Babylon 5 Returning as Direct to DVD Anthology?

J. Michael Straczynski has announced that he’s bringing back “Babylon 5,” according to a report from ComicCon.

During last weekend’s San Diego Comic Con…at a panel that (evidently) didn’t enjoy the “in your face” notoriety of, say, TRANSFORMERS or SPIDERMAN 3… producer/writer/director J. Michael Straczynski (JMS, or “Joe”) made an announcement regarding the future of this little concept he has called BABYLON 5. The thrust of the news is this: straight-to-video BABYLON 5 adventures…involving B5 characters in an anthology format…should arrive late next year. Written and directed by JMS.

B5 is one of my favorite series of all time, although most of the sequels and prequels have been pretty bad. And, as several Digg commenters have noted, the death of key actors, including Andreas Katsulas (Ambassador/Citizen G’Kar), Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin), and Tim Choate (Zathras) might hinder the show.

Still, I’d certainly like to see JMS try.

Gone Hollywood

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. How is the guy who played Zathras a “key actor”? He appeared as minor character in two or three episodes at best…

  2. James Joyner says:

    Nobody listen to Zathras . . .

  3. J. Michael Straczynski has announced that he�s bringing back “Babylon 5”

    *sigh*

    Just the other day I wrote a review of the upcoming series Jericho where I bemoaned the open-ended “saga” which was almost guaranteed to disappoint when cancelled. I said,

    I can only hope someday someone on network television follows the example of J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 – “I have a five year story to tell, no more.

    Guess I’ll have to pull that before posting the review…

  4. Eric J says:

    These are supposed to be self-contained stories, focusing on individual characters, the reason being that JMS won’t do a “saga” type story without Dr. Franklin and (I’d assume especially) G’Kar.