felt surprisingly perfunctory for a show that was otherwise big on arc storytelling. Voyager's was (fittingly for the show) a soulless, superficial and unoriginal retread of AGT that managed to entirely miss the point. And Enterprise...yikes. After such a promising improvement in the last season, way to shit the bed mid-coitus!
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That was pretty much how I thought of the show. Season 5 was a nice way to deal with the ramifications of the war and some of the other plot threads.
And I actually really like What You Leave Behind.
This just reminded me of something - specifically, the scene with Maj. Ryan on the bridge of the Alexander in "Severed Dreams". Are there any fan made B5 sites which give a detailed layout of the bridge of an Earth Alliance ship like this?
I mean, I'm well aware of the threadbare nature of most B5 sets, so that's the reason why we saw almost no bridges other than the White Stars, I'm just curious as to what a typical EAS bridge is "supposed" to look like.
IIRC EA destroyer bridges were shown at least four or five times, including ACtA & Crusade, plus we got a good look at the Hyperion's bridge in ItB.
As for the layout: I think it was just a command chair, some surrounding railings, a back wall with a door, some perspex map grid things to add light and the illusion of dimension and a couple of standing stations. There was probably no "front" to the thing at all. What I do recall from 'End Game' is the same three extras running in and out of that door, over and over to make it seem like there were a lot more people than there really were. Bit of an old western movie trick that.
That's a good question. I'll have to think about it, but I can't remember many besides M*A*S*H. Just Three's Company springs to mind at the moment.
AGT was perfect, because it brought the events of the premiere full circle, yet left things open-ended. DS9 felt too derivative of B5-- I don't think, like some, that DS9 ripped off B5, but they should have made an effort to make their finale more distinctive, especially considering the accusations. I don't share your low opinion of Voyager, but the finale was awful for several reasons-- not the least of which was Janeway violating all her principles without comment or repercussions (in a plot that was a repeat of an older episode). And Enterprise was just a real shame-- and it could have been saved with just a simple rewrite.
That was probably a little too harsh on my part, though it's more a feeling of the show's overall ethos than an assessment of it's quality. They did some really good episodes over the years, but the reticence to truly commit to the premise and a stubborn refusal to really get into certain character's backstories was a constant source of frustration for me.
I think by the fifth or sixth season I'd actually lost interest and by-and-large didn't bother watching season 7 when it first came on the air. Which is a big deal because at the time I was consuming everything Trek related. It wasn't a typical "angry fan" reaction or anything, just a gradual disinterest in what seem to me like an increasingly boring show. I think it started to set in for me somewhere around the "alien dressed as Nazis" point and solidified somewhere around the "everyone's memory is wiped and now they're miners" two-parter.
By 1) by cutting out the "Trip dies of terminal contrivance" plot. And 2) removing the Riker/Troi 'Pegasus' subplot all together, or saving the reveal that it was all a holodeck simulation until the very end, but keep in shots of Riker hovering in the background as an extra throughout the episode, but don't draw attention to it.
That'd leave a good 20 minute hole in the runtime with which they'd have to fit (*shock horror!*) character development.
Sad news that Ron Thornton, the VFX/CGI wiz of Babylon 5 has passed away after a long illness. From a previous fundraising page:
Ron will always have the gratitude of the B5 community. From all reports he was a wonderful man and mentor to many.
Ron will always have the gratitude of the B5 community. From all reports he was a wonderful man and mentor to many.
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