The Crusade for Crusade [4/26/99]

If you'd like to keep informed on the status of Crusade, and perhaps write some letters, please see:
URL: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~fleming/index.html

In honor of Babylon 5, an astroid has been named after B5's illustrious writer, JMS. The rock floating in space has been the Straczynski. So now the joke among fans is if this rock decides to make an impact on Earth than we will have just been Straczynskied. In the russian languague Straczynski can mean either passion or terror depending on infliction of voice. Good symmetry here, huh?

SFWA To Give Bradbury Award to Babylon 5's J. Michael Straczynski

April 10 1999

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America President Paul Levinson announced today that the authors' organization would be awarding the Ray Bradbury Award for Dramatic Screenwriting to J. Michael Straczynski for his work on Babylon 5.

The award -- given at the SFWA President's discretion -- was last presented in 1992 by then SFWA President Ben Bova to James Cameron, for his writing of Terminator 2. Bova was the originator of the award, and Cameron was its sole recipient until now.

"Science fiction has been leaping from the page to the screen for the better part of this century," Levinson observed. "It's fitting that we give the Bradbury Award to Joe Straczynski, whose extraordinary work on Babylon 5 revolutionized science fiction on television in the 1990s, much as Star Trek did in the 1960s."

Widely acknowledged as one of the most imaginative and influential science fiction television shows in years, Babylon 5 concluded its five-year first run in 1998. Straczynski conceived the series, and wrote 91 of its 110 episodes -- a tour de force in television writing. The entire series can now be seen again on the TNT Cable Channel.

"The membership of SFWA voted overwhelmingly this past Fall to reinstate the Dramatic Nebula Award," Levinson noted. "But eligibility for this award, chosen by the membership, begins with work made available to the public on January 1, 1999. I thought it especially appropriate, in these circumstances, to give the Bradbury Award one more time. It signals to the world SFWA's deep interest in dramatic media."

Straczynski will be coming to Pittsburgh on May 1 to receive the Bradbury Award at the SFWA Annual Nebula Banquet. Hal Clement will receive SFWA's Grand Master Award, William Tenn (Phil Klass) will receive SFWA's Author Emeritus Award, and winners will be announced at the same Nebula Awards banquet for best short story, novelette, novella, and novel. Tor editor David Hartwell will be guest speaker, and Analog editor Stanley Schmidt will be toastmaster at the ceremony.

Ray Bradbury, who gave his name to this award in 1992, is himself a SFWA Grand Master, and no stranger to the screen, small and large. Movies have been made of his "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Illustrated Man," and his "Martian Chronicles" was a TV mini-series on NBC in 1979. The story in that classic science fiction narrative took place in 1999...

For more information, contact:
Dr. Paul Levinson
President, SFWA
phone: 914-428-8766
e-mail: President@sfwa.org

Evidently 16 episodes were written for Crusade, but only 13 will be aired. When asked what are the titles of the 13 Crusade episodes, JMS said:

1. Warzone
2. Each Night I Dream of Home
3. The Memory of War
4. Visitors from Down the Street
5. The Well of Forever
6. Patterns of the Soul
7. The Needs of Earth
8. Racing the Night
9. The Long Road
10. Path of Sorrows
11. Ruling from the Tomb
12. The Rules of the Game
13. Appearances and Other Deceits

The last one written and turned in was called "End of the Line." John blames me for the synchronicity.
jms

One fan told JMS in a very well written letter not to give up hope and to wait it out becuase something good can happen.

Here is JMS' reply:

What you have to understand at this point is that there's really no time left. It takes a large amount of money to hold a cast and crew together while other options are being sought, and even then options on varoius cast members and others begin to expire fast.

WB can't keep spending holding money while they're seeking another prospect. It's a business decision, but a sensible one, given the large amounts of money involved. Their approach now is to believe in the show enough to get it on the air, let the ratings speak for themselves, and see what happens.

My only regret is for the cast, who are all uniformly terrific, and who are caught out in all this.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

JMS' response as to why if TNT loved B5 so much and looked foward to Crusade, why didn't they just continue on as planned:

One element to the whole discussion is that B5 was already an entity in its own right, and taking on the fifth year entailed basically buying what was already there, as opposed to becoming involved with the creative process of influencing a new series.

jms

Sounds like typical business. Crappy yes, but real world? Yes.

Well it appears that in the long run that well may be the case. Here is what the creator/writer, JMS, had to say:

Well, we took our best shot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't.

The SciFi Channel programming guys wanted the show; they wanted it a lot. They crunched numbers for almost two weeks trying to make it work. But at the end of the day, the problem was that they had already allocated or spent their budget for the year, and couldn't come up with the huge chunk of change necessary to get an entire season. Had this come up prior to January 1st, things would almost certainly have gone differently. But they have their budget, as we have ours, and it was already allocated.

So TNT will now air the full 13 produced, and that's the end of it for now. I say for now because WB has told us to fold and hold all the sets, rather than scrap them, because they believe strongly in the show, and feel that when the ratings come in we may well be able to pick up a second season. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm taking the day off, and deciding which of a number of offers from networks and studios, sitting on my desk since B5 finished, to pick up. I had declined to go that route so I could do Crusade and keep playing in this universe, but absent that, there's no reason not to go back to the networks and apply there some of what we've been able to do in B5 and Crusade.

My thanks to all those who wrote, and called, and emailed, and lent their support to the process. And I think that when you see the show, you'll be quite pleased by what we did. We're all very proud of it.

jms

But JMS and crew will still be doing post production (CGI, music other stuff) through April 22nd.

Remember how I promised you all more info as to why Crusade will not be funded by TNT anymore. I found out. The low down is this, TNT feels science fiction doesn't fit in within the image it is trying to protray. Pretty nifty of them to say now, huh?

Crusade has been put on hiatus indefinitely until Warner Bros. can find a new distributor for it. For some reason TNT will not be distributing it. I don't know the exact details, but the writer (JMS) did say TNT doesn't treat science fiction shows as well as it should. So which end decided to drop the deal, I don't know. JMS has also said that he thinks the Sci Fi Channel would be the best place for Crusade. How long it will take to find a new home, I don't know.

Since JMS is being straight foward about WHERE he would like the show to go, I'm sure Warner Bros. and the Sci Fi Channel are talking. Again though, that is pure speculation on my part.

Despite all of this, they are continuing to edit, add CGI, etc. to the already shot episodes.

When I find out more, I'll let you all know!

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