Two parts of a great Sci-Fi show got rolling respectively in 1994 and 1999! They represent 40 percent of this month’s animated Header.
Now, I admit we all could argue three ways. Babylon 5 had its pilot attempt back in 1993 and boy did it need more work! The only thing I was pissed about changing was the music from Stewart Copeland and going with the more predictable Christopher Franke. Delenn was also too creepy looking for my tastes. When Warner Brothers went did go forward the following year in syndication, it made its debut near the end of January and I saw some of the first regular episode before I left for Austin. But I didn’t catch up to watching until this month thanks to the cool radio ads I heard at my new gig working at University Towers. It was also tricky catching it. For asinine reasons, both were on, against each other, Saturday nights: Fox 42 ran Deep Space 9 at 10 PM and CBS 7 Babylon 5 after its 10:30 PM news. It was untangled the following year when CBS 7 moved it to 10:30 PM Sunday nights.
Despite their similarities, Babylon 5 would become a well-loved show in the halls of Sci-Fi fame. What separated it from DS9 was it being serial, versus the lazy episodic style Star Trek programs were cursed to be until streaming services liberated that franchise. Plus the Earth Alliance wasn’t necessarily a force for good in the galaxy, our descendants continue to be underhanded, conniving little shits messing with at least three alien powers capable of stomping us back into the Stone Age. So seeing realpolitik in a Sci-Fi show was a very welcome change in the Nineties. Somewhere, packed away in my storage, I have all five seasons and the movies on DVD.
Before Zaslav started destroying one of the greatest catalogs of TV and movies for short-term gain, there were talks about letting B5‘s creator have another go at the show. Not a continuation, sadly, half of the main cast passed away. No, the R word Hollywood loves to use even though most executives are too stupid to know the actual definition. I did give it a pass because Reboots/Re-Imagined versions rarely have the original creator involved and he said he would change up many things while keeping others around as foundational. He compared the concept to what was done with Westworld and Battlestar Galactica. Unlike those two, I know he won’t choke after Season Two or pad it with lame-ass dreams.
Crusade was the sequel show as Next Generation was to Star Trek but it took place five or 10 years after B5 concluded. Here’s when Corporations are always weird and stupid beasts. Warner Brothers owned it. Decided to cancel it because syndication ratings were bad. OK. Then its final season plus four movies were picked up by TNT…also owned by the same said Corporation. It just moved from syndication to a cable channel.
The last B5 movie, A Call to Arms became the launch point for TNT’s new kick-ass, new Sci-Fi show! Crusade, starring Gary Cole and from time to time, his ship Excalibur would visit Babylon 5. It had a few hiccups too but by the mid-season break, the show was firing on all cylinders…only to be cancelled. Bad ratings? Nope. Budget concerns? Nope. Casting choices? Nope. TNT wanted to ‘redneckify’ it, you know, more big-breasted alien chicks and wrassling, stop boring the network’s base with all this Science and Human Spirit crap! One day, we can hope both shows will get another bite at the proverbial apple, especially Crusade since the show’s premise was going to be resolved midway through the second season and not in the fifth.