STARBURST special #35 7/96

People think many things of Hollywood, but they don't imagine where a lot of the work gets done: in industrial turnouts like Sun City, a threadbare extremity of Los Angeles near the hills above Burbank. It's brown here, and often sunny and warm with the smell of dust or smog. Babylonian Productions, home of Babylon 5, is in an industrial circle with other companies like AquaMold (a plastics casting firm, perhaps). The building adjacent the office says Orange Bang, but Joe Straczynski (who happens by and says hello) says that B5 has mostly taken it over and that's a good thing. "You should smell the liquids they used to dump in the mornings," JMS says. "I'll never drink Orange Bang again." Bruce Boxleitner, Mira Furlan, and Pat Tallman (Lyta Alexander) were on the set which doubled as Alexander's bedroom. Tallman was in a trance, discussing beings from Thirdspace (also the name of the sequel movie being filmed) which struggled against the Vorlons. The bedroom was disrupted. Words were crayon-scrawled on the walls and other surfaces: 'There is danger' and 'Remember' are written in cursive hand. Someone called "Break!"

Cliffhanger

"Because of the indecisions of the powers that be," Boxleitner says, speaking before the series was revived for a fifth season. "We wrapped the entire series. We wrapped it all. I mean, Joe [Straczynski] has his magic way of opening it up, but by June 15 our contracts are all up. You want to be in a cliffhanger...! We've been actually asked to go on further, extend the contract time. Most of us said yes." Additionally, the prequel movie is being readied and Boxleitner is in that as well. And just what is prequel about? "It's a smattering of characters and where they were during the seminal events of the entire series," Boxleitner continues, "such as encountering the Minbari. There was no Babylon 5. There were no Babylon stations, period. It goes back 14 years before the pilot." Patricia Tallman takes a seat and chats about Thirdspace. "Thirdspace is another dimension," she explains, pausing to allow the make-up artist to work on her. "There's regular space, hyperspace...and thirdspace." Then Boxleitner discusses the concluding episodes of Season Four. "The Vorlons and Shadows went over the Rim. The one thing left after that was that the Babylon station was ostracized in the embargo and quarantine by Earth. The administration running Earth has taken over and is fascist. So we all want to go home to Earth and set things aright!" Those last words he drawls out like a Western cowboy. Boxleitner has played cowboys effectively in the past. "So the rebels ­ us ­ take on Earth and that's what the remaining part of the series is. Sheridan is driven by all this and I become...slightly more mad than Ahab!" As an aside, Bruce Boxleitner shares his plans for a book series, "Terminator meets Unforgiven," he quips. "A bloody, noir-ish, marriage between Sci-Fi and Western genres." Boxleitner is working with author/editor Ed Gorman on the series, as yet untitled. Boxleitner also hopes to spin the series into graphic novels, maybe a TV series, etc. So how is it to be Sheridan? Does this sort of Captain Kirk phenomenon ruin one's life? "Yes!" Boxleitner laughs. "Described by Dilbert, 'Sheridan walks around with the look of having a near-migraine', but I don't know of any other space captain that doesn't look that way! Try being a captain in space! "But anyway," Boxleitner continues, "that's where we're at. We continue on. One struggle after another. And as the final speech said, 'the alliance survived, wavered, cracked, but it never broke'."

Sheridan-Delenn

And Sheridan's relationship with the Minbari? Sheridan is wed to Delenn, Mira Furlan's Minbari character. What last name will Sheridan and Delenn's kids have? Boxleitner laughs. "Sheridan, or course. None of that modern '90s crap." At this moment, Mira Furlan enters, smiling in bemusement in her Delenn make-up. Boxleitner wisecracks, turning to her. "Well, Sheridan-Delenn, I guess." She looks quizzically. "My God," Boxleitner adds, "I'm actually talking about all this as if it actually exists." With the prequel and sequel being filmed back-to-back, the natural question is of how a fifth season could be accomplished when, at the time of filming Thirdspace, it looked like it would end at the fourth. "It's built in. That's working in television," says Boxleitner. "When you say 'a five-year saga' that's written already, it had better be able to be moved around and made flexible, because TV is never smooth or predictable. [JMS] has had all these contingency plans, which makes him even more brilliant than I thought. They gave him all this last year [1996]. 'Wrap it up in four!' Then it sold to TNT [Turner Network Television, Turner now being part of Time-Warner]. The wonderful TNT folks here are finally going to give this show a presentation that it never got. If it sounds like I have a little bitterness, well I feel that. "It's going to be great when TNT puts it on," Boxleitner goes on to say. "I've already narrated a preview for it. You'll love it, it'll give you the feeling of an epic, or a book." "Literally, we were all over at Blackpool last year [1996] in a giant stadium in front of 3,000 fans and Joe walked on stage with a fax in his pocket ­ he'd just gotten the fax ­ that there was going to be a fourth season." "Did you know? Did you know when you went on stage?" Patricia Tallman asks excitedly. "Just as we walked on," Boxleitner says, "Joe called us together just before and told us. They picked us up, 'just by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin' because they'd forgotten!" "Amazing!" Tallman says. "One hand doesn't know what the other hand's doing!" The question of the future remains; if not B5, what might Bruce Boxleitner do? "It depends. I really like this kind of a show. I'd like an X-Files kind of a show. I've always been intrigued by that. Do Men in Black...only for real." All the time he's talking, I'm noticing the communication device glued to the back of his hand. He assures me it's comfortable and the skin won't eventually come off his hand. "If it's real warm and I start to sweat, it starts to peel off," he says, and smiles to the make-up woman, "then I yell for her!" This particular unit is dull grey. For featured close-up shots, a nice metal one with lights is substituted. "We don't have that built-in Star Trek thing," Boxleitner added. "I'm not resenting that. I like Star Trek, it's just the constant feeling of always having one foot off the ground." Bruce Boxleitner has worked on many series on American television and he rates Babylon 5 as a grand experience.

Vorlon Fallout

Patricia Tallman's take on the series is different. The view from where Lyta Alexander stands is different from Sheridan's. This is evident from Lyta's role in Thirdspace. "I get to be a little crazy. These Vorlons have messed with me to a degree, so we don't know what can happen. This is another ramification of being part-Vorlon." Vorlons of course, do not appear in the sequel, but their technology and former presence are keenly felt. Tallman, a Chicago native, seems totally self-confident. Babylon 5 has been her home for some time. "I was in the pilot," she says, "then I showed up here and there for the first three seasons and became a regular for the fourth season." And being a telepath requires special effects...and contact lenses. "For white eyes, they do a glowing CGI effect," Tallman explains, "but for black eyes, I wear full-lens contacts. There's a little hole in the middle of them to see out of, but they're very painful." In normal life, Tallman wears glasses.

Thanks Karen H and Claudia!