Echoes of All Our Conversations

[Karen]

Missed Daddy30 by one day! DADDY25 still works, though!

[glindros]

Originally Posted by Karen

Missed Daddy30 by one day! DADDY25 still works, though!

Missed? Is your anxiousness fading over the years, or did it just rub off on me. My two copies are on its way.

[Karen]

I have a house full of people right now and am very busy being anxious over them. (I am also too busy to get on my computer as often, so I miss stuff like this.... )

[JoeD80]

Read through a bit of volume 4. Enjoyed the O'Hare interviews. He and Peter Jurasik take the same attitude towards his replacement - basically the same thing Joe was saying in the script book - "it happened, and this kind of thing happens. No big story here." It was interesting to read his take on playing the Sinclair character and how he wanted to show more of his personal life in the second season. Read Pat Tallman's opinion on a certain director in the third season; made me interested in reading the other directors' interviews. Interesting to see that Jim Johnston kind of went the jaded route too... I was happy to see that David Eagle was a fan of the whole show; I really enjoyed his directing style. Lots of good stuff in this volume. Will listen to the CD later this week.

[nottenst]

My copy just arrived. I had to take a quick scan through the Michael O'Hare interviews. Great material there. Thanks. I'm looking forward to reading more and listening to the CD.

Just looked at the intro to the Claudia C. interview on page 239. I like the "look at her departure as an unfortunate case of miscommunication." I'm glad they consider it that right now, because it seemed there was a lot of bad blood there. I think there were a few other miscommunication cases - if I remember correctly, Pat Tallman's not coming back after the pilot was another case.

[nottenst]

Just listened to the CD. It was great again. Nice line there at the end saying, "it's good that this is coming out in print and not in audio" or something like that.

[pascalahad]

Gosh, I was about to give up the thought of ever buying these, but the Father's Day coupon, and reading this thread got me! I ordered the first 4 volumes, can't wait to read them!

Why can't I ever get disinterested in Babylon 5? It's unique, and is still unique almost twenty years later... No one will do such a thing again, perhaps including jms himself!

[Jan]

Hey, Pascalahad! Get in touch with me! You won a prize!

Jan
PS: Enjoy the books!

[DaveNarn]

Just read vol. 4 Christopher Franke's interview - very cool!
Loved how he composed his music and worked out the logistics of production.
Now I must go through the series again with these new insights

[Joe Nazzaro]

The best part about the Christopher Franke interview is he called me a few months later and asked if I would be interested in writing the liner notes for his B5 episodic CDs. Not to mention that I got to meet one of the members of Tangerine Dream, which was pretty cool too.

[pascalahad]

I received the first four volumes, currently eating whole... err reading volume 1. Just love in retrospect the interview of Andreas Katsulas when he thinks that the G'Kar part could be like Tomalak, once in a while, and being replaced by another actor when not available!

I was surprised to read that just a few actors were contracted for the possible five years (according to Jerry Doyle), just Michael O'Here, Tamlyn Tomita, Johnny Sekka, Jerry Doyle and Mira Furlan. Was it because of an extra cost or because jms waited to see the performances of the others?

Anyway, awesome body of work, it's a real pleasure to revisit those times!

[Joe Nazzaro]

Strange as it seems now, Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas (who shared the same agent at the time) were actually contracted for a modest number of episodes in season one, as opposed to later seasons, so "Chrysalis' was shot midway through season one while both actors would be theoretically available. In subsequent contracts, the number of episodes was progressively bumped up until in later seasons, if memory serves, they were contracted for all 22. Does anybody want to clarify this? Maybe I should be re-reading my own interviews.

[Jan]

Jason? Anything you've found in the Mecca of storage facilities to shed some light on who got how many per season? I know from things the other writers have said that they were sometimes told who they could (or more likely, couldn't) use in their episodes.

Jan

[JoeD80]

That was in a couple of the Peter Jurasik interviews in the books actually (don't remember off the top-of-my head which volume).

The reason Peter stated for not having an option after the pilot was because he likely was the highest-paid actor of the ensemble, having been well-known on television already; a long-term deal guaranteeing raises every year would quickly eat up the budget.

Andreas also stated that he expected to only be the occasional guest star in the first season a la Tomalak in TNG.

Peter (and I assume Andreas had a similar deal) was contracted only on one-year contracts for each of the first 2 seasons at 13 episodes. They were also "get the episodes done as early in the schedule as possible and let them out"-contracts in order to let them appear in other movies and such. In year three Peter and Andreas finally signed for the rest of the series.

ETA: also remembered that JMS says in one of the interviews that in the long-term contracts he changed numbers of episodes per year as an incentive for the actors to sign on - Bill Mumy only started at 6 episodes but had a promise of 13 the next year etc. Stephen Furst was actually supposed to be on for all 22 in season three, but he ended up changing his contract so he could do other work. JMS mentioned in the earlier script books that he had more plans for Vir in season three that didn't end up getting carried out.

[JasonDavis]

In season one, all the actors were contracted for a set number of episodes. Not only that, but they were told up front which episodes they'd be in. For example, an actor might have been contracted for six episodes and those would be specified at the top of the season as 108, 109, 112, 113, 117 and 122.

This meant that--as Jan said above--the episodes would be tailored to make use of the cast members that had been allocated to a given episode. As a result, incidents like the last-minute movement of "Legacies" resulted in Na'Toth replacing G'Kar for that episode.

Incidentally, both Catherine Sakai and Edgar Wellington were considered regulars at the outset of the series, though they had the smallest possible episode commitments. There's a handwritten note on one of Joe Straczynski's notepads that says "Sakai out of Believers," likely the result of the episode moving from 110 to 105.

Since this allocation strategy doubtless caused no end of headaches as episodes moved around during season one, subsequent cast agreements guaranteed a certain number of episodes during a specific span of time. This is why the latter episodes of Crusade, had they been produced, would have featured a diminishing cast. The TNT-mandated production delay after the fifth episode resulted in the 13-episode commitments expiring before the series was scheduled to wrap its first season, leaving only Gideon and Matheson to appear in the final two episodes.

In general, television talent contracts guarantee an increasing allotment of episodes in succeeding seasons (as well as a yearly bump in compensation). An actor signed for six episodes in one season will generally go to thirteen the following and a full twenty-two in the third year. This is based on the fact that most series receive higher revenues as they go on. In Babylon 5's case, the move to TNT meant that there was significantly less money to work with in season five, which led to no end of complications.