Babylon 5 Scripts: Other Voices- Vol 3

[OmahaStar]

I just checked UPS tracking. It arrived in Omaha this morning, and will be out for delivery tomorrow. Then I'll have all 18 (so far) volumes. Sweet!

Of course this is especially good as I'll be seeing Peter David at Dragon*Con next month, and can get his scripts signed. Again. lol

[Joe Nazzaro]

Mine arrived yesterday, so I've already had a chance to go through it. I don't know how any of you feel, but I didn't really get any additional insight from Scott Frost's intro to 'The Long Dark.' Peter David's two-for-one intro was fun and amusing as I would expect from him, even though there was a point around season three or so that I was getting pretty tired of hearing about that damn bear.

I've always had a soft spot for 'Knives,' simply because it was the first time I got to visit the B5 set. Not a great episode, but when you consider all the limitations that DiTillio and the other writers had to deal with (lack of actor availability, etc) it's surprising that some of the non-JMS scripts turned out as well as they did.

I know it's not necessarily a fan favorite, but I've always liked Larry DiTillio's 'GROPOS,' and I'm glad that Larry took the time to talk about it. I remember his disappointment at the time because Paul Winfield was having trouble with the big speeches so they had to be cut down. And of course the Jerry Doyle/Andrea Thompson/Marie Marshall situation, which of course people weren't that keen to talk about at the time, for obvious reasons.

The only disappointment, which I mentioned in a previous post, was that Neil Gaiman's 'Day of the Dead' script was republished from the Dream Haven edition, so no new Gaiman intro. Too bad he didn't make any effort to use some of the 'Day' photos I sent him for the original edition, which included a wonderful shot of Bill Mumy and Ed Wasser together- as it turned out, Neil lost all the prints I sent him the first time, and by the time I sent replacements the only one he could use was the shot of Gaiman and the Gaim, which is on the back cover of the '98 edition.

In the end, volume 3 is sort of a mixed bag, but I'll be very interested to see what the rest of you think.

[OmahaStar]

Joe, what's the Andrea/Jerry/Marie situation?

[Joe Nazzaro]

I don't want to ruin the entire story for those who haven't read volume three yet, but basically Jerry Doyle had been complaining that the first B5 character to get laid was Londo, so Larry DiTillio was going to write Garibaldi a love scene in 'GROPOS.' They hired an actress named Marie Marshall to play Dodger only to discover that she was an old girlfriend of Doyle's, who because of his relationship with Andrea Thompson at the time, immediately began back-pedaling on the love scene, going over DiTillio's head to Joe Straczynski. That's why the final aired version has that ridiculous piece of dialogue when Garibaldi has to explain why he CAN'T sleep with her.

I'll let you read Larry's partial re-telling of the incident in volume 3, but in a 1994 interview, he told me, 'That speech really embarrasses me because it just sounds like a guy babbling, just trying to explain what any other red-blooded hero would do- James Bond jumps into bed with women and nobody says, æOh gee, heÆs having casual sex!Æ ThatÆs part of James BondÆs mystique.'

[nottenst]

I don't want to ruin the entire story for those who haven't read volume three yet, but basically Jerry Doyle had been complaining that the first B5 character to get laid was Londo, so Larry DiTillio was going to write Garibaldi a love scene in 'GROPOS.' They hired an actress named Marie Marshall to play Dodger only to discover that she was an old girlfriend of Doyle's, who because of his relationship with Andrea Thompson at the time, immediately began back-pedaling on the love scene, going over DiTillio's head to Joe Straczynski. That's why the final aired version has that ridiculous piece of dialogue when Garibaldi has to explain why he CAN'T sleep with her.

When I saw Jerry talk about Gropos at Shore Leave in 2001 (or perhaps an earlier convention) he never mentioned any former relationship with Marie Marshall and that being the reason. If I find my notes on his appearance, I'll post what he said.

Neil

[Jan]

When I saw Jerry talk about Gropos at Shore Leave in 2001 (or perhaps an earlier convention) he never mentioned any former relationship with Marie Marshall and that being the reason. If I find my notes on his appearance, I'll post what he said.

He definitely talked about it at an appearance here in Orlando, once. I think Bruce may have been teasing him about it? As I recall, he gave the impression that Marie Marshall ended up not liking him at all when they broke up.

Jan

[JoeD80]

Finally got around to reading the Peter David scripts. They were pretty interesting reads, and David makes little asides in his script too (book not in front of me, but something like "establishing shot: B5 -- where else would we be?"). I really enjoyed his intro too.

I liked the script of "There All the Honor Lies", but despite what Peter says in the intro, pretty much all the Guinvere Corey scenes seem to have survived into the final episode, except for one related to a character not seen in the episode anyway (next paragraph) So if the lawyer character was to be a bigger role, it was already smaller (unless I skipped a page?).

Also this script features -- Na'Toth! That would have been neat to see. Perhaps this is when jms finally decided to not have Mary Kay Adams do any more Na'Toth appearances? Or perhaps her part just got cut out because of all the Kosh scenes being put in.

I'm looking forward to reading his Crusade script, which will hopefully be released at some point in the near future!

[glindros]

I asked Mr. Doyle about it at DragonCon this year. It went something like, yea we dated for a while, never worked out, then she was on the show. I didn't sense he was uncomfortable talking about it or her, but it has been 15+ years.