Babylon 5 Direct-To-DVD Project In Production 194
ajs writes "As previously announced, 'Babylon 5: The Lost Tales' is a direct-to-DVD project based on the popular series from the mid-1990s. Lost Tales first DVD, titled 'Voices of the Dark' has now begun production. As usual, J. Michael Straczynski and Doug Netter will be running the show with Straczynski directing. The characters, President John Sheridan (Boxleitner), Captain Elizabeth Lochley (Scoggins) and the technomage Galen (Woodward) are returning. The Lost Tales is an anthology series of sorts with two movies (previously three) per DVD starting in 2007. Straczynski has commented on Usenet that a more CG-intensive installment is coming in the next batch, featuring the character of Michael Garibaldi (Doyle)."
Firefly? (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't take the sky from me!
Re:CGI and Garibaldi (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Babylon 5's time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Babylon 5 helped to establish that a TV show with a defined story arc could be successful. If you walked into Babylon 5 during season 3, you'd be completely lost. Yet because of the defined arc, those who did follow it followed it very loyally. The real struggle though was if you didn't start from the beginning it was hard to catch up.
Well since they broke that ground we've seen the advent of two things that make such shows possible:
1) Season by season DVD releases of TV shows
2) ITunes
With Lost, for example, I heard good things about it all during the first season but never got around to watching it. AS the second season approached I decided to give it a try. After watching two episodes I was totally hooked. A friend of mine just finished the season one DVD's in a marathon and is now eagerly awaiting netflix to deliver season 2. Then for season 3, they can catch up via Itunes.
But ultimately Babylon 5 is what broke this ground and whatever may be said about it's production values, it did make for some great televison that even now is relevant. Go back and watch Intersections in Real Time as a prime example. This is the episode where Sheridan is tortured to get him to turn against his friends in favor of the government. Now go and read about waterboarding and some of the crap that's legal for our government to do to people right now and it's just chilling.
Re:Babylon 5's time... (Score:4, Interesting)
I suppose Karl Rove is avid fan for character Mr. Morden
Re:I never saw the appeal of this series (Score:3, Interesting)
Some (I'm no longer recalling which) of these episodes earned awards, but I always thought that they existed on a level above simple annual awards. These were episodes that moved the bar in terms of TV show-writing. They made the episodic noise coming from the Star Trek folks seem rather dull and uninteresting (though I will note that even through the terrible filter of the Star Trek machine, Ron Moore's work on DS9 shown through).
Sit down and watch B5 in small chunks (1-2 episodes at a time, with a day or two between at least). Talk to people about the episodes you've seen. Invariably, people who "marathon" the seasons don't enjoy them nearly as much... I think that, much as there is an arc, there is a pacing that's uniquely aimed at serial viewing with plenty of time between to think about what's going on, and what the last episode did to the story. Once you get to Signs, if you still think the series takes a while to warm up to (compared to something like BSG which I was still iffy about up to the end of season 1, and into season 2, but now love), then I guess you and I just appreciate different things in our SF, and cheers to you.
The acting (Score:4, Interesting)
And often not. Some of that Eastern European talent was first rate.
Some of what looked like terrible acting wasn't. Sinclair seemed aimless, wooden, forced -- and that was a precise and workmanlike portrayal of the character, a purposeless man who wasn't sure why he was alive, was numbed by PTSD and survivor guilt, and pushing himself through the motions of being a diplomat. G'Kar didn't seem like much in the first season, but when the character grew enough to give Andreas Katsulas scope for his ability, he shone.
Re:I never saw the appeal of this series (Score:2, Interesting)
B5 just seemed to play on a grander stage. Other sci-fi is concerned with a small group, and the "powers they be" are often abstracted. How much do we know about the United Federation of Planets anyway? What are the member worlds? Who are their representatives? What are their meetings like? Do you often time have conflicts among member worlds? What about Starfleet Academy? Who runs it? How did they get that job? What are their motives? This were all questions that B5 jumped right into.
CC's departure from B5 (Score:1, Interesting)
a) Lurker's guide to B5 coverage, http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html [midwinter.com]
b) Google groups archive of rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, a search for all words, Claudia Christian contract, in that group gives a nice selection.
To set the stage... the fifth season was totally up in the air. Previously, B5 had aired on in syndication via an entity called PTEN, but by the end of season 4, the syndication market was drying up as previously independent stations were vacuumed up by Fox, WB, and UPN. All of the talent had contracts with some sort of a drop-dead date for WB (the production arm, not the network) to pick up their option for a fifth season. As the drop-dead date approached, somehow or another they got negotiations going with TNT to pick up season 5 (as well as IIRC reruns), but there was no arrangement in time for the lapsing of the talent's contracts.
To buy more time, WB asked for short extensions from the talent, and got them from everyone but CC. Consequently, she was out of contract, and a new contract would have to be arranged prior to the start of production. I'm not sure to what extent there was ongoing negotation to try to get her back under contract, but the long and short of it is, at the point where they absolutely had to know whether she was in or out, there was no contract, so she got written out of the story.
There was some speculation during the days when this was playing out that there was a lapse in communication or CC's agent tried to play hardball without fully consulting her. However, subsequent statements from jms about the interactions of he and cast members with CC make it pretty clear that she was aware of the situation and the deadlines, although possibly she didn't fully realize that the final deadline was nonnegotiable (due to the production schedule requirements for when scripts would be written). I believe she tried to claim at one point that WB or jms didn't want her back, and has since backpedaled from that position.
Based on subsequent statements, it seems fairly likely that a movie deal got in the way. It's not as clear what the sticking point was. jms has stated that CC's reps wanted her to be paid for 22 episodes while only working 18, and WB was understandably not willing to go along with that (not least because previously, Stephen Furst had worked a reduced schedule due to an outside TV commitment and was only paid for episodes worked). There was some talk about her wanting availability for specific dates contractually, with jms saying that he could give a personal assurance of that but it couldn't be contracted; I don't know whether one side or the other was taking an extraordinary position there, or whether that was ultimately the breaking point. Considering the number of parties involved (jms, CC, her agent, WB, whoever the outside movie deal was with), there may have been inadequate communication of the various sides positions. Also, CC (or her agent) may have overestimated how much she was "needed" by B5 (although there was already ample evidence that jms was willing and able to write anyone out of the story if circumstances dictated, see Talia Winters).