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Talia staying on Babylon 5 **SPOILERS**

Joe Washington

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
I wonder how the show would have been like the B5 staff had found a way to keep Talia’s sleeper personality from taking over, saving Talia’s personality from destruction. Would Ivanova and Talia had hooked up? And what would have happened to Marcus and his crush on Ivanova? What about Talia and Lyta who are both powerful telepaths?
 
^this, Kosh would have used the data crystal from the first season to restore her personality and Lyta would have been a footnote in B5 histroy like Lt. Cmdr Takashima
 
JMS has touched on Talia had she remained onboard the station I believe...can't remember what he said but the above sounds correct.
 
I also assumed that the crystal would have been used to restore her personality but it still could, assuming that Lyta was programmed by the Vorlons to do this (I don't think for one second that Psi Corp really dissected a loyal agent with stable telekinetic powers). It may even be that Talia's original(?) personality has already been restored and that she is working as a sleeper in Psi Corps.

Takashima was originally to be the traitor but that aspect changed when the actress was unavailable. Thus the baffling scene with Talia and Kosh was great foreshadowing of them tweaking the plot that didn't really amount to much. The only problem then is that Takashima was meant to be the one who knocked out the security to allow the disiguised minbari to poison Kosh in the pilot and that aspect remains unexplained now.

I've heard different things about how the plot would have developed if Talia had stayed. JMS said he planned for Lyta and Talia to appear together in series 3 so I expect Lyta would just have had a few guest appearances with Talia continuing to appear in 7 episodes per season (as it was, Lyta only had two appearances in season 3) before Talia being revealed as the traitor. I wish Andrea had stayed on for another year because I think it would have been better if they'd had the chance to work a bit harder on the love triangle before turning her evil. Andrea was also aware of the possibility of her returning as Bester's assistant, which would have been great fun but for whatever reason (probably scheduling as she left to do regular guest slots on a few other shows like JAG) nothing ever came of it.

If Andrea had been given a few more episodes per season she might have hung on, and her character could certainly have carried more episodes but I don't know how her divorce from Jerry Doyle might have affected her decision (I'm not sure when they split up).

It's possible that Lyta's enhanced powers are supposed to be as a result of Talia's scans. I really liked Lyta being a messenger for the Vorlons and I can see that aspect could have remained hers while all the other plot elements (the rebel telepaths, increasing powers etc) would have been interchangable with Talia.
 
If Talia stayed, she would have been the traitor in "Point of No Return" not some random security guard who never even got a name :p Then Kosh would have swooped in out of nowhere and deux ex machina'd her back to normalcy with the recording chip. Then Talia would have gone on to be the Vorlon telepathic super weapon that Lyta was in the later seasons.
 
Definitely. She was a terribly stiff actress but so was the character. Lyta was fun. And prettier.
 
If Talia stayed, she would have been the traitor in "Point of No Return" not some random security guard who never even got a name
I think that's it. JMS stated in an interview that Talia's buried personality was revealed about eight episodes earlier than planned.
 
Seriously?!?!?! :eek:

Yup, was at Shore Leave the convention in Maryland were she was a guest. I was at the pool when she came in with her son. I went into the hot tub and a few minutes later she joined me. I said hello but that was it. I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable, so I pretended not to know who she was.
 
I recall reading an interview where JMS said that Garibaldi had spoken with Kosh about the recording of Talia's personality but after she vanished with little fanfare, it was just dropped. I remember in one of the books about Bester after the telepath war, Garibaldi seems to think that Talia's "normal" personality was the fake one, designed to gain trust while the nasty one was Talia's true self. I think i like that explanation better.
 
I think Lyta was a more enjoyable character, although Talia's uptightness worked well for the way in which she developed. Although it is more elegant, I think the problem with Talia's real personality being the 'evil' one is that it contradicts the episode where she meets her former lover (was it Ironheart?). If she'd been a wrong un back on Earth, surely he would have had no reason to trust her and this leads us to question why Kosh would want recordings of a fake personality. We have to turn her into a sleeper at an earlier and earlier date and it starts to become very implausible. It makes more sense that Psi Corps would send in a conditioned sleeper after 'debriefing' Lyta.

Talia's ultimate fate remains a mystery but she could be restored. I was always hoping that if they ever did a telepath war movie, restoring Talia would be a key aspect. It looks like that story will never be told, which is very disappointing. Instead JMS pedals inconsequential stories that lead to drifting apathy towards the franchise - get on and reslove this already!
 
Julie Caitlin Brown is a lot of fun too. I really wish the make-up glue could have been adjusted so that she could have done a few more guest appearances as Na'Toth. That's even more of a shame than losing Talia.
 
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