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Babylon 5 Direct-To-DVD Project In Production
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)."
It took a fair while to warm up, and it was arc heavy so it doesn't look good unless you stick with it for a while. Its worth the effort though.
From the BABYLON 5 FAQ:
In the Captain Power episode "Final Stand," Tank mentions that he's from the
Babylon 5 Genetic Engineering Colony.
Mostly, the DS9 change was two things.
1. The writers wanted arcs, they knew the fans wanted arcs, but the syndication partners wanted bottle shows so they could show them in any damned order they liked, so Paramount forced them to limit the number and depth of multi-episode arcs.
2. There were changes in the production staff, including bringing Ron Moore onboard in the second season, and promoting him to co-executive producer for the last few seaons. As in Battlestar Galactica Ron Moore.
However, I wouldn't dismiss the idea that JMS's talks with the Star Trek junta before DS9 came out had a lot to do with the inspiration of that series, and may have had a lot to do with the development of the arc-heavy later seasons; or the idea that B5's minor success helped to prove that bottle shows weren't the only way to go.
It's worth noting that Enterprise was very much a bottle show for its first two seasons - and it was terrible. In the third seaon, they tried to do a big, large-scale arc, but it simply didn't work out well - I think they were doing *too much* service to an arc that wasn't well thought out (or very good); and I don't think they had the chops for it. When Manny Coto took over, they went to multi-episode arcs that were rooted in the original idea for the series, and it was much better, albeit much too late.
Battlestar Galactica is awesome, but it's not like Ron Moore wasn't a heavy-weight in the Star Trek universe before the second season of DS9. He was a producer in TNG and have you seen the list of Ron Moore-written TNG episodes?:
The above isn't an exhaustive list. And it doesn't count episodes where he has credit as "Story Editor" which includes Best of Both Worlds. Honestly, I have no idea how much a "story editor" is really responsible for the story, so I won't argue for that. Either way, he's responsible for some of the best of TNG.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Huzzah!
It's been a while since I heard about it at a convention in 98, but by what I remember, the dispute is why Claudia wasn't in the 5th season (except the final episode that was actually shot during the 4th season). She was saying the reason was due to some mis communication and JMS really didn't add much to the conversation. The impression most people got was that she or her agent had said she was busy, so they moved on to find a replacement for her role in the 5th season. She did want to be in it, but by the time she tried to talk to JMS, they had already brought in the new actor. JMS and Claudia were clearly not happy with each other at this convention as they stayed away from each other.
She was involved in some of the TV movies though made after this, and on the commentary tracks of the DVDs, so I doubt that old issue would cause her to be skipped in these direct to DVD shows. The only two characters that I know of that won't be shown are Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) and G'kar (Andreas Katsulas), as sadly both actors have passed away.