What kind of show will "Rangers" be?

[Jomar]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

I'm not sure why we're talking about Star Trek here, but there was another actor as the captain in the original pilot, Jeffrey Hunter (I think) and then he turned down the series. Shatner always demanded his rights and since TPTB usually gave in, one assumes that he became indispensible.

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[bakana]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Shatner always demanded his rights and since TPTB usually gave in, one assumes that he became indispensible. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Shatner never HAD any rights. Except to a Paycheck. He was just the one most willing to play Prima Donna to get More than he was entitled to. They gave it to him to keep him from throwing tantrums.

We Won't see that sort of behavior on Any of JMS shows. He has little patience with idiots. The next script would have the character dying painfully and definitely.

Remember Talia. She ended up getting Dissected by Psi Corps.

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Yes, I like cats too.
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[drakh]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
We Won't see that sort of behavior on Any of JMS shows. He has little patience with idiots. The next script would have the character dying painfully and definitely.

Remember Talia. She ended up getting Dissected by Psi Corps.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I wouldn't say that Andrea Thompson was being an idiot. Here's her perspective on the situation:
http://www.andreathompson.com/interviews/starlog96.htm

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chris Springob:

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Still here? OK. JMS said that the Excalibur would eventually go rogue like Babylon 5 did. So there’s also the idea that I that the Rangers crew would be involved in tracking down the Excalibur and in a sense becoming the bad guys on Crusade. Having the good guys on one show be the bad guys on another show is such a mind-bending idea that it’s the sort of thing JMS might do.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm coming late to the party, but this would be frelling awesome.

And I don't use the word "awesome" very often. (However, I do use "frelling.")

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[Darth Vader]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

i was on scifi.com when i saw this
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> The site will give fans an
unprecedented opportunity to preview the
much-anticipated return of the Babylon 5 series <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
sounds promising

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"I am the state"
Napoleon

 

[bakana]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> "I had a five-year contract on the show, but it wasn't going well. I was supposed to be doing 13 episodes a year and at most I was doing about seven. When I was working, about half the time I had a great storyline and I did not have any problem with that - stories like 'Spider in the Web' or 'Mind Wars.' When they did give me a story, it was a good story. But most of the time there was nothing going on. I was sitting around for two or three months at a time not working."
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The above is a quote from Andreas "side of the story" and it's a crock.

First of all, No One had a "five year contract". She had a _One_ year contract. And all it promised her was a Paycheck. She got paid for every episode, even if she wasn't in it. Someone at Warner did love her, because, as I understand it, during the first season she was the Only one with such a contract. Some of the other actors got that type of contract in the later seasons. But no one was ever given any guarantees about being in All the episodes.

JMS says that was the major point of contention: Andrea wanted to be the "star". She didn't get it. She left.

The 5 year contract stuff was pure fiction. JMS had to fight _every_ year to get them to tell him if the show was being renewed or cancelled.


And, the bizarre negotiations and miscommunications over renewal and contracts was why Claudia (Ivanova) wasn't in the 5th season. JMS wanted her. Claudia wanted to do it. The contract negotiations passed through so many different hands that, by the time everybody thought they had the ducks in a row, it was too late. I think it was finally Warner that stopped the negotiations because some sort of deadline had passed.




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Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

Everyone who was a regular had a five year contract. That's standard. (On a lot of shows its a seven year contract.) But that is always, of course, dependent on the show's being renewed. JMS made all the contracts five years so that it would be too expensive to get everybody back in case the show was a hit and Warner Bros. tried to do a sixth season.

(As owners of the show they would have had the right to do so. JMS designed the show to "economically self-destruct" at the end of five. That's why there is a new Trek who every seven years. Paramount can't afford to renegotiate with an existing cast after the seven year contracts run out, so they do a "fiscal repackaging" of the Trek concept.)

But I don't believe that Andrea had a guaranteed 13 episodes in her contract. She maybe had a guarantee of 6 or 7, and contract and her pay rate gave the producers an option to use her up to 13 times in a season. (Until the 2nd or 3rd year none of the other actors - including Andreas and Peter - had any kind of minimum number of episodes that they were guaranteed to appear in. I believe the actors would be paid for the full number of episodes in the contract, regardless of how many they actually appeared in. Tracy Scoggins, if I'm not mistaken, was signed for 8 or 9 S5 episodes.)

Warner Bros. did not set some arbitrary deadline for contracts to be signed for S5. They had to be signed by a certain date because pre-production had to start by date X in order to make TNT airdate Y. JMS had to start writing scripts and that meant he had to know which characters were available. Everybody knew this. The cast explained it to Claudia repeatedly the weekend before the deadline expired. Niether she nor her agent contacted Warner Bros. (I personally suspect that she got bad advice from her agent, who probably assumed that her presence in the already-filmed series finale meant that Warner Bros. would somehow have to "cave" and meet her terms. Her agent was wrong, they didn't have to and they didn't - in fact they couldn't meet her terms without violating their contracts with the other actors.)

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[drakh]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
And, the bizarre negotiations and miscommunications over renewal and contracts was why Claudia (Ivanova) wasn't in the 5th season. JMS wanted her. Claudia wanted to do it. The contract negotiations passed through so many different hands that, by the time everybody thought they had the ducks in a row, it was too late. I think it was finally Warner that stopped the negotiations because some sort of deadline had passed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Don't think so:
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&th=697fbc4376e9ec70,41

And here is the interview refered to in the above link:

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SCI FI INVASION : By you Quitting, Straczynski lost Ivanova, he couldn't have been happy about that:


Claudia Christian: I think he feels that like I put them out or something by quitting the show, when in fact essence I don't even think it affected anything.

He didn't even have a storyline for the fifth season at that point.

I didn't think there'd be enough for me to do and I didn't want to be relegated to one more year of not having any challenges.
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[drakh]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
Everyone who was a regular had a five year contract. That's standard. (On a lot of shows its a seven year contract.) But that is always, of course, dependent on the show's being renewed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>To be pedantic, it's a 5/7 year option, renewed at the producers' discretion on a season to season basis.

Actors usually leave all the business details to their agents, and constantly get the terms wrong in interviews. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>But I don't believe that Andrea had a guaranteed 13 episodes in her contract. She maybe had a guarantee of 6 or 7, and contract and her pay rate gave the producers an option to use her up to 13 times in a season.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>And, as she noted in the full interview, her problem was being optioned extensively, and not used. She felt the lack of screentime was dampening her career, since the options prevented her from seeking work elsewhere.

When she wasn't given assurances that this would change, she decided she could do better. Her subsequent credits indicate she was right. And since she, unlike Claudia Christian, acted professionally about it, I don't see how anyone can fault her for it.

 

[bakana]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

From the Lurker's Guide,

This is what JMS had to say on the subject:


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Andrea Thompson has said in interviews that she felt Talia got short shrift. There are a number of actors who feel that if they're in a story then they should be at the *center* of the story. Andrea seemed to feel that if she was in an episode, the episode should be about her character, and was consistently lobbying for this, despite the fact that it would cut into the arc, and time for the other characters on-screen. Babylon 5 is an ensemble show; time on screen is determined by the story, not by whim or personal insistence.

Yes, we used her 8 or 9 times in a given season; but by contract, we paid her for a full 13 episodes, whether she appeared in them or not. We were never under any obligation to give her *any* guarantee; we did so to make her feel comfortable taking on the job. For the first year he was on the show Jeff Conaway didn't have a guarantee of episodes; he was used as he was needed, and that grew with time. Andrea wanted time away from the show to do other projects; we accommodated where we could, as we do with all our cast members, but if a request comes in at the last moment, or conflicts with our schedule, we can't comply. We feel that if we're paying someone a great sum of money to be available to us, for episodes they may not even appear in, this is not unreasonable.

Finally, it was never Warner Bros. who hired her or pushed her on me. WB didn't care one way or another. I was the one who hired her, with Doug Netter. If I hadn't felt she was right for the role, I wouldn't have hired her. But I was also under no constraint to make the show into the Andrea Thompson Show. Andreas and Peter have often appeared as many times in a season as Andrea, and didn't even *have* a guarantee for the first two seasons. (Now they do.)

We did what we could to accommodate her without destroying the story arc. I regret that she has taken out her frustrations in this way. Either one is a team player, part of an ensemble, or one is not. We are very proud of the fact that the cast members as they stand now are all ensemble, team players.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[bakana]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

As far as Claudia leaving, she said in interviews at the time that she Wanted to do the show.

JMS said he wanted her.

They tried. Somehow, there was a communications breakdown and the contracts never got signed.

Since Both wanted the deal to go through, the best guess anyone has ever been able to come up with is that Her Agent didn't want the deal.

There was an that reported Claudia in Season 4 as saying that she had Turned Down an offer for More Money if she'd jump ship. Supposedly, she said she was _Enjoying_ herself on B5 and wanted to finish the show.
If that report was real, you can understand why her Agent might not want her in the 5th season. More money for Claudia is also more money for the Agent.


"It's one of those great questions for which we will never know the answer or, if we did learn the answer, it would probably drive us Mad."



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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[drakh]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
From the Lurker's Guide,

This is what JMS had to say on the subject:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Which is far from being an "idiot". True, she didn't have the show's best interests in mind, but she acted with professinalism, and that's really all one can demand. And, since jms got Lyta back, and Thompson went on to star in two network shows, I do think things worked out for the better for all parties.

 

[drakh]

Re: What kind of show will \"Rangers\" be?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
As far as Claudia leaving, she said in interviews at the time that she Wanted to do the show.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Claudia said a whole bunch of things, many of them contradicory. Suffice to say, she started the online shit-storm by stating numerous times that she was fired.

Read the links I posted. Please. They're the statments made by jms and Claudia about the situation. They're the only way to have an informed opinion.