Leonard Nimoy gets replaced in hypothetical fourth season.

[Warped9]

Babylon 5’s Season 1 made me feel like I had finally found a true spiritual heir to TOS. I loved it. It felt head and shoulders above then contemporary Trek of TNG and DS9. I had been watching DS9, but bailed during the third season because I liked B5 sooo much more (and still do).

I got hooked with B5 in the first season and hung on throughout, although parts of the final season weren’t quite as good as what preceded it. The followup films were a mixed bag. Crusade was an interesting sequel series that was sabotaged from the get-go and regrettably never panned out.

But B5 underlined all the things I felt disillusioned with in then current Trek. It’s why I detested VOY and ENT. And I feel that Trek never recovered—indeed it only got worse with 2009 being the marker where contemporary Trek became genuine garbage and remains so to this day.

 

[johnnybear]

I feel that I preferred B5s seasons 2-5 to be honest as one, the series had only just started and didn't know what to do with itself and Michael O'Hare didn't really seem to be a series lead for me! He was good but not the Shatner type or other leading actors! The Shadow storyline really got going in the second season and that was the big pull of the show!
JB

 

[dupersuper]

I preferred 2 - 4. There was plenty of good stuff in 1 and 5 (and the direct to video films and short lived spin offs), but 2 to 4 were when the serialized nature of the story really fired on all cylinders for me.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

B5 Season 1 is so bad and Season 5 is the surprise that they were told wasn’t happening some way into production on Season 4.

1 and 5 have their moments, but the good stuff is in Seasons 2-4. Especially 4.

 

[johnnybear]

I love the fifth season episode The Fall of Centauri Prime with the Drakh revealed behind the shipping attacks and Londo Mollari meets his Keeper! The strange spidery beast that we met in a possible future in the third season where an old Londo had to get drunk to show Sheridan that he was no longer his own master with a big black thing sitting on his shoulder attached to his neck which punishes him when he fails to do as he is told!
JB

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Landau and Nimoy essentially switching shows as the second lead in both would have been so weird.

Obviously not sure what new character would have been added. They had planned to add a Beatlesesque British character to draw in teen girls for season 2 and that kind of morphed into Chekov, but he's not really the same thing. They also could have promoted another character (most likely Scotty) to XO and the "big three" with Kirk and Bones and then added another background character.

At that point, without Nimoy, I think they would decide to not produce a fourth season.

Err, no, the rest of the cast and production staff aren't going to quit their jobs just because Nimoy didn't come back. Hollywood is tough, most the cast weren't getting much work in the 70's until TMP, they weren't going to say no to another year of steady employment. Nimoy nearly left after the first season and there was no talk of ending the show over it.

 

[BillJ]

Err, no, the rest of the cast and production staff aren't going to quit their jobs just because Nimoy didn't come back. Hollywood is tough, most the cast weren't getting much work in the 70's until TMP, they weren't going to say no to another year of steady employment. Nimoy nearly left after the first season and there was no talk of ending the show over it.

I’m not talking about the cast and production staff, I’m talking about the studio and NBC. Nimoy was a huge part of the show's appeal.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

I’m not talking about the cast and production staff, I’m talking about the studio and NBC. Nimoy was a huge part of the show's appeal.

Well I think if NBC felt the ratings were strong enough (which they didn't in real life obviously) they'd have renewed the show whether Nimoy was back or not. Cast changes were pretty common in 60's TV and it's not like he was even the lead either.