Babylon 5- The Lost Tales *SPOILERS*

[Joseph DeMartino]

How many shows a year? It depends...

The wildcard here is the TV side of things. We don't know if they'll make a deal with a network, cable channel or syndicator (JMS indicated that a network was interested, but anything's possible) or if this will be strictly DVD. If the Lost Tales are going to run on TV, there's the question of format - once a week? Once a month TV movie? (Three 30 minute stories would fill a two-hour slot with commercials added.) 3 or 4 movies a year a la Columbo?

Assuming the first installment is released Q2 next year as planned; we could be waiting until this time next year (or longer) before knowing if there will be more installments. That would limit us to 1 B5:TLT DVD per year if that pattern is followed. Perhaps if the first is successfull they will order more than one?

For a DVD only release, history might provide some clues:


With the series DVDs WB set a release schedule of about one set every six months, and they only paid to produce extras for season one before its release. Once they got the sales figures for S1 they started to accelerate the release schedule and mastering and producing extras for subsequent seasons ahead of time (asking questions about later seasons when they had an actor available for an interview, etc.) Because the market trend at that point (it has changed somewhat since) was that with full season DVD sets every subsequent season sold about as well as the first - within a couple of percentage points either way. So once they saw they were making a profit on S1, they could be confident of making their money back on the later seasons and were more willing to spend money up front. (Paramount, supremely confident in their ability to part a Trekker from his money, completely mastered every episode of TNG before the first set went on sale, so they only needed to replicate and package the discs to meet a once-a-month release schedule. We're talking about spending several million dollars per season starting a year before the first set went on sale. They did the same with all the subsequent series.)

Regards,

Joe

[AmyG]

There may have been something in one of the scriptbooks, which are full of amusing little errors and typos

Yeah, I've even noticed places where he has typed the wrong character name into the directions, so that you have Garibaldi saying something G'Kar should have said. Of course, it's easy for us to know that it's wrong (because we can 'hear' the characters and know the kinds of things they'd say, plus many of us have so many of the episodes practically memorized ), but I wonder if it'll cause all sorts of havoc in English lit/analysis courses devoted to B5 in future generations...

[frulad]

Nothing so far. It would be cool for there to be the freedom for the segments to be however long the story required, though, wouldn't it?

Having spent the last six-months working with local filmmakers on making short films of no longer than five minutes and getting them screened at a local theatre before the regular features, I would welcome all sorts of running times. I imagine that JMS could probably write a one scene humor piece that lasts only two minutes or so and ends with a great punchline.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yeah, I've even noticed places where he has typed the wrong character name into the directions...

Oh, I wasn't even talking about the scripts themselves, I meant the introductions where he loses track of who did what, and what happened when. Even though JMS is a fan, he still falls prey to the "it was a job and there was lots of stuff happening" syndrome that naturally overtakes the people involved in productions. So at this point fans who heard an anecdote told at a convention a fews weeks after a given episode was shot proabably know more about what really happened than the people who were there.

Fans, who pour over scripts, watch the episodes over and over again, read and write fanfic and reference material on these shows are often (as you well know) astonished how little the actors know, care or remember about the shows. (Or how many actors quite literally read only their own lines and scenes and have no idea what the over-all story of the episode is, much less any memory of it 10 or 20 years later.)

Regards,

Joe

[Alfred Taylor]

I've been waiting for over ten years.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been waiting for over ten years for Mr. Garibaldi to get even with Mr. Bester. I'm hoping it involves something creative, painful, and colorful.

I would also like to see Zack finally get together with Lyta. The conversation in the elevator in Third Space was very well done and painful to watch. For a P12+ telepath, Lyta can be a bit dense.

[Ranger1]

One can only hope to see the Bester\Garibaldi smack down, but im not so sure about that, we see Garibaldi in SiL so we know he got the deal with Lyta to work, thus Bester is dead (or eating his food out of a straw).

We also know that Lyta got some serious issues at the end of season 5, i don't think that "the judgment day weapon" would have a romantic relationship with Zack.

Btw welcome to the forum Alfred Taylor *waves*

[ZenoParadoxus]

Umm, read the Telepath trilogy. We find out exactly what happens to Bester (and Garibaldi is not the cause of his death). When the "lost" Crusade scripts come out, we find out a little about what happend to Mr. Bester after the Telepath War...

John

[Jan]

Zeno, "Value Judgments" is by Fiona Avery so we can't hope that it's going to be included in the Crusade script books. Hopefully Fiona and the other writers will follow JMS's lead, though.

Jan

[moreorless]

Going from what JMS has said so far I got the impression that TLT would cover material intended for but not used in B5 rather than following up stories set afterwards.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Going from what JMS has said so far I got the impression that TLT would cover material intended for but not used in B5 rather than following up stories set afterwards.

Those unused "B" and "C" story ideas - ideas too small to be stretched over a one-hour episode by themselves - seem to have been his initial inspiriation for the "Lost Tales", but I don't see that statement as meaning he is going to limit himself to just the time period of the main series. But I doubt he'll overlap much with the published novels or get into big stories like The Telepath War, either, except indirectly. He could decide to adapt one or more of the short stories, though, which would certainly be interesting.

Regards,

Joe

[Shabaz]

Those unused "B" and "C" story ideas - ideas too small to be stretched over a one-hour episode by themselves - seem to have been his initial inspiriation for the "Lost Tales", but I don't see that statement as meaning he is going to limit himself to just the time period of the main series. But I doubt he'll overlap much with the published novels or get into big stories like The Telepath War, either, except indirectly. He could decide to adapt one or more of the short stories, though, which would certainly be interesting.

Regards,

Joe

I'm not sure if you missed it, but earlier in this thread Jan actually transcribed the questions he answered on TLT at ComicCon. And he actually touched on the Telepath War there:

Q: My question is, there is still a great big gaping hole in the Babylon 5 story. Will we ever see anything of the Telepath War?

JMS: As IÆm laying out these DVDs IÆm thinking ôWe can do this story with Sheridan, this story with so-and-so, this storyàooh, Lytaàthe Telepath War. So IÆm starting to play with that for down the road. HereÆs the deal, if these first DVDs sell well, if the broadcast get good ratings, these will be an ongoing thing. We will keep putting out æThe Lost TalesÆ and broadening that out until weÆve got ten thousand of them, whatever it is. If you want to get to the Telepath Wars, get the first ones. Eventually we do plan to get to that, yeah. Or I plan to get to that anyway.

So he is definitely planning on sinking his teeth into at least one of the bigger stories in the B5 universe, if TLT do well enough.

Also, it seems a combination of the "lost" stories he might've found during the scripts project, and an idea had much, much earlier, and talked about in '97, for a hypothetical sixth season for B5 as a anthology show. From here:

I didn't say it would be difficult to turn down doing a 6th season, but
that the situation would *be* difficult. Obviously, their first choice
would be to have me do it...but just as obviously I don't want to do a
sixth season, 'cause the story ends in 5, and even TNT has been actively
promoting S5 as the last season of B5. Now, in theory, WB could do B5
without me, since they own the copyright, and that would be the last bullet
in their gun if I got real difficult about it.

The only other option would be to do a "Tales from Babylon 5" sixth
season, which would be an anthology series, to all intents and purposes,
using our characters almost like a repertory group.

But we'll see...it's still a long way off, and as Ted Kennedy once said,
we'll drive off that bridge when we come to it.


jms

He even uses the word repertory again when describing TLT at SDCC, if you look at Jan's transcripts.

[Jan]

JMS's latest post in response to Jon (SmileoftheShadow):

We had to push shooting to mid-November in order to accommodate
availabilities of different people, because this had all come up in
kind of short notice...but we'll be in the new stages by the end of
October, and a few key members of the crew have already been hired. So
we're good to go.

jms

And a quote from a new Dreamwatch magazine interview (probably a few weeks before publishing):

Dreamwatch: Have you had any talks about the project with the actors?

JMS: We've just started talks this week. Which actors are in the first three episodes will depend on availability and other factors. Ideally, I'd like to rotate through the whole cast, preferably in a thematic fashion. One episode would concern itself with issues of command, and thus feature Sheridan, Lochley and Garibaldi; another would concern the Psi Corps, and we'd have Lyta, Bester, and someone else; another would be a strong Minbari theme, so we would have Delenn, Lennier and Sheridan (in his role as head of the Interstellar Alliance); a Centauri sequence with Londo, Via and someone else; and we'd mix it up a bit.

Dreamwatch: Do you plan to adopt one common storytelling format for the 30-minute tales?

JMS: The first one is set to pick up in real-time after the events of [penultimate episode] Objects at Rest. But the others may move forward or backward in time. This would also give us the ability to do a Sinclair or a Marcus story.

This is going to be good.

Jan

[Circular Reason]

Wow - looking forward to it now - and the possibility of more Sinclair ( my fave character ) and Marcus - superb.

Can't wait.

[Jan]

JMS replied to my question about the release date:

> Are you still looking at a release for the first one in the second quarter of
> 2007 or is it more likely to be third quarter now?
>

This doesn't affect the release date at all. We should have post done
by mid-January, so there's a lot of time between that and second
quarter.

jms

[SmileOfTheShadow]

JMS's latest post in response to Jon (SmileoftheShadow):



And a quote from a new Dreamwatch magazine interview (probably a few weeks before publishing):



This is going to be good.

Jan

Oh my god oh my god oh my god! That's all I can say. I'm very excited that we get new continuity right after objects at rest, and I'm even more excited that we get to see more Sinclair and Marcus. Like I just posted on rastb5m, I'd much rather them take their time and get it right then rush it. Although not taking time means they can push out more b5 product faster...hmm...


Jon