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The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5
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### GUIDE ### [3][Background] [4][Synopsis] [5][Credits] [6][Episode
List] [7][Previous] [8][Next]
_Contents:_ [9]Overview - [10]Backplot - [11]Questions - [12]Analysis
- [13]Notes - [14]JMS
_________________________________________________________________
Overview
When the Centauri emperor visits the station, Sheridan tries to
keep G'Kar from going after him. Londo and Refa plot to expand
their power. A mysterious man seeks out Garibaldi. [15]Turhan Bey
as the Centauri Emperor. [16]Malachi Throne as the Centauri Prime
Minister. [17]William Forward as Refa.
[18]P5 Rating: [19]9.59
Production number: 209
Original air date: February 1, 1995
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Janet Greek
Winner of the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
_Note: this episode is more momentous than most. Think twice before
proceeding to the spoilers; it's worth seeing unawares._
_________________________________________________________________
Backplot
* Sheridan joined the Earth military a few years before the
Earth-Minbari War. A planetary draft was established during the
war.
* The Centauri have sent many ships into Vorlon space; none have
returned, but strange stories about the Vorlons have found their
way back to the Centauri homeworld.
* Sinclair's duties on the Minbari homeworld extend far beyond
normal ambassadorial functions. He is taking part in the
preparation for the fight against the great darkness that many of
the Minbari believe is approaching. To that end, he is in command
of a small army of "rangers" -- individuals, Minbari and human,
who roam the frontier, gathering information too sensitive to
report back via normal channels.
* The Centauri Emperor employs four telepaths, linked since birth;
when he leaves the royal court, two accompany him and two stay
behind, so he and his representatives at the court are constantly
aware of each other's circumstances.
Unanswered Questions
* What is the meaning of Londo's dream? (see [20]Analysis)
* Why is Sinclair in charge of the rangers? Is he the only one in
control, or is he a piece of a much larger chain of command?
* How did the rangers get started? How are they expanding? What or
who is drawing them to Minbar, and how?
* Why does Sinclair think Garibaldi should stay close to the Vorlon?
How much does he know, and how long has he known it? (Recall that
in [21]"The Gathering" Delenn gave Sinclair information about the
Vorlons, though it's not clear how complete or accurate it was.)
* Will Londo become emperor some day?
* What will the Narn's first move against the Centauri be?
* What did the Emperor know about Vorlons that caused him to want to
ask Kosh his question? What does the question mean? (see
[22]Analysis)
Analysis
* When the two telepaths on Centauri Prime entered the throne room,
a human and two Minbari were talking to the prime minister. Most
likely they were there on unrelated business, but it's possible
they were rangers, there to gather information. (See [23]jms
speaks)
* As soon as Londo lied about what the Emperor told him, the two
veiled telepaths exchanged a look and left the room hastily. It
may be that they knew he was lying; whether they'll tell anyone,
and if so what impact that will have, remains to be seen.
* Kosh seems to have a perception that extends into the future; or
perhaps he is simply basing his comment on the results of the last
great war against the Shadows.
* Londo's dream, which has been foreshadowed from day one
([24]"Midnight on the Firing Line") contains a lot of information,
if it's to be taken literally.
+ The hand seems a clear reference to the "great hand, reaching
out across the stars" as seen by Elric in [25]"The Geometry
of Shadows." If so, the hand is Londo's. Presumably it is a
metaphor for his expanding power and influence.
+ Londo stands in the middle of fine sand, a desert (or perhaps
decimated ruins; witness the dead vegitation and patterns in
the sand) and watches several Shadow ships fly overhead. This
appears to be on Centauri Prime. He is dressed in his
ambassadorial uniform and appears to be roughly the same age
as in the present. One implication is that the Shadows will
either attack Centauri Prime or (more likely) come to its
defense. It should also be noted that Londo has never seen a
Shadow ship in the present. One reader suggests that Londo's
expression can be interpreted as Londo looking on, helpless,
as a great evil is done; for the first time realizing who's
really the pawn in his relationship with the Shadows.
+ When Londo receives the crown, he is again not much older
than in the present, possibly slightly older than when he's
observing the Shadow ships. Perhaps he is crowned after
calling in the Shadows to help defend Centauri Prime. (Of
course, the new Emperor would have to be dead first.) The
person crowning him appears to be fairly old.
+ Much later -- twenty years, give or take -- Londo, in white
Imperial attire, sits in the throne and looks around, face
filled with regret or resignation. Nobody else is visible,
and the throne room seems bare compared to the scene at the
beginning of the episode. It's as if everything has been
lost; he is Emperor, but Emperor of nothing, perhaps of a
dead world.
+ Then he sees G'Kar, also aged 20 years, face half-covered by
a strip of black cloth. The two try to strangle each other.
Londo appears to go limp as the dream ends; presumably he is
dying. The cloth across G'Kar's face appears to cover an
injury; he may be missing his left eye.
Londo's old age in the last scene suggests that it takes place
around the same time as the attempt to snatch Babylon 4 through
time (cf. [26]"Babylon Squared.") Sinclair seemed to have aged
about the same amount, though of course humans and Centauri may
age at different rates, and something may have caused Sinclair to
age prematurely. But barring those two factors, it suggests that
the war is still raging at the time of Londo's strangulation, and
that it will last at least twenty years.
It's also worth noting that the dream contained only one spoken
line, from [27]"Chrysalis:" "Keep this up, G'Kar, and soon you
won't have a planet to protect." (It was spoken over a scene from
[28]"Midnight on the Firing Line.")
* Londo may well be serious when he tells Vir he has no wish to
become emperor; his premonition may have convinced him that it'd
be bad to seek the position. But the vision remains; he may find
himself taking the throne in spite of himself down the road.
* The state of G'Kar's left eye may be a reference to Norse
mythology, in which the god Odin gives up his left eye for wisdom.
* "It's a small price to pay for immortality," says Refa. A
reference to everlasting fame? The Centauri propensity for
elevating emperors to godhood? (cf. [29]"Chrysalis")
* The emperor's question implies that he was in on something that
isn't general knowledge, possibly something about the Vorlons. One
explanation may lie in dreams; perhaps the emperor's death dream
(according to Londo in [30]"Midnight on the Firing Line," such
dreams are commonplace among the Centauri) told him that a war
would begin after his death. Why he thought Kosh would know how
the war would end -- assuming the war is what the question
referred to -- is still an open question, though. (See [31]jms
speaks)
* Along similar lines, why did the emperor speak his dying words to
Londo, rather than Refa? Did he know what Londo was really up to,
or was he simply guessing that Londo was likely the catalyst who
would bring his empire into war, based on Londo's handling of
Quadrant 37 in [32]"Chrysalis?"
* The Narn government apparently approved of G'Kar's would-be
assassination attempt, even though he lied about it in his will;
presumably he wanted to protect his people from revenge attacks by
the Centauri.
Notes
* The script for this episode is printed in its entirety in JMS'
"The Complete Book of Scriptwriting," ISBN 0-89879-512-5,
published by Writer's Digest Books.
* The votes for the Hugo Award were as follows. The two numbers
listed are number of nominations received and final number of
votes cast.
1st "The Coming Of Shadows" 93 457
2nd "Apollo 13" 122 355
3rd "12 Monkeys" 59 160
4th "Toy Story" 79 76
5th "The Visitor" (ST:DS9) 30 60
6th No Award 15
jms speaks
* I love "The Coming of Shadows." It's one of those episodes that
just knocks the breath out of you. You know those moments when
you're in the passenger seat of a car, and the person driving is
doing something crazy, and your foot automatically keeps searching
for a brake pedal that isn't there because you know something
awful's going to happen? That's the feeling you get all through
that script. This episode, like "Sky," "Signs," "Chrysalis" and
"Revelations" again changes the direction and ratchets everything
one notch tighter. It's also a very visual script, and I like
that, since I sometimes do rely too much on dialogue from time to
time, and it's good to go in a different direction.
* Kosh's brevity is one of the things I like best about him; in the
year two episode "The Coming of Shadows," he has just two words in
the whole episode...but they're guaranteed to give just about
anyone the willies.
* _The G'Kar-Emperor thread was similar to the King Arthur legend:
Arthur's and Mordred's armies are poised for battle but make one
last attempt to negotiate, but a soldier raises his sword to kill
a snake and everyone attacks._
There's another applicable metaphor for the sword story; you'll
see it a little later this season. Very good catch, btw. _"This
season" refers to season three._
* I generally don't let the actors know what's coming unless it's
important to the current performance. Otherwise you risk having
the actor play the *result* instead of the *process*. Had to make
one divergence from this recently, so that Peter could understand
better a sequence in "The Coming of Shadows," which you'll
understand when you see it.
* We're also taking advantage of some of the recent Hubble
photographs to scan them and use them as backgrounds in some
far-space shots; there's one in "The Coming of Shadows," for
instance. Real space is *very* nice looking in places.
* I may not have been clear in my meaning when I said "accellerating
the arc." This doesn't mean doing anything ahead of schedule; it
just means that now we begin cranking the story into a higher
intensity level. We've been kind of floating toward our
destination...now we begin the process of accellerating. If you
recall Literary Structure from English Lit 101, there's the
Introduction, the Rising Action, the Complication, the Climax, and
the Denouement. Year one up through about the first eight episodes
of year two are Introduction; we are now in Rising Action stage.
Remember that this is structured like a novel, and you'll
generally have some idea of where you stand in the progression.
* I ended up giving Peter info on "Signs" prior to shooting
"Chrysalis" last season; that was the biggie there. For "CoS" in
order for the scene to match what's going to happen several years
down the road in the series, I had to kinda give him the context
of the dream, and what was really happening in that scene, and
what caused it, and how he got to that place with G'Kar's hands
around his throat.
He seemed quite...astonished.
* Yeah, on several levels, writing "The Coming of Shadows" was hard;
there were times I felt as though I'd just jumped onto the back of
a runaway dynamite truck. Halfway through that story you can feel
the arc kinda moving underneath you, like some huge, dark fish
about to break surface.
The only way to make a viewer feel a character's pain is if you
feel it in the writing, and a lot of that came through. I live
with these characters running around in my head 24 hours a
day...and when I'd finally finished "Shadows," it was as if they
all sorta stopped and looked at each other, and at me, and said,
"Gee, thank you EVER so fucking much, jeezus, why don't you just
go pluck somebody's eye out while you're at it?"
To which the only reply is, "Now that you mention it...."
* _The script for this episode is in JMS' "Complete Book of
Scriptwriting."_
What might be interesting, next time you pick up the book, is to
fire up a copy of "The Coming of Shadows" and go through it with
the script in hand...it's a good way of seeing how you lay out a
show shot-for-shot. And since there's stuff there that was cut
from the episode, you can also judge on what was left out, and
why, and whether it hurt or helped.
* Not all Centauri dreams come true; however, the ones in which they
see their deaths tend to be pretty accurate.
* Turhan originally came in to audition for Elric in "Geometry;" we
wanted someone with more menace (Ansara), but we were all just
blown away by how wonderful and sweet and nice a person he was,
and as he left, I told John Copeland, "I'm gonna write a part just
for him."
So I did, and we cast him, and everyone on the set loved him...to
the point that, at the end of the shoot, they were saying, "You
BASTARD, how could you bring this WONDERFUL man in here and then
KILL HIM OFF SO WE CAN'T HAVE HIM BACK?!"
* _Are the Rangers a reference to the Chuck Norris series, "Walker,
Texas Ranger," with which you were involved, or to the Rangers in
Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings?"_
For me, the concept of the Rangers isn't tied to Norris; that
isn't the reference I was talking about. Being on that show, I
kinda had to look into the history of the Texas rangers in
general, and being the curious kind of guy I am, I widened out
into the Army Rangers, and other sorts. I'd been looking for a
kind of name to attach to this group, and the more I thought about
it, the more it fit.
As far as the costume is concerned...it's not medeival based; if
you look at the ranger's outfit, than go look at a Minbari warrior
outfit, you will discover a LOT of points of comparison. It was
*designed* to echo Minbari warrior caste clothes, to reflect the
fact that these two sides are working together. Go fire up
"Legacies" and look at his uniform, then look at the ranger.
You'll see the similarities in silhouette and line in various
places.
Of course I've read and enjoyed Tolkein. But as I've said, I have
no interest in doing LoTR with the serial numbers filed off. I've
dropped references to it in dialogue, but the structure of the
story has nothing whatsoever to do with LoTR. Basically, a lot of
people have come up and said, "Oh, this is the same as
Foundation," or "This is the same as LoTR," or "This echoes a lot
of Dune," or "This is obviously a Homeric tale," or "There's a lot
of Star Wars here." It uses the same tools as all mythic structure
fiction uses. Hence it resonates. But I didn't sit there and
think, "Hmm...Gandalf left, so I'll have Sinclair leave." That's
just plain silly.
It's really a matter of what you bring to the table, that affects
what you see in the story.
The roots of the symbolism and structure of B5 go back a hell of a
lot longer than this. Here...I'll give you one free.
G'Kar is in many ways my Cassandra figure, who in the Greek tales
was granted the gift of prophecy...all the disasterous things she
predicted would come true...but she was cursed by the gods that NO
ONE would ever believe her. And later, when the war was at its
height, she ended up in the service of.....
* One could certainly argue the position that those who become
Rangers are drawn to Minbar for that purpose, and speculate about
what might be propelling that.
* The broach worn by the Rangers was designed by me and Ann Bruice,
our costumer. I sketched (dopily and badly) what I had in mind,
which was a stylized human and minbari on either side of a
gemstone, both wokred (worked) into the same metal, and holding
the gemstone.
She then took this drawing that looked like it had been drawn by a
drunk five year old and translated it into a striking piece.
* The Rangers actually owe more to the Lone Ranger and the Texas
Rangers in general.
FYI, Sinclair called Delenn "old friend" as far back as the 2-hour
pilot.
* Londo, in his vision, sees the shadow vessels, but he does not
know (in his present tense version) that that's what they are.
He's had this particular dream for years now, long before meeting
Morden.
* It didn't show up in the script, and probably won't, but the
Emperor probably did have a vision of his death, and the Vorlon.
* Re: your question...at this juncture, I think I'd have to choose
"The Coming of Shadows" as the one episode I'd use to represent
the series. That one episode came out so close to perfect, so
close to what I saw in my head when I wrote it, that the
difference is no difference at all. It has all the elements I'd
feature in a B5 discussion...the CGI, the characterization, the
complexity, the politics, the language, the performances.
* The handclasp used in "Coming of Shadows" was a traditional clasp
used by Romans, usually in order to check if the other person was
carrying a knife.
* Because to some extent the roman civilization is one of the
sources for constructing the Centauri, I adapted their handshake
(checking for knives) as their greeting; "I offer the hands of
friendship."
* There's a difference between what I believe dreams mean, what the
Centauri believe dreams mean, and what dreams mean to the
Centauri, in that universe, and what they mean to me in our
universe.
I suspect the truth lay somewhere between Shroedinger and Jung.
* Thanks. That scene [the attack on the Narn outpost] in "Coming of
Shadows" is one of my favorites; it does, as you say, convey that
sense of wonder which is one of my main goals with this show.
* Re: parallel visuals between MotFL and CoS...yes, precisely. In
some ways, they were set up as mirror-image parallels of one
another, to show how the wheel turns, to quote G'Kar. The opening
council meeting, the attacks, the determination to kill the other,
alternately Garibaldi or Sheridan having to stop them by calling
on the question of consequences if followed up on...it shows CoS
as sort of the "dark mirror" of the first episode. Everything we
saw when we first thought we knew what the series was has now
totally reversed and been turned on its head.
They also focus on one of the main questions that B5 addreses
itself to: what is important to you? what are you willing to
sacrifice? how far are you willing to go to get what you want? For
me, a large measure of defining WHO we are is by WHAT we are
willing to do, and what we want, and the means by which we pursue
those goals. The other theme of course is sacrifice, which recurs
throughout the show in one form or another.
Sometimes, I think, people get so caught up in what's happening
and why that they miss what it's *about* on a more cellular level.
And that's the question of who we are. Identity. The importance of
*one single person* and the ability of that person to act as a
fulcrum, intentionally or otherwise, upon which vast events can
turn. Choices. What you value most. Those, to me, are the issues
most worth exploring. We're told every day, beaten down with the
notion that we're powerless, that we can't change things, you
can't fight city hall...and of course it's not true. You can
fight. And sometimes, you can even win.
* Sinclair didn't send the same letter. Same greeting, to keep the
recipient secret.
Only the Ranger knew who got what.
* The emperor falling scene, as with those around it, were shot as
written, down to the slow-motion notation, the close on his head
hitting the floor, the women clutching one another...all in the
script. But it takes someone as skilled as Janet to take what
somebody else might screw up and elevate it into something truly
nifty.
* Slow-motion (or camera overcranked) is almost always indicated in
scripts. I like slow-mo. It can add a dreamlike quality to a shot,
and prolong a sense of imminent trouble.
* You left out my favorite quote from the show, from the Emperor:
"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future
frightens us ...and our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in
that vast, terrible in-between."
* The centauri veiled telepaths are mainly wired into one another.
* I'd say that Turhan was probably emperor for about 30 years or so.
* The emperor said exactly what, in the hallway, Londo said he said.
* The emperor was referring to Londo and Refa. And if the Centauri
telepaths suspected or picked up anything, to tell anyone would
almost certainly lead to a quick demise. When you're that high up
in the royal court, you learn to keep your mouth shut.
* [Emperor] Turhan's death was exactly as stated, natural causes. If
it were anything else, we'd have at least nodded in that direction
at some point. It's not fair to do so otherwise.
* _Didn't the Narn behind Londo and Refa hear them?_
The Narn was just passing quickly through scene, in a hurry, and
couldn't have heard what Londo and Refa were quietly discussing.
* Your feelings about the war starting are exactly what they should
be, and what I wanted to achieve with "Shadows." In SF TV, very
often, as you state, it's "Yeah, let's get a war on! Blow stuff
up!" But to hear of a *real* war...it's very, very sobering. When
we hear that Gulf troops were being sent into the Mideast, when we
heard of soviet troops sent into Prague...your heart stops for a
moment. When Kennedy put American ships in a Cuban blockade and
the world held its breath ...THAT is what it feels like to step
into possible or real war. All you can think of is, "How the HELL
did we get into this, and how the hell do we get OUT of it?" And
that was at the emotional core of "Shadows."
* _Why not use the healing device from "Quality of Mercy?"_
The alien healing device was specifically used in treatment of
illness; the Emperor suffered massive damage to his heart and othe
internal organs, which simply restoring some life energy wouldn't
help.
* Not a contradiction. I don't believe in omniscient or all powerful
devices that function like literal deus ex machinas and heal
everybody all the time. It was stated *plainly and clearly* that
the device was used in healing terminally ill patients. They
cannot undo physical damage from gunshots (the regen packs and
other devices were used to heal Garibaldi's wound, and the alien
device was used to raise his life energy level enough to bring him
out of the coma). The emperor suffered a massive attack that
destroyed parts of his heart. Can't be fixed by this device.
* You may tell your friend that the city hit in "CoS" was CGI, not a
model.
* The Sanctuary is where Sheridan and the Emperor had their lengthy
conversation; it's *all* a virtual set except the floor.
* The Sanctuary is entirely a virtual set. It's all blue-screen, no
walls, no windows, no stars, no nothing. I made sure to ask
Foundation and Mitch to blur the walls a bit in close up to give
it the correct depth of field. (Much of the CGI/background work is
done by Mitch, our effects guy, who works independent of
Foundation, who was also the main EFX guy on Predator, ET and
others.) Because that was a LONG scene, the rendering time was
just hideous.
* The Sanctuary set has ALWAYS been entirely virtual, except for a
small grating on the floor as a marker. The walls, the windows,
all of it. Virtual. We've actually done this a number of times. I
haven't said anything before because whenever I mention there's a
virtual set, and where it is, people look at it and say, "Oh,
yeah, I could tell it was virtual." Because they knew ahead of
time. So I stopped mentioning it.
We're sneaky that way. You've seen, and will continue to see, sets
that don't exist ANYwhere. Hell, you know that bazaar shot in the
main title sequence? The second floor? Doesn't exist. Digital
compositing and virtual set melding.
* The area where the reception was being held is the Rotunda.
* On the chance that the datacrystal might fall into the wrong
hands, I had Sinclair deliberately avoid using Garibaldi's last
name, and avoid Delenn's altogether (since she has only the one).
The Ranger was told to deliver the crystals at the cost of his own
life if necessary...but sometimes such orders don't end well for
the messenger. So both messages began the same way.
* I'm very happy at the reaction. I was telling John Copeland a bit
ago, when we finished the episode, "Maybe we ought to superimpose
a crawl before the first frame of the teaser saying, "JUST IN CASE
YOU THOUGHT WE WERE KIDDING.""
An aside on the jms/kosh discussion, for whatever interest it may
have....when Ardwight comes in to do Kosh, they call me in to
direct his performance so that it matches what the intent is now,
and how it will be interpreted later. From where I sit in the
control room, I can't see him, I can only hear his voice. So it's
kinda like talking with Kosh there, and me saying, "Okay, can you
try 'In Fire' hitting the second word harder, and with a sense of
some anger behind it?" And between takes, he's still in Kosh-speak
mode, muttering, "How will this end, how do I know talk to my
agent...go on, get out, buzz off ...."
* There are some episodes coming that are about as intense as this,
though not as much *happens*, in the sense of a bunch of events
affecting lots of people in different places.
Yes, intentional parallel structure to "Midnight," which is why I
included the shot from that episode in Londo's dream. I like
irony.
* Yes, "CoS" is a deliberate mirror-image of "Midnight," partly to
illustrate the notion that "the wheel turns," as G'Kar says...yes,
it does, and if you forget that it eventually turns on *you*,
you'll be ground beneath it.
* I will tell you a true and secret thing, re: Londo's dream, and
looking up into a blue sky to see the ships passing overhead.
Ever since I was a kid, I've had that image in my dreams, of
standing out in the open and looking up as strange dark ships pass
overhead. It's always been an unnerving image, and I really wanted
to use it here to see if it would have the same effect on others.
The other single most recurring image is to be standing at the
bottom of a long set of stairs, in a basement, and the door at the
top of the stairs is thrown open, and there's gunfire, and guards,
and flares in the night beyond, and more ships firing down.
Don't be surprised if this shows up as well, someday....
* We nailed a piece with Michael before he left for New York; when
we shot "Points," he had long since returned to NY and was in the
process of pursuing other things.
* _What was with the human and Minbari in the throne room?_
They were discussing possible use of a world on the fringe of
Centauri space for something of, they hoped, benign use.
* One of the problems we had with the Hugo last year was that
whereas only a couple of TNG episodes were good enough to get
nominated, eight B5 episodes made it to the final cut. Because
folks went for their favorite episodes, and they had a number that
year. The result was that the choices got split so much that TNG
won, since it had fewer good or great episodes that season. ("All
Good Things" won with, I think, 57 votes; the top two B5 episodes
on the list had 32 and 27 votes between them, enough right there
to have won if combined. That was for "Signs and Portents" and
"Chrysalis," with "And the Sky Full of Stars" at 21, "Babylon
Squared" at 19, "Believers" at 10, "Mind War" at 9, "Voice in the
Wilderness" at 8, and "Soul Hunter" at 6.)
So basically, we lost because we had too many solid episodes to
choose from.
As a result, a lot of folks this year have been campaigning to
have participants go for "The Coming of Shadows," which is the
highest rated episode in all the informal polls on-line and
elsewhere from that time period. It's the one nearly everybody
seems to agree upon.
* _Congratulations on winning the Hugo._
Thanks; that was the one where we felt we really hit our stride.
* The Hugo is a marvelous reward to everyone who's worked so hard on
the show these last 3+ years. We're very proud.
* _Did you think you were going to win?_
I honestly didn't know how it was going to work out. I figured
(correctly, as it turned out) that the main opposition would be
Apollo 13. Which for my money would've been a good selection. (Is
it SF? The description John Campbell and, I think, Heinlein gave
for SF is "the impact on humans of technology." It even uses the
Analog Magazine approach of finding a technical solution to a
technical problem. If Apollo 13 doesn't count that way, what does?
Is it fiction? Nnnnnooo, I suppose, though certainly elements of
it were fictionalized for purposes of drama, and I guess that
counts somewhat.)
Anyway, that dispute aside, and I can see why it's not a clear
issues for a lot of folks...understand that I've never won a major
award before. I've been up for Ace Awards, the Writers Guild
Award, the Gemini Award (the Canadian equivilant of an Emmy), the
HWA Bram Stoker Award, others...but hadn't won, and as a result,
you get very guarded about these things. So I didn't know for sure
until the words left Roger Corman's lips.
And I have to say...this show has won a lot of awards in different
areas, Emmys and others, but this one, for me, means the most.
Even Warners is excited about it, and is taking out a double-page
ad in most of the trades this Friday, with others to appear the
following week. (We encouraged them to also congratulate the
nominees for the award as well, since they were all very
deserving, it was stiff competition.)
* The reaction at the [WorldCon] to B5, at the awards and elsewhere,
was quite amazing. Everywhere the show was mentioned at panels, it
appaarently got applause. The attending fans were *extremely*
friendly, went out of their way to be nice. The two B5 panels I
gave (the second one added on when the first one wouldn't fit into
the room provided) were extremely enthusiastic. I think the two
presentations I gave that day totaled about 2,500-2,600 people
total.
When the winner was announced for Best Dramatic Presentation, and
I headed for the stage, for a moment I thought we were having an
earthquake, or there was a sudden thunder...but it was the fans
applauding and stomping their feet enough to make the ground
shake. It was deafening down where the nominees were, and I
noticed a couple of them looking around with a "what the hell is
THAT?" look on their faces.
* _Reader congratulates JMS on the Hugo and adds that she did so in
person, but he didn't seem to hear her then._
Thanks...I'm not sure I heard much of anything that night....
* _See the [33]Notes section for the vote tallies._
What's interesting, in noting the number of votes in the
nominations, is that if we hadn't withdrawn the second Hugo
nominated B5 episode, "The Fall of Night," DS9 wouldn't have had a
nomination at all. They moved into the nominations when we
withdrew "FoN."
* _How many nominations did "The Fall of Night" receive?_
I don't know offhand; my guess is that it was #5 in the overall
nominations list, because (I understand) they had to jump past #6
(The Long, Twilight Struggle) to get to #7 (the DS9 episode) to
find a non-B5 candidate for the nominations list. So we had 3 out
of the top 6, and apparently two more B5 episodes were high up on
the list, I think in the top 10.
* _Is this the first TV episode to win since Harlan Ellison's "City
on the Edge of Forever" from the original Star Trek?_
Actually, no, two episodes of TNG also got Hugos.
But what *is* significant here is that in 43 years, only 7 Hugos
have gone to dramatic TV series; 3 to the original Twilight Zone,
4 to Star Trek (old and new). This is the first Hugo in 43 years
to go to a science fiction TV series other than TZ or ST.
* _Where will you display the Hugo?_
I was thinking of putting the Hugo on display in my bedroom, but I
decided it was 'way too Freudian.
* _Have you taken it onto the set?_
Absolutely, I took the Hugo out on the very next day, Tuesday. The
whole place was very excited about it.
* _B5 received another award at WorldCon._
Yeah, the Shadow Hugo (an ominous name for what's basically a
coaster-shaped circuit board with a bronze plate on it) went to B5
from Sci-Fi.Com, which was actually the first SF award B5 has
gotten, beating the real Hugos by about 24 hours.
The reason they had to come out of the SFFWA _(Science Fiction and
Fantasy Writers of America)_ suite to give me the award had to do
with my feelings toward SFFWA, from which I resigned over their
attitude toward media writers and the dramatic nebula (bottom
line: all media writers are hacks, and it's not real writing, and
even though media work, scripts, are eligible for membership, or
were then, they're not eligible for the Nebula because it isn't
really writing).
Actually, what I said to the folks from scifi.com was..."I
wouldn't go in there for the presentation if I were dying of lung
cancer and they were offering free chemotherapy at the door."
Nothing against many of the SFFWA members, many of them are fine
folks who're taking the rap for a provincially minded leadership,
but after the grief I got from SFWA over all this before, the hate
mail, the vindictiveness, the resignation (to this day they still
haven't had the guts to print my letter of resignation in the
Journal), I just couldn't go in there for the award.
* ...sigh...I'm gonna regret this, I know it, I just know it....
C'mere. Siddown. Lemme 'splain.
I resigned SFWA (back before it became SFFWA) for the reasons you
cite, and over the whole Dramatic Nebula issue, which was for me
the defining moment and the proverbial straw across the equally
proverbial camel's back.
A number of us -- me, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Mike Cassutt,
Harlan, others -- attempted to get SFWA to restore the Dramatic
Nebula, which had been dropped for a number of years. In the
course of this, I received more abusive, vitriolic, hateful pieces
of mail and email than I can begin to describe to you. It rivals
or exceeds *anything* ever sent to me in any flame war. All from
other SFWA members. One quote I remember vividly is emblematic of
the whole: "I work my ass off writing for pennies a word, while
all you hacks in TV churn out crap for thousands of dollars a
page. You and your LA buddies will never get a Dramatic Nebula as
long as I'm alive."
And that was the nicest letter I got.
It was explained to me, in mail, email and the SFWA journal, that
scriptwriting wsan't really *writing*, it was just typing. That TV
writers weren't really writers. That you can't read a script
unless you're trained, so you can't vote on it. That since TV/film
is often a collaborative form, you don't know who contributed
what, so how can you give a nebula? And there's George Martin's
argument, that SFWA should give Dramatic Nebulas to scriptwriters
when WGA allows prose writers to join.
And the responses to this...it *is* writing, you *can* read the
script easily, it's just the margins that are different. Editors
often contribute structure and ideas and other material to the
books they edit, but I don't see that stopping regular nebulas.
And SFWA was built around a particular *genre*, anything in that
genre is or should be acceptable; WGA is built around *form*, the
script, and any genre within that form is acceptable. We're
talking apples and oranges here.
I was even willing to remove myself from all future DN
consideration to remove the notion that I was doing this to get
one myself. It was the principle, for one vital reason:
At that time, SFWA allowed scripts to qualify you for membership
in SFWA. Scripts were fine as far as SFWA was concerned as long as
it brought in more in the way of membership dues. If it brought
money INTO SFWA, then it was writing, and qualified script writers
to join SFWA. But when it came time to give out the dramatic
nebula...nope, suddenly it ain't writing no more.
It was a clear contradiction, and a bald-faced double-standard.
Hypocrisy at its most blatant.
So finally, when the move to restore the Dramatic Nebula was
vetoed, I quit. The final irony being this: over the 10 years or
so I'd been a member, I'd written maybe 7 or 8 letters to be
published in the SFWA Journal, which appears quarterly or monthly,
I forget now. There were (and are) people who had something in
almost every issue, often for pages at a time. I sent my letter of
resignation to the Journal, and it has never to this day been
printed. Because once it became clear that I was no longer going
to continue paying dues (though I was still a member at the time
of the letter, and for several months thereafter, until my prior
payment ran out), they really had no interest in hearing anything
from a scriptwriter. They later tried the exuse that it was too
long, but it was exactly the same length as the majority of
letters that appeared in the Journal.
In fighting for the rights of script-members of SFWA on the DN
issue, and the perception of scriptwriters in general, I was
insulted, abused, targeted, slandered, ridiculed, threatened and
harrassed. While there are many fine individuals who belong to the
group, as an organization is is provincial and small minded and
insecure and jealous. Any John Norman GOR novel would
theoretically be eligible for a Nebula, but 12 Monkeys would not.
If an SF novel sells 35,000 copies, it's a great thing; 100,000 is
a *terrific* thing, much ballyhooed by the SF establishment. B5
has a hardcore audience of between 10 and 15 *million* people.
So bottom-line...yeah, I left SFWA because I got tired of the
contempt the organization and many of its members held (and still
hold) for scriptwriters. When it came time to accept the Science
Fiction Weekly's award for "The Coming of Shadows," I stepped into
the SFFWA suite (where they were to be given out) just long enough
to find the guys involved, and get out again. And the award was
presented out in the hallway, because I didn't want it to happen
there. As I told the organizer, I wouldn't go into the SFFWA suite
for this if I were dying of lung cancer and they were offering
free chemotherapy at the door.
* _The promo for the Hugo-commemorative rerun had a "Winner 1996
Hugo Award" overlay. Was it hard to get WB to do that?_
It was their idea. They're impressed that we got the Hugo.
[39][Next]
[40]Last update: January 12, 1998
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