JMS-sponsored B5 auctions

From practically the first day of production, Bill Mumy kept after me to cast some of the other Lost in Space alumni on Babylon 5. I was open to the idea, but wanted to be sure we got the right one for the right part.

After I wrote "The Quality of Mercy," he practically camped outside my door with that same anticipation. The one person that fit the role was June Lockhart, who we all also wanted to work with. So she was cast for the job.

To give you some idea of the quality of character behind "The Quality of Mercy," I offer the following story. I cannot personally verify this story because I was not there when it happened, but it was related to me afterward by several crew members so I can either assume that is true or that the craft services (food) people were being rather whimsical in their ingredients...again....

Understand that on a film/tv set, every second is precious. You can't afford to waste time, and the crew knows this. During production, at one point, June came onto the set and said, "There's the most amazing rainbow outside, you have to see it."

So a few folks filtered out, and it was, indeed, an amazing rainbow...then the rest of the crew followed...and pretty soon everyone was standing outside the B5 stages, taking a five minute rainbow break.

Only as cool a person as June Lockhart could get a hardened, battle ready crew to take a rainbow break.

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On a different note, if he ever decides to auction off his black notebook containing the original story arc, the bid winner has a moral obligation to all B5 fans to enlighten us about it.

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On GEnie, 11 April 1992:
A few days ago, I sat down with our line producer, John Copeland, and production designer John Iacovelli, and we were talking about the need to move quickly on some stuff, and how painful the process is to have the whole story in your head, already told, really, and then have to make it all over again so we can put it on film. "You think you've got it bad," I noted, "I've already worked out the last scene in the last episode of the last season (#5)...and I've still got to make Movie #1." They called me on it and asked what that scene was. Just to see their reaction, I told them. They looked at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted three heads and feathers. It was worth it. (Happily, they're sworn to secrecy.) It was also good because I think that, even without filling in the beats in between, it gave them a good sense of where the series was going to go.

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Now, what was jms really talking about: the events depicted in SiL or War Without End?

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From: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com>
Subject: S5-not renewal ?
To: CIS
Date: 5/13/1997 7:52:00 AM
View Thread
(6 messages)


Philip Hornsey <74053.2101@compuserve.com> asks:
> This would be empire building that takes place *after* the final
> scene of the final episode that you have said more than once you
> have *clearly* in your mind? If so, would it be fair to
> characterize a hypothetical Season Five as a 22 ep prelude to
> "Crusade"?

Negative; season 5 would take place in 2262, 19 years before
the "final scene" you mention. And no, I wouldn't want season 5 to be
just a setup for the sequel; it was sketched out long before that
became any kind of possibility, and I have no interest in doing that
sort of thing. We'd do one or two small things, but no more than that.

jms

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