
Why Michael O'Hare left Babylon 5 - qohen
http://www.blastr.com/2013-5-28/straczynski-reveals-moving-story-why-michael-ohare-left-babylon-5 
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INTPenis
Story wise I think it blew Star Trek out of the water, I really do. I much
prefer the dark, gritty and realistic locales of B5 over the white polished
Apple spaceships of Star Trek.

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lukifer
Spend a little time in the DS9 universe, which arguably has more in common
with B5 than the rest of the Treks. (Supposedly, the show's core concept was
stolen from a pitch by Straczynski which was declined, with B5 following
through shortly after on a different network.)

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lotharbot
As a big fan of B5 (it's one of two shows I own on DVD; the other is Firefly)
who is currently 5 seasons into DS9 on Netflix, I find the "stolen concept"
concerns overblown. I've heard people try to compare tiny elements from the
two shows, saying "look at what a rip-off this is" (as if the Trek writers
took JMS's five-season script and cribbed from it liberally), but it strikes
me as more like the Trek writers took a little inspiration from JMS's pitch
and then went an entirely different direction with it.

I mean, they are both space stations with numbers in their names. The
remaining similarities are equally superficial. They're not really trying to
tell the same type of story -- B5 is about massive-scale diplomacy (with war
as an extension of diplomacy, like Clausewitz said) and empire-building. DS9
is mostly standard Star Trek style one-off episodes: aliens who feed on
creativity, time travel to Roswell, Bajoran politicians abusing power in
trying to recover stolen farm equipment. Even the "big" storyline of the
Dominion War is a much smaller scale than B5's Shadow War. Sure, they both had
huge battles, but I'm inclined to blame that on advances in CG -- ST:TNG
certainly referenced huge battles, like during the Klingon Civil War, but
never put them on screen.

Thus, I contend that DS9 has way more in common with the rest of the Treks
than it does with B5, and liking one won't translate into liking the other.

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lukifer
> the Trek writers took a little inspiration from JMS's pitch and then went an
> entirely different direction with it.

Agreed. It was a minor dick move, but a far cry from a creative rip-off. DS9
goes its own direction (influenced heavily by BSG's Ronald Moore), and stands
on its own two feet.

> liking one won't translate into liking the other.

Not necessarily, but I do think they're cousins, in that they both take
galactic politics seriously (the miscellaneous Trek one-offs notwithstanding).

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PhantomGremlin
Sort of OT to the main topic, but, as they briefly mention in the story, quite
a few actors from B5 have died:

Michael O'Hare

Richard Biggs

Andreas Katsulas

Jeff Conaway

Tim Choate

If it wasn't "great" television, what is? I'll take G'Kar sparring with Londo
any day over the pablum on TV now.

~~~
mrexroad
i didn't know that g'kar (andreas katsulas) and zach (tim choate) had passed
away. thanks for posting.

g'kar and londo's story lines were nothing short of fantastic.

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twoodfin
Wow. JMS was very active on the message boards while the show was on the air
(Delphi first, IIRC, then rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5), and of course the topic of
the O'Hare->Boxleitner switch was a heated one. His explanations were always
rather unsatisfying, and now it's clear why.

 _Babylon 5_ was not great television. But it certainly should get credit for
being pioneering television, both for its reliance on CGI vs. traditional FX,
and its wholehearted devotion to a serialized story (and not merely an ever
evolving "soap opera") over the traditional episodic format. And with a
season-spanning canvas on which to tell stories, it had more than a few
transcendent moments.

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alan_cx
Not great television?

IMHO, and IMHO only, it was the best TV series ever made, for the reasons you
cited. I have never seen character driven serialisation like it, before or
since. Even though its 20 years old, and visually iffy by today's standards,
people still come to it fresh and enjoy it as much as people did all those
years ago.

OK, rationally, it has problems, but to call it not great is doing is a gross
dis-service.

~~~
baddox
Most reviews I have heard agreed with you. I have heard nothing but praise for
the show. But after watching the first 2 or 3 episodes several years ago the
best word I can think of to describe it is "unwatchable."

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kposehn
I do have to say, keep going.

Season 1 is...an inkling of something good coming.

Season 2, B5 starts to get interesting

Season 3, they hit their stride and then hit you upside the head mid-season
(no spoilers!)

Season 4...holy shit

Season 5, things wrap up. Not.

~~~
rosser
As amazing as Season 4 was, I can only begin to imagine the levels of awesome
it would've reached if they hadn't had to wrap up all the open storylines out
of concern that they wouldn't get renewed for the fifth season.

If they'd gotten renewed in time, the Season 4 finale would have been
_Intersections in Real Time_.

~~~
kposehn
I know! Season 5 was empire building (according to JMS on Lurker's Guide) but
he really wanted to split 4 across up further.

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alan_cx
As a full on B5 fanboi, thanks for posting this.

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gcb0
What's JMS? It's never expanded in the article.

Was that just lousy writer or is this like a prince/rapper thing?

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lotharbot
The show's creator: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski>

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mixmastamyk
A shame that O'Hare couldn't continue, he was great in the role.

Last year rbanffy posted an interesting link by a writer exploring what
could/would have happened had he stayed:
<http://www.webcs.com/b5/neverwas.html>

Very interesting reading for fans that I recommend.

~~~
stormbrew
If you look in the right places you'll actually find the original 5 year
outline from the extra volume of the B5 script books. There were bigger
changes than anything on that page. Notably that B5 would have ended on the
brink of the Shadow War, not after the end of it. WWE might have even been
essentially the series finale.

