Perhaps because they expect that an "original cast" B5 production would draw a bigger audience?
This is the channel that's only putting respectable amounts of money behind "big name" projects. The sole exception would seem to be the upcoming Battlestar Galactica miniseries, but then again, that's
only four hours long. To get more, you need a name like "Steven Spielberg" or "Frank Herbert" (hope I got the latter one right, as I'm typing this offline and can't check). Is "Straczynski" such a name?
The problem is not whether or not it's an "original cast" B5 production. It's whether or not the story is any good,
and whether or not you give the writer the proper resources to tell that story. If they could scrape together one ounce of sense among their collective brains, they would see the gaping hole that exists in the B5 universe story and
finish something that had already been started,
Crusade. It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum, and it tries to fill it. In this respect, the Sci-Fi Channel is definitely unnatural. Instead of filling the vacuum, fixing the open wound that's existed in the B5 universe ever since September 1999, they start something new and leave the bloody wound which has never healed open for all to see. Hell, they parade it around for all to see, showing it over and over again
without fixing it. They create demand with no intention of satisfying it, as some sort of perennial, sick tease.
Perhaps because their decision-making criteria for a one-shot movie are different from their decision-making criteria for a potential continuing series?
or a miniseries? Oh, their decision-making criteria is probably different depending on the length and cost of the intended production. Still, it makes me wonder why they haven't gone the miniseries route to complete Farscape or Crusade.
Perhaps because their situation and needs now are different from their situation and needs of nearly two years ago?
Over the last two years, they've shown a tendency to back big name miniseries, cheap (and usually schlock) TV shows and cheap, schlock TV movies (e.g. their recent string of twenty-two $2 million TV movies). Bear in mind that the Rangers pilot had a $3 million budget. Well, "Straczynski" is not a big name in the same sense that Spielberg and Herbert are, so what kind of production do you think they'd fund for JMS, big bucks or shoestring budget? They'll go the shoestring budget (Legend of the Rangers pilot or less money) route every time. Shoestring budget
used to work back in the early days when we knew little of B5 and also back when B5 was a well oiled machine, with all of its library of CGI built up and ready to use. Now, we're used to seeing all of B5 and Crusade that we saw up to 1998/1999,
and now, all of that library of CGI is
gone, thanks to good old Warner Brothers. Now, we require visual continuity from B5 (1998)/Crusade (1999) to the new project. Now, they would require a larger budget just to get back to the point where they were at the end of Crusade. Think Sci-Fi would be willing to spend that money? I doubt it!
Or perhaps not. I am by no means stating that they would pick up on a potential B5 project. I am simply saying that there is no known legitimate reason to assume that they wouldn't if the proper circumstances arose.
Those proper circumstances would need to be either a change in management, or force from above (from NBC). From what I've heard of NBC so far, it appears that any changes from above would be further tightening of the purse strings, not good. The only extremely faint glimmer of hope I can see from NBC is that they were the original home ot Trek, and now maaaaaybe they may want to have a space based sci-fi project (maybe a B5 universe project) in their stable (not on NBC, of course).
Universal, I think you mean..
Typos.
but if there's a Universal channel that gets a sci-fi miniseries or TV movie, it won't be USA. It'd be Sci-Fi,
Ah. Spoken to them about that, have you? Or are you just making it up?
No, ascribing logic to the split-up of programming between the sister stations. Like I said above, in my response to Pillowrock's post, I now see the error of my ways. After all, that would be expecting The Sci-Fi Channel to go after shows that are science-fictiony, and we can't have that.
JMS shy? In what way would that be? Just because they don't air the one new TV project he's done since then? There are lots of other producers who haven't had anything on Sci-Fi in that period, so does that stand as evidence that they'll never get anything on Sci-Fi? That sounds like a silly argument.
Granted, it's only one data point on The Sci-Fi Channel, but they shied away from going with a continuation of Crusade, didn't postpone the Rangers pilot or increase its budget when it became evident that Warner Brothers had lost all of the B5/Crusade CGI, and then were disappointed at the ratings that the Rangers pilot got. They wanted a 2.4 and it got a 1.7. Then, they rejected Polaris as too science-fictiony. This, said by a supposed "Sci-Fi" Channel, strikes me as more than a little odd. All this has happened while they move B5 and Crusade to progressively worse timeslots, replaced by things such as Knight Rider,
and promote the hell out of schlock like Scare Tactics. Given their moving B5 and Crusade to progressively worse and worse timeslots (and I think they're in almost the worst imaginable timeslots, now), it would seem that they are desperately in need of new B5 material, yet they refuse to go for any. It looks like they've lost interest and/or think their audience has lost interest.
Response seen. You are, of course, once again confusing the issues of a one-off movie vs. a continuing series,...
Other people have been bringing in the idea of series. I've been talking about B5 TV Movies or at most
"mini"-series. JMS has ruled out "series" for the two possible projects, unless this is a sneaky way of saying another new pilot. If it's the latter, I say: "No, not
another new one. Finish the ones you've already started."
... and also making huge assumptions about information you don't have, such as the viewership that the premium channels would expect.
Once again, they very well might not prove to be interested, but we have no reason to assume that.
Well, I don't know how their minds work, or what they expect. I've been out of the loop with respect to premium channels since the mid-1980s, and things have changed a lot since then. Personally, I'd hate to have to subscribe to a premium channel, digital cable, or get satellite, just to get a new B5 universe TV movie or miniseries. I'd probably do it (and drop it afterwards); it's just that I wouldn't like to have to do it.
Er, actually, the Crusade problems came out of TNT's LA offices, not Atlanta...
[Sorry, I had it all written and couldn't pass up the chance to use it.]
BZZZT! Wrong. TNT-LA was A-OK with the way Crusade was going. It was when TNT-Atlanta discovered that TNT-LA wasn't micromanaging Crusade, that TNT-Atlanta decided to take over, take a real "hands-on" approach, and decided they knew how to write sci-fi. After all, their experience with westerns and wrestling surely must have prepared them.
Yes, quite frankly, I think they wouldn't try their best.
I think they wouldn't even have the slightest clue it was going on in the first place. And even if they did happen to find out, I think they quite simply wouldn't give a shit, because it didn't involve them or their jobs. And because they're bright enough to realize that the entire world doesn't revolve around the B5 universe.
Like I said, petty and vindictive people stay petty and vindictive. If those people are still there, and it's likely that at least some of them are (probably in now positions of even greater authority), they would still be harboring a grudge against JMS and B5 universe projects. I think that those people at TNT would do anything they could, exercise any influence to prevent a JMS or B5 universe show from coming back to TNT or from going to TBS. It's similar to but not exactly the same as The WB not wanting any show that had been touched by PTEN (See JoeD's explanation.).
