| > they weren't sure they'd get a Season 5 If you read the JMS script books, it wasn't that they weren't sure if they would get an S5, it was that they were 100% sure they would NOT get an S5 and he was forced to wrap everything up in S4 or it would be gone forever. S4/S5 would have been much better had the original plan stuck, but, that wasn't even the primary reason S5 had major issues. JMS was staying in a hotel at some con and a maid helpfully cleaned up his room including trashing 100s of post-it notes containing his outlines for S5. This was the same conference where Claudia Christian blew him off and lost the last opportunity to be on the show -- not entirely her fault as she did not got bad advice -- she talks about this in her book but she thought it was a negotiating ploy and she (and her agent) wanted to raise her quote for the final season especially since it was well known it was the final season and she would immediately be job hunting after S5 and it unfortunately ended up with her off the show. It didn't help that they had killed off XXXXX (can I spoil a 20-year-old show? not going to find out...) and saved her character. Keep in mind JMS had been show runner for 4 years at that point and had written most of S1, almost all of S2 and all of S3/S4, something unheard of at the time and even crazier considering that they are 20+ episode seasons each, then he lost two starring actors (in variously shitty ways), lost all his notes, I'm amazed we got an S5 at all and a lesser person would have just given up. Ultimately the final season was just shot through with challenges, despite it all, I enjoy it. The telepath situation and the conclusion of that was a great arc. |