While a continuation would be great, I loved the book series that dealt with Londo as Emperor, but so many of the main cast has passed on that there would be a whole lot of recasting needed. Some characters, like Dr. Franklin, while a beloved character, never was all that prominent and could easily be replaced. But replacing Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar would be difficult since he had such a good rapport with Peter Jurasik. Then there's replacing Mira Furlan as Delenn.
That's what I mean, though. At the point in the story we've caught up to out here in Reality-Land, the actors who have died are not at the center of the action. Sheridan's inherited leadership of the Rangers from Delenn until he takes his Sunday drive. I don't think she took it back again. It can be after B5 is decommissioned, but before its demolition. No reason to center the story on that station. I kinda like the idea of the story being wrapped around "Sleeping in Light". We see what Ivanova was so busy with at her desk, for instance. The B5 jumpgate is used as a waypoint and we see the largely inactivated station hanging dark in space with no activity. Sheridan's involved in the first bit, but then departs. *shrug* It's what I'd been hoping for these past two decades. More than Legend of the Rangers, more than Crusade.
I
read his statement and it just feels lazy and not-thought-through. He "chose" the CW because Warner has owned the rights to B5 since the '90s. Why it was rebroadcast on, and season five was on, TNT. How to tell the continuing story of Londo without Vir? Or of G'kar? Easy. They're both dead and after everything Centauri Prime's been through, with the Drakh War and all of that, no reason to go there. Franklin and Garibaldi are retired. I do have faith, but I feel Joe's just making excuses to justify a new pass at the one that caught on first time around, when he hadn't been able to make Crusade and LotR work. I want to see him apply everything he's learned to figuring out why those shows failed to engage an audience the way B5 had.
I, personally, feel no small part of it was why Solo failed. And why even though I explained it, my mom was confused when we went to see Rogue One that we didn't see Rey or Luke or Finn or Leia, and I had to repeat that this wasn't a sequel to The Force Awakens, but a new standalone film set right before the original. If it isn't the story of Babylon 5, it shouldn't have that title -- but it needs it to let everyone know it's part of that universe. Even if the story has nothing directly to
do with B5-the-station. And it needs to be accessible. Back when he was trying to get LotR and Crusade to get some traction, cable wasn't anywhere as ubiquitous as streaming is now. But the first four seasons of B5 were on broadcast television. I know people who didn't even know there was a fifth season, because they didn't have cable or because it never occurred to them to look on TNT of all places.
I haven't really watched "television" since the switchover to digital broadcasting, because older TV. It was about a month before I got a converter and reset all the stations, and when I tried to watch TV again, I just couldn't. Netflix and DVDs had given me enough of a break from the noise and intrusiveness of advertising that I just couldn't. And the content had steadily eroded. Not even talking quality -- just quantity. Back when Star Trek was first airing, the "hour" show was fifty minutes, give or take. By TNG's first run, that had dropped to forty-two minutes. The rebroadcasting of TNG on Spike! had trimmed bits out of episodes to fit the new standard, that was more like 38-40 minutes. These day's you'll have an hour show that gives you fifteen minutes of content to hook you, and then drops in a two-minute commercial break every couple minutes thereafter.
I would love for nuB5 to have episodes at least as long as the originals, but they can't, not in the current format. And the only way I'll have access to it is streaming services or physical media (I got rid of that converter -- still have the same TV). I have no way of projecting how many people dropped TV when it went digital, as I did. I have no idea how to collect data on how many people have access to which streaming service(s). But letting people know this exists and making sure they have access to it is both easier and harder than ever.
