B5 spinoff series Crusade not too shabby

[Starfleet Engineer]

What I heard from people here was that this series wasn't worth the time. I've watched the first couple of episodes and must say that I like the cast and the stories aren't too bad. The only problem is Captain Gideon doesn't have the look and his hair is horribly 1978. Otherwise, he acts and sounds like a captain. Daniel Dae Kim seems like a great first officer and the doctor, archeologist/linguist, the alien woman from Call to Arms, and Galen are all pretty interesting.

Another interesting thing is this series seems to take something from Doctor Who and old scifi of the 60s in it's incidental music and, so far, the aliens seems somewhat cartoonish with big heads and big eyes. Also it has some pretty bad CGI effects with that gold dragon and some of the landscapes, which seems usual for something B5 related. (Insert comment about it being state of the art at the time here.)

Also, I'm liking that the series seems to be an attempt at merging space opera scifi with some fantasy.

What's your opinion?

 

[CommodoreKong]

I thought it wasn't great, but it was a decent start to a series, and it really could of gone places. After all, I didn't really like the first season of Babylon 5, but it build a solid foundation, and became one of my favorite Sci-Fi series.

It's really too bad it got canceled so soon, I don't know if it would of been as good as Babylon 5, but I do think it would of eventually become an excellent show.

 

[Reverend]

The effects weren't state-of-the-art at the time, they were just pushing the limits of what could be done with the technology on such a low budget. The biggest challenge for the effects on a show like Crusade is that it's always on the move, not sat still like B5 and a much greater percentage of action takes place on planetary surfaces, which is MUCH harder to get right than lumps of metal flying around in space. I'm sure if the show had continued they would have learned as they went along and taken the technology forward with them. Just look at the difference between the quality of the effects at the beginning of B5's season one and the end of season two and you'll get a pretty good idea how quickly things improved.

As for Crusade itself, I really liked it. If there's one thing Joe seams to do well with running TV shows it's his ability to cast a very good ensemble. What impressed me is that Max Eilerson could so easily have been a one note irritating, greedy smart guy, but instead he became one of the more interesting and three dimensional characters on the show. The only character I didn't care for was the Keffer clone pilot. That character reeked of network notes.

 

[Candlelight]

It was good but not great. The only episode I really liked was Racing the Night. I also didn't mind the network-forced pilot, although I am very much in the minority here.

Couldn't stand the X-Files episode in the 'final five' so to speak.

 

[DS9Continuing]

I personally thought it was very shabby, based on what we actually see from the episodes produced. Had it been given the budget and freedom to do what it wanted, and to actually continue, it good have been a good-to-great series, but as things stand, it wasn't. IMO, naturally. I think a lot of the show's following comes from the mystique of the might-have-beens, not the what-actually-was.

 

[Orac Zen]

I rewatched Crusade earlier this year (or thereabouts) and it was much better than I remembered it being the first time I saw it. Not as good as B5 (what is?) but it had definite potential. Shame it wasn't realised.

Couldn't stand the X-Files episode in the 'final five' so to speak.

Me, either. I know what they were going for but IMO it fell completely and utterly flat.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Starfleet Engineer. You are watching the episodes out of order.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Starfleet Engineer. You are watching the episodes out of order.

Is there any possible way to watch crusade in order?

 

[glindros]

Starfleet Engineer. You are watching the episodes out of order.

Is there any possible way to watch crusade in order?

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/eplist.html#crusade

http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Crusade

The above sites list the suggested viewing order. If you ignore the costume changes, and one or two continuity issues the episodes flow much better, and the series becomes even better.

Hopefully through www.cafepress.com/thejoestore a Crusade script book with the three unfilmed episode scripts will come out some time. jms has also promised a summary on how the series was supposed to develop and end.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I'll never know what an Apocalypse Box is!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I have the whole series on VCD and it is terrible.

One problem is that it appears to have been so underbudgeted that there are episodes where the director doesn't even seem to have gotten enough coverage for the show to be competently assembled. IIRC the series was shot on a very short production schedule - something like six days per hour episode or something.

 

[ATimson]

One problem is that it appears to have been so underbudgeted that there are episodes where the director doesn't even seem to have gotten enough coverage for the show to be competently assembled.

At least some of those problems (especially in "War Zone") comes from changes the network required after shooting was complete.

IIRC the series was shot on a very short production schedule - something like six days per hour episode or something.

The fifth season of B5 was shot on a 6-day schedule, instead of the typical 7 days, so Crusade may well have been too. On the other hand, those six days would have all been in the studio--no mucking about on locations. So that should shorten the time required somewhat.

 

[Mr Light]

Crusade showed a lot of promise that unfortunately never got to manifest. One the one hand, JMS was clearly recycling ideas and dialogue and the standalone episodes weren't that good. On the other hand, Galen is just about the coolest character in the franchise and the Shadow Tech / Technomage mystery was going to be a fascinating story. I highly recommend reading the Technomage Trilogy of novels which explains the entire backstory of Galen, the Technomages, the Shadow Tech in Crusade, and is one of the best stories in the franchise. Also has a ton of straight on fighting in the Shadow War! The Apocalypse Box is never explained in the show. I bought the Crusade Writers Bible back in the day and as I recall it said the ABox was of a set of five and is one of the oldest things in the universe, that it's alive and malicious, and that Gideon would become the Box or be absorbed into it or something like that.

 

[Tulin]

I heard Galen was going to become a mage.

 

[Jan]

I think a lot of people have tended to avoid Crusade since it didn't get very far. Compared to the first season of B5, I think it's much better at developing the story and characters from the get-go.

The fifth season of B5 was shot on a 6-day schedule, instead of the typical 7 days, so Crusade may well have been too. On the other hand, those six days would have all been in the studio--no mucking about on locations. So that should shorten the time required somewhat.

JMS posted that they went back to a seven-day schedule for Crusade.

I heard Galen was going to become a mage.

Galen was already a Techno-Mage. There was some indication that

Spoiler: possible Crusade development

Dureena was going to acquire mage-like powers, though.

(keeping in mind that the original poster hasn't seen all of the episodes)
I really liked Crusade. Yeah, some of the effects bothered even me, who barely notices such things. I really loved the characters, though.

My impression on watching it the first time was generally favorable but the episodes felt...watered down, for lack of a better word. The grey-uniformed ones were much better and I later found out that those were the ones done without much interference.

Jan

 

[Harvey]

The problem with Crusade is that a lot of the episodes are barely above average. "Visitors from Down the Street" was an unfunny and unnecessary mess, too. I don't think you can easily apply the grey uniforms=good episode, black uniforms=bad episode, either, because there were a number of grey uniformed episodes that were just okay.

There was a lot of promise, though. Lochley was finally used in an interesting way on the series, and it showed in Scoggin's performance. I don't lament that it didn't last as long as Babylon 5, but I do lament that it wasn't at least given enough episodes to wrap up the story.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The fifth season of B5 was shot on a 6-day schedule, instead of the typical 7 days...

That's not so very surprising either.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The only character I didn't care for was the Keffer clone pilot. That character reeked of network notes.

I kept hoping that he'd met a similar fate as well. He was superfluous as a character and didn't add much comic relief or eye candy or whatever the hell the network was going for. He was bland all around, much like Keffer.

 

[Jan]

The only character I didn't care for was the Keffer clone pilot. That character reeked of network notes.

I kept hoping that he'd met a similar fate as well. He was superfluous as a character and didn't add much comic relief or eye candy or whatever the hell the network was going for. He was bland all around, much like Keffer.

I thought he did a pretty good job in "Ruling from the Tomb". At least he was able to handle the story of what had happened to him in the past. I gather from one of the "Other Voices" the script books that the actor who played Keffer couldn't handle the one meaty scene he was given in (iirc) GROPOS.

Jan

 

[Neroon]

I never cared at all for Trace, largely because he seemed "shoehorned" into the cast and story. At least he was aprt of the catalyst for one of my favorite lines from the series, in this episode no less:
Dureena: "Gods, I'm drownign in an ocean of testosterone."
Max: "Don't worry, you're equipped with floataton devices."