Babylon 5: A Distant Star

[planescaped]

I recall hearing(possibly on the audio commentary/DVD extras) there were plans from the start to cure the Drakh plague in season 2 actually and pivot the story into basically an arms race for abandoned shadow/vorlon/old ones technology, as well as the looming war between telepaths and normals.

But it never made it there. What was always the plan though was to cure the Drakh plague early.

[RobbyB1982]

I kinda wonder if he will ever cover Crusade. For a show birthed from one of the best sci-fi series ever to be so horrible is a great talking point in and of itself.

I'd be very curious to hear his breakdown of everything that went wrong. That show had all of the lore of Babylon 5 to draw from combined with the fresh tone of being on a ship instead of a space station... and they went full Voyager/Enterprise with it...

The Network is what went wrong. They left the final season of B5 alone because it already had its base, but they had lots and lots and LOTS of notes for Crusade. And a couple episodes in they demanded more changes which led to stuff like the uniforms changing. (But the episodes weren't filmed in sequence so the changes were random.) And airing the episodes out of intended order. And I think cancelling it before the first episode even aired.

The problem TNT has was that B5 fans would come in for B5.... and then leave and not stay around for any of their other programming. It got good ratings but didn't help the channel overall... So they ultimately had no real interest in it.

It could have been the most brilliant piece of scifi ever and it still would have been squashed under those circumstances.

[Artabax]

I recall hearing(possibly on the audio commentary/DVD extras) there were plans from the start to cure the Drakh plague in season 2 actually and pivot the story into basically an arms race for abandoned shadow/vorlon/old ones technology, as well as the looming war between telepaths and normals.

But it never made it there. What was always the plan though was to cure the Drakh plague early.

Any evidence for that? Counter-theory:
VOY = the Mission is go to Earth and the show ends after 7 Seasons. CRU = the Mission is cure Plague and show ends after 7 Seasons.

[Darth Wedgius]

FWiW, I heard that the search for the Drakh plague wasn't supposed to run the length of the show, either. But it was a long time ago and I don't have any references. Still, B5 didn't end with the Shadow War (for better or worse).

[FaxModem1]

I recall hearing(possibly on the audio commentary/DVD extras) there were plans from the start to cure the Drakh plague in season 2 actually and pivot the story into basically an arms race for abandoned shadow/vorlon/old ones technology, as well as the looming war between telepaths and normals.

But it never made it there. What was always the plan though was to cure the Drakh plague early.

Any evidence for that? Counter-theory:
VOY = the Mission is go to Earth and the show ends after 7 Seasons. CRU = the Mission is cure Plague and show ends after 7 Seasons.

JMS has stated that the Drakh plague was going to be cured by the end of season 2. The rest of the show was mostly going to be about the crew of the Excalibur having to deal with all the shady shit the Earth Alliance has been up to with Shadowtech, the Psi Corps, and other stuff that was touched on in B5 and would be brought up in Crusade. It's why one of the episodes that was written, but never filmed, was going to be dealing with what happened to Alfred Bester.

[Beastro]

What pisses me off the most about Crusade ending when it did was setting up that weird little box and never having it explained.