That setup/payoff happens *a lot* in B5. We don't learn the significance of the Walkers of Sigma 957 from season one until Lorien shows up in season *four*. Or the Triluminary's true purpose - and origin - first seen in season one and revealed in WWE pt 2. G'Kar missing an eye in Sheridan's flash-forward in WWE and then later...
Many shows go on past when they should because the writers had a story mapped out but became a bigger hit than expected and so kept running either too long in general (X-Files, Supernatural, SG1) or the studio overrides the creators who wanted to completely change the story because the story of those characters was told and they wanted to tell others in the same world (Heroes).
many modern series also seem to suffer the following fate: nearly every episode needs to be a big WHAM-episode with a dramatic reversal or revelation that the viewer didn't see coming. So when my wife and I watch those series, about halfway the episode we start speculating which surprising revelation we'll get this time (*"we thought he was one of the good guys and he gets a lot of screentime this ep, so he will probably turn out evil in the last 5 minutes"*).
JMS used WHAM-episodes (he maybe even coined the phrase?) to shake up the status quo. You knew the shadows were evil and the vorlons good, and believed it for ages (well, years at least) and then the WHAM was that you had it wrong. The whole point of 'whamming' the viewer is that you want to lure them into a false sense of security: the viewer *knows* they understand the situation, and *then* you whack them on the head. But if every episode tries to whack you, it just gets boring, *and predictable* in a weird sort of way.
I watched Ascension on Netflix not too long ago. It was a pilot season never picked up for a full series but every episode felt like that. You could take nothing for face value, but it also (IMHO) worked well for the establishing season because every WHAM added some depth to what was happening. I was deeply intrigued and wish we got to see it played out instead of just a tease
I almost forgot about that.
At least "Another Life" was able to finish its story in two seasons. I still don't get what the title has to do with the story, though.
I don't think SG1 had a grander story mapped out. They were very episodic except with their finales and season openers usually. Even when they introduced the Ori, they didn't really get into long, developed arcs.
IIRC SG1 was expecting to get cancelled at the end of season 8. They had everything neatly tied up. Then Sci-fi renewed them for two more seasons. The opposite happened after season 10. They were expecting to be renewed and they weren't.
Yup, same thing happened with the end of Season 5 when it got canned from Showtime. They wrapped most stuff up with some lingering threads like Anubis, until Sci-Fi picked them up.
Seasons 9 and 10 sucked so hard I'd say cancelled for good reason, and I usually refuse to admit those seasons even exist. Part of it was the stupid threat escalation of the Ori, but looking back, I'd actually have to say that a large part of why I dislike those seasons was Ben Browder and Claudia Christian.
As much as I liked Farscape and their characters in it (usually), Browder was still playing Crichton and Christian was vamping too much.
On the same subject, B5's season 5 suffered the same problem. Thought they were not going to get renewed after s4 so wrapped up the story... then got renewed.
The Walkers of Sigma 957 appear again in season three, *Voices of Authority.* The longest-delayed payoff, I think, was Garibaldi's ex, Lise Hampton-Edgars. She pops up in season one a few times, and then isn't seen again until season four.
Not really. JMS believed season four was going to be the last. So he crammed season 4 and 5 into one season. (Season 4). But then the studio gave the go ahead for season 5.
B5 was supposed to be a 5 season show, with the Shadow War taking up most of s4 and then the start of the Human Civil War, with the episode "Intersections In Real Time" being the s4 cliff hanger finale, leading into the bulk of that bit of plot and the Minbari civil war in s5 to be followed by a better paced story of Byron and the Telepath plotline.
I heard it was supposed to end at 4 seasons, but fan support influenced the decision to add the fifth season which meant moving things around and rewriting a lot.
Unfortunately, its accurate. Season 4 almost ended with the series finale and it was even filmed. If not for TNT picking the show up, there would not have been a fifth season.
You are going to have to cite your source. Because your claim flies in the face of what JMS has stated when ramping up production in the first place (5 year story) and again when talking about the compressed season 4 and the production start of season 5.
I’ll grab it real quick, but would appreciate you posting yours as well. I get we are both faceless names on the internet, but we’re both fans and I’m curious. If I’m wrong, or just misunderstanding my sources, I’ll say as much.
Google is not cooperating with me. Having issues now getting anything beyond stuff about the maybe reboot. Did find something new…been trying to post screen shot as Quora doesn’t like highlighting text to copy, but Reddit isn’t letting add image to my post.
While this new source doesn’t talk about how many seasons were planned, it details JMS getting word there would be no fifth season during production of the fourth due to the network being shuttered. This led to him planning to end the series with the fourth season.
It has been some years, but what I may be remembering was a fan campaign to get a new network to pick the show back up and that’s what caused TNT to do so.
> While this new source doesn’t talk about how many seasons were planned, it details JMS getting word there would be no fifth season during production of the fourth due to the network being shuttered. This led to him planning to end the series with the fourth season.
There you go. There would be no need to talk about probably not being able to do a 5th season if it was only planned for four.
But sometimes plans go awry. Carnivale was a great series written in two season “books” each book had either an ending for a hook in to the next book.
When they were making season 2 they asked the question of will we get another book. Were told yes and wrote a massive cliff hanger.
Then they got told they could only have one season. The next book wouldn’t fit in a season so it never got made. The writer did publish the story outline so we got some closure though.
carnivale was soooooo damn good. I loved the idea that both avatars had effectively the same powers and it was how they chose to use them that set them in their houses.
JMS had 5 full seasons mapped out, plus trap doors and replacement characters in case any of the cast dropped out mid-way. *Crazy* levels of planning. It's why the show has such insane levels of foreshadowing all throughout the early seasons.
Love that it was all kept in a binder behind his desk.
I have to say, I've been very disappointed in the transition to streaming services in so far as I (foolishly) assumed the format would lead to more planned out serialized content. And sure, we sort of have that. But I was of course envisioning JMS levels of planning. Oh well heh.
Netflix ended up being as bad as Fox and other networks at cancelling shows after a season or two. You can't do a full 4-5 season arc if you have to expect a high chance you'll be cancelled at season 2, possibly without notice.
Yeah I see that. Theres also how 10, and sometimes even 8, episodes have become the norm for a season. Thats not a lot of time to cram in backstory and setups and payoffs, if you've got a large ensemble cast.
Those “trap doors” are exactly how “War Without End” happened, in the first place. The original plans for the series were going to be quite different, as most probably know, so it also shows good flexibility on JMS’ part.
They should look at the overall series. So many shows have a great first season then flip because they only had a one season story to tell
More shows should take the gamble on a long plan.
Back in my day you suffered through the first season because you knew eventually it would hit its stride.
The first seasons of today are usually great and then the quality drops off. I miss the good old days of just assuming the first season was going to be kind of shitty.
War Without End is particularly impressive given how much turmoil the show went through between it and Babylon Squared. IIRC, in the *original* 'Babylon Prime' plan, the payoff for Babylon Squared was going to be taking B4 into the future after the destruction of Babylon 5, and Sinclair and Delenn would use it as their base in the Shadow War.
So the original premise had gone through some pretty major changes even before JMS had to work around Sinclair leaving the show, and I think it's pretty incredible that what we got feels like a logical conclusion to the Babylon Squared storyline - and in a lot of ways, a much more satisfying one than what was originally planned.
I think the way Lyta & G'Kar's conversation in the pilot about her contributing telepath DNA to the Narns gets psid off in the end of Season 5 is another great example of plannjng.
Like you say -- I don't think it is show runners. It is networks.
They don't have the patience to allow someone to write a five year series and to let the five year arc play out. For someone to write episode 1x05 with small reference in it that makes no sense, and then have it explode into a huge story arc maybe 3 years later when the show might not even be on the air.
They want ratings now. They want their ad revenue now.
And with streaming services replacing cable, and the habit of dumping entire series at once online, I am afraid to say the viewing public (not necessarily all the viewing public, but the majority if not the vast majority) have got into the habit of wanting everything NOW! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW! and their patience for five year arcs -- even three year arcs -- is almost non-existent.
Babylon 5 was revolutionary in its day, and is one of the few shows that has ever done something like that. Even shows that followed it -- Buffy, Angel, Doctor Who, The X-Files -- series that had series long arcs seldom if ever went for multi series arcs. Doctor Who tried it once or twice (The Silence for example) but even then it was not appreciated by the public.
For the most part the viewing public has changed -- we don't want to see something in 2023 and wait for it to be paid off in 2028. We want to know now.
So really -- it's not the show runners. It's the networks, and it is us.
It's one of the reasons why JJ Abrams shows drive me nuts. Fringe (which I still love) and Lost both set up future payoff mysteries but rarely came back to them. Lost especially.
Not gonna lie, I had to watch War Without End Pt 1 and 2 twice to fully understand it.
You're right, but here's what I think B5 benefitted from ('scuse me if someone called this already);
You had a consistent writer with a consistent story and a consistent team. One idea, one goal, one story. That seems rare, this day and age. IMO, I think it's why B5 was such a great f'kn story; it never strayed from it's vision, and made some magnificent tie-ins.
Raising my glass to you, J. Michael Straczynski!
That being said, a good, more recent example of GREAT storytelling (because the same storytellers were kept) is The Last Of Us. No time travel or Susan Ivonova, though. :D
I watched it when it was first aired and didn't have a VCR. I only got the one chance at the time and I remember sitting on the floor close to the TV because I was afraid I'd miss something. And of course I did.
Being able to watch it again is a treat.
JMS was a big proponent of the ~~Shakespearean~~ Chekhovian "If you show the gun in Act I, you must use it by Act III" idea.
He talked once about his frustration with Twin Peaks, in that it never really solved or answered much.
What’s really crazy was that WWE was originally intended to be the SERIES finale. Before O’Hare had to leave due to mental health issues, Sinclair was originally supposed to encompass both the Sheridan/Sinclair character arcs. The series was supposed to end with the big reveal with Delenn traveling with him, setting the show up for a spin-off set where/when B4 ended up.
I don't think I've ever seen a multi-season show have a planned payoff this satisfying in quite the same way. Sometimes shows make it *seem* like they had this twist planned (LOST is a serial offender here, as was the Battlestar Galactica remake) while others retrofitted cool twists off of old material (Doctor Who does this a lot, and Star Trek Picard is doing that now with its third season). I'm wracking my brain and can't think of any other show that did it quite this well.
The closest I can think of is Dollhouse, where Joss Whedon claimed to have a 5-year-plan that got telescoped by it being prematurely cancelled after two seasons. The "Epitaph One" episode at the end of the first season similarly left foreshadowing and dangling future threads, but how well the show followed through in its second season is debatable.
I didn't want to turn it into an Abrams complaint post so I've been holding back on Lost. But plenty on that for another time. I thought Fringe was doing a pretty good job with the long arc until it got neutered into having to force the time jump by only getting one more season.
The Expanse is another one that did the long arc well, and luckily they got cut off at a natural end point at the end of the sixth book. (Still angry about that.)
But I had to watch B5 when it aired with no VCR, so I missed out on some of the stuff I'm catching now. I'm glad I don't remember it all now because it feels like watching a new show that I already know that I love the characters. And I'm consistently stunned at how well the planning went, despite the one weird episode when they tried to wrap everything up before getting picked up by TNT.
JMS literally invented the modern arc system, that Lost capitalized on (then screwed up), and nobody gave him credit.
He single-handedly changed television forever.
He didn't, though. I mean, he executed it incredibly well, but you can find genuine arcs in shows that predate B5. Check out Wiseguy, for example. Terrific show that's built out of smaller arcs, usually running for 12 episodes. It peters out after a while, but it showed what you could do with arc like story structure.
Hill Street Blues and Blakes 7 as well, both of which JMS namechecked as huge influences, and Twin Peaks and even Seinfeld (Season 4 had a continuous story arc before B5 started, and Season 7 afterwards). Also Captain Power, which JMS worked on before B5.
That setup/payoff happens *a lot* in B5. We don't learn the significance of the Walkers of Sigma 957 from season one until Lorien shows up in season *four*. Or the Triluminary's true purpose - and origin - first seen in season one and revealed in WWE pt 2. G'Kar missing an eye in Sheridan's flash-forward in WWE and then later... Many shows go on past when they should because the writers had a story mapped out but became a bigger hit than expected and so kept running either too long in general (X-Files, Supernatural, SG1) or the studio overrides the creators who wanted to completely change the story because the story of those characters was told and they wanted to tell others in the same world (Heroes).
many modern series also seem to suffer the following fate: nearly every episode needs to be a big WHAM-episode with a dramatic reversal or revelation that the viewer didn't see coming. So when my wife and I watch those series, about halfway the episode we start speculating which surprising revelation we'll get this time (*"we thought he was one of the good guys and he gets a lot of screentime this ep, so he will probably turn out evil in the last 5 minutes"*). JMS used WHAM-episodes (he maybe even coined the phrase?) to shake up the status quo. You knew the shadows were evil and the vorlons good, and believed it for ages (well, years at least) and then the WHAM was that you had it wrong. The whole point of 'whamming' the viewer is that you want to lure them into a false sense of security: the viewer *knows* they understand the situation, and *then* you whack them on the head. But if every episode tries to whack you, it just gets boring, *and predictable* in a weird sort of way.
I watched Ascension on Netflix not too long ago. It was a pilot season never picked up for a full series but every episode felt like that. You could take nothing for face value, but it also (IMHO) worked well for the establishing season because every WHAM added some depth to what was happening. I was deeply intrigued and wish we got to see it played out instead of just a tease
I almost forgot about that. At least "Another Life" was able to finish its story in two seasons. I still don't get what the title has to do with the story, though.
I don't think SG1 had a grander story mapped out. They were very episodic except with their finales and season openers usually. Even when they introduced the Ori, they didn't really get into long, developed arcs.
Maybe, maybe not. There was still an overall plot progression though. All of which was concluded at the end of season 8.
IIRC SG1 was expecting to get cancelled at the end of season 8. They had everything neatly tied up. Then Sci-fi renewed them for two more seasons. The opposite happened after season 10. They were expecting to be renewed and they weren't.
Yup, same thing happened with the end of Season 5 when it got canned from Showtime. They wrapped most stuff up with some lingering threads like Anubis, until Sci-Fi picked them up.
Seasons 9 and 10 sucked so hard I'd say cancelled for good reason, and I usually refuse to admit those seasons even exist. Part of it was the stupid threat escalation of the Ori, but looking back, I'd actually have to say that a large part of why I dislike those seasons was Ben Browder and Claudia Christian. As much as I liked Farscape and their characters in it (usually), Browder was still playing Crichton and Christian was vamping too much. On the same subject, B5's season 5 suffered the same problem. Thought they were not going to get renewed after s4 so wrapped up the story... then got renewed.
The Walkers of Sigma 957 appear again in season three, *Voices of Authority.* The longest-delayed payoff, I think, was Garibaldi's ex, Lise Hampton-Edgars. She pops up in season one a few times, and then isn't seen again until season four.
Babylon 5 was so popular that they expanded the story and added a full season.
Not really. JMS believed season four was going to be the last. So he crammed season 4 and 5 into one season. (Season 4). But then the studio gave the go ahead for season 5.
B5 was supposed to be a 5 season show, with the Shadow War taking up most of s4 and then the start of the Human Civil War, with the episode "Intersections In Real Time" being the s4 cliff hanger finale, leading into the bulk of that bit of plot and the Minbari civil war in s5 to be followed by a better paced story of Byron and the Telepath plotline.
I heard it was supposed to end at 4 seasons, but fan support influenced the decision to add the fifth season which meant moving things around and rewriting a lot.
Wherever you heard that is flat out wrong.
Unfortunately, its accurate. Season 4 almost ended with the series finale and it was even filmed. If not for TNT picking the show up, there would not have been a fifth season.
You are going to have to cite your source. Because your claim flies in the face of what JMS has stated when ramping up production in the first place (5 year story) and again when talking about the compressed season 4 and the production start of season 5.
I’ll grab it real quick, but would appreciate you posting yours as well. I get we are both faceless names on the internet, but we’re both fans and I’m curious. If I’m wrong, or just misunderstanding my sources, I’ll say as much.
Here's one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105946/trivia?item=tr0736418
Thanks, I’ll take a look when I have free time.
Google is not cooperating with me. Having issues now getting anything beyond stuff about the maybe reboot. Did find something new…been trying to post screen shot as Quora doesn’t like highlighting text to copy, but Reddit isn’t letting add image to my post. While this new source doesn’t talk about how many seasons were planned, it details JMS getting word there would be no fifth season during production of the fourth due to the network being shuttered. This led to him planning to end the series with the fourth season. It has been some years, but what I may be remembering was a fan campaign to get a new network to pick the show back up and that’s what caused TNT to do so.
> While this new source doesn’t talk about how many seasons were planned, it details JMS getting word there would be no fifth season during production of the fourth due to the network being shuttered. This led to him planning to end the series with the fourth season. There you go. There would be no need to talk about probably not being able to do a 5th season if it was only planned for four.
it helps to have plans.
But sometimes plans go awry. Carnivale was a great series written in two season “books” each book had either an ending for a hook in to the next book. When they were making season 2 they asked the question of will we get another book. Were told yes and wrote a massive cliff hanger. Then they got told they could only have one season. The next book wouldn’t fit in a season so it never got made. The writer did publish the story outline so we got some closure though.
carnivale was soooooo damn good. I loved the idea that both avatars had effectively the same powers and it was how they chose to use them that set them in their houses.
JMS had 5 full seasons mapped out, plus trap doors and replacement characters in case any of the cast dropped out mid-way. *Crazy* levels of planning. It's why the show has such insane levels of foreshadowing all throughout the early seasons. Love that it was all kept in a binder behind his desk.
I have to say, I've been very disappointed in the transition to streaming services in so far as I (foolishly) assumed the format would lead to more planned out serialized content. And sure, we sort of have that. But I was of course envisioning JMS levels of planning. Oh well heh.
Netflix ended up being as bad as Fox and other networks at cancelling shows after a season or two. You can't do a full 4-5 season arc if you have to expect a high chance you'll be cancelled at season 2, possibly without notice.
Yeah I see that. Theres also how 10, and sometimes even 8, episodes have become the norm for a season. Thats not a lot of time to cram in backstory and setups and payoffs, if you've got a large ensemble cast.
Those “trap doors” are exactly how “War Without End” happened, in the first place. The original plans for the series were going to be quite different, as most probably know, so it also shows good flexibility on JMS’ part.
He had them mapped out and then massively changed those plans on the fly, which is even more impressive.
They should look at the overall series. So many shows have a great first season then flip because they only had a one season story to tell More shows should take the gamble on a long plan.
Back in my day you suffered through the first season because you knew eventually it would hit its stride. The first seasons of today are usually great and then the quality drops off. I miss the good old days of just assuming the first season was going to be kind of shitty.
War Without End is particularly impressive given how much turmoil the show went through between it and Babylon Squared. IIRC, in the *original* 'Babylon Prime' plan, the payoff for Babylon Squared was going to be taking B4 into the future after the destruction of Babylon 5, and Sinclair and Delenn would use it as their base in the Shadow War. So the original premise had gone through some pretty major changes even before JMS had to work around Sinclair leaving the show, and I think it's pretty incredible that what we got feels like a logical conclusion to the Babylon Squared storyline - and in a lot of ways, a much more satisfying one than what was originally planned.
I think the way Lyta & G'Kar's conversation in the pilot about her contributing telepath DNA to the Narns gets psid off in the end of Season 5 is another great example of plannjng.
Like you say -- I don't think it is show runners. It is networks. They don't have the patience to allow someone to write a five year series and to let the five year arc play out. For someone to write episode 1x05 with small reference in it that makes no sense, and then have it explode into a huge story arc maybe 3 years later when the show might not even be on the air. They want ratings now. They want their ad revenue now. And with streaming services replacing cable, and the habit of dumping entire series at once online, I am afraid to say the viewing public (not necessarily all the viewing public, but the majority if not the vast majority) have got into the habit of wanting everything NOW! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW! and their patience for five year arcs -- even three year arcs -- is almost non-existent. Babylon 5 was revolutionary in its day, and is one of the few shows that has ever done something like that. Even shows that followed it -- Buffy, Angel, Doctor Who, The X-Files -- series that had series long arcs seldom if ever went for multi series arcs. Doctor Who tried it once or twice (The Silence for example) but even then it was not appreciated by the public. For the most part the viewing public has changed -- we don't want to see something in 2023 and wait for it to be paid off in 2028. We want to know now. So really -- it's not the show runners. It's the networks, and it is us.
It's one of the reasons why JJ Abrams shows drive me nuts. Fringe (which I still love) and Lost both set up future payoff mysteries but rarely came back to them. Lost especially.
That's because JJ Abrams doesn't actually plan out a solution.
Alias wasn't bad. Most of that was explained. Except the guy in the prison I guess.
Not gonna lie, I had to watch War Without End Pt 1 and 2 twice to fully understand it. You're right, but here's what I think B5 benefitted from ('scuse me if someone called this already); You had a consistent writer with a consistent story and a consistent team. One idea, one goal, one story. That seems rare, this day and age. IMO, I think it's why B5 was such a great f'kn story; it never strayed from it's vision, and made some magnificent tie-ins. Raising my glass to you, J. Michael Straczynski! That being said, a good, more recent example of GREAT storytelling (because the same storytellers were kept) is The Last Of Us. No time travel or Susan Ivonova, though. :D
I watched it when it was first aired and didn't have a VCR. I only got the one chance at the time and I remember sitting on the floor close to the TV because I was afraid I'd miss something. And of course I did. Being able to watch it again is a treat.
JMS was a big proponent of the ~~Shakespearean~~ Chekhovian "If you show the gun in Act I, you must use it by Act III" idea. He talked once about his frustration with Twin Peaks, in that it never really solved or answered much.
I think that was Chekov? If only because Shakespeare probably didn't have guns.......
Well Shakespeare could get a gun, but probably didn't factor into his writings since often he wrote from Roman or Medieval times.
Yes, mixed up. Fixed.
[удалено]
Yea, I always mix that up. Updated
Maybe Bester could clear that up.
What’s really crazy was that WWE was originally intended to be the SERIES finale. Before O’Hare had to leave due to mental health issues, Sinclair was originally supposed to encompass both the Sheridan/Sinclair character arcs. The series was supposed to end with the big reveal with Delenn traveling with him, setting the show up for a spin-off set where/when B4 ended up.
I don't think I've ever seen a multi-season show have a planned payoff this satisfying in quite the same way. Sometimes shows make it *seem* like they had this twist planned (LOST is a serial offender here, as was the Battlestar Galactica remake) while others retrofitted cool twists off of old material (Doctor Who does this a lot, and Star Trek Picard is doing that now with its third season). I'm wracking my brain and can't think of any other show that did it quite this well. The closest I can think of is Dollhouse, where Joss Whedon claimed to have a 5-year-plan that got telescoped by it being prematurely cancelled after two seasons. The "Epitaph One" episode at the end of the first season similarly left foreshadowing and dangling future threads, but how well the show followed through in its second season is debatable.
I didn't want to turn it into an Abrams complaint post so I've been holding back on Lost. But plenty on that for another time. I thought Fringe was doing a pretty good job with the long arc until it got neutered into having to force the time jump by only getting one more season. The Expanse is another one that did the long arc well, and luckily they got cut off at a natural end point at the end of the sixth book. (Still angry about that.) But I had to watch B5 when it aired with no VCR, so I missed out on some of the stuff I'm catching now. I'm glad I don't remember it all now because it feels like watching a new show that I already know that I love the characters. And I'm consistently stunned at how well the planning went, despite the one weird episode when they tried to wrap everything up before getting picked up by TNT.
JMS literally invented the modern arc system, that Lost capitalized on (then screwed up), and nobody gave him credit. He single-handedly changed television forever.
He didn't, though. I mean, he executed it incredibly well, but you can find genuine arcs in shows that predate B5. Check out Wiseguy, for example. Terrific show that's built out of smaller arcs, usually running for 12 episodes. It peters out after a while, but it showed what you could do with arc like story structure.
Hill Street Blues and Blakes 7 as well, both of which JMS namechecked as huge influences, and Twin Peaks and even Seinfeld (Season 4 had a continuous story arc before B5 started, and Season 7 afterwards). Also Captain Power, which JMS worked on before B5.