STARBURST #230 10/97

When production on the fourth season of Babylon 5 ended in June, the future of the show looked in grave jeopardy. The situation might have caused concern for the show's fans, but no one was more anxious than leading man Bruce Boxleitner. As Boxleitner admits to Starburst, "I was driving myself, and just everybody else around me, crazy at the time. My wife was certainly tired of hearing about this show. This thing was up and down several times. Why should it be this difficult? It should be the reverse. I said, 'I guarantee that over at Paramount [Star Trek are] not having these anxieties ­ they know they're going on!' Star Trek will keep alive, and it's always been like we're on the brink of dying." Perhaps the days of pessimism concerning Babylon 5's future are finally over. After ordering two special TV movies, cable channel TNT has signed up for Season Five. Warners may yet make the spin-off series, The Babylon Project: Crusade, and there's also a possibility of a blockbuster Babylon 5 movie that could be released in theatres in a couple of years time.

The popular press has also supported the commitment to the show. For the first time in its history, Babylon 5 recently made the cover of TV Guide, American's most prestigious TV listings magazine. And no one is more delighted than the programme's star. "It's a clear signal that mainstream television is acknowledging this show finally," he grins, "and that's a huge compliment to everybody here. Certainly the hardcore fans have stuck with it ­ thank God ­ but now the general media have mentioned us. We were mentioned on Saturday Night Live during one of their sketches. Howard Stern was talking about it on his radio show the other day. "We've had several writers for TV Guide pushing the editors to finally break through. I believe Star Trek has dominated Sci-Fi TV. Now we've finally got our break, so it is a true coup." Part of the problem, Boxleitner believes, stems from the fact that in America Babylon 5 receives very haphazard scheduling. New episodes are interspersed with repeats, jeopardizing the audience's ability to follow the story arc, while different states air the show at different times. "With so much competition in television around the world, you need to make as much of an impact as possible," Boxleitner insists. "This show is just plopped on various stations at the mercy of local programming. A network would give it a major presentation, but it never really got that. I believe TNT is doing that. In January [In the Beginning, one of the new TV movies] airs, and then they go through the pilot and first season, so I think it's finally going to get a showcase." Before the series makes its debut on TNT, there are still a number of Season Four episodes left to air. In America, the final four stories have been held over until the Autumn. In the UK it is early days yet, as Channel 4 began broadcasting the series later than in previous years ­ possibly due to the uncertainty about its future. How does the actor feel Babylon 5 has developed over the past year? "I think that things really jettisoned ahead there when we received news that this could be it," says Boxleitner. "You'll notice that the fourth season had no real stand alone epidosed. So we really went along plot ahead, and my own personal opinion is it's much better. I like it because sometimes I used to get anxious when they had these stand alones ­ 'Come on I want to continue the Shadow war!' I just wanted to get to it. I know there were people who were critical of that, and I'm sure they don't know the behind the scenes reasons."

Executive producer Joe Straczynski has promised that each season of Babylon 5 will be radically different from the last, and by moving the focus of the fourth season towards Earth he has been true to his word. The fight to topple President Clark's tyrannical rule provides some superb episodes, but perhaps the most intriguing is Intersections in Real Time, in which Sheridan finds himself in the hands of an interrogator. A beautifully stylized piece, the episode uses a minimal number of characters, and is shot predominantly within the room. "It was more like The Prisoner or somethig," Boxleitner says of Straczynski's script. He attributes much of the story's success to guest actor Raye Birk, who played the Interrogator. "He was just tremendous," he enthuses. "I applauded him because he literally had the hardest part. He invented this fastidious, precise little man who was actually just a common man ­ it was just his job. He says he doesn't get emotionally involved, and he does ­ he finally does. "He stepped into that relatively quickly because another actor was signed and Disney pulled him. This other actor did a pilot and the week that he was to start here Disney had first rights to him and they decided to re-shoot the pilot. Raye had been the second choice and he walked right in and went on. He got the call and the next day he showed up here. He came quite prepared, and he enjoyed it a great deal." Intersections in Real Time shows Sheridan at his lowest ebb ­ tortured, exhausted and almost hopeless. It's a pivotal episode for the character, as these harrowing events will make an indelible mark on his future. "It was fun suffering!" grins Boxleitner. "That was when the beard started growing. I didn't have to worry about spilling my lunch on my wardrobe. I got to do some very different things. A lot of listening and reacting ­ which is often what acting is all about." So if the chips were down, could Boxleitner be as brave as his screen alter ego? "I could never be John Sheridan," he insists. "I'm not as decisive, I don't have such clear cut decisions. He's very concise." Yet, he believes, the character has grown radically during the fourth season. Saved from certain death by the First One ­ Lorien ­ Sheridan now has only 20 years remaining to him, and he has much to do, as the fifth season will reveal. "If I had 20 years to live, I think everything would look very different," Boxleitner muses. "Certainly he becomes more intense. He becomes like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick as we finish episode 21." Fearing that the show would not be renewed, Straczynski opted to shoot the concluding episode, Sleeping in Light, at the end of Season Four. The story, which takes place two decades in the future, will now be aired at the end of Season Five, and a new episode The Deconstruction of Falling Stars has been filmed to take its place. "I know how Babylon 5 ends," Boxleitner teases, "and I will not tell anybody. People were in tears, it was very sad."

After the completion of Sleeping in Light there was little time for reflection: many of the cast and crew returned to the soundstage and almost immediately to shoot Thirdspace and In the Beginning, the two TV movies for TNT. Ironically, after being aged 20 years for the final episode, Boxleitner found himself looking ten years younger in the prequel, which tells of John Sheridan during the Earth/Minbari war. "It's kind of fun to be able to do a different look," he claims. "When I finished the series I had a full beard and grey hair, so to go back in time is rather fun. You don't get to do that sort of thing much in series television, to cover so many looks for a character. You mainly establish a look and then you stay in it. Captain Kirk never looked different ­ and he's still trying to look the same way! It's supposed to be 10 years before the pilot, at a seminal event in these characters' lives." Boxleitner reveals that the cast has been made to look younger through subtle makeup changes and clever lighting. "If you light straight on you, you really wash out all the flaws," he reveals. "They dyed my hair because I've got a lot of grey hair, which is starting to [show] more and more." The actor is also adapting his performance to complement the more youthful appearance, and his voice takes on a lighter, less authoritative tone. "He's quicker and much more impulsive," Boxleitner says of the youthful Sheridan. "This is a young officer on the rise. This is where he becomes Starkiller. He's much more ambitious ­ this is where he gets to prove that he's not just a rich man's son. He's also with a Captain he really likes. He turned down a promotion because he didn't want to leave him and his crew in the lurch, but Sheridan has to take over and eventually he has his moment. Either he takes over command, or they are killed. So he decides to take the bull by the horns and takes command."

And what of Thirdspace, the stand-alone movie which is set during the early months of 2261? "It was good," he enthuses. "It could have been a stand alone episode that has been expanded into a bigger thing, and I think it proved to be fun. That's going to put on just towards the fourth or fifth season ­ just to give the fans something during the long interim. I got to try out a new prop ­ a jet pack on the back as he goes into this alien artifact." In previous years the cast and crew of Babylon 5 have enjoyed a three-month break between seasons. This year, because of the two TV movies, they have little more than six weeks to catch their breath before commencing work on Season Five. However, considering the long struggle that preceded the commissioning of another year, nobody is complaining. "Doing the fifth season is an absolute joy," smiles Boxleitner. "If it goes on any further I think we just have to deal with that and see what it's all about. Certainly I'd love to, but by the end of this we may have gotten all we've wanted to get out of it. I also believe you can be around too long. You want to go out when you're still good."

Thanks Karen H and Claudia!