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After A Call To Arms I liked Crusade's concept and potential. But from the get-go there was interference in the show's production and JMS might simply couldn't have given a shit anymore.
I didn't mind the music in Crusade at all. I thought it fitted the otherworldly bizarre tone of the series. It wasn't as straightforward as B5 was it was a little more out-there.
I can't help but laugh at those people who complain about Crusade's music, and point to how great Babylon 5's music is. The pilot - the original pilot - had a completely different musician. When the show went to series, Franke's music was criticized over and over again. Then it became what people liked.
Had Crusade gone on to a full 5 seasons, people would have grown to love that music too. *shrug*
I tend to agree. It's certainly jarring at first but it does grow on you. Having said that I have to admit that while it works very well in establishing shots and atmospheric scenes, when it comes to the action scenes the music just utterly fails to support the footage.
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:
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.
By "ruin it" I was referring to my enjoyment of Crusade. It seemed to me that the story told in Babylon 5 was clearly self-contained and once it was done, it was DONE. By doing another show in the same universe, they were obviously attempting to create another franchise to compete with Star Trek. A bad idea? Not really, it"s just that in this case, it wasn't necessary. Babylon 5 told it's story and ended, and that was good enough. It didn't help (and I'm speaking strictly for myself here) that Crusade just wasn't as good as Babylon 5. Yes, even the first ten episodes. From my viewpoint, their quality in relation to each other doesn't matter, because of the two, I think that Babylon 5 was the better show.
But I do agree with you on one thing, I liked Dureena too.
Crusade was a good idea that didn't pan out. It's too bad because if done right it could have tread in Trek's territory and been better at it than what Paramount pumped out. It looked very much like the kind of space adventure that I could have really got into.
That said I didn't really care for some of the casting. And Galen just annoyed the piss out of me.
The Excalibur would have made a very cool model kit.
I can't help but laugh at those people who complain about Crusade's music, and point to how great Babylon 5's music is. The pilot - the original pilot - had a completely different musician. When the show went to series, Franke's music was criticized over and over again. Then it became what people liked.
Had Crusade gone on to a full 5 seasons, people would have grown to love that music too. *shrug*
Well, I guess I'm happy to be entertaining...but I never said B5's music started out great. That being said, while I own the score for Chrysalis, I can't see myself picking up any music from earlier B5 episodes.
It's possible the Crusade music would have improved. We'll never know now...all I know is that, for me, what was out there was a shocking and disappointing change from what had come previously. I'd rather not notice the music than notice it as I did in this case.
I certainly am not among those people who would claim that the music for the B5 pilot was great, as a) doubtful IMO, and b) I realize the score used originally wasn't done by Franke.
I'm not aware of Franke's music being criticized originally, but I'd be curious to hear more about that, and exactly when the criticism tapered off.
If Chen's Crusade music style for early in the series was maintained throughout, I might have grown to -tolerate- it, but not love it. The simple fact that I remember the Crusade music when I only saw the episodes once is alarming enough.
Crusade stands as a testament to how network interference can ruin a show. Any direction that the series had was utterly ruined before it aired by nonsensical and contradictory directions from the network.
I'd imagine its fairly difficult to establish a strong foundation for a series when you don't even know which episode will end up airing first. The ludicrous situation they found themselves in with the uniforms is just one example.
I enjoy Crusade for what it is, but it could've been so much more.
JMS has said that he'd probably put that in the upcoming "Crusade: What the Hell Happened?" script books. Given that TNT's input was there even before the series was contracted, it's hard to say whether there ever was a definitive vision the way there was for B5, though.
Gideon was okay, but I'd rather have had a different actor than Gary Cole. Cole is a good actor, but I just think he was wrong for the part.
Actually in an ideal world I'd love to have seen Captain Susan Ivanova commanding the Excalibur. The down side is that Sheridan could have been accused of favoritism.
^ Yeah because he's never done anything that could be construed along those lines, like oh say...giving his ex-wife a high profile job running a space station or making his fiancée his Vice President and putting her private little army of highly trained infiltrators incharge of galactic security...
^ Yeah because he's never done anything that could be construed along those lines, like oh say...giving his ex-wife a high profile job running a space station or making his fiancée his Vice President and putting her private little army of highly trained infiltrators incharge of galactic security...
Well, at least they've never met. There were probably plenty of people who thought Sheridan was hot shit just from hearing about him on the news. Heck, Mars alone probably wanted to rename the planet after him for twisting Earth's arm into making them full members of the Earth Alliance.
The down side is that Sheridan could have been accused of favoritism.
