Jeremiah, a New Series from B5 Creator, Debuts Sunday

wka writes "This Usenet post, by J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5 ), outlines his new TV series Jeremiah . Based on a graphic novel series, it's a show 'about beginnings' after a killer virus has wiped out most of Earth's population, and it premieres on premium-cable channel Showtime Sunday night (regular airings to follow on Fridays). We can hope that the executives who interfered with Stargate SG-1 don't mess up this show."

Comments

"Survivors"

[Bill Kendrick]

Sounds like a similar premise to the excellent 70's BBC sci-fi "Survivors."

Kind of a depressing theme, tho. :)

To JMS:

[jafac]

I was a faithful watcher of B5 and even the short-lived spin-off, and Legend of the Rangers.
What was the point of Legend of the Rangers? was it a pilot for an aborted series? Anyway, I will *not* be watching this new series, even though it sounds fairly interesting, and in the past you have delighted me with your story arcs and special effects, and colorful characters.

The reason is the network that's picking this up. I'm not going to subscribe to a general movie channel to watch a sci fi series. This show should be on the Scifi channel. Not Showtime. The best of luck to this latest endeavour. . .

Re:To JMS:

[mbourgon]

Actually, JMS said that there were two reasons he decided to do this new show:
1) Complete creative control
2) Big budget. He could make "his idea" of the show a reality.

And, just to be a karma whore... straight from JMS on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated:

I haven't talked a lot about Jeremiah here because, basically, I haven't had time to put my thoughts together due to the rigors of actually *making* the
thing. But we're now closing in on the premiere, and I figured this might be a good time to start laying out some of the information. (This will, however, be kinda brief because I'm fighting a bit of a fever and intend to go lay down after this.)

The Showtime series tracks the aftermath of the Big Death, which wiped out roughly six billion people, anyone over the age of puberty. It's now 15 years
later, and people have been ridinng on the ashes of the old world for the most part, the available resources slowly declining and running out. It's a moment of transition: either the decline continues, or now that they are adults, people start to rebuild a new world out of the ashes of the old one. The question is what shape will that world take, and who gets to choose?

Our lead character, Jeremiah (Luke Perry) is a wanderer, trying to find out what happened to his father, who disappeared during the last days of the Big Death while en route to a locale specified only as Valhalla Sector. He wants to find out the end of the story. Along the way, he encounters our other lead, Kurdy (Malcolm Jamal-Warner), also a drifter, and the two are thrown together by circumstance into a duo. The two-hour premiere follows their lives, the dangers they encounter, establishes the world of our series, and sets the stage for a new dawn.

Basically, I wanted to do a post-apocalyptic series that wasn't all darkness and grimness...I wanted to tell a story about hope, that this isn't about
endings, it's about beginnings. When the Black Death hit, lots of people thought it was the end of the world. It wasn't. What followed the Black Death was the Renaissance, a new beginning, as our characters face a new beginning.
[JMS continued with an episode list]

Read closer

[Hammerself]

"And the Ground, Sown with Salt"...a very intense episode guest starring Jason Priestley

Your pain is only beginning.

Re:Postapocalyptic depression

[Our Man In Redmond]

Well, wars are depressing, but people make good war movies. If done right you could have one hell of a series about the remnants of humanity trying to piece itself back together.

You also have lots of room to explore. What will we try to recreate? Will we still have baseball and soccer? Will Sun Tzu and von Clausewicz still be relevant? Will we have clean water? Countries? How will we communicate with people in the next town or halfway around the world? What happens to religion? Do we use a near-apocalypse as proof that God exists and has spared us, or as proof that God doesn't exist because He wouldn't have allowed this to happen, or do new mythologies spring up built around the darkest days of the End of the World As We Knew It?

The trick will be in doing it right. Bad sci-fi is easy. Good speculative fiction is all too rare.

Sitting at the fire

[bill.sheehan]

I have just finished watching an episode from the second season of "Earth, Final Conflict." I watched it with the stunned fascination of someone seeing a car wreck. How could a show with so many good ideas have gone bad so quickly?

Answer: The writers. It's all about the writers. It's always all about the writers. It's about the writers remembering one simple thing: the people sitting around the campfire asking the bard or shaman, "Tell us a story. Tell us a story about noble kings and fearsome battles and tender loves. Tell us a story about ourselves, our secret fears, our greatest hopes. Tell us a story.

I'm not an SF fanboy, but I do love good SF. There's so little of it about. JMS loves good SF too, and it shows in his storytelling. JMS also loves history, Scripture, legend, fable, and humanity. Humanity most of all. He once said

"As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it's only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it's gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each.

"So I cannot forgive. Which makes the notion of writing a character who CAN forgive momentarily attractive...because it allows me to explore in great detail something of which I am utterly incapable. I cannot fly, so I would write of birds and starships and kites; I cannot play an instrument, so I would write of composers and dancers; and I cannot forgive, so I would write of priests and monks and Minbari..."

I am sitting eagerly by the fireside, awaiting any tale JMS wants to tell. Because when he's good, which is usually, he's one of the finest storytellers of our age.

Re:The name

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Also, "jeremiah" is an awfully odd name for someone nowadays

Besides being the 85th most common name in 2001 (as mentioned by someone else), Jeremiah is also a prophet of the Old Testament. Quoting liberally from The Prophet Jeremiah:

The prophet Jeremiah was active in Jerusalem during the tragic period of the city's destruction by the Babylonians, which occurred over several stages... Jeremiah prophesied an ineluctable, unavertible disaster... Jeremiah castigated the people bitterly for forsaking God and the Torah and turning to idolatry. With a sense of the inevitability of a terrible punishment, he felt disgusted with his life. Gradually he became the leading exponent of the approach which called for surrender to Babylonian might and not attempting a rebellion against its awesome strength under the auspices of Egypt... Although Jeremiah was saliently a prophet of apocalypse, he emphasized the temporary nature of the destruction and the consolation to be found in the certainty of the nation's return to its land. (emphasis added)

Not really hard to see a connection to the show's theme, is it?

Re:Maybe I'll try it out, but...

[Bodrius]

I really liked B5, but I have to admit in the end I watched it out of loyalty for the good parts of the series, rather than because of its final quality.

I still think it was one of the best SF shows ever, but I can't help but think they went downwards since the first season, even though the story was supposed to actually start much later.

It seems to me that B5 was at its best before it became an epic story. During the first seasons (the prelude?) the characters were complex and subtle, the politics made sense, the storylines were interesting... you had a great sense of foreboding.

But when the epic started, the characters became complicated and yes, pulpish. The acting quality decreased. All sense of subtlety was lost, which also killed almost all the sense of mistery in the storylines. It seems their ambitious story made them lose control of the narrative.