Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS**

[David cgc]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Well, they would've been married in season 2, probably. And Catherine's job put her out on the Rim a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if she were to go missing in season 2, only to show up as the Shadow's representative to try to seduce Sinclair at the end of season 3, the same way Anna did.

 

[JoeD80]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Personally, I'd like to have seen what we got, just with more of the original ideas in place.

Without all of the original notes we don't have a 100% picture. However, reading the synposis in volume 15 I can see a lot of stuff that was used in the show, and jms said he got 85% of what he wanted in there (I can't find the exact quote, but 85 is the number in my head).

I really do just hate that feeling that they're having to revise things in order to meet a cast change

I don't see this as revising things -- because Sinclair still got to the same place in the arc -- he came to bring Babylon 4 through time so he could use it to fight the shadows, just in the past instead of the future.

We got the civil war story added on top of layers already there. Most of the threads were still played out -- Sheridan & Delenn have a child together; Babylon 4 is ripped through time by Sinclair; all the Narn & Centauri stuff is still there; the big changes seem to be with the Minbari at the end of the series and the final encounter with the Shadows & the Vorlons not taking place until later.

but Sinclair was my favorite character on the show (I do realize I'm in the VAST minority on that) and would like to have seen more of the original vision in place.

I like the Sinclair character too.

Always kind of felt like someone thought O'Hare just wasn't bringing in ratings, and so they brought in the bigger name star to take his place (whether there's any reality to it or not, that's how it felt).

I think the ratings were doing just fine, but I don't have any old copies of Variety to check.

e.g. What would the show have been like if they just revised ideas instead of entire roles?

I think since it was jms' decision, it was the way he wanted it -- he's said that his outlines never survive contact with the story once he gets into it. The only thing during the series that he seemed quite frustated about was when Claudia didn't do season 5. All the other changes seemed to be the way he wanted to do things, or things he didn't have a big problem with adapting to the story.

 

[JoeD80]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Well, they would've been married in season 2, probably. And Catherine's job put her out on the Rim a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if she were to go missing in season 2, only to show up as the Shadow's representative to try to seduce Sinclair at the end of season 3, the same way Anna did.

There isn't any mention of plans for Catherine and Sinclair to be married in the outline, and according to the outline Catherine would have been mind-raped in season 3 and lose her memory and Sinclair would have to do it to her again to restore her memory and wouldn't be able to do it -- and that's when Delenn would start making her moves for the Commander.

edit: BTW, I thought that this scene reminded me of G'Kar & Londo in "Dust to Dust" -- maybe that's where the Dust was going to come into play with Sinclair in place. Just my random thought.

(sorry for double-post)

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

But the same happened / happens / would have happened to Sinclair's wife, so the same direct link applies.

Can you clarify that?

Sinclair didn't have a wife. Catherine Sakai was thrown into the past not captured. And she wasn't part of Sinclair's life when the Shadows were awakened on Z'ha'dum (I think it was) three years before Sheridan took command of B5.

Jan

Although, Sinclair did have a wife in JMS original 13-page treatment:

Excerpt from Babylon 5: A Treatment for a Prime-Time Series, Second Draft dated September 1, 1988. pg. 6

Commander Sinclair is quite attractive, a man widowed some years ago. He doesn't talk about it. He is frequently the object of affection by many of the women he encounters, and while he may sometimes be caught up in some of these relationships, he cannot allow himself the luxury of forgetting his responsibility to Babylon 5, and one sometimes gets the impression that he has never quite gotten over the loss of his wife.

Obviously this was dropped before "The Gathering" and with the addition of Carolyn Sykes.

Emphasis mine

I don't see this as revising things -- because Sinclair still got to the same place in the arc -- he came to bring Babylon 4 through time so he could use it to fight the shadows, just in the past instead of the future.

Which was a better decision since it defied our expectations. Amazingly, even though JMS thought of the Sinclair/Valen connection midway through season one, it still tracks with everything in the early part of that season like the end of "Soul Hunter" "Legacies," and the pilot film.

There isn't any mention of plans for Catherine and Sinclair to be married in the outline, and according to the outline Catherine would have been mind-raped in season 3 and lose her memory and Sinclair would have to do it to her again to restore her memory and wouldn't be able to do it -- and that's when Delenn would start making her moves for the Commander.

But they were engaged to be married in "Chrysalis," an episode that was filmed midway through season one due to its effects; possibly before JMS decision to turn Sinclair into Valen, and before the departure agreement between O'Hare and the show.

I like the Sinclair character too.

Me too.

 

[JoeD80]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

But they were engaged to be married in "Chrysalis,"

That scene totally slipped my mind! The synopsis doesn't mention marriage so I didn't think about it. Maybe it would have been something like they get married and she's mind-raped shortly after to really hit hard.

 

[3D Master]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

But the same happened / happens / would have happened to Sinclair's wife, so the same direct link applies.

Can you clarify that?

Sinclair didn't have a wife. Catherine Sakai was thrown into the past not captured. And she wasn't part of Sinclair's life when the Shadows were awakened on Z'ha'dum (I think it was) three years before Sheridan took command of B5.

If Sinclair remained the man guy, Catherine Sakai would have been captured by the Shadows, and would have returned just like Sheridan's wife instead of going into the past.

 

[Candlelight]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

It's certainly an interesting synopsis. I have to say I much prefer the version we got.

 

[chrisspringob]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Which was a better decision since it defied our expectations. Amazingly, even though JMS thought of the Sinclair/Valen connection midway through season one, it still tracks with everything in the early part of that season like the end of "Soul Hunter" "Legacies," and the pilot film.

Legacies was in the latter half of Season 1. I don't know if we know for sure whether JMS had come up with the Valen connection by then.

 

[Harvey]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Which was a better decision since it defied our expectations. Amazingly, even though JMS thought of the Sinclair/Valen connection midway through season one, it still tracks with everything in the early part of that season like the end of "Soul Hunter" "Legacies," and the pilot film.

Legacies was in the latter half of Season 1. I don't know if we know for sure whether JMS had come up with the Valen connection by then.

To be thorough, it was shown 17th, but was actually the 15th episode to be filmed. Which is only three episodes removed from the 12th episode to be filmed, Chrysalis.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/eplist.html

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Which was a better decision since it defied our expectations. Amazingly, even though JMS thought of the Sinclair/Valen connection midway through season one, it still tracks with everything in the early part of that season like the end of "Soul Hunter" "Legacies," and the pilot film.

Legacies was in the latter half of Season 1. I don't know if we know for sure whether JMS had come up with the Valen connection by then.

My bad, I thought it was sooner in the first season.

Although, I remember a JMS compuserve post on coming up with this idea about the Minbari and their connection to one of the characters midway during that season. And if he pulled it off, it be really really shocking.

Jan, do you recall this?

 

[Jan]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Although, I remember a JMS compuserve post on coming up with this idea about the Minbari and their connection to one of the characters midway during that season. And if he pulled it off, it be really really shocking.

Jan, do you recall this?

I can recall a few 'Eureka' type posts but can't seem to come up with a keyword combination to find it/them in a search.

Jan

 

[Phily B]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

I can see this being spot on. There are some elements there, but it looks like JMS thought that a more hopeful ending would be better - and I for one like this approach.

 

[Phily B]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

However, like was said, nothing is mentioned about Earth or Clarke which was one of the main and (imo) best parts of the series. I think if Sinclair had remained, it would've largely gone the exact same way as it did with Sheridan - escape Sasaki would've gone missing investigating Z'ha'dum in season 2. I have no idea about the Velen situation though, that was one of the parts that was always pretty damn obvious to me - how can Minbari souls have been born into humans if Sinclair hadn't have gone back? How can Delenn have been able to turn part human if she didn't have Sinclair's DNA?

 

[chrisspringob]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

However, like was said, nothing is mentioned about Earth or Clarke which was one of the main and (imo) best parts of the series.

The synopsis does include the assassination of Santiago and Clark taking over (though "Santiago" and "Clark" aren't mentioned by name....it's just the president and the VP). It's just that there's no mention of Clark turning Earth into an Orwellian society or Earth working with the Shadows. My guess is that the idea was that Clark would turn out to be some sort of Psi Corps stooge or something. IIRC, "And the Sky Full of Stars" was filmed pretty early in Season 1, and it features that newspaper headline about Psi Corps endorsing Clark in the election.

I think if Sinclair had remained, it would've largely gone the exact same way as it did with Sheridan - escape Sasaki would've gone missing investigating Z'ha'dum in season 2. I have no idea about the Velen situation though, that was one of the parts that was always pretty damn obvious to me - how can Minbari souls have been born into humans if Sinclair hadn't have gone back? How can Delenn have been able to turn part human if she didn't have Sinclair's DNA?

When people were watching the show back in its first run, we all just accepted that the chrysalis device could turn Delenn part human, well before it was established that she has Sinclair DNA. That part isn't really necessary for the story to work.

Also, with regard to Minbari souls being born into humans, that part isn't necessary for the story to work either. You could just go with the original idea that Sinclair was part of the Minbari prophecy, which the Minbari had to allow to unfold, and *that's* why they stopped the war after they took him aboard their ship.

 

[Goldenfoxx]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

It may not have been explicitly mentioned in the initial plot outline, but I think it's fairly safe to say that by the way things developed in S1, as many of you have pointed out, Sakai was to go out to explore on the rim, find the Shadows, et al, a la Anna Sheridan. There was a LOT being made of her new mission out on the rim by then. I look at it as when O'Hare went, JMS had to rewrite the angle to fit a character with a pre-existing backstory and couldn't re-hash the same territory on film all over again. The whole mind-rape thing looks like it got transferred to Talia (at least that's my take - the whole copying of her personality to data crystal in late S1 seems to indicate to me that he'd already made that decision), and even THAT had to be shelved when Thompson left the show. And THAT'S what bugs me more than anything else - entire story arc segments we got on film that never saw a resolution due to cast changes, and let's face it, S1 was full of that. I go back and watch that entire exchange between Talia and Kosh and just think, "well this is pointless now."

It just bugs me more in O'Hare's case because a> I loved the character, and b> he was the MAIN character. Not complaining about what we got... Just would have liked to have seen more of Sinclair's story (especially in "In the Beginning," where all we got was a rehash of what we already knew and had already seen). I think I also really liked the chemistry between Sinclair and Garibaldi more than Sheridan and Garibaldi (even if the tension did wind up being the focus for most of S4). And it provided us with more than a few inconsistancies when "The War Without End" came around, too. I loved the episode, mind you, but wow, looking back on it some of the resolutions from B^2 felt forced.

And re: Santiago and Clark. You don't HAVE to mention them by name, because the whole thing reeks of Kennedy and Johnson, and the various conspiracy theories to come out of JFK's assassination. If they were going to go with the whole "VP got off the ship because he claimed he had a virus" argument, then that's just ASKING for us to assume the VP's involvement.

 

[Phily B]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Well Chrissrping, that would make a bit more sense as to why they cast Clark as a non-descript actor rather than someone who may have had an episode or two rather than just been an extra (which was my main complain of the Civil War)..but its a decent point and might've been better in execution. But I'm still not sold on a dark ending, or at least an ambigious ending.

 

[Phily B]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

It may not have been explicitly mentioned in the initial plot outline, but I think it's fairly safe to say that by the way things developed in S1, as many of you have pointed out, Sakai was to go out to explore on the rim, find the Shadows, et al, a la Anna Sheridan. There was a LOT being made of her new mission out on the rim by then. I look at it as when O'Hare went, JMS had to rewrite the angle to fit a character with a pre-existing backstory and couldn't re-hash the same territory on film all over again. The whole mind-rape thing looks like it got transferred to Talia (at least that's my take - the whole copying of her personality to data crystal in late S1 seems to indicate to me that he'd already made that decision), and even THAT had to be shelved when Thompson left the show. And THAT'S what bugs me more than anything else - entire story arc segments we got on film that never saw a resolution due to cast changes, and let's face it, S1 was full of that. I go back and watch that entire exchange between Talia and Kosh and just think, "well this is pointless now."

It just bugs me more in O'Hare's case because a> I loved the character, and b> he was the MAIN character. Not complaining about what we got... Just would have liked to have seen more of Sinclair's story (especially in "In the Beginning," where all we got was a rehash of what we already knew and had already seen). I think I also really liked the chemistry between Sinclair and Garibaldi more than Sheridan and Garibaldi (even if the tension did wind up being the focus for most of S4). And it provided us with more than a few inconsistancies when "The War Without End" came around, too. I loved the episode, mind you, but wow, looking back on it some of the resolutions from B^2 felt forced.

And re: Santiago and Clark. You don't HAVE to mention them by name, because the whole thing reeks of Kennedy and Johnson, and the various conspiracy theories to come out of JFK's assassination. If they were going to go with the whole "VP got off the ship because he claimed he had a virus" argument, then that's just ASKING for us to assume the VP's involvement.

I agree with the Sinclair stuff, I loved Sheridan and Boxleitner a lot more, but grew to like Sinclair/O'Hare after re-watching the series, mainly due to knowing his outcome. I just don't think that kind of ending would have worked, I mean I know that having "dark" series is the in thing at the moment but it just didn't leave much to the imagination. Earth seemed pretty screwed, and so did every other race. Maybe it would be better in execution, but I think it was far too dark - especially for the 90s, and even for the current television/movie climate.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

I can recall a few 'Eureka' type posts but can't seem to come up with a keyword combination to find it/them in a search.

Jan

Thanks for your efforts, as always.

I think I also really liked the chemistry between Sinclair and Garibaldi more than Sheridan and Garibaldi (even if the tension did wind up being the focus for most of S4).

I too thought that Sinclair and Garibaldi had better chemistry than Sheridan and Garibaldi, which is a testament to both actors since they apparently, according to Jerry Doyle, didn't get along to well and that Doyle got along more with Bruce.

 

[JoeD80]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

Which was a better decision since it defied our expectations. Amazingly, even though JMS thought of the Sinclair/Valen connection midway through season one, it still tracks with everything in the early part of that season like the end of "Soul Hunter" "Legacies," and the pilot film.

Legacies was in the latter half of Season 1. I don't know if we know for sure whether JMS had come up with the Valen connection by then.

What jms said was it was about 2/3 of the way through season 1. I think that line "You talk like a Minbari" was a D. C. Fontana line -- so maybe it was one of those things that jms read, and then said "Wait a minute!" The first hint that he thought of the Valen story was this post, which was after season 1 had finished production and Michael O'Hare had been announced as leaving the show

Obviously I can't say much about season two plans at this time, since
doing so would destroy the intent of doing some things folks may not expect.
All I can say is that the deeper we got into the series, and the more I *saw*
the dynamics of the characters, the more I kept looking back and forth, from
the Minbari to Sinclair, Sinclair to Minbari, and thinking...hmmm...y'know
what'd be *real* neat...?

And it provided us with more than a few inconsistancies when "The War Without End" came around, too. I loved the episode, mind you, but wow, looking back on it some of the resolutions from B^2 felt forced.

I don't think there's really too many inconsistencies -- you can see about 90% of War Without End plotted out in the synopsis and it works almost exactly the same. They try to take Babylon 4 through time -- the time rift becomes unstable -- they cause a fake emergency to get everyone off -- Sinclair ages prematurely -- Sinclair tries to warn his crew of what's to come. That's all there in that synopsis.

 

[Jan]

Re: Synopsis of JMS's synopsis of the "original arc for B5" **SPOILERS

I think that line "You talk like a Minbari" was a D. C. Fontana line -- so maybe it was one of those things that jms read, and then said "Wait a minute!" The first hint that he thought of the Valen story was this post, which was after season 1 had finished production and Michael O'Hare had been announced as leaving the show.

According to D.C. Fontana's introduction in Other Voices, Vol. 2, JMS only requested two things for the "Legacies" script:

I was asked to add only two elements to the script, both of which had to do with the continuing development of a story arc Joe had started – the ultimate transformation of Delenn. The two additions were: the mention of the chrysalis when Alisa looked into Delenn’s mind and the inclusion of the Grey Council member previously seen in “Sky Full of Stars” to escort Alisa to Minbar. A visual was added in Delenn’s quarters – the crystal sculpture she was constructing which would be seen in other episodes leading to “Chrysalis.”[/FONT]

The "talk like a Minbari" line wasn't in the draft included in the script book but it did appear by the Final Draft dated Dec. 7, 1993. In the script book draft, we saw Sinclair recording his tribute to Bramner rather than just discussing it with Neroon.

I don't think there's really too many inconsistencies -- you can see about 90% of War Without End plotted out in the synopsis and it works almost exactly the same. They try to take Babylon 4 through time -- the time rift becomes unstable -- they cause a fake emergency to get everyone off -- Sinclair ages prematurely -- Sinclair tries to warn his crew of what's to come. That's all there in that synopsis.

The main inconsistancies are in how Zathras showed up on B4 and the gaffe with Delenn's sleeve being different in B^2 and the costume she wore in WWE. Something to keep in mind is that JMS mapped out WWE at the time that he was writing B^2:

This meant mapping out both “Babylon Squared” and “War Without End” at the same time, in considerable detail, despite the fact
that they would air four years apart. On its own that was not too difficult a
task...but there was always the possibility that something could go wrong during
the four years between those two episodes. Actors might choose to leave, there
could be accidents, there’s no way of knowing what could happen. So for each
key scene there had to be an alternate flip-side scene that could be dropped into​

place to fill the gap as precisely as if it had been meant that way all along.

Jan