In LA for B5, Part 1

digresssmlOriginally published November 25, 1994 in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1097

Wednesday, Oct. 26. On the road once more. This time I have journeyed to Los Angeles to watch the filming of my first foray into television: an episode of Babylon 5.

B5 is a series on which I have done a 180 degree turn, from a critical standpoint. Set in the 23rd century, the titular space station is a sort of floating combination of the United Nations and “Rick’s Place” from Casablanca, in which humans and aliens endeavor to live together on what is considered “the last, best hope for peace.”

I found the first episodes to be dark, confusing, and flat. I had no idea who any of the characters were, nor did their various internecine battles and squabbles hold any interest for me. The actors seemed stuff and awkward, comfortable neither with their characters nor with each other. Occasionally they’d come across like marionettes from one of those old Gerry Anderson shows—except less animated.

I wasn’t sure which alien races hated which others or why. And I was having difficulty with the character called Londo, played by Peter Jurasik, whose work I was familiar with from Hill Street Blues. But the difference was jolting. Why, I wondered, was “Sid the Snitch” walking around with a foot-high hairdo and talking like Boris Badenov? And why, ultimately, should I care?

Well, ultimately, I did care. Because, as the series progressed, its different aspects started to come together for me. As I got the hang of the relationships, the episodes likewise seemed to be finding themselves. Hëll, I even got used to Londo’s accent.

Not only that, but one quickly began to intuit that B5 had what Star Trek: The Next Generation had always lacked: direction. One episode of Next Gen was pretty much like another, and—aside from changes in uniform and hairstyle—could more or less be watched in any order.

Not so with B5. Not only was there a definite progression in characterization, but there were also hints laid out of upcoming story developments and ongoing plot threads that were going to be woven together. In short, B5 had everything that Trek fans had long claimed they wanted to see in ST:TNG—except, naturally, many Trek fans who had willingly suffered through the entire lousy first season of ST:TNG, waiting for improvement, had quickly dropped B5 from their viewing list after the first episode or two.

I met series creator J. Michael Straczynski a couple years back at the San Diego Comic-Con. With B5 safely (if narrowly, methinks) renewed for its second season, and me solidly in the show’s corner thanks to the vast improvement in the latter half of the first season, Joe handed me a script assignment (after I passed the first test given all potential scriptwriters, namely being able to pronounce and spell “Straczynski” in under five seconds).

All I was given was a couple of lines for a plot springboard: Londo’s three wives show up on the station. Londo has to deal with them, and from the way he handles things we learn something about him.

In terms of what the wives should be like, all I had to go on was Londo’s description of them in an earlier episode. He had collectively referred to the trio as “Pestilence, Famine, and Death.” This was the original title of the episode. But as I developed it and introduced other storylines into it, I would up suggesting the title “Soul Mates”—not as funny as “Pestilence, Famine, and Death,” granted, but it was more appropriate.

So now, much as I did when my material for Full Moon was filmed, I flew out to watch it all go down. At least this time I didn’t require my passport or worry about everyone else speaking Romanian.

I came straight from the airport to the Babylon 5 studio, an unprepossessing facility a bit off the beaten track of such higher profile studios as Warners or Universal. On the other hand, Babylonian Productions certainly lacked the overwhelming sense of paranoia that oftentimes infests such enterprises. My arrival was expected, and Joe’s lovely assistant Joanne brought me over to the set. I’d been told that writers are welcome. (Which is a refreshing change; usually writers on the set are greeted with a certain degree of suspicion. After all, the writer’s job is already done. He has no real function, so what’s he doing there?)

I brought along a camera, since I was planning to put together a slide show about the making of the episode, which I figure I’ll do at upcoming conventions. I had cleared it with Joe, but I wanted to make sure to touch all the bases. I felt keenly aware that, welcome or no, I was still a guest. Consequently, the last thing I wanted to do was step on any toes.

I spoke with the director, John Flinn—a dark-haired, confident Texas type (although he’s a native Californian). John had an easy, welcoming manner and simply put forward the provisos that I use common sense (no pictures during filming, for example, or when actors were trying to concentrate on their lines) and also that I be sure to say “Flashing!” loudly, so that the lighting people didn’t get confused.

I quickly met a number of the actors in the series—Claudia Christian (Commander Ivanova), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Jerry Doyle (Security Chief Garibaldi) and Andrea Thompson (resident telepath Talia Winters). My friend Bill Mumy (Lennier) was also there, having just wrapped his shooting for the day. (I tried to be considerate and gave him an easy work week.) Everyone praised the script (which, despite my suspicious nature, I was told later was sincere; that if they hadn’t liked it, they’d just have nodded and said, “Nice to meet you. How’s the weather?”)

Jerry and Andrea in particular seemed to like it. Which was not surprising. One of the plotlines furthered a budding romantic relationship between their two characters—a deliberate move on my part, since it’s fairly publicly known that Jerry and Andrea are an “item” off-camera. I’d figured maybe I could tap into some of that chemistry in the story.

I’m consistently fascinated by how the TV camera treats various people. Claudia, certainly attractive enough in person, acquired an even more regal loveliness on screen. Andrea, on the other hand, was far more gorgeous in person than on TV. An absolute stunner, though it was impossible to indulge in even the mildest flights of fancy considering that her significant other was standing right there. Impossible for me, at least. Perhaps others can manage it.

The filming process went much more briskly than on movies. Whereas in movies you can stand around for hours waiting for a shot to be lit, on TV it’s boom, boom, boom—get it lit, get it shot, move on. The demands of lighting a scene designed for a small screen are much less than for a movie.

As always, the smooth “reality” of life on a space station is a sharp contrast to what’s involved in actually making things work. For example, the door to Garibaldi’s quarters rolls smoothly open all by itself in the context of the series. Yet this 400-pound steel door is actually yanked open by a stagehand using a rope-and-pulley system.

John accidentally called Andrea “Claudia” a few times, which resulted in snickering and catcalls (one actress not liking to be mistaken for another, of course).

I took pictures steadily, sticking to John’s caveats. Nevertheless, a producer came over at one point and cautioned me, telling me that he didn’t want me to disrupt things. I patiently explained that I’d already cleared everything with the director. The producer nodded and walked away but still seemed to be watching me warily.

A later scene was shot in the quarters of Ambassador G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas). Whereas the other actors seemed to be chatty and approachable between shots (hanging around outside, smoking cigarettes, that sort of thing), I immediately got the impression that Andreas was another case entirely. While waiting for filming, the heavily made-up actor either sat quietly and practically radiated concentration, or else he murmured his lines to himself in a steady stream. This did not strike me as someone who would welcome a distraction, and I kept my distance.

When the scene rolled, it was quickly clear that Andreas’ methods paid off. It was a lengthy, pivotal expository speech. Unlike other actors who occasionally stumble over words or lose focus, Andreas was totally locked into the scene. His concentration never flagged; his line readings were immaculate. I was truly impressed by him.

John, who was getting tired at the end of the 12-hour-plus shooting day, was now calling Andreas “Andrea.” Mistaking one woman for another must have been annoying enough for him; but calling a brown-spotted lizard-like being by the name of a gorgeous blonde? Yeesh.

I also met a young actress named Blair Volk. She played one of Londo’s wives whom I described in the script as “drop dead gorgeous.” Blair certainly filled the bill. Talk about a small world: A couple months back she had returned from filming a movie in Romania—for Full Moon, of course.

She started telling me about this nude scene she had to film, and for some reason I suddenly had trouble concentrating. Perhaps Andreas could give me pointers.

Thursday, Oct. 27. When I was handed a call sheet for the day’s work, I was astounded to see the name Carel Struycken on it. For just a split second, I thought there had been a mistake and I had been handed an old call sheet from my previous film, Oblivion, since Carel had been in that, too. So here he was again, with another one of my scripts. A tall guy in a very small world.

I also encountered Keith Szarabajka, formerly of The Equalizer. In my script, he portrayed Talia’s previously unknown (and presently unwanted) ex-husband, who might have a secret agenda of his own.

I also met Bruce Boxleitner, who has replaced the talented Michael O’Hare as commander of Babylon 5. As Captain John Sheridan, Bruce brings a certain charm and even impishness to the role, as opposed to Michael’s serious demeanor: both valid approaches to such a role. Still, for the long-term health of the show, I can only hope that viewers gravitate to Bruce’s Captain.

Several running gags emerged on the set. First, for no reason, the crew occasionally started whistling “Pennsylvania 6-5000.” I’m not sure why. No one seems to know why.

Furthermore, if someone made a mistake that led to a blown take (made a noise, made a wall move, missed a cue, that sort of thing), John or one of the assistant directors would say, “No names!” as if the culprit should not be named so that hurt feelings could be avoided—at which point the culprit’s name would then usually be shouted out, frequently by the person who was saying “No names!” moments before.

“Captain Sheridan” was wearing his dress uniform jacket. As Bruce stood at attention, waiting for the cameras to be ready, Jerry Doyle snapped his fingers and called to Bruce, “Bellman, take our bags up to the room, please.” Moments later, Bruce sidled up to Jerry and Andrea and informed them that their table would be ready in just a few more minutes.

I felt as if I had had a constructive day. A prop was missing at one point, and I was actually able to turn it up after a bit of scouting. And, as John set up a shot, I noticed that in so doing he had created a potential plot conflict. I pointed it out, and John gratefully readjusted it so that no story contradiction presented itself.

So I was starting to feel fairly good about my presence on the set.

This lasted as long as it took the producer from the first day to show up again. He took me aside to tell me that assistant directors were saying that I was holding things up—talking with the actors and delaying their getting to the set when they were needed. I could barely contain my anger at this point: First, I resented people complaining behind my back (I’m perpetually paranoid anyway, so having it verified doesn’t help). Second, it was patently untrue. I had delayed no one. I felt as if someone thought that things weren’t moving fast enough, and a convenient scapegoat was being sought. Why were things slow? Uh—blame the writer. That sounds good.

Naturally I handled the unjust criticism in my customarily mature fashion: I went off in a corner and sulked. I would probably have remained there except that Straczynski materialized and walked up to me. (He psychically heard my cry of emotional pain, no doubt; not unlike Obi-Wan reeling in response to millions of voices screaming in agony.)

Despite my now-certain conviction that I was an unwanted intruder on the set, he assured me that this was not the case. Things were running late and sometimes tensions mount, even on a fairly loose set such as Babylon 5. Joe then loaned me dailies (footage from the previous day’s shooting) to watch and reassured me once more that I was welcome—although I privately told myself that if I got more grief from that same producer, I was just going to say “Screw it,” get on a plane, and leave. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much of a threat.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, will continue his Los Angeles journal next issue.)


47 comments on “In LA for B5, Part 1

  1. As obsessed as I am with all things B5, this was great to read. Soul Mates was a fantastic episode too, by the way.

  2. Boy, Corey, the timing of some of these columns is getting weird. This gets reprinted just as news hits of Bruce’s marriage going bust.
    .
    PAD

    1. That’s news to me, Peter. I thought Bruce and Melissa had one of those rare bedrock-solid marriages that most Hollywood couples never attain. Sad to hear they’re parting.

    2. Yet another B-5 synchronicity?

      (JMS’s books mention a few of these, and that there eerie and many)

    3. They had to know it wouldn’t last, what with him blowing her up on Z’Ha’Dum and all.
      .
      (Yes, coming in late to the fun, but why not?)

  3. I watched little of B5 when it originally aired, coming back to it to watch it in full in recent years.
    .
    I think the comparisons between the 1st seasons of B5 and TNG are apt: neither show felt like it got up to speed until the 2nd season.
    .
    In the case of TNG, I can’t really point to any one thing as to why this happened. But with B5, I’d specifically say that Boxleitner joining the cast was a big reason; I guess I was just never a fan of O’Hare’s Sinclair.
    .
    And yes, “Soul Mates” was one of the better episodes.

    1. TNG was always built around the idea of running the shows in no set order, because that the way Gene did things way back in the Fifties and Sixties, and the way most network folk wanted; for syndication you run things in a block, and leave it so the stations who get the package can run shows in whatever order. There’s a reason for a reset button at the end of most shows. B5 changed all that by bringing the story arc into the run, which I loved. I’d been talking online with JMS for almost a year before the pilot aired, so I was hooked right off. But hearing that Peter was doing a couple of shows for season 2 was a “holy šhìŧ!” moment for me, because I’d been a fan since Knight Life. I’m honored to call this man my Evil Twin, have been since I first saw what he looks like, and realized I could be staring at my reflection. Peter, if I haven’t said it in awhile, I’m proud and envious of you. Ðámņ, but you can write.

  4. This was really interesting to read, especially as I’m currently rewatching Babylon 5 (I’m halfway through s5). Thank you for posting!

  5. Craig – maybe also because Babylon 5’s first season was all about signs & portents, setting up what was to come. B5 was definitely much stronger once wars actually began and so forth. But there’s still some great stuff in the first season, especially in the second half.

  6. I agree that B5 was a show that really improved as it went along. The first season was often quite painful (and I found the original captain boring and stiff), but when a lot of the foreshadowed elements started to come together, the series really picked up. It’s an interesting contrast with ST:TNG, in that many episodes of B5 don’t work that well on their own but very well in the overall story arc, while ST:TNG has plenty of very good episodes but there was so little overall story arc that most could be shown in random order without any loss.

    As for how the camera treats people, I wonder how much of this comes from the script. Back in the days of NYPD BLUE, Kim Delany was an absolutely beautiful woman (she even did cosmetics commercials at the same time as the show), but her character went through so much hëll on the show (recovering and relapsing alcoholic, sexually abused by her father, her mother killed her father, her husband died painfully) that she came across far more tortured than attractive.

  7. .
    I had the same stumbling block with B5 that many others mention insofar as originally not being a big fan of the first two thirds of the first season. I came into the last bit of the season and found it a lot more enjoyable. The difference I seem to have with many at this point though is that whenever I re-watch the first season these days, I find it actually pretty good. I even find Michael O’Hare’s originally off-putting way of playing his character earlier in the season very enjoyable.
    .
    When I look at the thing now, I think it was just (at least for me) a case of information overload without the first clue as to what the hëll was going on. B5 didn’t take the viewer by the hand and baby them as it went through its first season. Clues for future developments and the groundwork for what was to come was being thrown out there in every episode in ways that seemed like just pointless stuff or unresolved plot points. It wasn’t until after things really started happening that you could see the chain of events from the very first link and it all fell in to place (kinda like real life sometimes.)
    .
    Hëll, it wasn’t until my second or third watching of the pilot on DVD that I caught the line where Kosh greeted Jeffrey Sinclair for the first time and called him Valen. JMS knew where everything fit and it made sense to him and worked. It just took a while for it to make sense and work for everyone else.

    1. The potential danger with such clues and foreshadowing is that you risk losing people’s interest before resolving or revealing what you were laying the groundwork for. LOST did an excellent job of presenting mysteries (even if some of the resolutions weren’t great), but I suspect B5 lost more folks initially from that.

      It didn’t help that some people thought B5 was a rip-off of DEEP SPACE NINE and that the Trek universe was well-known in terms of both organizations (the Federation) and species (Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans) while B5 had to create everything from scratch.

      1. And of course, it doesn’t really help that DS9 WAS a rip-off of B5. Paramount received Joe’s dog and pony show on B5 while he was selling it, told him they weren’t interested, and then rushed DS9 into production… 😉

        Charlie

      2. The Memphis fannish community, especially Allies For Star Trek and the USS Alacrity, wigged when I told people about that; only a few folk knew or cared that I was in regular contact with JMS and was follow the show through development and production, and knew _exactly_ whereof I spoke. I had seen preproduction design for B5 by Peter Ledger, and saw the obvious duplication in the DS9 sets and characters.
        .
        Paramount had Joe’s pitch package for months before B5 was announced by Warner’s, and as I said before, there’s this thing called a Xerox machine… what made the DS9 ripoff most blatanty obvious, though, was Odo. Joe’s early pitch had a shapeshifter crewman on the station, but they dropped it. Money, I think. All water under the bridge now, but it’s still cool to think that JPL engineers now have a saying about difficulties, “Don’t try to apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem…”

      3. .
        “The potential danger with such clues and foreshadowing is that you risk losing people’s interest before resolving or revealing what you were laying the groundwork for. LOST did an excellent job of presenting mysteries (even if some of the resolutions weren’t great), but I suspect B5 lost more folks initially from that.”
        .
        Yeah, but on the other side of the argument is the fact that B5 knew where it was going while Lost didn’t. Lost hit you with huge “WTF” moments and mysteries that you wanted to find out the answers to, but some were never answered and others were answered less well than they might have been had there actually been a plan in place from day one. B5 had enough hooks late in season one and in season two that you could get into it and the clues were starting to make sense. They also resolved their mysteries with a more satisfying vibe to them since they were in fact (mostly) what they were built up to be from day one.

      4. Charlie, I really don’t know the truth of whether DS9 was a rip-off or not, but a space station instead of a starship as the focus of the next series *was* a logical choice.
        .
        And, oddly enough, I don’t really feel that DS9’s first season suffered growing pains at all.

      5. I liked LOST. I think they did a better job of resolving mysteries than X-FILES, but B5 is still the champion.
        .
        If you’re going to tell a huge story, you need to plan around the absence of any actor. JMS did it by giving each character a potential substitute if the actors became unavailable.
        .
        LOST lacked that. Many characters that seemed like they’d be a big deal just disappeared from the story. I think the worst cases were Mr. Eko and Walt, that were just gone for real life reasons.

    2. The “Valen” line was added when they revamped the pilot right before it went to TNT. Other changes included changeing Delen’s voice and cutting out the “zoo” aspect of the alien sector.

      1. .
        Didn’t know that. But there were still enough things being thrown around in season one that you get a sense that JMS was linking the two characters somehow even back then.

      2. David, that “zoo” aspect of the alien sector is one of the things that caused B5 to lose me by the first commercial break.
        .
        Over the years, I’d try to re-sample the show at various friend’s recommendations, but I never felt that it lost that stiff, marionette quality that PAD mentions in his article. I’d just chalk it up to happening to pick episodes less than ideal to jump on board, but the odds of that happening to various random episodes *each time* are pretty slim. Meanwhile, I never had that kind of problem jumping into Lost around season 3.
        .
        Nah…instead, I think B5 was just one of those shows that wasn’t for me. And it proved to be a decent barometer for later finding out that JMS’s comics writing isn’t for me, either.
        .
        –Daryl

  8. I don’t remember ST:TNG being bad for the first season. Of course, I was only 12-13 at the time, but I was hooked from the start (and I was never a fan of the original series; I’m still not, in fact).
    .
    I think I’m sold on Babylon 5. I didn’t even make it through the pilot, it was so bad, but now I think I’ll stick it out, if it gets as good as everyone says.

    1. Actually Robert it does. Once it makes it to the Sheridan years, it gets really good.
      Skip “The Legend of the Rangers” though, but catch the Gary Cole led Crusade. Especially the episode that teams up both Edward and Peter Woodward.
      .
      Between that and DS9, they were my favorite SF shows until Firefly showed up.
      .
      TAC

  9. Sounds to me like that producer was just being a dìçk to you to throw his weight around. No one else on the set would take his crap, but by God, he could hassle the writer.

  10. I remember watching “Soul Mates” and figuring out that Londo was going to choose the transparently bìŧçhÿ wife.

  11. I feel frustrated that I never watched the 1st season of B5. And the show was never releases in DVD in Brazil. Makes me pìššëd øff that there are millions of Star Trek DVDs.

  12. The old “DS9 was ripped off from B5” myth is really tiring. There’s enough documentation on DS9’s development and plenty of interviews from Berman and Piller that show how they ended up with the concept they did. If you’re doing a Star Trek spinoff and AREN’T going to set it on a ship, then you’re going to do either a planet or a space station, and they originally tried to develop DS9 as a planet based outpost before it was clear that production costs would be prohibitively expensive.

    Simultaneous development happens all the time in Hollywood. And as many fans have detailed for years, there aren’t that many TRUE similarities between the shows that don’t arise as a consequence of the genre and environment.

    1. It’s not a myth. You can claim such, but Reader, I’ve known Joe Straczynski since 1987, and I’m an original Grid Epsilon Irregular. The only way I coulda been more there was if I’d been a symbiote. I was talking to Joe every other day through the whole thing.
      .
      Trust it, if he says DS9 was based in part on material Paramount stole from the B5 pitch package, it happened. Berman and Piller were and are masters at spinning a story, and Paramount is not gonna come out and openly admit to plagiarism, not after the Art Buchwald/Eddie Murphy case. But somebody else, especially a scriptwriter, they have almost no recourse. Any studio can rob a writer, and if it’s not a script, just a proposal, they might as well put it in a public blog.
      .
      Harlan Ellison once spoke of an old practice called writing on spec, where a writer is asked to toss out a few ideas and see what happens. The WGA kinda frowns on this because an author is giving away intellctual property,
      and in the case Harlan spoke of, which was back in the Seventies, a producer had sent detailed questionnaires to dozens of writers, some of which actually filled them out and sent them back.
      .
      Obviously things have changed a bit, and a pitch isn’t a script, but the snakeoil boys in LA have not changed. If you came up with an idea for a new, brilliant concept and took it to Paramount, who had it for six months before sending it back, and another studio picked it up, then Paramount whipped up a new version of Trek that’s your show with the serial numbers filed off, wouldn’t you be pìššëd? Joe was.
      .
      And like I said, I was as good as there.

      1. Agreed.
        I’ve known Joe somewhat since 1975, and one thing about him that I can’t say of the producers of Trek: He doesn’t lie.

    2. Besides the space station setting, that could be chalked up to coincidence, there were many other similarities between DS9 and the original B5 pitch. Too many similarities.

      1. Note the fact, referred to in an earlier post by the same author, that the original B% pitch that Paramount saw included a shape-shifter…

  13. “I had the same stumbling block with B5 that many others mention insofar as originally not being a big fan of the first two thirds of the first season. I came into the last bit of the season and found it a lot more enjoyable. The difference I seem to have with many at this point though is that whenever I re-watch the first season these days, I find it actually pretty good. I even find Michael O’Hare’s originally off-putting way of playing his character earlier in the season very enjoyable.”

    I had the exact same reaction. I just finished watching the entire first season after having not seen it since it ran on PTEN. I was impressed with Sinclair, and was kind of sad to see him go when we wrapped up season I.

  14. Just for the record, JMS never, ever said that he thought Berman or Piller did anything dishonorable. He did think that the development department might have steered things.

    That said, for the most part fans of both shows have put the entire thing behind them. Both B5 and DS9 turned out to be great in each’s own right and that’s good for the audience.

    1. Exactly! There may have been some chicanery at first, but guys from Trek’s production staff had friends working at B5, and they got on well enough that they called each other when something cool was done. The competition between the two shows resulted in better material all the way around, and we reaped the rewards.

  15. Regarding the B5/DS9 controversy, I’ve got to go along with Miles on this. I’ve probably done more B5-related interviews than just about anybody in the world and having spoken to both Straczynski and Piller about it, I know who was able to justify their position on the subject.
    .
    By the way Peter, I had a very similar incident on the set of Crusade. I was on set during the first week of filming and there was one day that Gary Cole kept blowing his takes. He finally lost it on set and blamed me for standing in his eye line. Never mind the fact that I had learned years ago to stay well out of an actor’s eye line when they’re working, I felt like crap for the rest of the day. Later that afternoon, I grabbed Doug Wise the first AD and apologized. He smiled and told me that I had done nothing wrong; it was just something that Cole did whenever he blew a take to blame whoever was new on set. I’ve never forgiven him for that. He was certainly no Bruce Boxleitner.

  16. Speaking of people looking different in and outr of character, on and off camera, and Claudia Christian in particular – a while back i was re-watching The Hidden, and i was wondering who the blonde playing the possessed stripper was, and i looked on IMDB, and…

    (The Hidden, BTW, is an absolute hoot of a cheap SiFi action film, combining elements of The Puppet Masters {which it uses better than the official film version} and Hal Clement’s Needle.)

  17. My feeling on the 1st season of Next Gen was that the very early episodes were trying to be like episodes of the original, but with an 80’s flair that they couldn’t quite pull off. However, I can’t believe how “era”- ist the characters were, like in “Haven” when Beverly states that the Tarellians’ tech is on par with Earth’s 20th Century, then flourishes it with a “That’s all you need to know if you’re a dámņëd fool.” Or in “The Neutral Zone”, Will gives Data his summation on the former cryogenically frozen people from the 20th Century, (Who for being Clinically dead, get the comic-book character reprieve from the Grim Reaper.) “It’s a miracle we survived the 20th Century,”

    1. I read somewhere that some of the episodes from TNG season 1 were originally written for the canceled 2nd original cast series. The series was canceled while still in development in favor of Stat Trek The Motion Picture after Star Wars was a box office hit. That may explain why TNG’s first season seemed to be emulating TOS.

      1. True, and some of the writers from the old series were writing and thought that Star Trek”s mode of writing was irrevocable.

      2. You’re right, Tony. A number of scripts from “Star Trek: Phase 2” were adapted for the second season, since there had been a strike and they had those in house and already paid for. Gar and Judy Reeves-Stevens did a great book about the abortive Phase 2 series, including the reason for the movies; Michael Eisner saw the rough footage from the pilot, and said “This is the feature we’re looking for.” From there, new models had to be built, a feature-length script had to be done, etc. They picked Alan Dean Foster’s “In Thy Image”, went to Bob Abel and Doug Trumbull for FX… hëll, it’s all heavily documented.
        .
        When I worked for Dell support contractor Stream, my first call for help was from Bob Abel. His son had been on his computer and hidden the quick launch buttons, which was driving him nuts. I helped him sort things, and we got started talking. He seemed surprised that I knew who he was, and we struck up the start of a friendship; sadly, he died a year later. He was a great guy, and I still miss him.

      3. What Miles said.
        .
        Jonathan Frakes was particularly adept at discerning scripts that were left over from Phase 2. He’d declare loudly during the table reads, “This was from the other guys, wasn’t it!” And he’d be right.
        .
        PAD

  18. Whereas the other actors seemed to be chatty and approachable between shots (hanging around outside, smoking cigarettes, that sort of thing), I immediately got the impression that Andreas was another case entirely. While waiting for filming, the heavily made-up actor either sat quietly and practically radiated concentration, or else he murmured his lines to himself in a steady stream.

    At DragonCon, I asked Andreas about his legendary concentration and dedication to character. He told me it wasn’t entirely accurate. It’s just that because whenever he was in makeup, people would just react to him differently and he just went with it.

    1. Don’t get me wrong; I adored Andreas. But there were plenty of people on set in makeup. This was a professional TV crew and it takes more than actors in costume to impact on their behavior. When you’re sitting on set in your chair and you have your eyes closed and you’re either dead silent or murmuring to yourself, even if you’re not wearing an alien mask, the crew is going to respect your method and not engage you in chit-chat.
      .
      PAD

      1. No doubt Andreas was a consummate professional. I think what hewas saying is that his Narn makeup made him come off as more intense than usual on the set.
        .

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        In the later seasons of B5, I was always half-hoping that Harrison Ford would make an appearance, claiming of G’Kar: “It was a one-eyed Narn! He killed my wife!”

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