Crusade Comments at IMDb.

[KoshN]

I got some new comments posted to the Crusade page at IMDb. There are a couple typos ("kept" ??? Argh!) and formatting errors (missing carriage return/line feeds), which I am going to try to get corrected.

http://amazon.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0149437

KoshNaranek
Ambridge, PA, USA

Date: 20 April 2003
Summary: Crusade - It Sure Seems To Improve With Time.

Compared to what passes for sci-fi on TV today, Crusade is a breath of fresh air, a reminder of the good old days when The Sci-Fi Channel actually tried to get sci-fi series.

I watched the first five episodes of Crusade again when it recently aired in Sci-Fi's Daytime Rotation (April 11th, 11AM-4PM):

1. "RACING THE NIGHT" 2. "THE NEEDS OF EARTH" 3. "THE MEMORY OF WAR" 4. "THE LONG ROAD" 5. "VISITORS FROM DOWN THE STREET" ...and it looks better every time I see it.

The rest of the episodes are scheduled to air as follows on The Sci-Fi Channel on May 1st, 11AM-4PM:

6. "THE WELL OF FOREVER" 7. "EACH NIGHT I DREAM OF HOME" 8. "PATTERNS OF THE SOUL" 9. "THE PATH OF SORROWS" 10. "RULING FROM THE TOMB" ...and May 27th, 11AM-4PM:

11. "THE RULES OF THE GAME" 12. "WAR ZONE" 13. "APPEARANCES AND OTHER DECEITS"...and starting over... 1. "RACING THE NIGHT" 2. "THE NEEDS OF EARTH."

Now if only they'd drop the "Scare Tactics" animated popup ads, which take up 43% of the screen height (a new record, and not something to be proud of)! There's nothing quite so gratifying as seeing a favorite show stepped on by a piece of garbage. :-( I hope a real sci-fi network steps up to the plate and re-starts this series, because there's precious little sci-fi on TV anymore. About all that's left (in production), that's respectable, is Stargate SG-1.

I'll leave you with some favorite Crusade quotes. Unlike a lot of shows today, Crusade actually *has* memorable dialogue.

**********

Galen: "What do you want?"

Gideon: "To find a cure to the Drakh plague, before it wipes out all life on Earth."

Galen: "Where are you going?"

Gideon: "Any where I have to."

Galen: "Who do you serve and who do you trust? ... (intensely) Who do you serve and who do you trust?!"

Gideon: "...I don't know."

Galen: "Then, I will go with you."

(The above dialogue means more after you've watched all the episodes and read the three unfilmed scripts, and so become more aware of Galen's mission.)

**********

Eilerson: "The story of my life. I finally find a city like this, intact, deserted for ten thousand years. Probably contains hundreds of patents that I could exploit and I'm going to die. I can appreciate dramatic irony as much as the next person, but this is pushing it a bit."

**********

Eilerson: "There is a number of things that I hate, Captain. I hate it when I pull up a piece of skin next to my nail and it catches every time I put it in my pocket and hurts like a son of gun. I hate it when I go to movies with kids in the audience, because there's always someone there that tells me I can't kill them when they get loud. Now who makes up these rules anyway? And most of all, I hate contradictions. This is a contradiction, ...a big one."

**********

Gideon: "I've already made that promise times three hundred."

Galen: "Have you kept it?"

Gideon: "No, not yet."

Galen: "Then when the time comes, I will help you kept yours, as you have helped me kept mine. Perhaps then we can both forgive ourselves our common crime." (keep. )

Gideon: "What crime?"

Galen: "Being alive."

**********

Gideon: Nothing much good on TV tonight anyway." (The Memory of War)

**********

Gideon: "It's easier not to want forgiveness, or to expect it. We just keep trying to fix the mistake so we don't have to ask. But you end up trying so hard to atone for one set of mistakes that you overcompensate and make new ones. And then you can never break out of the cycle. You just keep going around and around. No way out and no where to go."

**********

Eilerson: "They must have placed their whole culture in cryonic freeze, set the machines in place to conduct biological tests on anyone who came by. It makes sense. It's perfectly logical, reasonable, well, ...as these things go."

Gideon: "I wouldn't call the systematic murder of innocent civilians logical or reasonable."
...
Gideon (angry, to the alien): "You can't murder someone because it's a convenient form of testing!"

**********

Galen: "How you ever wondered why there are so many dead worlds out there? Let me tell you why. It's because despite the best advice of people who know what they are talking about, other people insist on doing the most massively stupid things. This is one of them."

**********

Kendarr: "The truth has never been anyone's best interests."

Durkani: "The truth is..."

Kendarr (cutting Durkani off): "...out...of fashion."

**********

Galen (to Matheson in the bullet car): "I think this is where I get off, metaphorically, metaphysically, and literally. But do go on riding. Go around enough times and with any luck, you might come to the same conclusions that I have."

****************************************

This would be a GREAT sci-fi series to RE-START. However, in it's place we'll probably get dozens of "Reality" TV shows that have little or nothing to do with sci-fi (like Crossing Over with John Edward, Dream Team, and Scare Tactics), and half-baked remakes of long-dead TV series that should stay dead.

It doesn't look good for sci-fi on TV. Enjoy Crusade (and Babylon 5) on TV while you can.

 

[Malakian82]

Becouse I don't have the sci-fi channel, I don't know if the episode order you posted is the 'correct' one (I know, 'correct' order is a fairly relative term when it comes to Crusade).

I've read another thread that staes that the order in which the sci-fi channel is showing the episodes is the way JMS preferes, but (if the order you posted is correct) why would good 'ol Joe have War Zone as number twelve?

I know, I know, Racing the night was inteded to be the first and War Zone is terrible and was only made because the network forced JMS to do so.....
....but having said that, War Zone as number twelve makes absolutly no sense, so why would JMS have it in that order?

 

[MartinRoth]

....but having said that, War Zone as number twelve makes absolutly no sense, so why would JMS have it in that order?

I've just assumed that the point was to air the 11 "real" episodes first, then tack on the "Apocrypha" ("War Zone" and "Appearances and Other Deceits") at the end.

 

[KoshN]

Becouse I don't have the sci-fi channel, I don't know if the episode order you posted is the 'correct' one (I know, 'correct' order is a fairly relative term when it comes to Crusade).

The episode order I posted in this thread, came from Sci-Fi Channel's Schedulebot, and is the correct order (or at least, as correct as possible if you ignore the uniform changes). It is the Sci-Fi/JMS Preferred order. Elsewhere, I tried to come up with a correct airing order that kept the uniform changes straight. I trust you're not referring to that order (below, between the asterisks).

******************************
This was the most logical airing order I could come up with for "A Call to Arms" and the existing 13 episodes (IF "Uniform" continuity was to be maintained):

"A Call to Arms"

1. "War Zone" (Black Uniforms), Early January 2267, right after the fight in "A Call to Arms."

2. "The Long Road" (Black Uniforms). Probably early March 2267, based upon Captain Daniel's comment "...when the Drahk plague hit Earth, our schedule was moved up. We arrived a couple of months ago..."

3. "The Well of Forever" (Black Uniforms). Should come before "The Path of Sorrows" (which follows up on the Galen/Isabelle thread started here). Galen apologized to Gideon in "The Well of Forever" so this is another reason this should come before "The Path of Sorrows" (where he mentions apologizing "just the once and typically, it came too late to matter" which could apply to his apology to Gideon). Galen's promise to Gideon foreshadows how he helps Gideon in "To the Ends of the Earth" and "End of the Line."

4. "The Path of Sorrows" (Black Uniforms). Should come before "To The Ends of the Earth" (an unfilmed script that was up on Bookface.com). This further expands on the Gideon during the Technomage exodus scene, which we saw a bit of in "War Zone."

5. "Ruling from the Tomb" (Black Uniforms), Gideon & Lochley's FIRST Meeting. Comes before "Each Night I Dream of Home" and before "The Rules of the Game". Date shown is 6/15/2267, so it should really come between "Visitors from Down the Street" and "Each Night I Dream of Home" but that would mess up the "Uniform" continuity.

6. "Appearances and Other Deceits" (The transition from Black Uniforms to Gray Uniforms). Feels like it should come after "Racing the Night" due to the Chambers/Eilerson relationship (more friendly here), but it can't since that would screw up "Uniform" continuity.

7. "Racing the Night" (Gray Uniforms). There's friction between Chambers and Eilerson (e.g. the "King of the Pig People" comment, and Eilerson's blaming the crewman's death on the info. Chambers gave him).

8. "The Needs of Earth" (Gray Uniforms). Should come after "The Well of Forever". Right now, I can't remember why I wrote that 2nd sentence. Came up with this order long ago.

9. "The Memory of War" (Gray Uniforms). Early April 2267. Must come before "Patterns of the Soul" because here is where the virus screen is discovered, which is later used in "Patterns of the Soul.". Galen admits to Gideon that he's come to rely on him (Gideon), and the Excalibur ship/crew (in so many words, like they're ~his family/home). In a perfect world, this would come between "The Long Road" (the sideways mention of Galen being at home on the Excalibur) and "The Well of Forever" ("You once told me you considered the Excalibur your family. You told me we were the only people you trusted. What could possibly make you betray that?").

10. "Visitors from Down the Street" (Gray Uniforms). This is the main glitch with this order because of the 5/13/2267 2:37PM EST date/time shown (so it should come before "Ruling from the Tomb"), but it can't because that would screw up "Uniform" continuity.

11. "Each Night I Dream of Home" (Gray Uniforms). After "Ruling from the Tomb". After "The Memory of War". Before "Patterns of the Soul". The continuing Gideon/Lochley warm-up. Takes place "a few months" after "The Memory of War" so it's early to mid-July 2267.

12. "To the Ends of the Earth" (Unfilmed, Transition from Gray to Black Uniforms - The Laundry Accident Episode) (an unfilmed script that was up on Bookface.com).

13. "Patterns of the Soul" (Black Uniforms). MUST come after The Memory of War", so it must come in the second black uniform group, and therefore must come after "To the Ends of the Earth".

14. "The Rules of the Game" (Black Uniforms). Must come after "Each Night I Dream of Home". This is the apex of the Gideon/Lochley warm-up. Fall 2267?

22. "End of the Line" (Unfilmed, Black Uniforms) (an unfilmed script that was up on Bookface.com).

??. "Value Judgements" (Unfilmed, Black Uniforms). Could go either in the first or second black uniform group. (was available from Fiona Avery)

??. "Tried & True" (Unfilmed, Black Uniforms). Could go either in the first or second black uniform group. Has something to do with Dureena, a trial she goes through, and how she gets a sword, and was planned for being a part of a trilogy of scripts. (not sure if this script ever was finished)

******************************

See, because TNT insisted on the uniform change happening during Season 1 (as opposed to being done between seasons), JMS planned on having some black uniform episodes, then "Appearances and Other Deceits" to explain the change from black to gray uniforms (complete with Gideon's derogatory remark about the gray uniforms at the end of the episode), all of the gray uniform episodes, and then the unfilmed script "To the Ends of the Earth" to explain the change from gray uniforms back to black uniforms (with all gray uniforms "destroyed" in a hideous laundry accident), followed by the rest of the black uniform episodes. All this screwing around with the uniforms throws a monkey wrench into the gears, and it makes it impossible to have a logical storyling. This is what TNT wanted because they wanted to sink the show.

I've read another thread that states that the order in which the sci-fi channel is showing the episodes is the way JMS preferes, but (if the order you posted is correct) why would good 'ol Joe have War Zone as number twelve?

Makes no sense to me, either.

I know, I know, Racing the night was intended to be the first and War Zone is terrible and was only made because the network forced JMS to do so.....
....but having said that, War Zone as number twelve makes absolutly no sense, so why would JMS have it in that order?

In his words, "because he didn't like it (War Zone) much." Even saying that, 12th for War Zone still makes no sense. It should be aired first, last, or not at all, not 2nd to last. Chronologically, that makes no sense. Personally, if War Zone is shown at all, I'd air it first, followed by Racing the Night.

By airing War Zone 2nd to last, I think JMS just didn't want to end on a stinker. It's better off aired first, to get it out of the way quickly, and then you can get on to the good stuff, and still end on a good episode.