Babylon 5 Uncut?

[Truth66]

I came across this old Sci Fi commercial on YouTube that was used to promote Babylon 5. I must say it's one of the most bizarre Babylon 5 promotions I've ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riUX8jPZVik&feature=related

Does anyone know if there's any truth to this commercial of an alleged uncut version of the Babylon 5 series?

[Jan]

Are we sure it's the US Sci-Fi channel? Because I remember hearing of several instances when there were bits cut out of the UK prime time showings.

Jan

[JasonDavis]

That advert was for Babylon 5's airing on the UK Sci Fi Channel. When B5 originally aired in the UK on Channel 4, various scenes of violence (Franklin's knifing in 321 springs to mind) were trimmed, so the series had its first "uncut" exhibition in the UK later on Sci Fi.

The adverts--all featuring a nude Claudia Christian--were eyecatching, but extremely misleading as to the nature of the edits. I seem to recall that one of the UK SF/Cult TV magazines featured a poster from the ad campaign which I still have tucked away in a box somewhere.

[Truth66]

Interesting. I didn't know that there were different scenes cut when the series aired in the UK.
I definitely agree that the commercial is very misleading with regards to what was cut from the series. I can see TNT airing a commercial like that as they wanted alot more sex in Crusade, which was one of the reasons why JMS pulled the plug on that series.

[Jan]

This may be splitting hairs but technically, JMS didn't pull the plug on Crusade. Yes, he refused to implement the worst of TNT's notes, but it was definitely TNT who pulled the plug.

Jan

[DaveNarn]

Best not belabor the fine points too much, least we stray from the original question.

...yes the aim of this promotion may be dubious, but I think we can all agree that Claudia true to her boisterous persona of Susan Ivonova can vamp with the best of them.

I don't know if JMS would approve, but I thought she was cute.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

That advert was for Babylon 5's airing on the UK Sci Fi Channel. When B5 originally aired in the UK on Channel 4, various scenes of violence (Franklin's knifing in 321 springs to mind) were trimmed, so the series had its first "uncut" exhibition in the UK later on Sci Fi.

Channel 4 had the "good" sense to show the first 3 seasons of the show at 6pm during the week, when plenty of children would have been watching TV, so had to cut quite a few violent scenes out. Season 4 was, sensibly, shown at around 10:30pm and (I believe) uncut, whereas season 5 turned up on Sunday lunchtime ... except the last 5 episodes which were shown at around 9:30am in the Christmas "yoof" slot.

Happy days.

[Joe Nazzaro]

I saw a number of B5 episodes when they aired in the UK and seem to recall a number of minor cuts here and there. None of them really come to mind, other than the 'Dead, dead, dead sequence with G'Kar and Vir.

[Truth66]

This uncut business got me thinking a bit more (sometimes not a good thing).
With B5 having various violent scenes cut when it aired in the UK, this brings me to Jeremiah.
One of the interviews that I saw of JMS he indicated that TNT essentially wanted Crusade to be "Baywatch meets wrestling in space". Essentially JMS didn't want to see alot of sex and violence in the series.
Then again we see a series like Jeremiah that has very explicit content.
Not to get too political here, but why would JMS think that explicit content would be OK for Jeremiah and not Crusade?
I'm not saying that Crusade should've had more explicit content like TNT wanted. I'm just curious as to JMS's rationale with explicit content between the two series.

[JoeD80]

Joe isn't opposed to sex and violence; he's opposed to adding it just because the network wants it.

[Jan]

^^True. If it makes sense for the story, I've never seen any indication that JMS has anything against violence, nudity or sex. What he didn't want on Crusade was a sexual explorer whose job was to have sex with any new people they met.

Keep in mind too, that Jeremiah was also being written for cable. I also understand that scenes were often shot two ways - cable version for Showtime and a tamer version in case of future syndication.

Even so, in Jeremiah's case, one of the battles JMS had to fight was hiring the actors, or specifically actresses, that he wanted. He told a story at one convention about an MGM person going behind his back to the Casting director and quoted him saying "I don't care if she can act, I want her cute!" No wonder he says Jeremiah was the worst experience of his TV career.

Jan

[DaveNarn]

I've read in Pat Tallman's book that a similar thing happened to her when first cast for the role as Lyta Alaxander in season one, unbeknownst to JMS who was out of town at the time.
Someone at WB disapproved of JMS's choice for the roll, wanting instead a more 'saucy' telepath for the series.