Babylon 5 to be Rebooted on the CW

The Predaking

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Yup. My msn articles tend to leave out stuff like that.
 

Echowarrior

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The second time this year, I've been able to say this about something from science fiction...

Hello, beautiful. I've missed you.
 

Axaday

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It has been almost 30 years and they were all grownups. But at the same time, the whole main cast of TNG are still alive and DS9 has lost only 1.
 

Echowarrior

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I didn't realize Michael O'Hare had died.

A heart attack back in 2012, likely not helped by his long battle with mental illness.

There's a lot of the Bab 5 cast who've sadly passed away.

Ironbite-it's a tragedy

Indeed, though everyone who is back for this film is at least among characters whom they could easily bring back.

Given the cast listing, I'm optimistic that this will help to fill some gaps related to the Telepath War.

It has been almost 30 years and they were all grownups. But at the same time, the whole main cast of TNG are still alive and DS9 has lost only 1.

DS9's lost 2, if you count Nog as main cast.

Indeed, which is a terrible tragedy. The original Star Trek's principal cast members, as well as two of its more prominent supporting cast members, all made it to see the series' thirtieth anniversary before they started passing (starting with DeForest Kelley in 1999 and most recently with Nichelle Nichols last year). B5 started losing people in 2004 with Richard Biggs and Andreas Katsulas, barely a decade after the pilot film's premiere.
 

Covert Agent Rodimal

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JMS wouldn't have hired them if he didn't think they were up to snuff.
Yeah I know. I'm just wishing for Such and Such has Michael O'Hare has Commander Jeffery Sinclair. And yes I know that's wishful thinking and a bit selfish. I just want them to embrace the part and its history instead of 'making it their own'. Especially with the actor playing G'Kar. I Could live with the others not being a perfect minick, but I really want G'Kar's voice to be had close to Andras (sp) has possible.
 

Cybersnark

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Also Winn died on-screen, while Nog and Odo were still alive last we saw them (and Odo is implied to be alive at the time of Picard, just on the other side of the wormhole).

When an actor dies, the only real options are recast, kill the character offscreen, or "write around them," confirming that the character is alive but can no longer be seen.
 

Axaday

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I don't count Nog or Winn as main cast, because THEY don't. The main cast get their names up on screen while the orchestra is playing and not being in an episode is unusual. Nog was in 47 (27%) and Winn was in 14 (8%). They are recurring characters. I have no idea how many recurring cast from B5 of TNG or DS9 have died.

Babylon 5 has definitely had some bad luck. Most shows would have a lot of cast gone 25 years later. But 8 years after wrapping, Richard Biggs and Andreas Katsulas were already gone. I didn't care much about Dr Franklin, but at that point it was already hard to imagine a sequel without at least G'Kar. When "The Lost Tales" got made, Straczynski said as much. They needed to do small stories because they'd lost people and I thought at the time, it was just 2 people, but one was pivotal.

As I go over the list, though, I find that I spoke hastily. Babylon 5 has had TERRIBLE luck. Jeff Conaway (2011) who the show could go on without but who was already established to have kept the lights on at B5 until its end, Michael O'Hare (2012) who probably couldn't have been a part of a new show anyway, Jerry Doyle (2016) who got briefly by-passed during the original series, but by Jeff Conaway..., Stephen Furst (2017) who was perhaps supposed to lead Centauri into a new kind of future, Mira Furlan (2021) who was central. To relaunch a live-action show like they love to do these days, you have to figure out how to do a story about Sheridan, Ivanova, Lennier, Londo, and Lyta. Andrea Thompson is alive, but Talia is not. And if it is set 25 years after B5, which is how long it has been, Sheridan and Londo are also dead. Storywise it is too hard. You have to move it back before "Sleeping in the Light" because you don't have enough pieces to do without Sheridan and Londo. But Londo is off running the Centauri Empire with a Drake watcher and not doing anything heroic. And not interacting with G'Kar or Vir. Lennier can come visit Sheridan, but it would be strange to do so with Sheridan's wife and Lennier's mentor off in another room. Lyta and Ivanova could maybe have some kind of interesting story... But how do you put it all together? And since they already did "Sleeping in the Light" set 20 years later, would you just be rehashing that? They might have been advised to hold that story for a reunion, but it would have turned out to be terrible advice.

I wasn't enamored with the idea of rebooting and kinda doing the story over. I don't want to watch a parallel universe with sort of the same overarching story with new actors and perhaps new characters. Straczynski has done other interesting things and I'd rather watch him do a whole new show or something set 100 years later in that universe. I never thought about doing what they are doing. It is a lot easier to recast a cartoon than a live action. They might even be able to fool us.
 


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