Babylon 5: All the things that weren't

[Jan]

JMS had been told on no uncertain terms that season 4 was going to be the last. After Season 3, the PTEN network no longer existed and they barely scraped up enough channels to carry B5 to allow for a 4th season. There's a post over at JMSnews.com that I don't have time to look for right now that explains what he did to ensure that as many threads as possible would be covered.

Jan

 

[DigificWriter]

^ Hmm. It seems as if, given that situation, the 'fallback' plan for S4 ought to have been the original plan, but, anyway, I digress.

I've been wondering something lately that has less to do with what 'might've happened' and more to do with my own curiosity about B5 fans' feelings on the matter: would it have made more sense for the events of A Call to Arms and Crusade to have been covered as part of the fifth season of B5 even in periphery?

 

[Sindatur]

^ Hmm. It seems as if, given that situation, the 'fallback' plan for S4 ought to have been the original plan, but, anyway, I digress.

I've been wondering something lately that has less to do with what 'might've happened' and more to do with my own curiosity about B5 fans' feelings on the matter: would it have made more sense for the events of A Call to Arms and Crusade to have been covered as part of the fifth season of B5 even in periphery?

I believe the Telepaths arrival on B5 was meant to start slowly in late S4, and stretch the Civil War into S5, so The Telepath arrival would've been more smooth and S5 wouldn't have felt so much like starting from scratch or the first half being so Telepath heavy, so, I think had that been done, there wouldn't be room to add in Crusade and A Call To Arms without cutting the good stuff. I think S5, second half is as good as any other chunk of the show, it's only the clunky "start over" and too large a focus on the Telepath infiltration in the beginning of S5 that hurts the season.

 

[Lighthammer]

^ Hmm. It seems as if, given that situation, the 'fallback' plan for S4 ought to have been the original plan, but, anyway, I digress.

I've been wondering something lately that has less to do with what 'might've happened' and more to do with my own curiosity about B5 fans' feelings on the matter: would it have made more sense for the events of A Call to Arms and Crusade to have been covered as part of the fifth season of B5 even in periphery?

Call to Arms and Crusade came a lot from direction of TNT. JMS worked closely with TNT to design a series that fit what they were looking for and tried hard to make season 5 compatible there in.

Knowing after the fact how wishy washy TNT was, I think we can infer some of the main story pushes in season 5 was because, at the time of writing the scripts for those episodes, the idea appealed to TNT, after they aired, TNT changed their mind.

To that end --- I have no proof or knowledge that this was the intent at any given point, but it wouldn't surprise me if at the start of Season 5, JMS was planning on the next series being based on the Telepath War. Direction from TNT may have changed that significantly.

 

[Sindatur]

^ Hmm. It seems as if, given that situation, the 'fallback' plan for S4 ought to have been the original plan, but, anyway, I digress.

I've been wondering something lately that has less to do with what 'might've happened' and more to do with my own curiosity about B5 fans' feelings on the matter: would it have made more sense for the events of A Call to Arms and Crusade to have been covered as part of the fifth season of B5 even in periphery?

Call to Arms and Crusade came a lot from direction of TNT. JMS worked closely with TNT to design a series that fit what they were looking for and tried hard to make season 5 compatible there in.

Knowing after the fact how wishy washy TNT was, I think we can infer some of the main story pushes in season 5 was because, at the time of writing the scripts for those episodes, the idea appealed to TNT, after they aired, TNT changed their mind.

To that end --- I have no proof or knowledge that this was the intent at any given point, but it wouldn't surprise me if at the start of Season 5, JMS was planning on the next series being based on the Telepath War. Direction from TNT may have changed that significantly.

Nah, the Telepath War was never intended to be a long drawn out War, the original Theatrical Movie was apparently going to cover the Telepath War. Definitely not enough there for a whole Series.

I believe it could've been a multi-episode arc, or sprinkled throughout a Season, but, that's about it, I believe. Timelines, I think don't allow it to have been longer than 6 months, if that

 

[Reverend]

I also think the term "Telepath War" leaves one with a false impression of the scale of the conflict. The impression I get from the novel, unfilmed script and short story that touched on it is that it wasn't a big conflagration, like say the Earth Alliance Civil War. See Garibaldi's interview with Edgars for an idea of what kind of fight it was.

I think there's even a line somewhere where Bester scoffs at the news referring to it as the "Telepath Crisis". *He* (and presumably others like him) thought of it as a war, but to most mundanes it wasn't anything of the sort. On the surface at least, it probably resembled a terrorist campaign with Lyta's forces using guerilla tactics, bombings, ambush, assassination etc. Public opinion probably didn't even swing in the blips' favour until ISN broadcast footage of the first Psi Corps "re-education camp" liberation.

 

[Lighthammer]

The books certainly give even material for a 3ish year long series --- besides that, just like the Shadow War, there's a lot of building and then rebuilding that goes into the entire story.

I've too heard the intent was to do things in movies, but what I am saying is, while the scripts were still being penned, I wouldn't doubt the idea of a series may have been on JMS's (or maybe even TNT's) mind.

Do keep in mind, this thread is about all the what ifs.

 

[DigificWriter]

I really would've liked to have seen what might've happened if Lyta had been able to appear in flashback during the events of Crusade as was originally planned. I'm in the middle of Season 4 right now and I really like her character. Talia is still my favorite out of the two, but Lyta is pretty awesome nonetheless, and I think it would've been neat to have seen her one last time even though it would've meant watching her die.

 

[Harvey]

To that end --- I have no proof or knowledge that this was the intent at any given point, but it wouldn't surprise me if at the start of Season 5, JMS was planning on the next series being based on the Telepath War. Direction from TNT may have changed that significantly.

For those who have the script books on hand, I believe one of the later volumes (perhaps the elusive fifteenth one?) has a description of the original spin-off plans. Not a telepath war series, as I recall, but something that would have brought along a number of regulars from the original program.

 

[Candlelight]

To that end --- I have no proof or knowledge that this was the intent at any given point, but it wouldn't surprise me if at the start of Season 5, JMS was planning on the next series being based on the Telepath War. Direction from TNT may have changed that significantly.

For those who have the script books on hand, I believe one of the later volumes (perhaps the elusive fifteenth one?) has a description of the original spin-off plans. Not a telepath war series, as I recall, but something that would have brought along a number of regulars from the original program.

You mean the Babylon Prime story? I think considering half that story was condensed into Babylon 5, the original plan probably went out the window quite early on.

 

[Harvey]

No, I was thinking of a spin-off series (with the rangers, maybe?) that would have included several regulars, including Sheridan. Sorry I can't be more specific -- the books are at my parents home in another state and it's been over two years since I've read them.

 

[Jan]

The original spin-off would have been the Babylon Prime story which was mainly collapsed into the main series. But during the 5th season JMS did a number of proposals for the spin-off for TNT which ranged from a series featuring some of the regular cast plus rangers building the Interstellar Alliance all the way to no reference to the original series at all. One minute they wanted a close connection to the original series, the next minute they wanted no connection at all.

Jan