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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.
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.
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.