CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 11/24/05

Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

By jason davis

Conceived as a five-year novel for television, the show used the station for a microcosm presenting the rise and fall of empires through the fortunes and follies of Babylon 5's ambassadors and crew. Now, a dozen years after the commencement of the show's five-year run, creator J. Michael Straczynski unveils the documents that formed the foundation of his saga in a 15-part series publishing his 92 scripts, alongside a few surprises.

Babylon 5: The Scripts of
J. Michael Straczynski - Volume 1

J. Michael Straczynski

Once described as "holographic storytelling," where later episodes inform the understanding of earlier ones, Babylon 5 told the story of a diplomatic space station where four alien governments, hosted by the Earth Alliance, sought to maintain peace in the galaxy. Long an advocate of demystifying the production of television, B5 creator/showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, a veteran of Murder, She Wrote and The Twilight Zone, maintained an open dialogue with his audience throughout the creation of his science fiction brainchild. That spirit of education is readily apparent in the first volume of his scripts, which presents an unfilmed early draft of the series pilot film, The Gathering, alongside five episodes from the first season.

Undoubtedly the centerpiece of the collection, the 1989 version of the pilot offers up a vision at once in sympathy and in conflict with the story's eventual execution. All the characters and situations are akin to what would be filmed in 1992 for broadcast early in the next year, but alterations illustrate both Straczynski's personal learning curve and the application of external interests on the project. As with the other included episodes, an introductory essay explains the circumstances of each story's development, with emphasis on process of story development and the execution of the finished teleplay. As Straczynski explains in his introduction, certain elements, such as a shape-shifting assassin, were lost in the interest of distancing the show from the Star Trek franchise's contemporaneous entry, Deep Space Nine. Others, such as the removal of the character Velana (a mate to the mysterious Ambassador Kosh), illustrate a logical excision of redundancy within the script by bequeathing her role to the telepath Lyta Alexander, killing two psychic birds with one stone.

After the exotic allure of the alternate pilot, the remaining scripts take the reader to more familiar ground. Aside from a few deleted sequences and slight character course corrections, the season one episodes exhibit a close relation to their final broadcast incarnations. Along the way, Straczynski confesses the occasional misstep, such as the SF stand-by of man-in-a-suit-rampage ala "Infection," or the lost (until volume 15 arrives) version of "Soul Hunter" that was recalled the day after it left his printer due to JMS' reconsideration.

While the volume clearly presents a writer finding his way in a new world of his own creation, it's difficult to appreciate fully outside the context of the entire series. Here, J. Michael Stracyznski sets the stage for what is to come, not only within the story, but also in the fashion that the story will be presented. As a chronicle of TV creation, the book, replete with production memos and photographs from the author's collection, furthers his devotion to bringing the audience a better understanding of the process by which his art reaches them. Perhaps the volume's only failing is in not presenting the alternate drafts of The Gathering and "Soul Hunter" side by side for easy comparison, but that is a minor quibble that will be addressed the series' end.

Babylon 5: The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski - Volume 1
CafePress; 454 pages

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At the age of 21, Jason Davis was hit in the face with a car. He has since devoted his life to writing. His words have appeared on TBS, MSN.com, and CS Weekly, where he serves as DVD Coordinator. He lives in Burbank.

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