I don't know if I'd go as far as say JMS chickened out on that. Sheridan resigning from Earthforce, for instance... it showed that he was right, but he did it the 'inconvenient way', politically. Doing the right thing comes at a cost sometimes, and that was his. (He was able to get his crew cleared of amy wrongdoings, so he was being a good leader on that front, too.) The fact he was voted in as the first President of the ISA is immaterial to his conversations with Earth.
I was thinking more about how Garibaldi's concerns about Sheridan becoming more and more like a Cult Leader and his eventual betrayal of Sheridan all ended up being a manipulation by Bester, so that the conflict could be resolved easily.
We didn't even get a conversation between Sheridan and Garibaldi later where he tried to apologize and Sheridan says it wasn't his fault.
Or how it seems like Sheridan's wife is a willing convert to the Shadows' side and this will lead to conflict for Sheridan...but then nope! It turns out she's just this mindless drone leading him into a trap so Sheridan can blow her up with no problems.
I look at that lack of conversation between Sheridan and Garibaldi as lack of time due to the how rushed JMS was in finishing off his arcs, not knowing season 5 would even happen.
The thing with Anna though... that could have been a missed opportunity, sure. We don't know for sure if everyone like Justin and Morden are completely of their own mind and going along with the Shadows rather than having been plugged into one of their ships and turned. There's some room for ambiguity there. (Though they both admittedly seem like they are truly pro-Shadow.)
Still Garibaldi betraying Sheridan without the mind control would've been more dramatic and wrenching....of course it also would be the end of Garibaldi as a main character on the show. But if JMS wasn't willing to go all the way he shouldn't have done it to begin with.
I always assumed Morden WAS just another pawn of theirs. He "Felt" it when Londo blew up that Island with all their ships, which I took to meaning that he'd been plugged in as well before being "repurposed" as an Ambassador.
True, Morden did seem to feel it, though I took it more as shock and despair and just realizing what Londo planned.
Bester doing what he did to Garibaldi... I suppose that was a cheat. But it just underscored just how conniving and villainous he is. Especially with his monologue when he 'released' Garibaldi's programming. I thought it was a great twist, personally.
Given the Sheridan / Bester conversation in Earth Dome; they had the conversation offscreen
Also, that episode with the ISN Reporter coming and promising to be fair in his coverage and instead does a total propaganda piece. I know that it's because JMS was trying to make a point about how easily innocent things can be edited to look bad and totally mis-contextualized....
....But I can't believe that Sheridan and the others were so naive to not anticipate this would happen and make sure nothing they said could be misinterpreted.
....But I can't believe that Sheridan and the others were so naive to not anticipate this would happen and make sure nothing they said could be misinterpreted.
They anticipated it, they just thought they were savvy enough to avoid giving the editors anything to work with.
i am still vaguely annoyed by this in the announcement. it WAS on at least two streaming services, one of them free, and i had had a slow burn watch going for almost three years, before they made the aborted attempt at this near the beginning of the year.
on the other hand, several years before that, i couldn't find it anywhere but a weird site that went out of business or something like a month after i started watcing...
JMS currently has a Babylon 5 youtube channel releasing two episodes a week. S1 Chrysalis was just posted.
JMS also posted today that a new interview/discussion on the show between him and Bruce Boxleitner will be posted to the YouTube channel Monday. The first of three parts, each a half-hour or so.
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J. Michael Straczynski - Hang with JMS
A while ago I mentioned that Bruce Boxleitner and I were helping Warners with the launch of their Babylon 5 YouTube channel. As part of that, the first of three brand new half-hour-plus...
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But we know something now, that Precedent Lushenko did not, hell, unless someone here was a super genius, we know something now, that no one knew back in the day except JMS.
Clark had a Keeper.
I mean, they didn't do a very good job watching the episode with all the easily misinterpreted stuff they gave ISN to work with. Really, they should've said no right from the start.
Yes, I understand that this had to happen for the story to work...
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