Good Idea or Bad? Looking at various sci fi and fantasy television projects currently in the works and pondering whether they will fly or crash.
What Is It?
The series takes place on the vast space station of the title that acts as neutral ground as well as a place of commerce and diplomacy for the races of the known galaxy. As tensions rise among the major races, and ancient evil arrives to stir up animosities and take the galaxy to the brink of war. This series was created by J. Michael Straczynski and was designed with a five-year story arc that had a beginning, middle, and end. It aired from 1993 (starting with the pilot movie) to 1998, first on the PTEN network and finishing up with its fifth season on TNT. The show did complete its story arc (though with some complications, see below), and is now considered one of the greatest sci fi TV series of all time (you can read more about B5 at this link).
ALSO READ: Five Space-Based Sci Fi TV Shows That Should Be Rebooted Instead of Babylon 5
What Is in the Works?
A new version is in the the early stages of development at The CW which is described as a “ground-up” reboot. J. Michael Straczynski is helming the revival and is writing the pilot which the network execs will view and decide whether to greenlight to series. Many fans of the original have serious concerns about a full reboot, though JMS has tried to calm those fears:
The network understands the uniqueness of Babylon 5 and is giving me a great deal of latitude with the storytelling . . . if I were creating Babylon 5 today, for the first time, knowing what I now know as a writer, what would it look like? How would it use all the storytelling tools and technological resources available in 2021 that were not on hand then? How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the questions we are asking and confronting every day? Fans regularly point out how prescient the show was and is of our current world; it would be fun to take a shot at looking further down the road . . . Better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar . . . Let me conclude by just saying how supportive and enthusiastic everyone at the CW has been and is being with this project. They understand the unique position Babylon 5 occupies both in television and with its legions of fans, and are doing everything they can to ensure the maximum in creative freedom, a new story that will bring in new viewers while honoring all that has come before.
You can read the full Twitter thread at this link. The network will likely be considering the show for the 2022-23 season. [Update]: This has been put on hold for now with the possibility it could be revisited in 2023.
Good Idea or Bad?
When I first heard this announcement, my immediate reaction was “No Reboot, No Way!!!” As I have read more of JMS’s explanation for the reboot, I have come to terms with it to a degree. I still believe there are other shows more in need of a reboot (a few examples at this link), but as long as JMS is closely involved with the revival and given the same creative freedom, I will at least give it a chance. But there are still major concerns.
First off, Warner Bros. owns the rights to the series and is almost certainly looking at this as a relaunch of a known property, with plans of turning it into a money-maker again. There are so many ways that a new series could just continue from the original, but WB execs likely consider a complete relaunch, with the possibility of the show building its own new expanded universe, as the best way to bring this back to the market. And while there are advantages to that along with an opportunity to further explore the B5 mythos, the execs are looking at this more from a money-making standpoint and less from the creative side. If the new show happens to proves popular, I can see them taking it out of the hands of JMS so that they have more control of the direction it takes in order to keep the cash flowing.
My second major concern is the fact that it is headed to The CW. It is true that network has been very supportive of genre shows and has produced some notable entries like the Arrow-verse shows, Supernatural, The 100, The Originals, and more. But The CW’s output tends to have a lot of pretty faces with plenty of copy-and-paste dialogue and plots and is often geared towards a younger-skewing audience. Even the best shows on The CW tend to descend into that territory more often than not. The thought of a bunch of hot young faces leading up a new B5 and regurgitating lines we have heard many times before is not too appealing. Hopefully JMS would keep that from happening, but much of that depends on how much control the network execs allow him to have and maintain over the show.
The one good thing about landing on that network is that The CW rarely cancels its shows. They have adapted to the 21st century much better than the other broadcast networks and pay close attention to the digital viewing of their shows with less emphasis on the same-day ratings. Once a show makes it past its first season–and most on the network do–then it is almost guaranteed to go for at least four seasons. So a B5 reboot would have a better chance of an extended run on that network.
Since this show is a personal favorite, it is hard to be unbiased when it comes to talks of a reboot. I acknowledge that there are pros and cons, and it is possible that this could work. But all the stars would have to be aligned properly and JMS would have to be closely involved throughout to keep the show from derailing. And there are a lot of hurdles to overcome for that to happen. It is possible this could evolve into a good idea and a new life for the B5 franchise, but it could also go south pretty quickly.
See the current schedule of sci fi and fantasy television shows at this link
Notable Facts
The pilot movie for Babylon 5, titled The Gathering, first premired in February 1993, and the series proper followed in 1994. J. Michael Straczynski had planned a five-year story arc in advance, though that was almost cut short due to the struggles of its network PTEN (which was an attempt to launch a fifth broadcast network). Going into the show’s fourth season, he realized that it may not make it to a fifth, so he resolved many of the main storylines and wrote a conclusion for the series. TNT stepped in and picked up the show for a fifth season, so JMS used that to cover storylines he skipped in the show’s fourth year, and the series finale was shifted to the end of the fifth season, which still worked because it was set twenty years in the future. The sequel series Crusade followed which was set up by the events of the movie A Call to Arms. It was cancelled by TNT after only thirteen episodes, though. The pilot movie The Legends of the Rangers aired on the Sci Fi Channel in 2002, but that cable network chose not to pick it up to series. JMS made one more attempt to expand the universe of B5 with The Lost Tales direct-to-video movie, but only one installment was produced.
Do you consider a ground-up reboot of Babylon 5 to be a good idea or bad? Chime in with your comments below.
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This was a wonderful series and the characters were interesting even today. Some of the topics explored are relevant even today, and in some instances, prescient. Build again on the time frame but not with the same characters perhaps, which is an obvious statement since the actors have gone on in years and other projects/directions, yet JMS has a universe to build in and his concept of structure worked vary well. Make it so.
JMS brought into existence my favorite TV show of all time, Babylon 5. I watched mesmerized each week during the original series airings and rarely ever missed an episode. I have since rewatched the complete series again many times over because the story is eternal and the characters are heroic regardless of how dated the visual effects are. I have every confidence that JMS can produce another mindblowing storyline in the B5 universe and I look forward to “stepping in the river” of B5 again. All my hopes…
G’Kar and Londo are two of my favourite all time characters, it’ll be hard to watch other actors playing them.
Rebooting Babylon 5 is fantastic and long overdue. The show does for science fiction what Shakespeare did for the Elizabethan stage. There can be no doubt that JMS will do the same thing again with psychologically nuanced characters and themes.