lurkers-guide/guide/bak/110

<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>

<blockquote><cite>
No plot information is available.  Don't hold your breath.
</cite>

</blockquote>

<pre>
Sub-genre: Grand finale

Production number: 522?
Original air date: Sometime in 1998

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by ???
</pre>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Backplot</a></h2>

<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>

<p>
@@@821918918 None, we can but hope.

<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>

<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>

<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> <em>On GEnie, 11 April 1992:</em><br>
	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.

<p>
   <li> My titles are often in a state of flux; "Signs and Portents" was
	originally titled "Raiding Party" in my notes, as the B5 FAQ notes
	somewhere.  So it may change, but for the time being, in my notes for
	the series, the last episode of year five has this note: Title? --
	"Farewell" or "Sleeping in Light."

<p>
   <li> The Babylon 5 story ends at the final episode of year five.

<p>
   <li> And there will never be a Babylon 6.

<p>
   <li> If I didn't have a good, solid, consistent ending, I wouldn't have
	started the story.  I always have the ending before I begin writing
	the beginning.

<p>
   <li> There's always been a side-story that could spin off from B5, but the
	main core story is over at the five-year mark.

<p>
   <li> I've always said that there's a side story that could follow the 5
	year B5 storyline, which takes place in the B5 universe, and follows
	on the heels of the events in B5...but who knows if that would happen?
	<p>
	The one thing I would hate is for B5 to become any kind of so-called
	"franchise."  Because as soon as that happens, you're prevented from
	making any changes, from doing anything that might startle people,
	cutting into the piggy-bank.  Once that happens, you're dead.
	<p>
	I've also made no secret of my sense that, should B5 run its full
	five year course (and assuming the side-story doesn't go, which I 
	would not exactly count on)...I plan to get out of TV.  By that 
	point, I would have said pretty much everything I want to say in TV,
	and it's time to get out, buy a small house somewhere outside London,
	and spend the rest of my years writing novels, which is kinda where
	this all began.  (I've had 2 novels, 1 anthology, and a bunch of 
	short stories published, as well as 500 or so articles.)
	<p>
	I never got into this to make a ***FRANCHISE***, and never really
	intended to become an executive producer.  I just don't like being
	rewritten...so I climbed higher, until finally there was nobody over
	me messing with my scripts.  Outside of the B5 reality, if someone 
	came to e and offered me *staff writer* on a show -- the lowest
	position in the TV totem pole -- but with the guarantee that I
	wouldn't be rewritten, they wouldn't change the words...I'd take it
	in a hot second.  I'm here, now, strictly out of self-defense.
	<p>
	Two valuable social skills are knowing when to enter a room, and when
	to leave a room.  At some point, you have to get out or become 
	something you don't want to become.  I've never really been part of 
	the Hollywood SYSTEM, and have no desire to do so.
	<p>
	In "The Velvet Alley," Rod Serling wrote of a young advertising writer
	who becomes a success at writing television.  At one point, the 
	character says (paraphrased from memory): "Here's the trap...in TV 
	they pay you lots of money for what you do...then, slowly, your 
	standard of living rises until you *need* that constant flow to stay 
	at that level.  Then...they threaten to take it away from you if you
	don't behave.  And THAT'S when they've got you."

<p>
   <li> What happens at the end of the five year arc?  The "Babylon 5" series
	ends...if I have anything to say about it (and I do).  If something 
	else follows, we'll see what that is, but it won't be the same series,
	or the same title, or really the same characters.
	<p>
	Barring that very distant possibility, at the end of the five year 
	arc, I take a very, very, VERY long nap....

<p>
   <li> I've mentioned before that there's a side-story that could go off,
	within the B5 universe, with a few of our characters, once the
	Babylon 5 story itself comes to an end in its fifth year, but that's
	a long ways off, and I don't know if that's realistic.
	<p>
	You have to understand...I never came in wanting to be a producer.
	I'm a *writer*, and I only got here because it was the only way to
	protect the words...create and run the damned show so nobody can mess
	with it.  Once I've finished the Babylon story, assuming it runs its
	full length, (5 years alone, more if there is that doubtful spinoff),
	the story is over.  Every story has a beginning, middle and end, and
	the story's over when it's over.
	<p>
	I've also made no bones about the fact that, should the Babylon story
	run its full term, I will have said just about everything I want to 
	say in television, and plan to get out, go back to writing novels.
	<p>
	My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say
	it, and get the hell out.  (Second philosophy behind that one: when 
	in doubt, roll in a grenade and come in firing.)

</ul>