This.
You can see foreshadowing of JMS’s intent when Sinclair was to be the Captain throughout in one of the early episodes, where they do the religious ceremonies. Delenn conducts that ceremony
and there’s a comment about it being a “wedding” ceremony, and the role Sinclair had in it. It likely has to do with the connection that ties Delenn’s transformation with Valenn, but I think JMS originally intended Sinclair to do all of Sheridan’s stuff, and then do the Valenn thing.
Question for Annamika -
How do you feel about Sheridan vs. Sinclair and Boxleitner vs. O’hare?
-Joe
It’s getting to the point where you can play a good game of “Dead or Alive?” with the opening credits.
Who is dead? I know that:
Richard Biggs
Andreas Katsulas
have died. Any other opening credit people? Has that priest guy who lived there died? He wasn’t on the credits, though.
Oh!
**Jeff Conaway **just died, too. My bad. I forgot.
:smack:
Simulpost; nm.
I was going to take a guess at dead guest-stars, and much to my surprise, Michael Ansara and Turhan Bey are both still alive.
For a minute I thought you were saying G’Kar died during the run of the show and I was going to lay a smackdown on your candy ass, but then I realized you meant the actor…so sorry. 
Tim Choate (who played Zathras) died in a motorcycle accident in 2004. I don’t recall him in any of the opening sequences, but he was a repeating character.
I have got to pull out my DVDs again.
No, no spoilers from me. It’s a shame that Andreas died, but Richard Biggs death was super shocking.
Here is some Babylon 5 trivia. The actor that played Stephen Franklin’s Father(Paul Winfield) died 2 months before Biggs.
Knowing they both die so close to each other in real life gives the episode another tone when I watch it. Both died at too young an age, though Biggs obviously even more so.
Yeah, he never appeared in the credits, but he is very memorable. Tim Choate died in 2004 also. Yeesh, what a year.
Zathras have very sad life. Probably have sad death, too, but at least is symmetry.
You are thinking of the wrong character. Zathras is the one who said that quote.
And here I thought you were all referring to Marcus Cole. Who, um, is really cute.
And is also an actor I’m surprised we don’t ever see in things.
I kept hoping Zathras would bring racoon fur or possum fur or whatever the heck he was wearing back in style (in our present time space coordinates that is).
Regarding the original plan for Sinclair’s fate… (don’t click, Anaamika)
[spoiler]No, in the original plan, Sinclair was never meant to become Valen at all. That was only added when the character was replaced with Sheridan. JMS released his original plan for the series (as of between the pilot movie and Season 1) in one of the script books. Summary here: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=53739
Basically, Babylon 4 was originally going to go not back to the last Shadow War, but forward in time to replace Babylon 5 after it’s destruction by the Minbari and become “Babylon Prime”, with Sinclair, Delenn and their son - all of them aged rapidly by the time travel - travelling around the galaxy in it like a starship.
It’s interesting that was looks like a fix in “War Without End” - Sinclair’s rapid ageing, which I always took as an adjustment made to the story to fit it into season 3 rather than at the end of the series, while everything else in the story was part of the grand plan - is in fact the only part of the story that was intended from the start. Everything else - Sinclair going back to the last Shadow War and transforming into Valen - is the actual fix.[/spoiler]
Wow. I’m really glad we got what we got instead of that dreck.
Wait, are you sure it wasn’t Zathras?