Text 9399, 61 rader
Skriven 2006-10-14 16:08:50 av Joseph DeMartino
Ärende: Re: Compromised 4th and 5th season.
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From: "Joseph DeMartino" <jdemarti@bellsouth.net>

Since pretty much all of your assumptions are wrong, it is hard to know
where to start.

Every individual episode was *not* pre-planned.  Season 5 was not
"kludged" togethered.  (That's the proper spelling, BTW), etc. etc.

When it became clear that PTEN was going out of business and year four
would have to be the last, JMS looked at his rough breakdown of the two
seasons, which - as usual - included 4 or 5 more-or-less stand-alone
'breather" episodes near the beginning of each season to help new
viewers catch up with the story.  He pulled all of those out, so now he
had about 34 episodes to look at instead of 44.  (Because he always had
to plan on the *possibility* of a season 5.)   He needed to wrap up as
many major story threads as possible, and avoid opening any new ones in
Season 4.  So he moved the establishment of the Teep colony out of S4
and into S5, which elminated a lot of "B" stories and helped hiim
conoslidate "A" stories from two episodes into one.  He pulled the end
of the Earth Civil war from the beginning of S5 into S4.  Whereas S4
would have ended with Sheridan captured, now it would end after the IA
was established.   "Sleeping in Light" was shot as the series and
season finale to air at the end of S4.

When the 11th hour renewal came through for S5 and TNT picked the show
up, JMS had to restart from where he'd left off with the Teep thread
that was going to flow into "Crusade" (which was being negotiated) and
then the crisis of Centauri Prime.  Unfortunately Claudia Christian
chose not to return for S5 at the last minute, and this took some of
the air out of the Teep thread, which was supposed to be Ivanova's
story and pay off things that had been laid in since the first episode.
 (Not planning every episode in advance doesn't mean you can't do
foreshadowing.  Lyta and G'Kar have a conversation in the pilot that
pays off around episode 519. <g>)  Because "Sleeping in Light" was now
moved to the 522 slot, JMS needed a new episode to air as the finale of
Season 4.   Luckily the production and broadcast schedules were such
that they were able to shoot "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" as
the first episode of the S5 production run, but still air it as the
last episode of S4.

> "Throw away that last episode and lets resume with the real thread." <

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.  "Deconstruction" *was*
part of the "real thread".  As noted, it was produced as part of season
5.  The events in the episode all "happened" in the future history of
the series.  It is no less "real" than the future glimpsed in "War
Without End" or "In the Beginning".  Based on comments like this I
suspect your problem with S5 in particular and the show in general stem
from not paying very close attention to what you're watching.

By all means read "The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5"
(http://tinyurl.com/j57t) and consult the archives of JMS's GENie,
Compuserve, Prodigy and Usenet postings at www.jmsnews.net.

Regards, 

Joe


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