Dreamwatch Issue No. 41 (Feb 98)

The Fourth Season of Babylon 5 has been acclaimed as one of the most powerful in television science fiction history, not only for its resolution of the Shadow War arc, at the star of the twenty-two episodes, but also for the human drama between Sheridan and Garibaldi, and Commander Susan Ivanova and Ranger Marcus Cole, which culminated in Marcus' self-sacrifice at the end of Endgame.

Claudia Christian was happy with the progress that Ivanova made during the season. "I was relegated during a lot of the fourth season to the Voice of the Resistance, and that kind of thing, and I didn't really have a lot to do," she explains. "The stuff with Marcus towards the end of the season was, of course quite satisfying, but prior to that, I would read some of the scripts, and saw that Garibaldi and Sheridan arc, and the constant darkness. It's very rare that I got a moment of levity."

The relationship between Ivanova and Sheridan has intrigued fans, and Christian defines it as "rather paternal".We're both very protective of each other, in a brother/sister kind of way. I think Sheridan is very paternal, telling Ivanova to get some rest, and I'm always doing the same thing to him. It's a sibling love they have for each other, and they get along tremendously well.

"I think it's a reflection of the fact that Bruce and I like each other so much, and he's so easy to work with. He's so excited and professional, and nice and kind and sweet and helpful and funny...I can't say enough kind things. He's made the last three years so much fun."

Bruce Boxleitner agrees. "Ivanova's a manic depressive," he claims. "She goes into these deep funks sometimes. Now ironically, Sheridan and Ivanova, they have this terrific relationship, the one I like the most. Nothing against Delenn - that's on a different scale: it's political, there's a reverence for each other. But there's a love between Sheridan and Ivanova, a friendship, a bond and I think it's always there.

"I like that, a man and a woman in command in a military situation. There's all this fuss in the [US] military at the moment - and here we are showing it in this command structure. These people are kind of dysfunctional in the first place, because they're way out here, kind of like a frontier outpost would have been in the last century. These people are way, way form their homes, their friends, their families. It takes a certain kind of stoic human being to do that. People who are on remote bases have to go through all that, people on submarines, Antarctica research stations - that intrigues me, not the technologies. What does this do to people?

"Certainly deep space travel will require a lot. How will people live together in a spaceship? How's it going to work on a long trip going to Mars? The dynamics, the psychology...I think we show that very well. Our people get mad at each other."

Although Claudia Christian will not feature in the fifth season, replaced by Captain Lochley, placed by Tracy Scoggins, there are still more appearances for Ivanova in new Babylon 5 stories, namely the two TV movies made for TNT in the summer of 1997. Along with other actors, Christian plays her character twenty or so years earlier in one short scene in the prequel, In the Beginning - something the which the studio originally had thought she would not be able to do.

"It was ironic, because they came up to me and said they were really having a hard time finding someone to play Ivanova at eighteen." she says. "I'd already humiliated myself by bringing in my High School Prom photos - they could see I hadn't changed much at all. I was just a little fatter.

"Joe Straczynski said, 'You know, she looks the same'. My attitude was, if you're having one person playing their young self, then everybody has to. Otherwise it looks stupid. So now I'm playing it with a short wig on, and looking like a tomboy with very little makeup. Hopefully the DP will light me very nicely and then no-one will notice! That was the whole irony - they were happy with me playing 50 [in the final episode] but not 18. I look closer to 18 than 50, I think!"

Making actors look younger is just on e of the problems facing the Babylonian production team. "We don't have a heck of a lot of money to do these movies," Associate Producer John Copeland explains. "For each movie we have less than we did for the pilot - dollar for dollar we have less dollars. Mike Vejar is directing "In the Beginning", and he does wonderful work, but it's always pretty painful getting there with him. It's like a coach that makes you work really hard for an athletics competition - you curse him and hate him, but when you go our there and run the race, and you win, then all of a sudden it's all worth it. Mike is really, really good. He goes to the edge.

"I don't think we look at the movies as extended Babylon 5 episodes," he continues. "We are trying, within the resources that we have, to bring as much to the screen as we possibly can, just like the series production. We have limited economic resources, particularly in comparison with all the other shows that are out there. So we have to make conscious decisions where we are really going to go for it, and where we are going to go in a straightforward manner. I think both of our directors - Jesus [Trevino] and Mike - were excellent choices for these movies, because they were really striving to bring the little extra nuances out which we don't normally get a chance to do in a series episode.

"The difference is we've got 90 or so minutes of story-telling time, so there's a depth and a texture which a director can work towards illuminating, and stretching certain facets of, which, when you're dealing with 42 minutes and 45 frames of story content in an episode, you have just brief moments to do."

Executive Producer Doug Netter is equally happy with the results. "I think the movies look very special. Big. Different. Which was the assignment we gave ourselves: the two movies had to be different from the episodics. Not that we're displeased with the episodics - they have beautiful quality and we're very pleased with them, but I am very pleased with these movies."

"In the Beginning" is being aired at the start of January, marking the first broadcast of Babylon 5 on its new home, Turner Network Television (TNT). While new episodes are being shown weekly to form season 5, the complete four years of the series is being stripped daily - with a little extra bonus.

"Turner mentioned to us that they wanted an 'event movie', and Joe understood what they meant - or at least we think he did - and Thirdspace is an 'event movie'. It's the kind of thing we haven't done that much of, " Doug Netter explains.

But was it designed to attract a wider audience? "I don't think we intended that. If it happens, it'll be wonderful, because we would like to broaden the audience. I think we are more compelled by what we were asked to do. It's a very good point, but that wasn't really the reason we did it. People expect more from a movie, and we are trying to give it to them."

In Thirdspace, set during the fourth season, a mysterious artifact is found near Babylon 5 which leads to major problems on board the station. "It's a very fun story," John Copeland laughs. "It's also a real departure from the type of stories we tell on Babylon 5. However, we're pretty electic on the stories we tell! but this one was akin to a horror movie, almost. It's a little bit of Joe's nudge to HP Lovecraft and August Derleth."

"In Thirdspace, I kick some butt," Claudia Christian says with relish. "I think we needed this change of pace. I myself, once in a while, like to have a really kickbutt, rousing movie. I needed it.

"I love to do stunt things. I had a nice fight scene with Shari Belafonte. Originally it was set up that it was a well matched fight, and that's how it is written. But I was relieved to hear that it wasn't going to be well matched when I got on the set. First of all, I was six inches taller than her - she's a little women, and second of all - I'm the hero! She did get one good punch in, and that made me - the character of Ivanova -furious."

"Sheridan has a thing for high explosives!" Bruce Boxleitner believes. "He's a bit of a pyro[maniac], a galactic size pyro. He likes to play with these nuclear devices. He would have done very well in the Cold War: Doctor Strangelove Sheridan. When I read Thirdspace I thought, 'Here we go again!'"

"The special effect work on Thirdspace is going to be enormous," Doug Netter points out. "The artifacts, and the creature, and Bruce is going in, so I think we'll do it more excitingly than anything you've ever seen on TV. I certainly hope so: we seem to be able to do that from time to time."

But what of the future of the series? Season five will run on TNT across half of 1998, and Boxleitner doesn't see any reason to worry about its format. "We could go into stand alone episodes," he muses. "I don't know what the future will bring. We used to have four or five of them throughout the season to elongate it out - like the one with Brad Dourif - which didn't further the plot along."

While all the production team have been very restrained in releasing information about the new season, plans are underway for the semi-sequel, "The Babylon Project: Crusade. "Crusade is not as arc-driven as the original Babylon 5 series has been," John Copeland states. "There is an arc to it, but in the sense that there is an arc to the original Star Trek, in that there was a five year mission to explore space. It's more of a theme. In some respects, it's a galactic scavenger hunt. But because there is a theme, we have to hit milestones, and we have to deliver on things, so you feel you're making progress on solving the puzzles that are posed within this.

"It's a little different in several respects from Babylon 5. Babylon 5 I would define as a dramatic show with an action component to it; 'Crusade' is going to be an action show with a dramatic content. We're going to do this one for fun, have a lot more fun in it."

"We keep coming back, " Bruce Boxleitner maintains. "We are truly an underdog, because everything is pitted against us. Sometimes Joe walks out looking as if he has been beaten with a pipe. It's like we're Rocky, and keep coming back, - they keep trying to knock us down and kill us...

"I think we live under the shadow of Star Trek - in this country. In the UK, you've had much more of a tradition of these science fiction shows: Blake's 7, The Prisoner, all of them. The best ones, in fact, are far as I am concerned. But I think we've lived under this thing, and that's what the networks see. 'We've got Star Trek - that's all we need.' There's a kind of lack of imagination."

"The only successful science fiction show at the time we started was Star Trek," Doug Netter confirms. "And there were many who believed that there could be only one. I didn't believe that, and neither did the fans, who obviously like this show. We tried to make Babylon 5 different, by exploring worlds that they hadn't been to on TV. Joe purposely set the story on Babylon 5 so it could be paying from that point of view, but I think what make it different was the special effects portion of it, because nobody believed you could open it up with the special effects, with the virtual sets. We believed that we could, and we did. And not only has it been successful with the loyal and growing fan base which we have, but the critics seem to have picked up on it.

"We all dedicated ourselves with the strong belief that you could make a quality science fiction show with the economics that are present in the world of syndication, because many times you can't change those economics. We all wanted to do it, and we all did it. We have a way of operating here where the economics are known to all of us, and we try and make a quality show."

"There were so many people over at Warner Brothers who didn't think we would be able to pull together the pilot," John Copeland adds. "Okay, it had its weaknesses, but we did it as good as we possibly could at the time. We are our own harshest critics, and we make plans on how we want to improve subsequent seasons. When we got into the second season, we had had a year with Warners, and they saw how we were brining this along. We have not had a comment from them on one of the scripts since the second season. We were able to corner their trust.

"I don't think we would have had the same sort of experience working with a network. There are twelve people at the network and ten at the studio who have to justify their existence, and they have to put their imprimatur on the show. The reason those folks are in those jobs are because they don't have the ability to be here! I'll probably get a lot of hate mail for that, but they really are. There are some really talented people, but there are a lot of 'creative' folks who really aren't.

"We've been very fortunate. We've been able to tell stories that other shows haven't been able to tell. Babylon 5 is not a show with happy endings. It's a show about making choices and living with the aftermath, taking the responsibility for what you've done."

At the recent Visions convention in Chicago, there was overwhelming fan support for a sixth season, but whatever the future of Babylon 5, Doug Netter firmly believes one thing. "No matter what happens, it will come back again and again. It's a strong concept, and everything we do in it makes it better. We're never satisfied with what we've done last season, and with that creative drive, the fans aren't let down - at least, I hope they're not let down...

"I don't think that Babylon 5 will ever die, and I don't care if you quote me!"