I finished B5: Crusade

[F. King Daniel]

I finished Crusade a few days ago. It was rubbish, but I kinda enjoyed it in a "it's so bad it's good" kind of way.

The show had no direction: I really don't think they could care less about curing the plague. When the fate of Earth was at stake, Excalibur would appear to be waiting until the end of year 3 (since they've already promised to spend year four shooting down escapees in Earth orbit) before actually trying.

The characters were bland: I'm not sure if Galen ruined the show or saved it. Everyone else was interchangable. Gideon was a clone of Sinclair and Sheridan (and Archer, for that matter). I admit I laughed at Gideon's attempt to get some second-hand Sheridan (his all-time hero) off Lockley (Sheridans ex-wife) .

Nothing was resolved: What's up with Gideon's magic green box (that brings only bad luck and sent the last owner insane - but Giddy somehow thinks it'll work for him)?
Oh yeah - and they never cure the Drakh plague. Did they write a book or something ending it?

 

[Kegg]

The characters were bland: I'm not sure if Galen ruined the show or saved it.

That's an interesting point, actually. I hate Galen, but, he's about the only character that really got a reaction out of me.

We-ell, that is... I liked Max Eilerson. But other than that, feh.

Nothing was resolved:

Show got cancelled.

 

[Faldor]

pfft, I thought it was pretty good, certainly a lot stronger then a lot of B5's first ten episodes

 

[F. King Daniel]

The characters were bland: I'm not sure if Galen ruined the show or saved it.

That's an interesting point, actually. I hate Galen, but, he's about the only character that really got a reaction out of me.

We-ell, that is... I liked Max Eilerson. But other than that, feh.

Nothing was resolved:

Show got cancelled.

I know the show was cancelled, I was just hoping they'd quickly do a rush-job finale. Even a two-second bit at the end where Dr. Frankin appears on the screen and yells "I've got it!" before the credits would have been nice.

 

[Guy Gardener]

technomage trilogy, centauri trilogy. Books. Quite shit. One has vir and Galen taking down the Dhrak on Centaurio prime and the other is bollocks about bolocks especially after we figure out that the technomages had no idea that their abilities were shadow tech because hundreds of years earlier it was decided to suppress thier originis from their own young for no reason what so ever when it would be infiinitely cooler if they were kn complete control of more facts than any one else, especially about themselves.

They made two more movies after crusade. legends of the rangers and babylon 5 talesor some bullshit set in in 2270 which was just a hodge podge of unrelated (yet the themes were similar about the transference of power) anthologies.

Crusade was canceled befopre the first episode aired.

Did you notice they played the episodes out of order?

 

[Mr Light]

The first 13 of Crusade were infinitely better than the first 13. I dunno how it would have gone on, but the show had a great deal of promise. Galen is just about my favorite B5verse character, and I thought Gideon was an excellent lead with mystery and humor and personality. The rest of them, meh.

 

[Theonethatis]

I always liked the relationship between Gideon and Lochley in Crusade. Couldn't stand Lochley in B5 but really liked where they were going with her. I also liked the plot probably because it reminded me of Space Battleship Yamato. The whole off to outer space to save mother earth thing. I kept wanting to say " Its 500 days to the end of humanity. Hurry Excalibur you must retrieve the cure. Not to mention Excalibur had one hell of a Wave Motion Gun.

 

[Mr Light]

I absolutely hated Lochely, though. In B5 and on Crusade. I was so mad that she was the ONE character they carried over.

 

[Aeon]

It's a real shame that Crusade never got the chance it deserved. The plague was just a jump start for the story and I would have loved to see the dark secrets of Earth Alliance and it's many secret projects involving leftover Shadow technology.

 

[DonIago]

Oh gods, the music...the -music-....kudos for JMS for wanting to get away from Christopher Franke for the new series, but...seriously, what was he thinking this time around? Music should enhance image, not distract from it. I'd almost rather watch the series with no music at all than with that scoring.

I'll agree with the others that the beginning of the series was better than the beginning of B5, though I'm not sure how much that's actually saying. Given that the plague wasn't going to be the ultimate centerpiece of Crusade it's hard to say how the series might have turned out. It's a shame that we didn't at least get hints of the overarching story.

 

[Kegg]

Oh gods, the music...the -music-....kudos for JMS for wanting to get away from Christopher Franke for the new series, but...seriously, what was he thinking this time around? Music should enhance image, not distract from it. I'd almost rather watch the series with no music at all than with that scoring.

Evan Chen was pretty terrible in A Call to Arms, but I felt he'd evened out a bit come the first season of Crusade, giving the show entirely serviceable theme music. It's easy to forget that Franke was frankly (ha ha) not very good in the first half of B5's first season too.

I'll agree with the others that the beginning of the series was better than the beginning of B5, though I'm not sure how much that's actually saying.

Not much. Yeah, Crusade was better then the first half of the first season of Babylon 5... but that was pretty downright abysmal in places. It's possible the show might have got better but it wasn't exactly cut down in its prime like Joss Whedon's space opera.

 

[Reverend]

I absolutely hated Lochely, though. In B5 and on Crusade. I was so mad that she was the ONE character they carried over.

Not the only one. Franklin appeared too, as did the same old Drazi & Brakiri Ambassadors. Bester and the back of Garibaldi's head were due to feature in the very next episode before the plug was pulled and I think Sheridan and Delenn were set to pop up somewhere down the line.

Not much. Yeah, Crusade was better then the first half of the first season of Babylon 5... but that was pretty downright abysmal in places. It's possible the show might have got better but it wasn't exactly cut down in its prime like Joss Whedon's space opera.

I wouldn't say there was much of a comparison between Firefly and Crusade, aside from them both being sci-fi shown cancelled before they really had a chance to hit their stride. For one thing, as I recall while Firefly was under constant threat of cancellation there was very little interference from the studio while they were shooting it. Most of the nonsense had to do with the actual broadcast and appears to have more to do with the network drones not understanding what they had.

With Crusade they knew what they had and didn't want any of it. The production crew were messed about by TNT from day one and JMS and the other producers just did their best to accommodate the conflicting demands until it became clear that they were being systematically sabotaged.

As for the shows themselves, I agree that Firefly was clearly the stronger show that did a lot more with less. As much as I like B5 and Crusade there's often a sense of blandness and formality in the way they're shot while Firefly just through the normal rule book out the airlock and ended up much more immediate and (I hesitate to use the term) "gritty."
Mind you, I don't know what the budgetary diference was between the two shows. I've always been under the impression that B5 always had about half as much money as anyone else to do twice as much.

 

[DonIago]

Evan Chen was pretty terrible in A Call to Arms, but I felt he'd evened out a bit come the first season of Crusade, giving the show entirely serviceable theme music. It's easy to forget that Franke was frankly (ha ha) not very good in the first half of B5's first season too.

I dont' find Franke's early music nearly as grating as Chen's, just somewhat uninspiring. I haven't seen Crusade since its initial run, so I'll have to pass on the question of whether his music was improving at all. "Serviceable" sounds like damning with faint praise.

Not much. Yeah, Crusade was better then the first half of the first season of Babylon 5... but that was pretty downright abysmal in places. It's possible the show might have got better but it wasn't exactly cut down in its prime like Joss Whedon's space opera.

I've never picked up S1 of B5 on DVD specifically because I know I'd end up cherry-picking episodes to the point that it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Kegg]

I dont' find Franke's early music nearly as grating as Chen's, just somewhat uninspiring. I haven't seen Crusade since its initial run, so I'll have to pass on the question of whether his music was improving at all. "Serviceable" sounds like damning with faint praise.

I don't exactly wax eloquent about Franke, though, who could be uneven throughout Babylon 5's run and gave us a postively unbearable title theme for the fifth season. Chen basically evolved from being annoying to blandly unmemorable.

I wouldn't say there was much of a comparison between Firefly and Crusade, aside from them both being sci-fi shown cancelled before they really had a chance to hit their stride.

Actually, they're both ship based space opera sci-fi shows cancelled midway through their first season, so I'd argue the comparison is pretty useful. It's easy to see off the bat Firefly had a more interesting ensemble and better acting, for example; and further handles the mixture of standalone narrative and arc material better. And the humour is nothing like that terrible X Files episode (and the JMS quotes I've found seem to indicate he was proud of that abomination, but I disgress).

Mind you, I don't know what the budgetary diference was between the two shows. I've always been under the impression that B5 always had about half as much money as anyone else to do twice as much.

My understanding is Firefly was a bit of a bundle and that's why it wasn't renewed on Sci-Fi or whatever.

 

[shivkala]

I actually liked Crusade, but I think that's because I read the scripts of the remaining unfilmed episodes of season 1 before I saw most of the filmed episodes. FWIW, JMS intended for the cure to be found early on in the show. The script for the season finale revealed that not only were there factions from Earth using Shadowtec, the Technomages were using Shadowtec as well (as also revealed in the Technomage trilogy of books). Gideon found this out and was shot by a sniper because of it.

 

[DarKush]

I thought Crusade had a lot of potential and I wished TNT had given it a chance, and without all their interference. I didn't care for Galen though I didn't mind him in the B5 Lost Souls DVD. But on Crusade, he didn't work for me. I liked Gideon from what I recall. I think there was a bit more darkness beneath the surface with him than with Sinclair or Sheridan. Eilerson (sp) was also good. Nureena? (sp), the alien thief, I thought she left an impression. She played the anti-hero well. There wasn't enough time to develop Matheson or the Doctor, though with Matheson being a telepath, I'm sure that would lead to interesting stories down the road. So, overall, I thought the cast had potential.

The plague story was interesting, but I felt the FX took a step backward from the later seasons of B5. The Drakh effects were atrocious. I thought the Excalibur ship was pretty neat. I also liked the black or darker uniforms over the red and gray ones, which made the crew look like bellhops.

As for the post-B5 novels, I remember Crusade getting a little mention in the Centauri trilogy, which I thought was excellent BTW, and wish they had filmed it as a series of telefilms.

 

[Booji]

The first 13 eps of Crusade were vastly superior to the first half of season 1 of B5. From the the acting, to the stories, to the music, everything was way better.

The music i especially enjoyed. Evan Chen wasn't a static composer, i think that's why Franke fans don't like his tunes. With Franke, you knew you were getting synth-orchestral week in, week out. With Chen, the dude was all over the place. Very jazz like in some ways.

I also thought the characters of Max Eillerson and Galen were superb, both in how they were written and the performances of the actors.

There was some crud here and there, but overall the show was great. Having read the scripts for the rest of season 1, this show would have crapped all over B5. Way more interesting on every level.

 

[RandyS]

Crusade wasn't a bad show, but it hardly held a candle to Babylon 5, first ten episodes or otherwise. For me, Babylon 5 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When they tried to go the Star Trek route and turn it into a franchise, that's what ruined it.

 

[Stevil2001]

Crusade just baffles me, because it seems to have been made by someone who's never even watched a TV show. Many of the episodes lack tension, conflict, or basically anything necessary for drama.

I like the music-- I used to listen to the soundtrack CD a lot-- but not as a dramatic score.

 

[Jan]

Crusade wasn't a bad show, but it hardly held a candle to Babylon 5, first ten episodes or otherwise.

I disagree. Let's look at the first ten produced B5 episodes:
101 - Infection
102 - Soul Hunter
103 - Midnight on the Firing Line
104 - Born to the Purple
105 - Believers
106 - And the Sky, Full of Stars
107 - The War Prayer
108 - The Parliament of Dreams
109 - Grail
110 - Mind War

Can you tell me that, given these episodes, you could get any accurate idea of what Babylon 5 was really going to be about?

The other scripts that were written but unproduced would have given us a better picture of what Crusade would have become if they'd been filmed:

Spoiler: Crusade unfilmed episodes

Value Judgments - The Bester episode
The Ends of the Earth - where Gideon learns more about the ship that destroyed the Cerberous
End of the Line - the first season finale where we learn about Earth's involvement with that ship

These would have given us more about the long-term direction of the story in much the same way as Chrysalis, Signs and Portents and Babylon Squared did.

For me, Babylon 5 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When they tried to go the Star Trek route and turn it into a franchise, that's what ruined it.

Ruined what? B5 or Crusade? Or the experience? Couldn't ruin B5 because B5 was already there, unchanged and already experienced. Couldn't ruin Crusade because TNT got there long before anybody else could.

I look at Crusade as a completely separate show that happens to be set in the B5 universe. I wouldn't have minded if no B5 characters had ever shown up in it, except in dialog.

But for those listing B5 characters that were shown on Crusade, we also saw the ISN anchor, Jane, and would have seen Lyta and the back of Lennier if negotiations with the Pat Tallman had worked out.

I liked the characters we got in Crusade. I think my favorites were Dureena and Eilerson but I found Gideon intriguing and Galen a lot of fun.

Jan