Babylon 5 and O'Hare's departure.

[Jan]

As for the John Strider name - that was perhaps overstating the Lord of the Rings influence, even for JMS' none-too-subtle tastes.

Or to put it another way, it gave him the image he needed for the writing until an actor was hired. It was never intended to be the final name for the character.

The name Sheridan was decided after Bruce was hired and was based on his interest in the Civil War.

Jan

 

[Pauln6]

I'm not sure of the timing but I *think* I'd even read that O'Hare did his first conventions after the split had been agreed on and was a wonderful ambassador for the show.

He did ComicCon during season one, but also continued doing conventions up til the end of the show.

Marcus' death was meant to set up Ivanova to have a rebound romance with Byron (which is why there's a superficial resemblance between them) which would have caused a lot of dramatic tension when things with the teeps spun out of control and she'd have had to call Bester, wouldn't it?

That's the one scene I really wish Ivanova had been around for; after almost killing Bester earlier in the show in season three, then having her latent telepathy come to the surface by Byron in season five and in the end having to be the one to bring in Bester against telepaths would bring her story full circle.

And for those wondering how he could be revived, a line in the episode was cut indicating that he was put into cryogenic suspension at a moment between life and death.

Also, Joe had promised Jason that his character never would be killed after a practical joke in season 3; so he had to freeze him instead.

I always figured that if Andrea Thompson didn't leave the show there would be no sleeper-program twist, that the whole thing was invented for the sole purpose of getting Talia off the station and out of the show.

Joe said that the twist would have come about around the time of the Messages from Earth/Point of No Return episodes.

Well originally the traitor was Takashima so it might have come to a head much earlier (she would have been the one who shot Garibaldi at the end of season one) but the actress wasn't available to renew the role. She was quite wooden in the pilot (although I think it was the way the director encouraged her to deliver her lines rather than the fault of the actress - I read somewhere that they were thinking of asking her to re-dub her dialogue but I don't know if they ever did).

 

[JoeD80]

She did re-dub her dialogue - to make it "softer" to satisfy a network note. The original way she did the lines is in the Special Edition, and the re-dub is in the original version of the pilot (which can be seen on hulu I think).

 

[JoeD80]

Sorry for the double post, but this isn't related to the above and is instead related back to the Michael O'Hare subject; I had been searching through my notes for this for awhile so hadn't said anything about this yet. I think I might have posted this once before but since this thread was asking, I thought I would add what O'Hare himself said about the subject when asked at the time of season four:

We were just beginning the series and everybody had a different opinion about how they wanted the character to be. To work through all that, and find a character that worked, was hard.

[Joe and I] had some interesting talks. And I agreed with him that the show needed to take another direction. The Sinclair character had reached its pinnacle of definition.

No, [I don't regret leaving]. I regret not seeing my old friends, particularly Mira Furlan and Billy Mumy, but that's the nature of our line of work. You come together, you work close and hard, and the time comes when it's time for you to leave.

 

[RandyS]

JMS tells the story of the casting of Boxleitner in one of the script books. JMS wanted Michael York, but the powers that be said no. I don't remember the details of how it ended up being Boxleitner. IIRC, it was someone else (not JMS) who suggested Boxleitner, but JMS was cool with it (though, again, Michael York had been his first choice).

Maybe someone with that script book handy can fill in the details.

Michael York was definitely JMS' first choice and really wanted to do it but PTEN (not WB) vetoed him because he's British and so is Patrick Stewart so they "were afraid people would think that all future space-faring captains were British".

Jan

In other words, the old, "The audience is too stupid to know what's going on" argument again.

 

[Mr Light]

Michael York for Sheridan? Never heard that one before. I'm definitely glad they went with Boxleiter, he was great in the role.

 

[David cgc]

And if that ain't confusing enough, I invite anyone who can to figure out what the bloody hell is going one with Coplann and Hedronn.

It's been a while since I saw the episode; does it make sense if we assume Hedronn is an alias so Coplann could travel incognito, maybe so the Tragati captain wouldn't realize he'd been found?

 

[Mr Light]

I thought that Sheridan being named as a civil war general was a reference to the Earth Civil War, not Boxleitner.

 

[Jan]

I thought that Sheridan being named as a civil war general was a reference to the Earth Civil War, not Boxleitner.

Might have been both but JMS said this in Volume 3 of the script books:

So once we made the decision to hire him — at which point I was finally able to name his character Sheridan, chosen because Bruce is a big Civil War buff and I knew it would have resonance for him —​

​

There are several examples throughout the show where JMS uses bits of the actors to inform their characters and performances. Delenn berating the Grey Council for not getting involved in 'the afairs of others' harkened back to Mira Furlan's experiences in the former Yugoslavia, for example.

Jan

 

[Reverend]

And if that ain't confusing enough, I invite anyone who can to figure out what the bloody hell is going one with Coplann and Hedronn.

It's been a while since I saw the episode; does it make sense if we assume Hedronn is an alias so Coplann could travel incognito, maybe so the Tragati captain wouldn't realize he'd been found?

It'd make sense, yes and I think that's exactly the assumption put forth in the official chronology, I'm just not sure if there's any basis for that beyond deductive reasoning. By that I mean I've never managed to find any reference to the apparent disparity by JMS one way or the other.
It could be that was precisely the intent when 'Points of Departure' was written or on the other hand it could just be a mistake brought on by the same actor hired to play two different but very similar characters and someone later forgetting that they weren't one and the same. I'd like to clear it up, but I can't seem to find anything concrete.

There are several examples throughout the show where JMS uses bits of the actors to inform their characters and performances. Delenn berating the Grey Council for not getting involved in 'the afairs of others' harkened back to Mira Furlan's experiences in the former Yugoslavia, for example.

Jan

I think there was another Delenn line in season one that might have been a reference to that in 'Midnight on the Firing Line': "You kill them, take their land, they kill you and take the land back."

Though I know it's wasn't a JMS script, wasn't there also something about Richard Biggs's relationship with his father that influenced some scenes from 'GROPOS'? There are probably other examples but that and the one with Mira are the only ones that spring to mind.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

What, no SPAM! Urgh.