Superman07

I'll be finishing up Babylon 5 tonight and will definitely be putting together my thoughts on the show as a hole.

Please see this thread:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=360499

What I want to try and get out of this thread is where were the changes in the show, and why did they happen?

I heard that there were executive issues and JMS was required to rework plot threads/ideas by "request" of TPTB.

Were there any actor complaints/conflicts as a result of these changes, or independent of these changes?

I know a lot of this is everyday gossip/bitching these days, but the days of Babylon 5 were ending when the internet was beginning and all of these presentday news and notes were not available.

I'd very much like to read all of this now that I have finished the series.

MEJHarrison

If you've not done so yet, now would be the time to check out The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5. You'll find more information there than you could ever dream of. Click on The Episodes from the main page. You'll see that the internet was alive and kicking at the beginning of B5. It's just that the general public hadn't caught on yet.

As for JMS being required to rework plot threads/ideas, I don't think that really happened much on B5. But it certainly did on Crusade. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of.

xVladx

Well, since you're about finished with the series, and this thread is discussing the changes throughout the series, I won't bother with spoiler tags...

While the main plot of the series wasn't altered much due to outside input, there were a few bumps here and there...

Sinclair: Basically, at the end of the first season, the network said that they wanted someone a little less wooden than Sinclair in the lead role. Jeffery O'Hare may have also wanted to do other stuff, I can't remember for sure what his stance was on the situation. However, if I remember correctly, his basic plotline (becoming Valen) was pretty much the same, it just got shuffled around a bit due to the actor not actually being in the series any more.

Talia: Sometime during the beginning part of the second season, the actress who played Talia (Andrea Thompson) decided that she wanted more screen time than she was getting. She was upset that her character wasn't getting more main storyline stuff, which JMS told her would be coming later in the show. She basically wanted off the show at that point, so she was written out of the series in Divide Loyalties. While it's never been explicitly stated as far as I know, I believe that the rest of her plot arc ended up with Lyta, what with the building up of Talia as "the future" and all that.

Warren Keffer: In one of the Season 2 DVD commentaries, JMS mentions that the network wanted a sort of "hot shot" character in the show, so Keffer got shoehorned in. Early in the second season, the networks stopped giving the B5 crew notes and let them run things their own way, so Keffer was killed off at the end of the season as a minor act of rebellion

General Hague: General Hague was supposed to appear in Severed Dreams in Major Ryan's place, but he was supposedly double booked between B5 and DS9, and the actor ended up deciding to go film DS9 instead. Keeping the trend running, his character was killed off.

Season 4: While there was never really any concrete guarante that there was going to be any further seasons each year, the B5 people were told by the network that the fourth season would be the last one, resulting in JMS having to write both the resolution to the Shadow War and the Earth Civil War into a single season. This is why it seems a little rushed in spots, and why there's a bit of dead space in the fifth season. The episode Sleeping In Light (last episode of the fifth season) was actually shot as the last episode of the fourth season, but once they got word that there would be a fifth season after all, they put Sleeping In Light on the shelf and shot Deconstruction of Falling Stars to be the Season 4 closer.

Ivanova: At the end of the fourth season, there was some sort of blow-up between Claudia Christian and some members of B5 production. I'm not overly clear on the specifics, though. I've heard some stories saying that Claudia didn't want to come back to the show, and others saying that the show didn't actually want her back for a fifth season. Personally, I found that Ivanova's absence detracted the most from the show out of all the little bumps and snags. First off, instead of Ivanova running the station, Lochley was brought in, who I was never fond of. Not only that, but it was supposed to be Ivanova taking the place of Lyta during the whole Byron arc. Here's a snippet from the Lurker's guide, where JMS gives more details:

" It's no secret that I would've had Ivanova becoming somewhat linked to Byron romantically (she would see him as a character like Marcus, which is why there are certain similarities, and she would take a chance only to find it wrong this time, underlining that she'd missed her one major opportunity thus far for a good relationship). This was expressed to Claudia toward the last part of S4, so she knew at that time that her latent ability would be coming out, and that she'd have a big part in S5.

In this scenario, Lyta would have become a devoted follower of Byron's, much as she has, but it would have been more love from afar: protective, somewhat unrequited but hoping for more...so that when he met his fate, Lyta would end up right where she is now, just by a different road. "

There may be a few more incidents that affected the storyline in one way or another, but I believe those are all the major ones.

Tracer Bullet

To add to xVladx's excellent post:

Na'Toth: A different actress was brought in at the beginning of season two. The first actress apparently had problems with the extensive makeup, and the second actress never really worked, so the character of Na'Toth was slowly dropped.

xVladx

Whoops, I knew I had to have forgotten something. I didn't really think of that one as it didn't disturb the plot a whole lot.

Another neat little thing that changed was that initially, Delenn's character was supposed to be male, and the chrysalis was supposed to change him to female. The problem was that they wanted to do this while keeping Mira Furlan in the role, and altering her voice in post production with a computer (also notice how the Delenn makeup in The Gathering looks a little masculine). They could never get the computer-altered voice to sound right, so they changed the idea to what we got.

Tracer Bullet

This was one of the unexpected changed that I thought worked very well, as G'Kar ceased being an ambassador at the end of season two and thus wouldn't have had an aide anyway.

I always wondered about the male/female Delenn idea. If the chrysalis was originally going to alter sex, would Sinclair have transformed into a female Valen?

Superman07

I've been sitting here for the past several hours pouring through materials on what was supposed to be and what actually was, etc. I think the one thing that I am most upset about is that "Sleeping in the Light" was filmed at the end of season 4 and shown as the series finale. I'm not faulting JMS for this being show when it was, but I think he could have done more to rectify the matter as there were several threads in "Objects at Rest" that were never resolved. Namely,

Did Gerabaldi ever come through on his deal with Leta? (Since he's alive probably, but still...)

Whatever happened to Lita?

What happened to G'Kar?

What happened to Londo?

How did the prophecy that was given to Londo and Vir ever really pan out? (Maybe answered, I'll have to go back and look at it)

What about the gift that "Londo" gave to Sheridan and Delenn? We know it was meant for David...Personally, I figured this is where Lennier would have saved face. Speaking of which, whatever happened to him?

Bester dead at the hands of Gerabaldi?

Another thing that really irked me was how two stories were krammed into season 4. I know this was due to the network, but for all of the buildup the Shadow War had, I felt it was over all too quickly - perhaps this is because I watched the whole series over a couple of months. <shrug>

I do have more - revolving around Sinclair and his storyline, but I'll save that after I mull over it some more, as I think that is one of the more complex storylines even though it was 'dealt' with relatively early on.

xVladx

Practically every single one of those questions (as well as a few others) is answered in the various novels. If you're interested in reading them (the ones I've read have all been great reads), here's the important ones:

The Psi Corps Trilogy
Dark Genesis
Deadly Relations
Final Reckoning

This is a really good series of books that gives some neat background into the Psi Corps and Bester's character. By the end of the series, there's answers to two of your questions, as well as a few others that you haven't asked yet .

The Centauri Prime Trilogy
The Long Night of Centauri Prime
Armies of Light And Dark
Out Of Darkness

I've only read the first book in this series so far, but from what I can tell from the titles and the direction it went (and from what I've heard from other people), this will also answer a few more of your questions, if not the remainder of them.

There's also another trilogy called the The Passing of the Technomages, but I haven't read any of those yet, so I can't vouch for their quality. However, I believe that they are considered canon, so you may want to check them out.

There's also two stand-alone books that don't necessarily answer any burning questions, but provide some good back story. These are The Shadow Within and To Dream In The City Of Sorrows. The Shadow Within tells exactly what happened with Anna Sheridan and the Icarus, as well as what John Sheridan was doing at the time. To Dream In The City of Sorrows details what happened to Sinclair in the time between Chrysalis and War Without End.

There's a bunch of other B5 books out there, but none of them are considered canon, as they were pretty much rushed out and don't fit into the plotline at all, from what I've heard.

Yeah, the resolution to the Shadow War seemed a little rushed to me as well the first time I watched it, but you come to appreciate it more the more you watch it. You have to realize that it wasn't exactly rushed, per se. It just didn't take up that much space in Season 4. If you look at the events of Season 3, there's quite a bit going on with the Shadows. Not only that, but I believe I read somewhere that the whole "no season 5" thing didn't affect the Shadow War at all, just the Earth Civil War.

What's your question about Sinclair?

xVladx

Well, the device didn't always work the same, as we saw. We only saw it used twice, but it did something different each time. With Delenn, it changed her from a full Minbari to a Minbari/Human hybrid. With Sinclair, it completely changed him from Human to Minbari.

dstrauss

Also, there was a whole arc with Laurel Takashima's character, some of which was tranferred to Talia, but not all. (Evidence of the start of this plotline can be seen with a freeze-frame in the pilot....)

There are not only professional but personal reasons why both O'Hare and Thompson left the show, as can be expected. Actors, alas, are not as easy to predict as fictional characters.

Josh-da-man

My take on the "original" arc -- based on my own conjecture, and a few legendary tidbits:

SINCLAIR - Jeff Sinclair would've remained the lead for all five seasons, running with most of Sheridan's arc. It would've been Sinclair who was rescued by Kosh in the S2 finale, Sinclair and Delenn would've told the Shadows and Vorlons to fuck out of the galaxy, Sinclair would've led the rebellion against Earth, been betrayed by Garibaldi, elected President of the New Alliance, and finally, in the series finale, rode Babylon 4 back in time and become Valen.

Sinclair taking Kosh's hand in the S2 finale was pretty much confirmed early on by JMS, when he told people to write down: "Sinclair sees the hand, but Sinclair does not see the hand. And five other people standing in the room would not see the hand that Sinclair sees, or see the hand that they see." and keep it in their wallets.

I also suspect Sinclar would've started a romantic relationship with Delenn after Sakai was presumed killed by the Shadows. (As implied the "marriage" ceremony in season one, and what we saw of the future in "Babylon Squared.")

GARIBALDI - Garibaldi's arc was probably largely unchanged unless he would've died in the original version. I'm nearly positive he would've betrayed Sinclair (like he did Sheridan) later in the series, because JMS actually mentioned Garibaldi going through a change lasting up to a full year when he was tossing around pieces after the pilot was aired. [The full piece is available here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/univer...-overview.html Remember this was released between the airing of "The Gathering" and season one.]

KEFFER - I have a feeling that Keffer picked up Katherine Sakai's arc in the second season. It was already established in the first season that she had contact with an "old one," so she probaby would've become obsessed with the Shadows when she accidently saw one, which would've led to her "death." I also expect she would've returned in an evil capacity (much like Anna Sheridan) in attempt to woo Sinclair to the side of the Shadows.

LONDO AND G'KAR - These two had the same fate that we saw play out in War Without End -- the "set-up" was shown in season one -- excpet that also would've been saved for the series finale (which was set approx. twenty years in the future) and that Sinclair and Delenn would somehow be involved in that storyline. Probably even held prisoner on Centauri Prime like we saw Delenn and Sheridan being held.

Z'HA'DUM - This is a sticking point for me. You will notice that it was never mentioned until the second season, around the same time that Sheridan was introduced. I have a suspicion that Z'Ha'Dum was a plot element introduced for Sheridan's story arc, and would not have existed at all, or only played a minor role, had Sinclair stayed aboard the station. Z'Ha'Dum sets up Sheridan's ultimate fate in the series finale, and since Sinclair probably would've met a very different end.

PROPHECIES FROM BABYLON SQUARED and SIGNS AND PORTENTS - Remember in "Babylon Squared," the flash-forward that Sinclair sees? How does this fit in the arc? My guess is that this would've been the climax to the third season, likely some kind of crisis like we saw in WWE, when Sinclair had to abandon the station to somehow save it. Garibaldi would've been "left behind," and fallen into the hands of the Shadows.

And we also have to ask ourselves who or what was invading the station. All that we know is that the invaders were invisible. Could've been the Shadows (who had already been established in S1 as being invisible) or cloaked Earth Alliance troops. Take your pick. Either way, I'll bet that that was the point in that story arc where Garibaldi fell into the hands of the Shadows/Psi Corps.

There are also a couple of other juicy tidbits tossed into the mix from these two eps.

First is the destruction of Babylon 5. You can bet that at the time that episode was produced that the Centauri Seer wasn't seeing the station being scuttled as we saw in "Sleeping in Light." Was it the penultimate episode of the series? Who was leaving on the shuttle? Could in be Sinclair and the Command Crew (minus Garibaldi) as seen in Sinclair's flash-forward in "Babylon Squared?"

Could it have set up some kind of time-travel story, where they were escaping to somehow change the past to save the station? A similar device was used in "War Without End," so maybe that's a piece of the original arc that survived?

And there also a couple of loose ends from "Babylon Squared"'s old Sinclair. What was he trying to warn his young self and Garibaldi about? The most obvious guess is Garibaldi's "betrayal" of Sinclair in the fourth season (which was transferred to Sheridan).

And what was meant by the computer telling Sinclair that the "present time atmosphere" was breathable? This is a huge clue, and was never explained, so I assume it's something that was written out when Sinclair left. Did Kosh somehow change Sinclair like he was doing to Lyta? (She was shown to have gills on her neck, and back in S1 it was said Kosh could not breathe our atmosphere.)

The scar on Sinclair's cheek is also something you can bet we would've seen play out. The most likely place for him to have received it is from Kosh, when he was arguing with him about involving the Vorlons directly in the War. (Also picked up by Sheridan, but the blow wasn't strong enough to leave a scar.)

RANDOM BITS AND PIECES ABOUT THE FINALE -

"It's cold." These words are long-rumored to have been the final two words spoken on the series. If true, then what could they mean? Did someone ask someone else what it's like "Beyond the rim?" Sinclair?

And another rumored final scene involved a glimpse of the future, a million years forward, where we would see Sinclair in a Ranger ship speeding away from Earth's Sun as it went supernova.

Interesting thing about the latter is that this was actually sort of used in "Deconstruction of Falling Stars." And the line "It's cold," could either refer to the sun finally dying OR it could also be Sinclair's final statement after going beyond the rim after the sun went nova.

But could Sinclair both have become Valen AND lived a million years into the future? Remember in "Mind War," when Ironheart evolved beyond humanity and told Sinclair that he would see him in a million years? Did Ironheart mean the human race or Sinclair personally?

Also, the Sinclair/Valen of a thousand years ago could've been in the million-year future either by means of time travel, suspended animation, or he could've been granted immortality by Kosh or another "Old One." This was sort of dealt with in the S1 ep "Deathwalker," so it could've become a plot point later in the series.

CONCLUSION - When JMS states that the arc of the series didn't change much when Sinclair left, I have no doubt he's telling the truth. I think the overall storyline moved the same way it would've had Michael O'Hare not left after the first season, maybe a few things were changed here and there, but I think we still would've seen most of the big things that happened in the arc that we got. The Narn-Centauri War, Kosh saving the Commander at the end of the second season, Babylon 5 breaking ties with Earth, the younger races standing up against the Shadows and Vorlons, the Earth Civil War, and the creation of the Interstellar Alliance.

The big difference would've been in how these events unfolded, and what the characters went through personally.

Mattrk

In the question of "what happened to Bester", there's a Crusade script that was written but not filmed showing Bester's fate. The details on the script are here.

Superman07

I have limited time - on lunch at work - so I'll start breaking this up.

How much of this is conjecture? I follow, but am still confused on how all of this would fit in with the story as it unfolded.

It would make more sense as "The One", would actually be one, for starters. However, if Sinclair had of gone 5 years and then gone back to B4, I doubt any of the "Million Years" retrospect on Sinclair/Shereidan could have taken place.

Also, as a refresher, what were the scenes that Sincalir saw in "Babylon Squared"?

Sorry if some of this is sporadic, but a lot of this is very complicated. Makes my head hurt a bit.

xVladx

Well, that fills in some of the backstory after Babylon 5, but that doesn't details his "fate", per se. Some of the Psi Corps Trilogy actually takes place quite some time after that Crusade episode would have taken place, and definitely details Bester's eventual fate.

I think quite a bit of that is conjecture. I've read some of the stuff he's citing before, but I think a lot of it is just "this is what I think is most likely" stuff.

There may have been others, but the big one was a scene where Sinclair and Garabaldi (along with quite a bit of the B5 security staff) were on Babylon 5, fighting a bunch of invisible enemies. Garabaldi stayed behind after urging Sinclair to get on a shuttle and leave. The main thing to note was that Garabaldi said that he rigged the fusion reactor, which is what Ivanova said in the future distress signal from War Without End. So the attack we saw in Babylon Squared was the same Shadow Attack that would have taken place if Sinclair, Sheridan and the rest from 2260 didn't take B4 back in time. And since Sinclair presumably would have gotten on a shuttle and left before B5 exploded, it's possible that that's the future that the seer from Signs and Portents saw. Of course, her vision could also apply just as well to the end of Sleeping In Light.

GreenMonkey

Josh, very interesting post. I thought I was pretty up and up on the B5 speculation, but that's a good speculative thread, for the most part.

I haven't done much talking over here at DVDtalk about B5

Superman, I read your other B5 thread you linked to.


I originally watched the show on Fox on my local station, when I was in high school. But after S1 it moved to like midnight for S2...and then to 2am for S3...so I never saw much past the end of S2. For years it stayed that way, until I rented S1 from greencine (netflix-type place that specializes in indies, anime, foreign films).

After watching S1 via rental I bought S2 right when it came out on DVD. Ditto S3. S3 cliffhanger was so bad I downloaded s4-s5 via p2p (sucky little overcompressed mpegs). Re-watched seasons 4 & 5 as they came out on DVD. Currently rewatching (finished S2) with my wife - she hates "space shows" but we trade shows 1 for 1 now. She has upgraded B5 to "OK". Good for a ST hater. Anyway, that's my B5 background.


I consider B5 the best thing ever put on TV. I now cite it as "you'd have to pry my B5 DVDs out of my cold dead hands".
It's because of the character-driven nature of the show. I consider it as a very good series of books put on screen. Rarely is something with such developed and realistically changing characters filmed.

The lurker's guide is good reading for you, superman. It talks about issues raised in each episode.


As far as changes as the show progressed:
Sometimes the staffing changes sucked. I'm glad they didn't make an overly large impact on the show. Too bad about the Claudia incident in S5. The arc would have been better with Claudia/Byron - I was never overly impressed by the Lyta character, or the acting behind it.

I know JMS did say that he realized he had too many plot threads revolving around Sinclair...and thus it was a good mutual break, there. He wanted to move some threads to a new character anyway. I'm not a Sinclair hater - in fact, I liked Sinclair. But Sheridan made a better main character anyway.

Linn1

JMS said in the second season set that it was written that way from the beginning, the only difference was the character was supposed to show up a little more than what actually happened.

Superman07

To whom do you refer?

dstrauss

The bit about "Sinclair sees the hand" was originally written about the pilot, BTW, referencing Lyta's subjective view of the Kosh assassination.

Linn1

"To whom do you refer?"

Sinclair. JMS mentions that the storyline as seen, was written that way, and the character wasn't taken out for any other reason. He specifically mentions that he told O'Hare when he first got the job, that the character wouldn't be a major force after the first season, but would be seen throughout the show's run. Michael O'Hare was not available a time or two for eps. he was to appear on, but that was about it.

Superman07

Some other thoughts that I just came up with (and if any of these answers are from the spinoff or show please refrain from saying anything):

There was always such a big deal about the planet below, and yet it was never used. Perhaps because it was never necessary, but I always expected a big throw down at B5 and the planetary defences would kickin - but that never happened.
Closest was after declaring independence - which btw, was one of the biggest shock factors in the show for me.

Are we left to assume that Londo and G'Kar ended up in their deathgrip from "In the Beginning"?

GreenMonkey

But the great thing was that it was entirely not what you would have expected it to be at the beginning. Kind of a tragic/triumphal moment instead of a bad one.

xVladx

Yeah, that's one of the best moments of the series, in my opinion. There was a good amount of buildup, so the actual confrontation actually meant something, and everything wasn't all better by the end of the episode.

As far as the Great Machine on Epislon 3 goes, it's not like it was there soley for the benefit of Babylon 5. It had been there for a long, long time, and just because the new person controlling it (Draal) was a friend of one of the main characters, doesn't mean that it automatically becomes a part of the Babylon 5 defense grid. Draal was most likely doing his own thing, and really would rather have not been bothered every time the Babylon 5 crew needed the slightest bit of help. That aside, they did actually use the Great Machine's resources fairly often...

-A Voice In The Wilderness, Part 2: Draal knocked out the alien's ship as it tried to take control of Epsilon 3, ensuring that Babylon 5 or the EAS Hyperion wouldn't have to get in a firefight.

-Voices of Authority: Draal lets Ivanova use the Great Machine to find one of the First Ones, at Sigma 957. During her time in the Great Machine, Ivanova also discovers proof that Clark was behind the assasination of President Santiago (and the viewers also learn that he had the help of the Shadows, since we can tell that he's talking to Morden).

-Severed Dreams: Sheridan uses the holographic capabilities of the Great Machine to broadcast Babylon 5's statement of independence.

-War Without End: The Great Machine opens and controls the temporal rift that the B5 crew uses to take B4 back in time. The time stabilizers, as well as the triluminaries and chrysalis device also originate here.

-Z'Ha'Dum: Ivanova realizes that Babylon 5 is likely to be destroyed by the Shadow fleet that arrived unless they get help, and tries to contact Draal, but is jammed.

-Falling Towards Apotheosis: Refugees from the races falling to the Vorlon fleet were evacuated to Epsilon 3 to avoid overcrowding Babylon 5.

-Conflicts of Interest: The Voice of the Resistance uses power from the Great Machine to broadcast a signal to far-reaching colonies.

Personally, I thought they handled the whole aspect of the plot rather well. Another show may have been too tempted to just use the Great Machine as a quick fix to any problem.

Just to nitpick, we never saw the mutual strangulation in In The Beginning. It ended with Londo raising the toast to the image of Sheridan and Delenn when they were still in the cell.

But yes, what you saw in War Without End was what happened. Like Sheridan said in his message to Delenn in Z'Ha'Dum, he tried to avert that future by going with Anna. However, if you look at the clues from the episodes, you can see that what we saw in War Without End is what actually did happen after all.

- In the montage before Londo's coronation in The Fall Of Centauri Prime, the last image we see is G'Kar and Londo strangling each other, meaning that he's still on the same road he's been dreading since the first episode of the first season.

- In Objects at Rest, Londo gives Sheridan and Delenn an urn, which he tells them to give to their son on his sixteenth birthday. As we see later, there's a keeper in the urn. If you think back to War Without End, part 2, one of the first things Delenn says to Sheridan in the cell is that "David is safe". Earlier Londo said that the year was "seventeen years" after Sheridan's war with the Shadows. Putting all that together shows us that something happened to their son that would draw them to Centauri Prime (as it's unlikely that two people in their position would get kidnapped).

- There's also Vir picking up the imperial seal in War Without End (this really was an important two-parter, wasn't it?), and Lady Morella's prophecy that Vir and Londo would both be emperor, which we saw was true in Sleeping In Light.

Supposedly, the Centauri Prime trilogy of books that I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread goes into more detail with the whole situation, but I've yet to read the second and third book, so I can't give any more info.

Superman07

Just goes to show you how complicated this show is. You have to put all of that together just to possibly get the truth!

Not saying you're wrong per se, but it is somewhat guess work as we have never actually seen their outcome in realtime.

Josh-da-man

The "Great Machine" on Epsilon 3 posed a story problem because if it was used too much, it would've become a crutch for the characters to fall back on every time a crisis came up.

Once it was used to pull Babylon 4 backward through time in the third season, its story purpose was fulfilled.

Back to the legendary "original" arc -- I'm not really sure if the Great Machine (and Draal) would've served a larger purpose or not. While it was set up in the first season (A Voice in the Wilderness), the machine was mostly used in later, post-Sinclair seasons. The only major difference might've been if Sinclair did indeed travel back in time to become Valen in the original arc's series finale, then the Great Machine's true purpose would've been saved for the end.

xVladx

Well, like I said, some of the novels are considered canon (official parts of the B5 storyline), so we do know that it is true.

Also, from the Lurker's Guide section on Objects at Rest (this is a quote from JMS himself):

Again, I highly recommend reading the books I mentioned above. They're all quite good, and will answer pretty much every last question you have about the series. In fact, now that I think of it, there's really only one character whose fate isn't covered by any of the material out there. You find out where everybody else ends up, though.