Crusade: WTHH - Vol. 1 - SPOILERS

[Dan Dassow]

Jane, not Jan.

Yes, I knew this when I intentionally misquoted it. I simply wanted to cajole Jan-ms.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

My gosh, after reading the introduction... I understand why film and TV is as bad as it is on average. There's just a lot of stupid people running everything. I feel bad for the unsung geniuses like JMS.

[WorkerCaste]

I did indeed get a chance to read the book over the weekend.

Wow.

Just to let the scripts team know, I do like the format. I think it held together and flowed well. You guys do good work.

The content was fascinating, though. Obviously, hanging out here over the years there was a lot I had gotten in bits and pieces, but some of this stuff was just nuts. The whole competing divisions thing seems questionable to me in general. When I've run into it in my work life it seems as though it's an illogical extension to a personel management philosophy that isn't in the company's best interests. Having said that, I have to believe it's a horrendously stupid philosophy for a media company. Content is king! Competing divisions as a philosophy doesn't allow a company to maximize to use of content.

I'm not sure how I would have felt about Andreas as the technomage. No doubt he had all the requisite characteristics, but like KoshN I'm not sure I could have separated out the roles since they are in the same universe. I would occasionally have a mental hiccup with the alien players when the voice was identifiable ("Wasn't he a Drazi last week???") But G'Kar was such a major part. Would have been interesting if G'Kar appeared on Crusade in some scenes with his technomage alter ego. They could do the "Parent Trap" thing. Or maybe we'd find out that just like their effort to get telepath DNA, the Narns had obtained technomage DNA and G'Kar was the result of that program. He and Galen could have been identical (nearly) cousins! Sorry, I need to go for a bit of a lie down, now.

Oh, what might have been.

[Jan]

While I never met Andreas in real life (much to my regret), I don't think he'd have had any trouble creating a voice for Galen, similar to the way that Peter Jurasik created a voice for Londo. Even if he wasn't a regular, I'd still have liked to see him as a Techno-Mage guest star.

Jan

[Garibaldi's Hair]

The part that really made me chuckle was WB nixing Michael York (who wanted the part) as captain of the Excalibur on the grounds that he is British ... and as Patrick Stewart is also British they didn't want to be seeming to say that all starship captains were British.

American egos must be even more fragile than I thought they were.

[beerguy101]

The hero of Canton?

Nice firefly reference...

[Karen]

The part that really made me chuckle was WB nixing Michael York (who wanted the part) as captain of the Excalibur on the grounds that he is British ... and as Patrick Stewart is also British they didn't want to be seeming to say that all starship captains were British.

American egos must be even more fragile than I thought they were.

Yes, as a matter of fact they are. We are all children who can't understand that the part would be given to the best actor, not the accent. So be kind to all of us stupid Americans and our fragile egos. Or we'll hold our collective breaths until we turn blue. Nyah, nyah, nyah!

Seriously, it's not us, it's the network execs that think we are all 2 year olds. Although, since they also think we have the attention spans of 2 year olds, why they think another British accent would bother us, I couldn't tell you.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

Seriously, it's not us, it's the network execs that think we are all 2 year olds. Although, since they also think we have the attention spans of 2 year olds, why they think another British accent would bother us, I couldn't tell you.

Maybe they just want to keep the British accents in reserve to play the villains.

And the egos thing was just a joke ... all the Americans I have worked with over the years have had much the same set of hang-ups, neuroses and general indicators of the human condition as we uptight Brits.

[Karen]

Yes, we are all insane. That's why we get along so well with Jan!

[Dan Dassow]

Yes, we are all insane. That's why we get along so well with Jan!

I resemble that remark.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Very interesting content. I was really happy to read some of the first drafts of these scripts and comparing the watered down dialogue to the originals. What JMS said was pretty accurate. It would have been great to have Michael York. Gary Cole really didn't do that great of a job in the show.

[WorkerCaste]

I liked Gary Cole, but I would have loved to see Michael York in the role.

[Jan]

I loved Gary Cole in the role, despite some tugging back and forth as to how the character should be played (as was evident in some of the Behind the Scenes interviews).

Jan

[KoshN]

I loved Gary Cole in the role, despite some tugging back and forth as to how the character should be played (as was evident in some of the Behind the Scenes interviews).

Jan

At the time that Crusade started in June 1999, I wasn't all that happy about Gary Cole being cast as the captain of the Excalibur. Prior to this I'd only seen him in:

Midnight Caller (1988-1991)
In the Line of Fire (1993)
A Simple Plan (1998)
and
Office Space (1999).

While I liked him in Midnight Caller, I was kind of like ~meh~ to him in everything else. However, Crusade changed all that. I think he was GREAT in Crusade, and now I can't imagine that show without him. Now, I'll seek out shows and movies because he's in them. Since Crusade, I've seen him in an episode of Hack ("Brothers in Arms" - which I recorded on DVD-RAM and kept. It's the only episode of Hack that I kept. Great ep..), Family Affair (2002), an episode of Monk, 2 episodes of Karen Sisco, 1 episode of Law & Order SVU, bought "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" (2004), saw him in 1 episode of Shark, 1 episode of Supernatural and all of American Gothic (via Netflix).

God I wish we could get Crusade restarted with the original cast. That and Brimstone are my fondest wishes for a restart. All I've got to do is win the Powerball jackpot and get 'em both on The CW.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

God I wish we could get Crusade restarted with the original cast. That and Brimstone are my fondest wishes for a restart. All I've got to do is win the Powerball jackpot and get 'em both on The CW.

Well, they're remaking La Femme Nikita....