OK, these two series have absolutely nothing in common, but bear with me.
“The Pretender” was another *fugitive-on-the-run series, but I enjoyed it for the first two seasons. Then, they kept coming up with more plot twists, and even more (contrived) plot twists–stuff like “Guess what? X is also related to Y!” Anyway, it got so contrived that they lost me. I got the idea that none of the writers had a coherent story line of exactly how they wanted the “continuing” story parts to flow. They just made it up as they went along.
Which brings me to B5, in which J. Michael Straczinsky had a pretty good plot outline for the whole series, and wrote (as did the other writers) stories to fit his outline.
So, the IMHO part, if you were a Pretender fan, did you also get the idea that they didn’t have a clue from one show to another what was going to happen, that it started to become “What contorted relationship between our characters can we think of this week?”
Babylon 5 is a space station that is almost 5 kilometers long and weighs thousands upon thousands of tons. The Pretender wouldn’t have a chance against such an opponent and would be summarily squashed by B5 in the first round.
Ah, but the Pretender could crawl inside one of Babylon 5’s maintenance hatchways and rig the fusion power core to explode. Score: Pretender 1, Babylon 5 zip.
“Ah, but the Pretender could crawl inside one of Babylon 5’s maintenance hatchways and rig the fusion power core to explode. Score: Pretender 1, Babylon 5 zip.”
So THAT’S what happened to the first three Babylon stations!
The Pretender was created like most TV series – make it up as you go along. There are some general guides, but as a show progresses, the writers tend to come up with things that make everything hopelessly complex. (And if you think Pretender got complicated, watch Twin Peaks).
Most comic books have the save problem – after a few years the relationships and continuity gets very confusing. Both TV and comics worked better when they didn’t try for continuity.
B5 is one exception. The five-year plan (actuallly, it seems more like four years of the original plan, and one year thrown in for good measure) meant that they could foreshadow action, and that it stayed pretty much coherent. You can watch the pilot and see clues as to what was planned (like the first words Kosh said to Sinclair). But that’s highly unusually for any TV outside of miniseries.
J. Michael Straczynski, the creator/executive producer/main writer/all-around head honcho of Babylon 5, realized during B5’s 4th season that there was a very good chance that the 5th season wouldn’t get produced. Thus, he moved several of his “less important episode” scripts out into the if-there’s-a-fifth-season-we’ll-do-it pile, and crammed all the good stuff that would’ve happened during the first half of the 5th season into the last half of the 4th season. He has said himself that if he knew, with absolute certainty, that the 5th season would get produced, the 4th season would’ve ended with the “Intersections in Real Time” episode where Sheridan got tortured. When he heard that the 5th season was a go, the only change he made was producing a new season-closer episode for season 4 and moving the series finale, “Sleeping in Light,” to the end of the 5th season.
I’ve never watched Babylon 5, but I did enjoy The Pretender. However, it did start to get a little murky last year. And now I’ll never know if they all died on that train.
Anyone watching B5 on Sci-Fi? They just finished showing the 2 parter “War Without End.” Not only is it a great espisode, but it really shows the care that J. took to preserve continuity. Wake up Berman, this is how it’s done!
Amen, andyman. (Though given the way JMS had to produce Season Four, they should have ended it there–Season Five was a major letdown.)
As for *The Pretender,*I thought it was at its best when it just focused on Jarod doing his thing. The more they got into the Evil Corporation shit the murkier it became, and the more likely I was to watch a hockey game.
Didn’t Pretender get picked up by TNT? I know that the re-run’s are on there at 7pm each night, and I keep seeing comercials for Pretender 20001. I used to watch it faithfully, but they sort of lost me about a year or two ago…too hard to keep track of everything.
Ok. I still AM a devoted fan of the Pretender. I didn’t mind when it got complicated, because I fine complicated things more easy to follow (I watch AND understand the X-Files…) I must admit, though, that I liked the show a whole lot better in the beginning, when Jared was still discovering things like Monkeys in a Barrel and ice cream. Oh, and PEZ!
I was VERY annoyed when NBC cancelled the show, especially right after the finale, but TNT did pick up the repeats. And now, they have a movie in production (It’s going to air Monday, January 22 or 23, whatever that date is). I believe this one is going to explain Jared’s past and there’s might to be another movie coming out later.
Wow. I’m saddened that I know all that…
(I just have a good memory! I swear!)
Pah! “War Without End, Part 2” showed Delenn and Sinclair speaking the same dialog that they did back in “Babylon Squared”, to bring us neat closure on that time-travel loop. Sure. But in “Babylon Squared,” it clearly showed Delenn’s hand resting affectionately on Sinclair’s shoulder (in keeping with the story-arc plan at the time to have Sinclair, not Sheridan, eventually marry Delenn) – and in the same scene in “War Without End, Part 2,” Delenn was standing off at arms’ length and not touching Sinlclair at all!
