Everything you’ve read is true. I guess, in hindsight, JMS was facing a “lose/lose” scenario here. Which makes one wonder why he even bothered. Two of the show’s main cast have shuffled off their mortal coil(“Gone beyond the Rim”, as the show eloquently puts it), the budget he was allotted looks like it might have covered lunch on a weekday shoot of the original show and Straczynski himself seems to be under his perpetual “I am currently working on eight projects at the moment”/none of which receive his full attention, thus making for a middling end product that could have used a good editor”¦”¦or at least another bit of firm guidance from Harlan Ellison.
The first story involves(now)Colonel Elizabeth Lochley who must face a paranormal(aren’t they all nowadays?)threat to the staion. She does the sensible thing(read sarcasm here)and brings in a priest to Linda Blair the guy. A more talky and awkward piece you are going to have a hard time finding. Note to JMS: Joe, after your audience has waited almost ten years for new B5, it probably wasn’t the best idea to start this new project with your Ivanova replacement, whom hardly anybody cared about anyway.
The second story features President John Sheridan returning to the staion for the alliance’s tenth anniversary shindig. He gets to babysit a young(and heretofore never mentioned)Centauri prince(whom we learn is actually the son of mad former Emperor Cartagia”¦”¦.surprising since he appeared as camp as John Inman). The young prince’s dream is to pilot a starfury. I’d say you need to dream bigger, kid. This is all nice and fortuitous since technomage Galen turns up and tells Brucey boy that the prince needs to be assassinated. Apparently, at some time in the future he will cause the decimation of Earth”¦”¦.or so another one of Galen’s post-Apocalyptic visions appear to Sheridan. By the way, this is the second time Galen has showed up with portents of doom. I bet this guy is lots of fun at parties.
The whole deal feels half baked. The stories don’t really amount to much, largely because they CANNOT amount to much. JMS created one of the GREATEST science fiction series of all time with “Babylon 5″. The show is fully self-contained with a beginning, exposition, rising action, complication, middle, climax, resolution and perhaps one of the greatest codas in television history. He achieved all he set out to and in his own words, B5 said everything he felt he needed to say in television. It is no wonder then that everything that has come forth from him since, set in the B5 universe has felt like poorly made fan films. From the appalling “River of Souls” and “Legend of The Rangers” to the middling “Crusade”(and yes, I am aware of the terrible interference on behalf of the network in regards to this series). It is telling that THE BEST B5 product to come out since the show finished were the brilliant tie-in novels, in particular the three trilogies.
All in all, after many years of promises, leaked potential movie ideas and new book series that amounted to nothing, I’d say, ironically this new B5 production is the final nail in the coffin for any future tales in the universe. Oh, I am sure there will be more “Lost Tales”. What I mean, however, is that for many of us, the universe is finally closed. Personally, I’d rather have no more “Babylon 5″ than more of this middling by-product. “The Lost Tales” should have stayed exactly that.