We *have* military advisors on the show. And we use them constantly
on various scripts. You may think that all military people think or act
in one way. (Probably you think they all should think like you do.) You
don't like the way I do it...probably prefer the way Trek does it. Fine.
I happen to get a LOT of mail from people in the armed services, or who
were in it previously, applauding the way B5 treats the military. But I
suppose they're ignorant too, since they don't think like you do.

I'll only bother to answer one other question: why stations are in
many cases moving the 2nd airing of the show to less than terrific times,
or trying to get out of it altogether.

1) There are only 2 hours per night of prime time space available on
independent stations, 8-10 p.m., since nearly all their news programs
start at 10 p.m. That's 12 hours per week, total, to fit in all the PTEN
shows, the UPN shows, the WB shows, the Fox shows, plus other syndicated
programs. There's a glut of new programming right now, and it's a buyer's
market. And while a rerun of that week's B5 may do well, it's still less
than the first run a few days earlier, since most folks have seen it, and
a new episode of another show might do better.

2) National sponsors pay for advertising based on the cumulative
national rating. You can get a 3 on the first night, and a 3 on the second
night, and end up with a 6 rating, which is *terrific*. Local stations,
however, don't have the luxury of cumulative ratings; they go by what it
gets *that night* in *that hour*. If they only show it once, or put the
rebroadcast in a less handy place, they can motivate more people to watch
the first run, moving it up to a 4 or 5, meaning they can get a LOT more
from sponsors. In later time periods, the money is always less anyway,
so putting it on at 1 a.m. doesn't make any real difference money-wise.

jms