If you could change one thing about B5...

[Ubik]

Oh, interesting question. I'm going to go with the exact opposite, not to be contrary, but because I liked her character better.

What if we'd had Lochley come on board once Takashima had been transferred? I think I'd have liked to get to know that character better. It probably would have heightened the tension of breaking away from Earth if she'd been there.

(BTW, just as a reminder, we shouldn't take this into full blown story ideas though we can certainly discuss what specifics might have been changed.)

Jan

I see what you did there! You just turned everything upside down.

If Lochley had been on board from the outset it could have been VERY different too. I can imagine some interesting storylines playing out between her and Garibaldi, especially with the shared history of addiction. I could see them being quite close friends / allies. Had she been there for æSurvivorsÆ, I could see their little Season 5 confrontation happening far sooner! There are so many pros and cons. I could see Lochley being just as interesting a character, and perhaps a bit more æin your faceÆ confrontational than Ivanova. She also had an interesting past that could be explored. Lochley could have been a great addition.

HereÆs the thing that gets me about Ivanova not being present for Season 5 - Although IvanovaÆs dealings with the Psi Corps were explored in many B-plots in season one, I felt that more could have been done with it. There were plenty of moment where her past bubbled to the surface (Divided Loyalties) in prominent ways, but it could have been turned into something more interesting had she been around for season 5. That latent hatred for the Corps could have come to the fore at some point, perhaps putting her in a seriously compromising position! I felt a lot of those threads were laid to rest with Talia self-destructing due to the sleeper personality emerging. This could have definitely been explored more.

B5 Trivia:

I only just discovered that the exchange between Kosh and Abbut, monitored by Talia Winters in the episode, "Deathwalker", was to provide a means for Kosh to restore Talia to her real personality using the data recorded by Abbut. That is, if Andrea Thompson had stayed on. Cool stuff, that all makes sense now. I always assumed that Kosh was somehow alluding to using telepaths against the Shadows later on in the war.

[Ninja_Squirrel]

IÆll get us startedà

I would have loved to have seen a fifth season where Claudia Christian had remained on the show. Unsure if it would have improved the teep arc, but it would have certainly been subtly different if what JMS has said is anything to go on.

Wow, you picked a big (the biggest?) one.

Mine has a prerequisite that we live in a alternate reality where Michael O'Hare did not have the health issues that we now know forced him to leave the show...

I would like to have seen a season 1 that had John Sheridan as a recurring background character and a season 2 and maybe season 3 also that continued to see Jeffrey Sinclair as a recurring (more often) character. Even though replacing Sinclair had behind-the-scenes reasons, I still like the original cover story that too much of the main story arc was wrapped up in one character and needed to be split up. So, I would like to have seen Sheridan's command experiences aboard the Agamemnon and his growing suspicion of anti-alien politics. And, I'd also really like to see what life was like for Sinclair on Minbar with him becoming Ranger One in less than half a year and how he prepared for what happened on Babylon 4 a year after that.

[Jan]

Oh, interesting question. I'm going to go with the exact opposite, not to be contrary, but because I liked her character better.

What if we'd had Lochley come on board once Takashima had been transferred? I think I'd have liked to get to know that character better. It probably would have heightened the tension of breaking away from Earth if she'd been there.

(BTW, just as a reminder, we shouldn't take this into full blown story ideas though we can certainly discuss what specifics might have been changed.)

Jan

[Ubik]

In the interest of getting a bit of conversation going (yes, itÆs a quiet day at the office), IÆd like to pose you all a question!

If there was one thing you could change about B5 what would it be?

DonÆt say nothing, because IÆm sure everyone has something, even if itÆs something tiny that theyÆd like to have seen done differently. Look at it this way, you get to day dream about speculative æwhat ifsÆ in the B5 universe. Lots of scope there!

IÆll get us startedà

I would have loved to have seen a fifth season where Claudia Christian had remained on the show. Unsure if it would have improved the teep arc, but it would have certainly been subtly different if what JMS has said is anything to go on.