Let me clarify a small point in all this.

We shoot straight through, from August to May. We don't stop, we can't
stop, except for the occasional holiday, like Christmas or Thanksgiving,
plus one four day hiatus in the fall, and one in the spring. That's the
only way to make our delivery dates, and to produce this or any OTHER
series.

You can't take a position of, "Okay, I'm going to stop writing scripts and
wait to see what happens." So if that's the point of concern -- why is
Joe writing if he doesn't know? -- it's because you just can't stop
filming. The cost alone would be hideous, and that alone would guarantee
the death of B5.

You have to get the basic script into the hopper literally 6 weeks before
you shoot it, so that there's adequate time to build costumes, design and
construct sets, plan EFX shots and the like.

What you can do, though, and what's being done to some extent, is to plan
out alternate scenes, and alternate endings to scenes, *within* those sets
and using those EFX. It's not that unlike a computer game tree. Once we
get closer to filming them, we'll have a better idea of where things
stand, and I'll know which way to go.

You want a bottom line, I'd say it's this: the last sweeps period, we
averaged a 3.8 rating, the highest we've had in a long, long time. A huge
jump. If we can crack a 4 rating in the February sweeps, I think it would
be very hard for WB *not* to give us a fifth season. If we fall short,
then it becomes more problematic.

So as of now, it's all in the hands of the Neilsen gods, starting January
27th.


jms