Babylon 5- The Lost Tales *SPOILERS*

[Shabaz]

I agree completely that many, many fans would love to see Ivanova in TLT. It was among the first questions asked of JMS after he announced it.

As for JMS listening to the podcasts...who knows? The only time that I can recall his commenting on them at all was when he said that he'd read a transcript of a particular interview with Matthew Sprange of Mongoose Publishing. For all I know, he lurks on many boards and newsgroups and follows every link and every discussion about B5. Or not. As busy as he is lately, I don't see how he could.

Please don't think that I was saying you should or shouldn't talk about whatever you like wherever you like, Shabaz. Your post asked what people thought and what I wrote was simply my personal opinion.

Jan

Ok, sure. But you seemed to imply that putting it on the newsgroup may not have been the smartest thing to do, because it would be waking up sleeping dogs. Which you might right about, but like I said, I never really considered it in that way, so perhaps I at the very least should've thought about it in that way myself first.

And one of the hints I believe involved him referencing a recent interview with Jason Carter on a B5 related podcast, in one of the scriptbooks, that they felt could pretty much only be them. I can't really verify it though, since I don't get those scriptbooks.

[AmyG]

I think it's hilariously optimistic to think that JMS listens to the podcast, especially now that he's exponentially more busy than usual. I think it's much more likely that people mention stuff to him once in awhile so that he stays in the loop.

As for posting what you did on the newsgroup, I haven't seen your message in the queue yet, so it may be stuck somewhere. But if you're looking for opinions, what you might want to do next time is simply say that there's some interesting info in this week's podcast, and that people might want to check it out for themselves. And briefly describe it. The point with Jan's various transcriptions is that they are of material that isn't generally available, like convention Q&As and Jerry Doyle's show (which isn't broadcast everywhere in the US, and you have to pay to have access to his show's online archive). The Babylon 5 podcasts are free, and available, and all anyone has to do who's interested in that particular dead horse's beating can go and listen to it themselves.

Final comment:

It's not a casting "idea" anymore...JMS straight up told us that it would be Lochley and Galen.

SmileoftheShadow, where did you get this from? I don't think that's been said anywhere.

Amy

[Shabaz]

I think it's hilariously optimistic to think that JMS listens to the podcast, especially now that he's exponentially more busy than usual. I think it's much more likely that people mention stuff to him once in awhile so that he stays in the loop.

Again, I don't get them so I can't really check, but apparently he does say something to that effect in one of the scriptbooks with regards to the Jason Carter interview they did. If he listened to any of the shows beyond that I don't really know, so saying there is a "good chance" he would listen to the Claudia interview anyway was maybe overstating it a bit.

As for posting what you did on the newsgroup, I haven't seen your message in the queue yet, so it may be stuck somewhere. But if you're looking for opinions, what you might want to do next time is simply say that there's some interesting info in this week's podcast, and that people might want to check it out for themselves. And briefly describe it. The point with Jan's various transcriptions is that they are of material that isn't generally available, like convention Q&As and Jerry Doyle's show (which isn't broadcast everywhere in the US, and you have to pay to have access to his show's online archive). The Babylon 5 podcasts are free, and available, and all anyone has to do who's interested in that particular dead horse's beating can go and listen to it themselves.

If it's lost in the usenet void, maybe it's for the best if it doesn't appear on the group then. I won't repost it.

The downloadable version of the interview won't appear for another couple of weeks on their website though. My sin is that of impatience more than anything else here, I think. But nobody seemed to mind it when I did it last week with Peter Jurasik's answer, so I thought I'd do it again.

And I'm not sure how it is all "beating a dead horse" when I transcribe what she said when asked about TLT. I mean, that's a pretty alive horse at this moment, I think. The point of that transcript was the "Yeah, I'd like to be part of it" more than anything else. But I couldn't really find a way to comfortably cut to that part without distorting her answer, so I kind of went to the other side and quoted everything she said in response to that question. And half of that still is her praising JMS, and the show, and the writing into high heaven, so it isn't all negativity and dead horse beating.

Also, I wasn't around when all of this originally went down (I was about 12 then, and worried about much different things than which actress was in command of a make belief space station ), so I don't exactly know how much this is all retreading old ground for people who were. But for me a lot of this was new, and in particular in the context of her potentially being part of TLT. I mean, I can guess at the type of flamewars and public mudslinging that must've gone down then, and I sort of glimpsed that via the Lurker's Guide, and it wasn't my intention to open old wounds or anything. But this seems the clearest piece of information on how things are with regards to Ivanova in TLT from the actress's side, and I know her answer made people on the podcast chat happy, and I thought I'd share what she'd said.

Maybe me paraphrasing her 8 minute rant to contextualize the answer is more beating a dead horse, I suppose. I for one didn't know she felt that strongly about it before hearing her in this interview, but maybe it is common knowledge for B5 fans better informed than me.

[vacantlook]

...The point with Jan's various transcriptions is that they are of material that isn't generally available, like convention Q&As and Jerry Doyle's show (which isn't broadcast everywhere in the US, and you have to pay to have access to his show's online archive). The Babylon 5 podcasts are free, and available, and all anyone has to do who's interested in that particular dead horse's beating can go and listen to it themselves.

And while the podcasts are available for download by anyone, people like me with dialup internet aren't very likely to be able to download them. Just for interest, I went and started to download the most recent podcast for the sake of seeing how long it estimates the download to take and it's between 6 and 12 hours. The files are just too large to make downloading them much of an option for someone who doesn't have broadband. But it can still be interesting to read specific transcriptions for discussion purposes, so I don't see a problem with it occationally; it's not like it's a transcript of the entire podcast.

[AmyG]

Again, I don't get them so I can't really check, but apparently he does say something to that effect in one of the scriptbooks with regards to the Jason Carter interview they did.

Since your information is vague (I'd need to know the date of the Jason Carter interview so I could listen to it, and which scriptbook you're talking about, and where in that scriptbook), I can't really judge. But I will say that the above could be a case of them thinking that JMS said something that referenced their interview. Remember, people read what they want into everything. We had more than one person on the newsgroup back in the day who took Marcus's comment to G'Kar from "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi" about his friends ("...precious few, and most of them gone now" or something like that) as an homage to Zork, for crying out loud!

If he listened to any of the shows beyond that I don't really know, so saying there is a "good chance" he would listen to the Claudia interview anyway was maybe overstating it a bit.

Or if he listened to any of the shows at all. Remember, this is the guy who only takes two days a year off from writing!

The downloadable version of the interview won't appear for another couple of weeks on their website though. My sin is that of impatience more than anything else here, I think. But nobody seemed to mind it when I did it last week with Peter Jurasik's answer, so I thought I'd do it again.

Downloadable? What about the rss itself? At this point, many people have iTunes, or other podcast-receiving software. I can download any of their podcasts whenever I want, independent of what they're posting on their website. Which reminds me: which podcast has the Claudia interview? Their little blurbs on iTunes are missing pertinent information like what guest they're featuring. I looked through all of the October episodes and the only guest mentioned was Carrie Dobro earlier in the month. I'd like to listen to it, but I don't want to sift through a month's worth of their podcasts, either.

And I'm not sure how it is all "beating a dead horse" when I transcribe what she said when asked about TLT. I mean, that's a pretty alive horse at this moment, I think.

It wasn't you beating a dead horse. It's the was-she-fired?/did-she-quit? season five controversy that many of us have heard about for ten years now that's getting a little old and stale... :-)

I mean, I can guess at the type of flamewars and public mudslinging that must've gone down then, and I sort of glimpsed that via the Lurker's Guide, and it wasn't my intention to open old wounds or anything. But this seems the clearest piece of information on how things are with regards to Ivanova in TLT from the actress's side, and I know her answer made people on the podcast chat happy, and I thought I'd share what she'd said.

I'm sure many actors would like to play their most rewarding roles again. I'm not sure why that would make people happy. Her wanting to play the role again isn't going to make it happen. I'm equally certain that Peter Mayhew would love to play Chewbacca again: if he said that in an interview, would it cause some kind of delighted stir among Star Wars fans?

As for the reality of Claudia ever playing Ivanova again, there is only one way that is going to happen: if JMS writes an Ivanova story, if the B5 production office makes a professional offer through her agent, and if that offer is accepted.

I'm just not sure what bringing up old, bad feelings accomplishes besides getting people riled up again about a situation that, for us, can only be "he said/she said." And if Claudia does want to play Ivanova again, one wonders why she's talking yet again about that dead horse, when mention of it can only bring up bad feelings and unhappy memories amongst the professional people likely to be involved in a decision of whether or not to hire her and do an Ivanova story.

Maybe me paraphrasing her 8 minute rant to contextualize the answer is more beating a dead horse, I suppose. I for one didn't know she felt that strongly about it before hearing her in this interview, but maybe it is common knowledge for B5 fans better informed than me.

One thing I always do when I hear about something of which I wasn't previously aware, and which is very old news (and certainly, anything to do with season 5 is old news), is to check into it on Google Groups. It's very useful in that regard in keeping me from putting my foot in my mouth with posts like, "Gosh, I just noticed that Delenn's sleeve is different in the scene in War Without End that mirrors the scene in Babylon Squared, and I bet I'm the very first person to notice that because I haven't read any posts about it!"

[OmahaStar]

And while the podcasts are available for download by anyone, people like me with dialup internet aren't very likely to be able to download them.

You severly underestimate the average Babylon 5 fan. Dialup or not, they'll do whatever it takes to hear it.

[phazedout]

Amy,
my memory may be slightly dodgy on this one, but it's script book 7, 8 or 9 and he said he heard on a recent babylon-related podcast that jason was still moaning about being a virgin 10 years alter. IT was the introduction to the script for the ep where MArcus and Steven go to mrs. Does that narrow it down for you?
As to not finding the claudia interview, that's bit I can explain. They do a live feed at around 9pm pst) of the show they are recording the following week. This means the claudia interview won't be up until next Wednesday (At the earliest) while they edit it down somewhat.
Phaze
on the "hoping I've clarified things a little for AMyG" ID

[ClauClauClaudia]

As to not finding the claudia interview, that's bit I can explain. They do a live feed at around 9pm pst) of the show they are recording the following week. This means the claudia interview won't be up until next Wednesday (At the earliest) while they edit it down somewhat.
Phaze
on the "hoping I've clarified things a little for AMyG" ID

Just catching up on this thread, and thanks to the Claudia-related discussion, now I know about the live feed! Thanks, phazedout. I knew of the various "Michael and Evo" podcasts' live feeds, but didn't know the Babylon Podcast had started doing them too. For anyone else who's interested: http://www.babylonpodcast.com/listen-live/ -- the B5 podcast records Wednesdays, and the Mike'n'Evo podcasts record on Saturdays. I prefer WinAmp for listening to the live stream.

[AmyG]

Amy,
my memory may be slightly dodgy on this one, but it's script book 7, 8 or 9 and he said he heard on a recent babylon-related podcast that jason was still moaning about being a virgin 10 years alter. IT was the introduction to the script for the ep where MArcus and Steven go to mrs. Does that narrow it down for you?

Thanks, Phaze! I'm only somewhere in the middle of volume 6 right now.

As to not finding the claudia interview, that's bit I can explain. They do a live feed at around 9pm pst) of the show they are recording the following week. This means the claudia interview won't be up until next Wednesday (At the earliest) while they edit it down somewhat.

They actually do it live? That's surprising. And thanks, that helps.

Also, Shabaz, your post did show up on the newsgroup -- I'm reading by date rather than threaded, and missed the fact that someone else was moderating yesterday -- so a lot of those messages are 'below the fold' for me. Apparently, I have a whole bunch of messages to catch up on!

[SmileOfTheShadow]

I honestly hadn't thought about it in that way. Although from what I understand, the podcast folks have gotten some strong hints that he listens to the show, or at least some of it, so there's a good chance he would've heard it eventually anyway.

But it wasn't my intention to stir things up for sake of stirring things up. Claudia does spend some time, both in the bit I transcribed and in the rest of the interview, praising JMS, calling the writing brilliant, and him a genius. But she obviously still feels really angry about how she was treated, and wants that opinion to be known. I'm not sure if it is my duty as a fan to 'leave sleeping dogs alone' by not communicating some really clear spoken opinions by her to fellow fans, or if I am overstepping personal boundaries by putting it up in a place where JMS could see it. Perhaps I should've put more thought into it.

I just... I spend some of my online time on a couple of other forums, and in some of them I have talked about TLT, and the possibility of Ivanova returning seems to be really popular. And I'm a fan of that character too, would love to see her return, so I kind of jumped on it when she said here she would like to be a part of it.

Right..I saw the end where she was praising him, and I thought that maybe that could be something that would pique JMS's interest in maybe hiring her. The problem with that is it's wayyyy down the line at the end, after saying "he's only talked to Peter, he's got no one." Kinda laughing about it in a snide way. Despite her end stuff after she cooled down, there was the bulk of what was transcribed which was a hit on JMS. If he reads all the way down..great, but there's a lot of nastiness in there too.

However...I'm wondering how accurate she is about her "got no one" statement. It makes me pretty worried that we're not going to have a lot of the supporting roles that made the show great.

Jon

[SmileOfTheShadow]

SmileoftheShadow, where did you get this from? I don't think that's been said anywhere.

Amy

Isn't that what his post said? : /

Jon

[Jan]

However...I'm wondering how accurate she is about her "got no one" statement. It makes me pretty worried that we're not going to have a lot of the supporting roles that made the show great.

Well, at the risk of sounding snide myself, how the heck would Claudia know, anyway? She lives in the UK for pity's sake! Though I'll admit that it sounds like she seems to be keeping close track of what people are saying, doesn't she?

Secondly, we need to be realistic about the TV/movie/DVD business. One things to keep in mind are that there are Canadian Content laws up there that limit the percentage of the payroll that can be held by non-Canadians. Just how many people can that be after you figure JMS and the stars of the show? I don't know but let's figure it's not going to be many.

Next, this is the FIRST one. As Joe DeMartino so eloquently explained back in the TMoS days, this first one needs to accomplish certain things, such as re-establishing the B5 Universe, designing CGI and sets and myriad other things. For future disks there will be a lot more 'in the bank' so that there will be more that can be done. Remember how B5 expanded out to other other planets in later seasons? It's because they built up on the things they could do gradually.

Jan

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Well, at the risk of sounding snide myself, how the heck would Claudia know, anyway? She lives in the UK for pity's sake! Though I'll admit that it sounds like she seems to be keeping close track of what people are saying, doesn't she?

Yeah..I guess Claudia wouldn't be in the loop about things. I still hope for the future that the little in fighting can get resolved.

Secondly, we need to be realistic about the TV/movie/DVD business. One things to keep in mind are that there are Canadian Content laws up there that limit the percentage of the payroll that can be held by non-Canadians. Just how many people can that be after you figure JMS and the stars of the show? I don't know but let's figure it's not going to be many.

Thanks for the info about the Canadian laws, didn't know that. That's actually pretty lame.

Next, this is the FIRST one. As Joe DeMartino so eloquently explained back in the TMoS days, this first one needs to accomplish certain things, such as re-establishing the B5 Universe, designing CGI and sets and myriad other things. For future disks there will be a lot more 'in the bank' so that there will be more that can be done. Remember how B5 expanded out to other other planets in later seasons? It's because they built up on the things they could do gradually.

Jan

Well I'm gonna just cross my fingers on this "first one" deal (no pun intended), because there already seems to be a bit of hassle and fighting going on, and I really really hope this goes through.

Jon

[Jan]

Yeah..I guess Claudia wouldn't be in the loop about things. I still hope for the future that the little in fighting can get resolved.

A lot of fans do.

Thanks for the info about the Canadian laws, didn't know that. That's actually pretty lame.

Not when you consider how much of the movie and TV making has gone up to Canada over the past decade or so to take advantage of their cheaper dollar and less powerful unions.

Well I'm gonna just cross my fingers on this "first one" deal (no pun intended), because there already seems to be a bit of hassle and fighting going on, and I really really hope this goes through.

C'mon, why on earth would you think that there's any reason that this DVD won't be made when we're practically getting minute-by-minute updates from JMS? Things happen. Plans change. Actors have hissy fits. If the only source for solid information we had was an actor, then I'd worry. When the creator/exec. producer/writer/director is telling us what's happening and why, I certainly don't worry. JMS has a history of being absolutely straight with us.

I really wish that people would just enjoy what's happening, learn all that's being presented about making an entertainment product and stop worrying. If you weren't around when B5 was made, if you've never had time to go through all of JMS's posts, you've now got the chance now, to experience what many of us did the first time around. It's a lot of fun.

Jan

[Ranger1]

OMG im so happy from JMS's last post, 2 stories instead of three (no biggy), the only thing is.... how long each one of those will be?

I really hope that each one would be like the regular mini-movies (aprox 1:30H) at least.

* Ranger1 doing his happy dance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11