Forum Overview :: Peter Molyneux's The Movies :: The post-show stuff was pretty bad.

[quote name="blackwater"]B5 was lightning in a bottle, like the original Matrix movie. It arrived at a time when the Star Trek formula was getting tired, but people were still in a hopeful 1990s mood. Its main innovation was just that it had a long-running story arc rather than Star Trek's "monster of the week" format. This is completely routine today... in fact, it would be exceptional for a modern streaming-oriented show to NOT have a story arc. But this was the 1990s. There was no Netflix, no Tivo. Episodes were broadcast at specific times and if you missed it, you missed it. So it was a bold choice to have a complex story arc for a science fiction show. Much easier to take the Dr. Who or Star Trek route and make things self-contained to avoid confusing the audience. The writers of B5 actually thought through what was going to happen YEARS in advance. It wasn't like Lost where they just pulled some dumb thing out of their asses every so often. No. There was a plan. And this too was a huge gamble, because TV series could be cancelled in the middle of a run. In fact, at some point they got told they only had 4 seasons to tell their story rather than the 5 they had been promised, which resulted in the fourth season being kind of rushed. Then when they got told they had 5 seaons after all, they had to pad out the last season with a bunch of filler. This is one thing that hasn't gotten any better... in fact, it's goten a lot worse, with Netfux guillotining most shows after 1 or 2 seasons if they don't show big numbers. Anyway, a B5 transported out of the hopeful 1990s and into the bleak 2020s is just going to suck. Like trying to remake Max Headroom. You just can't. Stop. (I know this new thing isn't exactly a remake, but still)[/quote]