Babylon 5: Season 5

[BAYLOR]

My understanding from various sources is that JMS created and wrote the idea for Babylon 5 as a story arch that should last 5 seasons.

Given the ratings uncertainty of getting a 5th season , he ended in 4, but when TNT came to rescue , well... we got season 5 ,which is not the strongest B5 season but it's still pretty good stuff.

 

[steelyglint]

There are an awful lot of holes to fill in the storyline.

For instance, what happened when Sheridan and Delenn's son opened Londo's 'gift'?

.

 

[mgilmour]

I loved B5....this thread took me down memory lane. I found that the storyline was much deeper than any other scifi TV series out there. My wife and I watched all 5 seasons plus all the spin-offs. I lament the fact that there isn't a decent series like it....it's as if scifi TV has forgotten about what it means to create a really big space battle with political tension.

 

[David Doherty-Jebb]

I would also add that JMS's contribution to screenwriting has been sidelined as well. Before B5 sci-fi TV was mostly episodic, with limited continuity. B5 changed that game completely. I would argue that Deep Space Nine and the Battlestar Galactica update would not have been the same if there had been no B5.

 

[Rodders]

I think that modern TV owes much to JMS.

 

[Ed Ryder]

It would be good to have seen Crusade run its distance; there was a lot of promise there.

 

[Josh Hayes]

I found it really heard to continue the series after the Shadow Wars and Zahadum. Anyone else feel this way?

 

[Brian G Turner]

I found it really heard to continue the series after the Shadow Wars and Zahadum. Anyone else feel this way?

Yep - though I'll support to the death anyone whose opinion on Season 5 differs to mine.

 

[BAYLOR]

It would be good to have seen Crusade run its distance; there was a lot of promise there.

Network meddling doomed that show.

 

[lynnfredricks]

I think the very love JMS had for the show is ultimately where the problem was with Season 5. Feeling that a Season 5 was uncertain, he packed too much into Season 4 in order to complete the story he wanted to tell.

Then with Season 5, it picks up very soon after. One possibility would have been to to kick the series forward by 18 years, starting with Sheridan's retirement from the IA. Introduce some new actors, but have the original actors in walk-ons (made up older) and flash backs (actor's normal age).

They could have introduced the story line of Crusade too. Maybe Londo visits Earth (finally reconciling?) meets Sheridan Junior, and then his Keeper sets off the plague.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think the very love JMS had for the show is ultimately where the problem was with Season 5. Feeling that a Season 5 was uncertain, he packed too much into Season 4 in order to complete the story he wanted to tell.

Then with Season 5, it picks up very soon after. One possibility would have been to to kick the series forward by 18 years, starting with Sheridan's retirement from the IA. Introduce some new actors, but have the original actors in walk-ons (made up older) and flash backs (actor's normal age).

They could have introduced the story line of Crusade too. Maybe Londo visits Earth (finally reconciling?) meets Sheridan Junior, and then his Keeper sets off the plague.

If Michael O'Hare had been able to stay with the show. The series would have had far different ending then it did. The disappearance of B4 would have been him taking the station not into the past but into the future to replace the B5 station which was destroyed but in different manner.

 

[logan_run]

there both good star trek helped make babylon 5 possible.

 

[BAYLOR]

There are an awful lot of holes to fill in the storyline.

For instance, what happened when Sheridan and Delenn's son opened Londo's 'gift'?

.

He found a toy surprise inside.
I think the B5 books dealt with that.

In all honesty had I been Sheridan or Delenn, that gift would been safely deposited into the heart of Mimbar's sun.