He suffered from mental illness. 
Also I had no idea that Richard Biggs was deaf.
So, the doctor didn’t really appreciate Marcus’ show-tunes at all.
Surprising that Michael O’Hare would have mental issues, when his character always exuded calm and confidence. ACTING! I never hated on O’Hare the way some did. I thought, given his background, his character made sense. Maybe not the dynamic leading man you’d want, but I took his ‘woodenness’ as calm and centered. He really needed a male #1 to do the action, and have him pop up periodically as the calm center of the storm. I guess Ivonova could have done it. Ivonova is God, after all. Don’t know that it would have worked for what JMS wanted to do, though.
Here’s a little more detail, and an audio recording of the JMS interview/panel/whatever.
I can’t do audio. Can anyone tell me what the actual mental illness was? The text of the articles never goes into it.
That’s sad but at least they were able to make it work. I’d always thought that JMS was pressured to make a casting change. I never had any problem with O’Hare or the way he chose to play Sinclair.
My only regret wrt to B5 was JMS was pretty much forced (via threat of cancellation) to wrap up the Shadow War in S4 making S5 feel somewhat anti-climatic.
Regarding Biggs’ deafness, truly amazing and a testament to his abilities as an actor.
It’s muddy, but I’ll take a shot.
JMS goes on to say he could write him out for a couple episodes, or shut down production while he got help, but O’Hare asked him to keep it going - he didn’t want to put folks out of work. JMS said it was a great effort to get through the first season, but O’Hare did it. He talks a bit about O’Hare’s efforts to get things under control in general terms, that they tried various meds. Also said when he saw him again at a convention he looked pale, but going out and meeting the fans put the color back in his face and brought out his confidence again. JMS gave the fans a lot of credit for giving O’Hare strength to go on.
Apologies for any mistakes.
Hell, when Boxlietner came on board I thought it might be the end of the show and it took me almost the whole season to stop making Scarecrow and Mrs. King references. It’s weird that so many of the actors in Babylon 5 are no longer with us. I was really shocked by the death of Richard Biggs. I had no idea about Michael O’Hare but I usually think when they announce “creative differences” there’s more to the story. I didn’t even know O’Hare was dead and like you I thought he was a pretty decent in his role as Sinclair.
If you can somehow listen to the audio later, you should.
By the way it’s described, it could mean delusional disorder or be a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. The hallucination thing seems to rule out the former. Either way, it’s a hell of a thing that he got through a whole season of TV work (so they’re not early 20th century coal miners, but schedules are tough and they do not sleep much) and held it together the whole time.
I’m so fucking impressed with this O’Hare right now.
Oh wow. Yeah, I liked Sinclaire and never understood why people thought he was boring or wooden. I enjoyed season 1 a lot though overall whereas most people didn’t care too much for it, even hardcore fans of the series.
Poor guy 
I’m glad he was able to hold it together and put out a season of one of the best TV shows I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. And that he even had the ability to come back and finish his character arc that had been built up in season 1. What a guy.
IIRC didn’tMichael O’Hare come back in the last season. I remember scenes with Sinclair and Delenn after they married.
Never mind. I remember now. It was Sheridan that married Delenn.
my bad.
On the subject of B5, here’s Clauda Christian’s facebook page. It has a cast reunion photo taken recently, and a memorial video to deceased cast and crew.
Patricia Tallman (Lyta) and Jason Carter (Marcus) also have FB pages and have been sharing photos and videos from the convention. Tallman joked that one of the group photos looked like some kind of awkward family reunion as seemingly everyone tried to straighten up for the picture and just ended up looking stiff.
I think he was still going to end the Shadow War by the end of the fourth season, just not so early. I think the entire 5th chapter(season) was going to be the aftermath, but they had so much, they had to fabricate the terrible Byron storyline to fill in gaps.
I liked Sinclair and I think in the finale of S1, he really stepped up and became a character I wanted to succeed. I was very sad to learn of O’Hare’s death.
Biggs was mostly deaf? Wow, that’s amazing.
I’m looking at her main group picture. Who is the dude with the mustache in the upper left corner?
I knew Biggs was completely deaf in one ear, but not almost wholly deaf. Wow. That reminds me of a reference Heinlein made to a deaf actor in Double Star, based on a real person - “He would direct the production himself and control the timing so that he could deliver a line, walk away, and snap around to deliver the retort with perfect precision. A real trouper.”
I always knew there was more to MOH’s story - just too many gaps and inexplicable decisions, not only with B5 but going into seclusion in his later years and the strange way JMS handled his falling off the grid in the months before his death. So sad to hear; I know Sinclair wasn’t to everyone’s taste as a character or acting style, but he pulled off some powerful stuff.
“My name is Valen, and we have much work to do.” - zzzzinngggggg
Sad to hear about that. Explains a lot though.
Does anybody else feel that Pat Tallman has just gotten sexier with age, or is it just me?
“You once asked about my pleasure threshold. I just recently discovered I don’t have one. Have a very, very nice day, G’Kar.”
For a non-actress, I think she did a hell of a job with that role.
What you may have noticed without noticing is that her appearance is adjusted over the course of the fifth season. She starts out almost frumpy, even a bit dumpy, and as she grows along the “I am telepath, hear me roar” arc, she gets better and better looking. By the time she gets that fox-tail ponytail, I’m in deep lust all over again.
Mrs. B. doesn’t mind. As she put it, she’d screw Marcus but marry Garibaldi. (Unfortunately, I look more like Marcus than Michael… but I comfort myself by believing I’m closest in personality to G-man.)
One of the goals this summer is to watch all of B5 with the wife, who has only seen one episode (“Passing Through Gethsemane,” which I used as a “test” when we were first dating.) Who knows how she’ll react to Marcus. Unfortunately, I’m more of a Vir.
I saw O’Hare at a Lunacon during the first season of the show. He struck me as being very quiet and reserved (on one panel, he barely said a word), though his Guest of Honor talk was fascinating, especially when he shows the audience the difference between acting on stage and acting on film/TV.*
I got the impression he was one of those actors who are very shy when not given a role to play.
I did like his performance as Sinclair; I like that sort of calmness in a fictional leader.
*He gave the example of the character reacting to someone entering the room. On stage, he moved his whole head and body to indicate it; for film/TV, he barely moved his head and reacted almost entirely with his eyes.