Takashima & Dr. Kyle

[Anders]

In the Gathering, the pilot episode of Babylon 5, Tamlyn Tomita played Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima & Johnny Sekka played Dr. Benjamin Kyle. Does anyone know if there is any chance of returning for a future Babylon 5 movie/tv movie/series? Does anyone know why the two actors only played in the Gathering?

I found these two posts by JSM about Takashima:
"Originally, it was Laurel Takashima who would have betrayed those around her, as this character did." & "No, the shooting of Garibaldi was always a very strong part of the story for the end of first season; that line goes all the way back to the pilot, and Laurel Takashima." He was here talking about the betrayal of Garibaldi in the first season. He also mentioned somewhere that Takashima originally should have filled the role as the plant, that Talia eventually played.

Why was Takashima going to betray Garibaldi? Would she also have been influenced by PSI core? Did Tamlyn Tomita know this was going to happen if she stayed on the show?

[Capt.Montoya]

cast changes from pilot to series

Unlikely that Tamly Tomita knew all of it, but I remember the Lurker's guide page for the pilot mentioning something about the production having to give her some notes and comments about how she played some scenes. This would have been seen as a hint in retrospective had she stayed.
She would have betrayed Garibaldi for the same reason that his second in command did: she was a double agent... but the twist would have been that she didn't know she was.

As for why they didn't stay for the series: same reason that they had to replace Lyta with Talia, the actors were busy otherwise, since there was a delay between The Gathering and the actual filming of the series they had contracts to fulfill.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Laurel was originally envisioned as being the one who had the artificial personality embedded in her. She would have been involved in the plot to murder Kosh, the assassination of Santiago and the murder attempt on Garibaldi. She would have been unmasked and replaced by the next person in the chain of command, a rather dour Russian, Lt. Susan Ivanova. (Ivanova in the first season would have had a role somewhat like that played by Lt. Corwin ni later seasons.)

JMS did this in part because Tamlyn Tomita's film career seemed to be taking off, and he didn't expect her to stay with the series much more than a year.

Some of the cast members did not return because JMS or Warner Bros. or both decided that the actors and/or characters didn't quite work. One of the uses of a pilot is to try things out, and sometimes a character that works on the page doesn't work on the screen, or test audience don't react well to a performer.

JMS is on record of saying that after watching the finished pilot he changed his mind about the father/son, mentor/pupil relationship he had originally had in mind for the doctor and the station commander. Instead he wanted the doctor to be more of a contemporary.

It is also a matter of record that a Warner Bros. TV exec (who has since left the studio) did not like Tamlyn Tomita's performace, considering it "too harsh" and that she was forced to "loop" all her dialogue in post-production to "soften" it. (Her original dialogue tracks were found and restored in the 1998 re-edit of The Gathering.) So it seems likely that the studio pressured JMS to replace the actress and he decided to also replace the character. The studio just couldn't agree on contract terms for a series with Pat Tallman so she was lost to the show until Andrea Thompson decided to leave.

JMS made a virtue of necessity by playing up the fact that everyone who had been present when Kosh's encounter suit was open had been suddenly reassigned in the weeks after the assassination attempt. Unfortunately this also led to threads being more or less dropped since there was no way to pursue them - notably the attempt to kill Kosh itself, which is scarcely mentioned after TG. By the time the "big reveal" of the assassination plot was made in S2 The Gathering hadn't aired in nearly 2 years and few people new about Laurel or the attempt on Kosh's life. If Laurel had still been there we probably would have gotten one of JMS's Murder She Wrote recaps of the solving of the mystery, similar to what Bester did in that Martian transport tunnel in S4.

I doubt we'll see either of the characters in any future B5 project, but you never know. There would certainly have to be a good story reason for doing it. JMS does not like to bring characters in just for the sake of having them around or to gratify the wishes of fans. He did once say that Laurel was transferred off the station and given a top-secret mission by EarthForce, and that he would like to tell that story sometime. I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have tied into the Shadowtech plotline that would have been at the heart of Crusade. Dr. Kyle would be harder to work in. As of 2263 he was retiring, and I suspect Johnny Seka has done the same. According to the IMDB he hasn't done any film or television work since The Gathering itself in 1993. They don't have a date of death listed for him, so I'm assuming he is still with us, but no longer working.

Regards,

Joe

[Anders]

Thank you both of you, and I just have to say that that was an outstanding answer Joseph. You really seem to know a lot about Babylon 5. I originally saw the series on tv, and have recently purchased and seen the first four seasons, In The Beginning and The Gathering. I have also read a bit at this site, and a lot at the Lurker's Guide. I don't expect to ever become such an expert as you are though.

I suspect I have the old version of The Gathering, after the things I have read about it. Is there any certain way to tell which version I have?

I didn't know that Ivanova was planned to be there in the first season, I thought she was just a direct replacement for Takashima. JMS' original thought about it could have been really interesting as well though.

I think Dr. Franklin was always a better choice than Dr. Kyle, I was just curious if we would see him again or not. I would love to see Takashima again though, I think she did an outstanding job in the pilot. Too bad that Crusade didn't work out, with or without Takashima it could have great.

[Joseph DeMartino]

I suspect I have the old version of The Gathering, after the things I have read about it. Is there any certain way to tell which version I have?

There are a couple. First and simplest, if you have the Region 1 or Region 4 DVD (North America or Australia/New Zealand) with The Gathering on one side and In the Beginning on the other, you definitely have the re-edited version.

DVDs and VHS copies sold in other countries vary. Local networks and TV stations in many countries never bought the re-edit version for broadcast, and therefore it was never dubbed into some languages. In those countries all VHS and DVD editions are the original cut. In the UK the VHS release is the original cut, the DVD is the 1998 recut. But a lot of fans in the UK bought the R2 German import disc, because it was sold at a lower price, so they have the original. The first batch of U.S. VHS tapes released by Columbia House was the original cut, all subsequent VHS releases and laserdisc releases (from Columbia House, Warner Bros. and Image Entertainment) are the re-edit.

Quick ways to spot the difference:

1) In his introductory voice over, Londo says that "under its last commander" B5 became "our last, best hope for peace." In the re-edit the reference to the last commander has been cut.

2) The re-edit has a score by Chris Franke, immediately recognizable as "B5 music" circa S4. The original has a completely different score unlike anything ever heard on the show.

3) In the re-edit a dust-smuggler takes a hostage in the customs area just as Sinclair meets Lyta Alexander. Garibaldi's security team surrounds the man, but it is Sinclair who goes in unarmed to talk the man into surrendering. If you have this scene, you have the newer version.

There are lots of other differences, but these are three the you can check in the first five minutes or so that absolutely distinguish the two.

Regards,

Joe

[Anders]

I have the Norwegian Zone 2 version. The weird thing about it, is that just like the German versions, The Gathering and In The Beginning are sold separately, and both have Sheridan on the cover. On the back of the cover to The Gathering it says that Stuart Copeland made the music. However, when I turned on the movie, I now see that it is the re-edited version, with the scenes you referred to, and music performed by Christopher Franke and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra.

[Joseph DeMartino]

It does get confusing. All the U.S. video versions that I've seen (Columbia House VHS, Warner Bros. VHS, Image LD, DVD) have had the credits for the original version, even if the contents were the re-edit. Warner Home Video was probably never given updated info on the movie when it was changed, and they just grabbed the credits that they already had on file when it came time to create the boxes for the various releases.

All of the PAL releases have the two films on separate discs. (The R1 and R4 double-feature versions are actually the same disc, so even in Australia and New Zealand they got the NTSC version.) The U.K. edition is the new version. the German the old version. Several of these editions use the In the Beginning artwork with Sheridan, Delenn in her S1 makeup, G'Kar and a bunch of Starfuries.

Maybe they'll finally get the printed material right when the films are rereleased as part of the movie boxed set later this year.

Regards,

Joe

[shakiroz]

If I remember correctly JMS wrote Dr. Kyle back into the show for a guest appearance but the actor was unavailable which is such a shame...He was supposed to play the role of the doctor that had medical proof that president clark was not sick when he got off at Io.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by shakiroz
If I remember correctly JMS wrote Dr. Kyle back into the show for a guest appearance but the actor was unavailable which is such a shame...He was supposed to play the role of the doctor that had medical proof that president clark was not sick when he got off at Io.

----

ATTN JMS: Question about Hunte
03/03/1995 04:35 AM

Actually, no, the idea of making it Dr. Kyle had never entered my
mind. On reflection, might've been interesting if it had....

jms

---

But, like he said, it would have been cool if it had been

[The Guy]

I was given a couple of Columbia House VHS tapes of The Gathering and Midnight on the Firing Line - nice to have in the collection.

One item of interest is the fact that Stewart Copeland did the score for the original version of The Gathering. More percussion oriented.

[Joseph DeMartino]

One item of interest is the fact that Stewart Copeland did the score for the original version of The Gathering. More percussion oriented.

That's funny considering that many people who saw the original cut of the pilot later complained the Christopher Franke "just banged on things" in his music for the first season. Of course, many other people, and probably some of the same people, later said the same thing about Evan Chen and compared him unfavorably to Franke.

Back to Columbia House:

Unfortunately once they ran out of their original stock, CH switched to the 1998 re-edit of The Gathering and never sold the original cut again. (I believe this was done at JMS's request and that Warner Bros. had provided them with a master of the original version in error. WB made a similar boo-boo when they started production on the first "test" DVD, mastering the original cut instead of the producer's special edition. JMS found out about the mistake well before the discs would have been replicated, but Warner Home Video still had to eat about $100,000 in costs and start the DVD prep over from scratch with the right version.)

CH didn't even begin to realize how big the potential market for B5 on home video was, and they had so many people sign up as subscribers to "The Babylon 5 Collection" that TG went on back-order almost immediately. I know because I was one of the people who ordered early, when I heard that they would be offering the original cut - which I had never seen.

But all I got was a back-order notice, and when they finally shipped the tape several months later it was the revised version with the Christopher Franke score. (And all subsquent home video releases have been as well, at least in the U.S. Although the boxes and covers still contain all the original credits, including Stuart Copeland's - which may be a contractual thing.)

A number of us have requested that JMS release the orignal cut of TG as a bonus with the B5 TV movie DVD set that will be released later this year, but he hasn't responded and we're still months away from seeing the official specs on the movie set.

Regards ,

Joe

[Dr Maturin]

<<A number of us have requested that JMS release the orignal cut of TG as a bonus with the B5 TV movie DVD set that will be released later this year, but he hasn't responded and we're still months away from seeing the official specs on the movie set.>>

A travesty, to be sure. Also, the Star Wars DVD's coming out later this year will NOT have the original versions, just the "Han Solo Dodges Laser Bolt" versions. I will not buy them. I still have my widescreen edition of the originals.

[Kevin]

I actually like the non-original versions of Star Wars significantly better... but that's just me. Good fusion of ILM, acting and real sets, and computer animation, which gave hope that the prequels wouldn't be a completely computer animated traveties... which of course, is exactly what happened :P

But I'm not bitter....

[Ben-Thayer Dunnthaedt]

Glad this thread is here, I've always wondered about the differences between the original and the re-release. I bought The Gathering from eBay some years ago, and after watching I decided not to get any more. When I started watching the entire run this last time (and with this thread in mind) I watched the original VHS version.

One or two things I noticed:

1) I don't think I saw the "sex with the dangerous alien" speech Sinclair gives - I hope I didn't just gell out and miss it, but it would be just one more in a long list of mistakes on my part.

2) When Lyta "sees" Sinclair make the murder attempt - in the VHS version the hand that reaches out of Kosh's encounter suit does NOT glow. The later release has a hand reach out, but it glows.

Not to be contrary, but I kind of disagree with the poster who said S. Copeland's score was full of percussion...I think it sounded exactly like MIAMI VICE!

[Kevin]

1) That scene isn't in the original version, it's only in the redone one