Babylon 5 Vs Crusade; some thoughts, rants and questions - WARNING: possible spoilers

[dehro]

So.. I've gone through all 5 series of B5, watched the movies and am now halfway through Crusade.
I've also read several entries of wikipedia and the dedicated wikia, and this has brought up some doubts and questions..

firstly..wtf happened with the writing, casting level and overal quality drop between B5 and Crusade? B5 had some very strong moments and some less so, but the acting, script and overal performance of all parties involved was more often than not above par.
Crusade.... meh.. it's like they've let the understudies go to town, and plucked scripts and dialogues from the "reject bin".
I can understand a smaller budget might affect the production, the CGI and all..but the stories surely can keep up the good work done on B5??
what on earth happened?
watching B5 series back to back one cannot help but feel that it's all one long story, mostly coherent and always mindful of the main plot.
on Crusade it seems to me that the main plot (find a cure or we're all dead) is placed so far in the background that it's not even worth connecting Crusade to B5 at all.
what gives?

[comicshorse]

As I heard it ( and this is only the rumour I heard)JMS wanted to start 'Crusade' in the middle of the search trusting the audience to figure out what was going on, the first episode actually being 'Every Night I dream of Home'. However a few months before it was due to air the network decided this wouldn't work and insisted he shoot a load of other episodes to spoon feed the story to the audience. This leaves many epsiodes having to be thrown together in just a few months in order to satisfy the network and unsuprisingly when done under such a deadline they're pretty crappy.

[dehro]

meh..such a shame. the regular series already didn't properly "finish" the stories (had to check the wikia to find out who goes where afterwards)... to end it on a low key like Crusade is a real pity..

[bloodtide]

You also get the size and scope problem. B5 is about the whole galaxy and aliens and lots and lots of stuff. Crusade is about one little ship. B5 had aliens, the Shadows, random humans and Earth itself all as enemies.....and the enemy on Crusade was....time?

[factotum]

Crusade is about one little ship.

To be fair, one *big* ship (by the standards of the B5 universe) :smallwink:. In Star Trek terms, the setting of Crusade was Voyager to Deep Space 9, and we know how relatively well those series turned out, don't we? Maybe if the network had given the series a chance and let it find its feet it might have turned into something good, but as it is, it's not really worth watching.

[Jimorian]

Yeah, the amount of network (TNT) meddling on Crusade was unbelievable, even by normal standards. This also explains the uniform changes (and the way the PR aspect of that in-universe was mocked) part way through.

JMS tells the story at conventions that one network suit wanted to add a dog to make the show family friendly, while another one wanted one of the main characters to attempt to rape one of the other main characters. This is where the phrase "why don't we just rape the dog?" comes from.

Finally, TNT called JMS to a meeting, him sitting at a huge table with 15 executives. They gave him 20 pages of notes. He sat down with them all watching him and read the whole packet. When he was done, he put it down, and said "No."

"No to what?"

"No to page 1, no to page 20, no to every page in between."

Crusade was canceled soon after that meeting.

The problem was that when TNT picked up B5 to complete the 5th season, the part of the network running it was the office in L.A. that knew they had a good thing and just let JMS finish his vision as he saw fit. When TNT picked up Crusade as a new series, it was suddenly a "flagship show" for the network and the executroids in Atlanta had to get in on the act and put their grubby little fingerprints all over it to justify their salaries, even though they knew crap about TV drama.

One of the writers is a friend of mine, so there's a LOT more about all this that I still can't post about, but the problem wasn't the writing of the episodes as they were originally intended. The main question about Crusade is more along the lines of "how did they manage to make it as good as it was with so much interference?"

[Muz]

One of the writers is a friend of mine, so there's a LOT more about all this that I still can't post about, but the problem wasn't the writing of the episodes as they were originally intended. The main question about Crusade is more along the lines of "how did they manage to make it as good as it was with so much interference?"

Please do, if you have time. :smallsmile:

[Friv]

Please do, if you have time. :smallsmile:

I'm pretty sure that he means he has access to confidential information, which he cannot in good conscience share on a public forum.

[Tiki Snakes]

I'm pretty sure that he means he has access to confidential information, which he cannot in good conscience share on a public forum.

I wonder if any of the Wikileaks staff are Babylon 5 fans... :smallwink:

Not like it'd affect the chances of further babylon 5 related stuff at this point, (and more's the pity I've no doubt).

[Muz]

I'm pretty sure that he means he has access to confidential information, which he cannot in good conscience share on a public forum.

Blaghk. Somehow my brain edited out the apostrophe-T after "can."

Ah, well. Post it anyway! Mwahahaha!