There’s something I’ve been wodoring about Lyta’s apperance in B5 shortly after Talia’s exit. Does anyone know whether the plotlines of series 4 and 5 which heavily featured Lyta, were originally desgned for Talia. (Telepath, originally P5, had the abilitys extremely enhanced, once of the Corps but now outside their juristiction) Talia looked like she could have been rescued/some other plot that brought ‘Control’ to B5 and had her personality rebuilt by Kosh and the VCR, possibly getting a link into the Vorlon psyche, and then becoming Lyta pretty much exactly. However I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, so does anyone know whether JMS has said whether the return of Lyta was planned from the beginning, some kind of dispute with Thompson, or some other reason we never heard from Talia after she left?
Yeah, there was a dispute with Andrea Thompson. She wasn’t happy with the screen time she was getting, so she threatened to walk if she couldn’t be in more episodes. JMS said “go”, and she did.
Lyta probably would’ve been brought back in anyway, just because of her connection with the Vorlons. But there were definitely plans for Talia–remember Ironheart’s gift?
I hope that someday JMS releases the original story arc for B5, just to see what it would’ve been like.
I’d say Lyta was in there from the beginning; she was in The Gathering. Then the actress moved on and was pulled back into the story when there were real-life disputes with Thompson.
Overall, I’ve just considered Talia to be a placeholder. They tried her out, she didn’t work, and Lyta came back just in time to save the telepath arc.
I’d disagree about the placeholder – Ironheart’s gift showed that Talia would have had the role that Lyta played.
It’s clear that Thompson walked as her own choice, not as part of the plan for the show. The actress playing Lyta would have been the telepath throughout the series, but she took another job and was unavailable when the time came to do the series (it was at least a year’s hiatus). When Thompson walked, Lyta was available, and Straczynski jumped at the chance to have her back for the continuity.
Andrea Thompson seems to make a habit of walking. She left Bab5, NYPD Blue, anchoring TV news in New Mexico and now CNN Headline news.
Yeah, but when she’s in high heels and a tight skirt, she looks damn good doing it.
Not as good as Patricia Tallman looked.
Well, let’s just say I’d like to be the meat in a psychic sandwich.
Actually, what I heard from a “source” was that Strazcynski made a habit of reading B5 message boards. When everyone was “speculating” about Talia’s role, they pretty much tried to figure out the plot and the course she was going to take, and had it figured out pretty well, so he decided to spring a huge surprise on them by exiting her and “upping” Lyta’s role. There’s more to it than that, but that’s kind of it, in an eggshell.
Actually, it was Ivanova who was planned to do the whole 5th season telepath thing. It might’ve made the whole thing less horrible if it’d had carried through.
I can’t remember the details, but I used to read the babylon 5 official newsgroups (where JMS often posted), and it was made clear that Lyta took over a (somewhat changed) role for that plot.