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[Jan]

I think what we're looking at is two separate possible situations - maybe even three. First, JMS has said many times that if he'd known that Claudia wasn't going to be in Season 5, he never would have killed off Marcus. That's the first and most common one.

Second is that post with the original Crusade treatment. Marcus saves Ivanova in 'Endgame' which was written in March 1998. The treatment that JMS copied into his post is dated June 1998. In other words, Marcus was already 'dead'. Or was he? In the script for 'Rising Star' there was a scene that didn't make it onto the screen (page 5, Scene 14). In it, a Med-Tech who met Franklin at Customs says:

"There was still some residual brain activity, so we decided to put Marcus into cryonic freeze. So if you ask me whther he is alive or dead...the answer is both, and neither. We got him at the moment in-between. Whether we will ever be able to revive him --"

So there may well have originally been a plan to revive Marcus in season 5 at some point, or between B5 and Crusade.

And third, and my memory's a bit foggy on this one, I seem to recall that JMS mentioned that the anti-agapic in 'Deathwalker' would have been a possibility to use to save Ivanova. I'll have to look around more for that one.

EDIT: No, I was wrong about that. The Deathwalker serum was set up as a possible alternative to the alien healing device to be used to save Garibaldi after being shot in the back.

As the script books continue to make clear, the creative process on B5 was still flexible, regardless of the overall arc.

Jan

[RMcD]

I am most angry with Claudia because she's the reason we lost the ability to have Marcus in Crusade (Ref. http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-16999 ), and she's the reason we got Lochley/Scoggins for post-2261 B5 and Crusade stories.

You can probably blame TNT as well for that, for repeatedly changing there minds over whether Crusade could have any connection to B5. This affected Lochley's role as well:

http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-16025&query=crusade%20tnt%20tracy

[Kevin]

You can probably blame TNT as well for that, for repeatedly changing there minds over whether Crusade could have any connection to B5. This affected Lochley's role as well:

http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1...%20tnt%20tracy

You know, that's a bit I actually hadn't read before. I wasn't aware they were once considered Lochley as commander of the Excalibur.

And you know... I think I would have liked that better. Ah well.

[Jan]

You know, that's a bit I actually hadn't read before. I wasn't aware they were once considered Lochley as commander of the Excalibur.

I don't know whether they considered it but JMS did suggest it (remember, we're talking about TNT here). I found out from reading a treatment/outline for 'A Call to Arms' (then called 'Eve of Destruction'). The two people he suggested for Captain of the Excalibur were Michael York and Tracy Scoggins. Even more interesting to me was his suggestion of Andreas Katsulas to play Galen.

Jan

[Shabaz]

Wow, that would've been something. I mean, I absolutely adore Woodward in the role, but the thought of Andreas as Techno-Mage is intriguing.