<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Sorry, but who is Kat Slonaker? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Kat is one of the original group of
B5 fans at TNT who helped convince the network to buy the reruns, make the first two TV movies and ultimately underwrite the fifth season. She was one of the network liasons during the production of
In the Beginning and
Thirdspace, all the way through the fifth season, and for the first five episodes of
Crusade. Then the suits from Atlanta came in and took the oversight on
that show away from the Originals Division in L.A. and started providing "guidance" to the show directly.
JMS went out of his way to praise Kat and her group during his criticism of TNT after the
Crusade mess was over.
Even though it wasn't in her job description, Kat was also a presence on the TNT
B5 website (which was also run by fans of the show, and was much better than either the WB or the Sci-Fi official sites.) She answered questions, dealt with problems and even "lurked" under a pseudonym so that she could interact with people as "just another fan". So she's pretty well known among fans who followed the show during the TNT days. (I think she may also have had a hand in the very classy page they put up just before the site was closed, re-directing fans to the Sci-Fi page - with a link, no less - and announcing when the series would debut on the rival network.)
The TNT site went up a couple of months before the show debuted on the network, and in the early days there was a lot of confusion about why the show was moving, what happened to the final four episodes of S4 (which didn't air in many markets) and TNT was catching flack for a lot of stuff that wasn't their fault.
Since I had access to lots of information in those days, I answered whatever questions I could, and defended the network when I thought it was being wronged. The two
B5 posters visible in some of the pictures on my website and the publicity materials that I scanned other pictures from were a thank-you from Kat and Dean Treadwell (TNT Atlanta, another fan) for helping out.
Kat also helped me get my name back when some troll registered under it after a change in their software, and saved me from getting sued by JMS, Warner Bros. and possibly Chris Carter and Fox after another troll posted a libelous note under a name
close to mine, and included my real e-mail address in the body of it. (That was one of the very few times that JMS has ever e-mailed
me.
)
Kat was nice enough to invite me to lunch (and pick up the check
) when I was in Los Angeles for a week last year, the only time we've ever met in person.
Sadly she
was among those laid-off in the recent "merger" of Originals back into the programming department, but she tells me the severance package was quite decent and that she'll be just fine. Her last day is December 31st, so she plans to enjoy the holidays and start thinking about her next move in January.
Regards,
Joe
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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
