{"product_id":"babylon-5-the-coming-of-shadows-isbn-9780345424488","title":"Babylon 5: The Coming of Shadows","description":"\u003cb\u003eA comprehensive episode-by-episode guide to the second exciting season of \u003ci\u003eBabylon 5\u003c\/i\u003e!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBabylon 5: The Coming of Shadows, opens with “By Any Means Necessary: Making Babylon 5 on a Budget,” a behind-the-scenes account of how series creator J. Michael Straczynski and his production team bucked the system to create the extraordinary twenty-first century world that would change the face of sci-fi TV. Then, in a thrilling second season overview, experience the arrival of Bruce Boxleitner as John J. Sheridan, new captain of the Babylon 5 station, and the looming threat of the sinister Shadows. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn-depth, episode-by-episode summaries—with detailed analysis by author and B5 expert Jane Killick—cover all of the second season's twenty-two shows, including “Points of Departure,” “Spider in the Web,” “Comes the Inquisitor,” and the dramatic season finale, “The Fall of Night.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVeteran viewers or first-time fans, relive the adventure—or find out what you've been missing—with the complete companions to\u003ci\u003e Babylon 5\u003c\/i\u003e!By Any Means Necessary: Making Babylon 5 on a Budget\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBabylon 5 has changed the face of television science fiction with its \u003cbr\u003eepic storyline, detailed futuristic world, intriguing Human and alien \u003cbr\u003echaracters, and its use of computer-generated special effects. But it \u003cbr\u003eprobably would never even have been made without its ability to stick to a \u003cbr\u003ebudget. The production model that makes Babylon 5 possible was so \u003cbr\u003eambitious in the beginning that many people didn't believe it could be \u003cbr\u003edone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScience fiction has a reputation for runaway budgets, and it's easy to \u003cbr\u003esee why. When a series is set in the future, everything has to be designed \u003cbr\u003efrom scratch. While a contemporary show might put a desk in an office and \u003cbr\u003edress it with standard objects like a telephone, a desk diary, and a \u003cbr\u003ecomputer, a futuristic show has to reinvent everything. If the show has \u003cbr\u003ealiens, then they have to have makeup and specially designed costumes. \u003cbr\u003eSpecial effects always add a large slice to the budget, especially with \u003cbr\u003eshows set in space as creating inserts of spaceships or planets costs \u003cbr\u003emoney. Wandering space shows in the Star Trek mold incur even more expense \u003cbr\u003ebecause they are constantly moving from place to place, requiring a new \u003cbr\u003ealien world every week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBabylon 5's producers knew the reputation of their genre, and they \u003cbr\u003ewere determined not to go down the runaway route that leads to \u003cbr\u003ecancellation. At the heart of that determination was producer John \u003cbr\u003eCopeland's production plan. It was an ambitious document right from the \u003cbr\u003estart, and he remembers that even his own staff--production manager Kevin \u003cbr\u003eG. Cremin and production accountant Sarah Fischer--was doubtful when he \u003cbr\u003eshowed it to them in the first season. \"Both Kevin and Sarah looked at \u003cbr\u003ethis budget and said, 'You're out of your mind. You'll never do this!' \"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne or two things gave the production an advantage over other shows, \u003cbr\u003ehowever. The first was getting a commitment for a whole first season of \u003cbr\u003etwenty-two episodes. This is extremely unusual for American television, \u003cbr\u003ewhich usually commits for half a season to see how things go, how many \u003cbr\u003epeople tune in, and what the reaction of the advertisers is before \u003cbr\u003ecommitting to the second half if things go well. The president of Warner \u003cbr\u003eBros. Domestic Television Distribution, Dick Robertson, remembers how \u003cbr\u003eimportant that initial decision was. \"That allowed us to put a lot more \u003cbr\u003emoney on the screen,\" he says. \"We didn't have to pay holding fees to \u003cbr\u003eactors; we didn't have to pay holding fees to the guy that owned the \u003cbr\u003ebuilding where we produced the show. We could commit up front for \u003cbr\u003etwenty-two episodes, and the savings on that was probably at least \u003cbr\u003e$300,000 an episode.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt gave the production the assurance of knowing exactly how much money \u003cbr\u003ethey had to spread over the first season and the freedom to make some big \u003cbr\u003edecisions up front. One of the biggest was creating their own studio \u003cbr\u003ecomplex in a warehouse on the outskirts of Los Angeles. At this time, many \u003cbr\u003eAmerican TV shows were relocating to Canada or even further afield in \u003cbr\u003esearch of lower production costs. This would have been more trouble than \u003cbr\u003eit was worth for Babylon 5. Its reliance on postproduction and special \u003cbr\u003eeffects meant there was a real advantage to staying in L.A., where all \u003cbr\u003ethose facilities are on the doorstep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It was more efficient for us to come in here and build three \u003cbr\u003esoundstages from the ground up,\" says John Copeland. \"We had way more \u003cbr\u003espace and way more control here than we ever would have had [in a \u003cbr\u003eready-made studio facility]. Where we shot the pilot, we had two little \u003cbr\u003esoundstages side by side. We would just have had those two little \u003cbr\u003esoundstages for a whole season. Our main stage, with the Observation Dome, \u003cbr\u003ethe customs bay, and the Central Corridor, is bigger out here than those \u003cbr\u003etwo soundstages were combined.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother thing that sets Babylon 5 apart from many other shows is the \u003cbr\u003elevel of planning. While other shows have traditionally learned to cope \u003cbr\u003ewith last-minute scripts and late rewrites, Babylon 5 works four or five \u003cbr\u003escripts ahead of time. \"That's one of the very unique facets of this \u003cbr\u003eproduction,\" says John. \"Very few other series have the ability to see \u003cbr\u003efour or five episodes beyond the point that they are in any given time. \u003cbr\u003eYou can plan to spend your money that way. We have a budget for the \u003cbr\u003eseason, and we break that down into a pattern budget for what a typical \u003cbr\u003eepisode should cost--that's our yardstick for production. And we budget \u003cbr\u003eevery episode. So some of them will be right at that pattern; some of them \u003cbr\u003ewill be a little less. If we have come under budget on a few episodes, and \u003cbr\u003ewe know that down the road on episode eight, nine, or ten it's going to be \u003cbr\u003ereally ambitious, we can plan to spend extra money on that. Joe [J. \u003cbr\u003eMichael Straczynski, executive producer and creator of Babylon 5] always \u003cbr\u003egives me a couple of pages at the beginning of a season, which is an \u003cbr\u003eoutline, so I can see where we're going and I can plan for things. One of \u003cbr\u003ethe fundamentals that we adopted going into this was, 'Okay, we're going \u003cbr\u003eto have to make choices because of the economics we've got on Babylon 5, \u003cbr\u003eand once we've made the choice, that means we've decided we're going to do \u003cbr\u003ethis, and the four things over here we're not going to do.' \"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We had to play what we call in American football 'no-mistakes \u003cbr\u003eball,' \" says Kevin G. Cremin, who remained production manager for the \u003cbr\u003efirst two years. \"We have to not make mistakes. We can't afford to build \u003cbr\u003esomething and then decide, 'We're really not going to shoot it that way; \u003cbr\u003ewe're going to have our back to that.' Everything that we'd built, once \u003cbr\u003ewe'd committed to it, we really had to stay with the idea. There wasn't \u003cbr\u003ethe luxury of being able to say, 'Well, nice idea, we'll try it later.' We \u003cbr\u003ecouldn't come up with something less than what the producers and directors \u003cbr\u003eexpected. We couldn't come up with a cheesy-looking prop or a \u003cbr\u003echeesy-looking costume or a cheesy-looking set. We always had to make sure \u003cbr\u003ethat if we could build a three-walled set and shoot in it and those three \u003cbr\u003ewalls were going to look substantially better than spending for the fourth \u003cbr\u003ewall and then having to downgrade all of the dressing, then that was a \u003cbr\u003edecision we had to make.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn terms of set design, the philosophy of making choices became what \u003cbr\u003ethe production designer, John Iacovelli, describes as a mantra for the \u003cbr\u003eshow. He had previously worked with the producers on Captain Power and the \u003cbr\u003eSoldiers of the Future and was invited to draw up a plan for Babylon 5 \u003cbr\u003ebefore it was even commissioned because of his reputation for working on a \u003cbr\u003ebudget. \"The basic elements of doing a show on a budget are knowing what \u003cbr\u003eyour budget is and being respectful of it,\" he says. \"To make choices that \u003cbr\u003eare very clear and to make the better choice rather than the idealized \u003cbr\u003echoice, to make the choice you know you can win at, not the choice that \u003cbr\u003eyou know you may possibly lose at.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose choices shaped the show in a variety of ways, particularly in \u003cbr\u003eJohn's department, which designs and builds all the sets. \"The money, and \u003cbr\u003ehow little we have of it, made so many decisions for us,\" he says. \"For \u003cbr\u003eexample, the idea of putting contrasting colors and values on the sets in \u003cbr\u003ea very textural way came from the fact that we couldn't afford the very \u003cbr\u003epolished-looking sets that they have over at Trek and the other kinds of \u003cbr\u003eshows. We just couldn't afford that kind of finish. So my point of view \u003cbr\u003ewas, like in the theater, if you've got to hide a bunch of staple holes, \u003cbr\u003ewood grain, or something like that, then just paint it. It's almost like \u003cbr\u003ecamouflage. So that was one of the things that drove the show a lot in the \u003cbr\u003efirst season and second season, and it became successful--it gave the show \u003cbr\u003ea kind of grittier look.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is difficult to imagine Babylon 5 without that grittiness because \u003cbr\u003eit fits in so well with the show's fictional reality. At the same time it \u003cbr\u003eis a very dark show, which on the one level enhances the dramatic mood, \u003cbr\u003ewhile on another serves to protect the viewer from seeing any rough edges.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother aspect of the show that has helped keep the costs down as far \u003cbr\u003eas sets are concerned is the fact that the story is centered on the space \u003cbr\u003estation. There are occasional jaunts to Minbar or Centauri Prime, but on \u003cbr\u003ethe whole, the action stays in one place and that means keeping a certain \u003cbr\u003elook throughout. A space station of this scale is built using modular \u003cbr\u003ecomponents, which allowed John Iacovelli to build modules and then reuse \u003cbr\u003ethem in various parts of the station. \"I thought that if we had enough of \u003cbr\u003ethese kind of Lego building blocks, that we could have a lot of different \u003cbr\u003esets. A lot of the scenery, if you're very clever and you're a die-hard \u003cbr\u003efan, you'll see how we put it together. It's a miracle what a paint job \u003cbr\u003ecan do on a set. In fact, when we're designing a set, we often think 'What \u003cbr\u003edo we have?' before 'What can we make?' Part of that came from my training \u003cbr\u003ein the theater and being able to do a set for Shakespeare or for an opera, \u003cbr\u003ewhere you have certain elements that are always the same, specific \u003cbr\u003eelements that are specific to certain characters, specific to certain \u003cbr\u003egroups, and the smallest change can make a huge visual difference. I think \u003cbr\u003ethe best example of that on Babylon 5 is the corridors. If we [use the \u003cbr\u003esame set, but] change the color of the stripe and change the number of the \u003cbr\u003ecorridor, it [looks like] a completely different place. Visually, it looks \u003cbr\u003ecompletely different, and I get the biggest rush out of that because it's \u003cbr\u003eso simple.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA theater background is what unites some of the key people on the \u003cbr\u003eBabylon 5 staff. That applies not only to John Iacovelli but to John \u003cbr\u003eCopeland and Anne Bruice-Aling and her team of costumers. \"We had all come \u003cbr\u003efrom a theater background, so we understand construction, we understand \u003cbr\u003efabrication, we understand budgets, and because we've come from theater \u003cbr\u003ewhere the budgets are even tighter, we understand being resourceful,\" says \u003cbr\u003eAnne. \"I think that's helped us in a way that maybe other designers and \u003cbr\u003eteams--having come up through television--may not have had that kind of \u003cbr\u003eperspective. For me, it always feels like we're doing a big eclectic play \u003cbr\u003eevery week. It is like doing big theater that goes a lot faster.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We have a budget that's doable,\" she continues. \"What we did in the \u003cbr\u003ebeginning was decide where we were going to put our money. So we design \u003cbr\u003eand build all of our alien things and some of the principal civilian \u003cbr\u003ethings, like the Lyta telepath things. We built those, and we used to \u003cbr\u003ebuild all of Talia's things and all the uniforms, anything that's \u003cbr\u003especialized, the medlab and all that stuff. But for our civilian look, we \u003cbr\u003edo buy off-the-rack, and we do what I call our 'Babylon tweak.' On men's \u003cbr\u003ejackets, we take the lapels off, and we have strange collar things going \u003cbr\u003eon. I buy certain kinds of shirts with interesting geometric patterns on \u003cbr\u003ethem, and we take all the collars off and change the buttons. Our \u003cbr\u003ebackground civilians tend to be either very ethnically melting-pot things \u003cbr\u003eand a lot of Indonesian and African and South American and Asian garments. \u003cbr\u003eThen we mix and match them in strange ways that sort of suggest in the \u003cbr\u003efuture it will perhaps be more of a melting pot, and that keeps it \u003cbr\u003ecolorful. Then with contemporary Humans, we start with a basic black \u003cbr\u003eunderdressing, and I just try and find things that are clean smooth lines, \u003cbr\u003ea little bit hip, and we do our little tweak to them. What Joe and John \u003cbr\u003ehave always said is that our department has really succeeded in putting \u003cbr\u003ethe money where you can see it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnne admits the first year was \"pretty hellish\" when the aliens, the \u003cbr\u003eHumans, and the background characters all needed costumes. Fortunately, \u003cbr\u003emany of the principal characters were in uniform most of the time and \u003cbr\u003edidn't need a vast amount of wardrobe. That changed over time. \"The \u003cbr\u003eprincipals now all have their closets so to speak, so Sheridan has his \u003cbr\u003ebathrobe and he has civilian wear and he has go-to-dinner kind of clothes. \u003cbr\u003eBut yeah, in terms of our principals, we don't have to augment them too \u003cbr\u003eoften. Delenn usually gets a couple of things every season, and Lennier \u003cbr\u003egets a couple of new things . . . For the background, most of the alien \u003cbr\u003estuff has now been built, with groups of Drazi pilots and Drazi merchants \u003cbr\u003eand Minbari pilots and Minbari civilians, so it's not just the principals, \u003cbr\u003ebut the whole worlds that belong to them, we have now in stock which we've \u003cbr\u003edesigned and built.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBuilding up a stock of items to use became an invaluable asset for \u003cbr\u003ealmost every department. Obviously, in terms of costumes, it means being \u003cbr\u003eable to cater for a crowd scene simply by pulling items out of the \u003cbr\u003estoreroom. In terms of prosthetics, masks for background aliens become \u003cbr\u003estock items, while preexisting molds are available if others need to be \u003cbr\u003emade. Even for special effects, once a Vorlon ship or a starfury has been \u003cbr\u003eused for the first time, the model is available in the computer whenever \u003cbr\u003eit is needed again. Stock sets also have a major part to play, and like \u003cbr\u003eany other show, Babylon 5 has its basic sets, such as the Observation Dome \u003cbr\u003eand the Zocalo, which, once paid for and erected on the soundstage, are \u003cbr\u003ealways there to be used and can even be redressed to look like somewhere \u003cbr\u003eelse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut money cannot be made to rule the show. Babylon 5 is about telling \u003cbr\u003ea story, and the production has to move to accommodate that. So, in terms \u003cbr\u003eof sets, when the war heated up in season three, the casino set was \u003cbr\u003escrapped and replaced with the war room. Stock sets can be useful but are \u003cbr\u003enot always appropriate, as in the second season when Sinclair was replaced \u003cbr\u003eby Sheridan. \"We had some really nice stuff for Sinclair's quarters in \u003cbr\u003eseason one,\" remembers John Iacovelli. \"I felt really strongly that not \u003cbr\u003eonly should he [Sheridan] not be in the same physical place but that his \u003cbr\u003estuff should be almost completely different. That was a big expense, \u003cbr\u003ebecause I felt visually there were certain things, certain paintings, that \u003cbr\u003ewe could not use again.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are also certain areas where John Iacovelli and his staff try \u003cbr\u003enot to scrimp and save. Sometimes it is necessary to spend the money, \u003cbr\u003eparticularly when it comes to what are known as the \"hero props,\" things \u003cbr\u003elike PPG rifles and links that are going to have significant screen time. \u003cbr\u003e\"This stuff is usually in close-up; it's usually next to somebody's face \u003cbr\u003eor hand,\" says John. \"Definitely with the props and gadgets, we try not to \u003cbr\u003escrimp, and I think that we are pretty successful in coming up with \u003cbr\u003einteresting-looking things. There's also what we call 'the danger zone,' \u003cbr\u003ewhich is about three and a half feet up on a set and for the next three \u003cbr\u003eand a half feet. That's about where the close-ups happen on the set, and \u003cbr\u003ethat's the danger zone. I talk often to my staff, saying signing should be \u003cbr\u003every crisp there, all the dressing, any wood-screw holes, or anything has \u003cbr\u003eto be cleaned up. We try to pitch it right around where the actors' faces \u003cbr\u003eare because it is television and it is, ultimately, a show about talking \u003cbr\u003eheads. Also, in the graphics, I think we've never scrimped. We've always \u003cbr\u003etried to put a lot of money into our graphics because all of us know what \u003cbr\u003ea storytelling device that is.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was John Copeland's philosophy from the beginning that the story \u003cbr\u003eshould be king. As far as he is concerned, it is his job to worry about \u003cbr\u003ethe money and the writers' job to worry about the creative side of the \u003cbr\u003eprocess. \"One of the lessons that I learned as a result of working on \u003cbr\u003eCaptain Power, which had a lot of special effects, [was that] we came up \u003cbr\u003ewith a lot of parameters of what you could have in a script and what you \u003cbr\u003ecouldn't have in a script, and ultimately, this was a handicap for the \u003cbr\u003ewriters. I wanted us to have a production process that didn't have \u003cbr\u003erestrictions for the writers, and we just said, 'Write the story that you \u003cbr\u003ewant to tell, and we'll figure out how to do it.' \"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNevertheless, the show's executive producer, Joe Straczynski, who \u003cbr\u003estarted out writing most of the episodes in each season and progressed to \u003cbr\u003ewriting them all, never forgets that he is working within a budget. \"My \u003cbr\u003efeeling is if someone hands you $27 million to make a television show, it \u003cbr\u003ebehooves you to act responsibly,\" he says. \"So I do try and do things I \u003cbr\u003eknow we can do, but what generally tends to happen is the production folks \u003cbr\u003ecome back to me and say, 'No, we can do more than this.' \"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat is exactly what happened with the pilot script, as John Iacovelli \u003cbr\u003erecalls: \"I got the first script, and there was a very limited number of \u003cbr\u003esets--I wish I could find it, because I would love to compare it to the \u003cbr\u003escript we ended up with . . . Basically, I felt that the writing at that \u003cbr\u003emoment was being too cautious. I just encouraged him [Joe Straczynski]--I \u003cbr\u003esaid, 'Please don't write knowing that we don't have any money and we \u003cbr\u003edon't have any sets: just write what you want, and somehow we'll figure it \u003cbr\u003eout.' I think there's a tremendous trust that's developed between Joe and \u003cbr\u003emyself and John Copeland. We know that there're things we won't be able to \u003cbr\u003edo, and rarely do we say, 'Absolutely not, we can't do that'--we find a \u003cbr\u003eway to do it. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes I'm just amazed by how good \u003cbr\u003esome of the sets look.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We're constantly finding the edge of the envelope,\" says John \u003cbr\u003eCopeland. \"When we find the edge of the envelope, we try to redefine what \u003cbr\u003eis an envelope so that we can just go a little further.\"","brand":"Random House Worlds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300038725861,"sku":"NP9780345424488","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345424488.jpg?v=1742918417","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/babylon-5-the-coming-of-shadows-isbn-9780345424488","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}