The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
General Ramblings and Questions after re-listening to Battle Ground
Mira:
--- Quote ---However, this is what I really want to respond to. Looking at some of the Dresden Files novels in the manner you describe looking at Skin Game, I'm reminded of the TV series Babylon 5; which Jim has stated he was a fan of. The first season of B5 probably had the most "one and done" or standalone stories, compared to the other four seasons of the show. Within these standalone stories the viewer would often receive little tidbits of information that had significance to the overall story arc. When re-watching the series even some of the weaker episodes can be made more enjoyable when you spot these "Signs and Portents" of future developments in the overall storyline. Plus, there were call backs within B5. Something that happened in the first season of the show and seemed to be finished; such as the episode about Babylon 4 or a one episode love interest of Londo Mollari, would be revisited two seasons later and turn out to be of great significance.
--- End quote ---
However what you are saying about the first season of B5 wasn't what the creator JMS planned at all for his five year arc. What happened was his star Michael O'Hare was severely mentally ill and had to be dropped from the show. Yes, there was a couple of stand alone episodes in the first season, but most contained plenty of Easter Eggs to hint about the next five years. That all had to change when Sinclair played by Michael O'Hare had to leave to the show. Actually the first season almost didn't get completed because of his mental state. JMS did a remarkable job scrambling to make the final four years more or less fit his planned arc. O'Hare was convinced to stay on his medication long enough to guest star in two later episodes that tied up a loose ends about Valen and Babylon 4. JMS had promised O'Hare that he'd keep his secret from the public, upon O'Hare's death the story finally came out. O'Hare's story is very sad, he continued to have problems staying on his medication, and finally died homeless of a heart attack.
CrusherJen:
While that's true (poor Michael O'Hare!), it's not quite the whole story. Knowing actors might drop out of availability during the shooting process, Straczinski has admitted to writing "trap doors" so that characters could be written out without too much impact to the main storyline, which was plotted out in advance. Of course, there were still unexpected things that had to be worked around-- the Vorlon/Shadow arc was wrapped up quickly due to looming cancellation after the fourth season, and then the show got renewed for a fifth year... But for the most part, as far as we know, the main arc worked out more-or-less as planned.
Mira:
--- Quote from: CrusherJen on June 15, 2022, 03:03:14 AM ---While that's true (poor Michael O'Hare!), it's not quite the whole story. Knowing actors might drop out of availability during the shooting process, Straczinski has admitted to writing "trap doors" so that characters could be written out without too much impact to the main storyline, which was plotted out in advance. Of course, there were still unexpected things that had to be worked around-- the Vorlon/Shadow arc was wrapped up quickly due to looming cancellation after the fourth season, and then the show got renewed for a fifth year... But for the most part, as far as we know, the main arc worked out more-or-less as planned.
--- End quote ---
Except that Sinclair would have been the focus all through the arc. The trajectory remained the same but with in that he had to do some switching. I'd like to know when that interview of JMS was made, because he he did say stuff like he had made plans because actors leave all of the time when O'Hare was alive, he kept his promise to him. I don't know when you watched the show, I was a fan of the show and of Sinclair from the beginning. A lot of us fans were very unhappy when O'Hare was dropped from the show. We had a website back then as well, and JMS was part of that and would answer our questions and enter in on the debates from time to time.
Nothing was said about O'Hare's illness, it was all about ratings and needing a bigger star. Now JMS could very well have begun to rewrite the show towards the end of the first season because it was a miracle that O'Hare kept it together as well as he did to finish the first season.
CrusherJen:
I watched pretty much the whole thing during its first run (except for the last year when it jumped to cable, but I caught up later)... and I've seen the whole thing many times since then.
I don't remember when I originally saw the quote from JMS. Before I made my post, I went to double-checked and found it referenced on Wikipedia. The source it listed was The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html), and that site says it's from 1997:
--- Quote --- From JMS, August 14 1997
How can the story continue without one of the main characters?
One of the first things I had to do, in plotting out the storyline, was to set aside trap doors for *every single character*, because you never know when or how the real world is going to impinge upon you. An actor can quit, or get hit by a car, or slammed by a meteor...there's no way to control the characters the way you do in a novel. That's a given. But you can't bring X-million viewers along to a certain point, then say, "Well, all the stuff we were going to do we can't because X isn't here."
So in a way, the structure of the story is kind of like a computer game tree...pull out a piece along the way, and it goes down a different path, but ends up at exactly the same point at the end. It's the difference between different *results* and different ways of *getting* there.
You can do a story about a platoon in WW II, for instance, and some of the platoon may live, die, be injured, whatever...but the story of WWII is the story of WWII.
Beyond that, a challenge is just that: a call to see just how good you *really* are, kid. If you've ever seen GLORY, there's the scene in which one of the Massachusetts 54th is being taught to shoot. He does just fine, hits the target, reloads fine...when nobody's shooting at him. At which point the colonel starts firing a revolver right next to his head, teling him to try and do it NOW, and do it FAST, with ten thousand guns firing at him.
That's when the art comes in, that's when the skill comes in...in dealing with what you *don't* expect.
--- End quote ---
Like I said, it's hard to say which parts of the narrative were planned and which were on-the-fly, but the man himself said there were "trap doors" from the beginning, and I've got no reason to doubt him. >shrug<
I wish I'd been around those boards then, it must have been so much fun to be able to interact with the creator of the show as it came out!
(I also prefer Sinclair to Sheridan, but what really curdled my spoo was Marcus and Ivanova...)
Mira:
--- Quote ---I wish I'd been around those boards then, it must have been so much fun to be able to interact with the creator of the show as it came out!
--- End quote ---
In 1997 Michael O'Hare was still alive, he died in 2012, JMS kept his promise, trap doors? Many supporting actors changed from the pilot with little or no problem. But when the main star goes, half the stage falls away. One story line that had to be reworked was originally Catherine Saki who was Sinclair's love interest and to whom he became engaged to at the end of the first season. She surveyed planets for possible economic exploitation for big galactic companies, she insisted on going into dangerous areas for this reason. Remember the episode where G'Gar warned her, and actually sent in Narn fighter ships that saved her? She was the one who was supposed to disappear because of the Shadows at some point after the engagement or perhaps marriage. The groundwork was laid for her disappearance in that first season, it made logical sense in the whole story arc. When Sinclair was dropped from the story, it was Sheriton's wife that disappeared, it worked, but not as well, because we never met her and had no emotion invested in her. Another Easter egg was the "marriage" ceremony between Sinclair and Delenn, during the week of diverse religions festival. I suppose that was one of the easier things to fix. The intrigue with Bestor was also well laid in the first season, the conflict between him and Sinclair became personal, they managed to switch it up in the later seasons, but again with less effect.
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