Eyes Turned Skywards

[Durabys]

..snippet..

I'll hazard a guess here and say that you're depicting Babylon 5 ITTL as being far more like what JMS had envisioned in the earlier days, which IIRC was very much in-line with the Babylon Theory of Order vs. Chaos yet both are needed for existence.

..snippet..

Wait. I knew it! I was right that OTL Babylon 5 was biased towards the Vorlons and "Order"!

 

[viewcode]

Set it in Vancouver

Of course, other opinions on the validity of these assumptions are available! But they were certainly things that were thought about for TTL.

Fair points. There is one thing I forgot to mention, which does throw a spanner in the works: the 1988 writer's strike. However, one solution presents itself...

Have you thought of filming your ITTL 1989B5 in Vancouver?

Consider the following:
* Vancouver Film School opened in 1987, tho' its 3D Animation degree doesn't start until 1995
* JMS met Ron Thornton and Douglas Netter there IOTL
* It gets the principals out of the USA in 1988, and so avoid becoming strikebreakers
* Mainframe Entertainment had worked out how to do CGI by 1990/1, tho' they had to wait for the hardware to catch up.

So if you do your ITTL 1989B5 in Vancouver, it goes like this.

1988
Netter founds "Netter Entertainment" in Vancouver. Importing Stephen Begg from London as effects supervisor and utilising undergrads from Vancouver Film School as interns/slave labor, they start the slow process of filming space scenes in the British style: painstakingly-built models (same as USA) but with less action (less experience with motion-control rigs), but also better-lit, with greater contrast within light and dark, and with more detail (the then-lower resolution of US tv compared to UK tv meant that ST:TNG looked blurry/washed-out to British eyes, and the low resolution is one of the reasons why ST:TNG found it difficult to produce hi-def copies in the Noughties). The scenes look a lot like "Moon" or "Moonraker" or "Space 1999", and are very different to the Hubble-inspired brightly-coloured nebulae backgrounds of IOTL 1993B5

1989-1991
JMS writes and produces seasons 1,2 and 3. The main cast do not include Michael O'Hare nor Tamlyn Tomita, so the characters of Jeffrey Sinclair and Laurel Takashima remain and continue on their arcs as foreshadowed in the pilot. The viewing figures remain low, but it begins to get critical notice and is somewhat of a success d'estime. ITTL "Babylon Squared" and "War Without End" take place later in the series than they did IOTL

Meanwhile, the expatriate Brit Ron Thornton and the work of Mainframe Entertainment start to be noticed. Netter creates "NTS Digital Entertainment" (Netter/Thornton/Strazynski) and hoovers up the talent into one place. Thankfully Beggs shares Thornton, Bryant and Lebowitz's respect for Newtonian physics, and they share his love of stark lighting, so the physical models and their CGI models mesh (pun intended) seamlessly. Although bright nebulae do begin to creep in...

1992-1993
The Vorlon/Shadow plot and Earth Civil War plots take place later, and the Telepath War Year 5 is butterflied away. Just as IOTL DS9's physical effects were wholly replaced by CGI, eventually B5's model spacecraft are replaced by CGI by 1993. ReBoot is butterflied away, and Vancouver Film School's 3D Animation degree starts in 1994, one year early.

And there y'go. Your ITTL 1989B5 now works...

 

[Brainbin]

Thank you all for your many and varied reactions to my third guest post! It was a lot of fun to write, and I promise you it took much longer to write than it did to read I thought I would respond to some of the comments that have accumulated, since I figured you all deserve some kind of reward for getting through all that!

What for a post, Brainbin
Very good!

Thank you, Michel! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

You have something in mind on BBC, Special Doctor WHO ?

Talk about déjà vu! Believe me, I know far better than to ignore Doctor Who - but I feel I shouldn't spoil what I may or may not have planned.

Well this has been an interesting - and excruciatingly long-winded - update.

Thank you... I think?

The 1989-1994 Series run would be very fortunate if you opted to retain Michael O'Hare in the lead role, given his "issues" IOTL that forced his departure through no real fault of his own. And to actually be able to run the full five seasons largely as planned is something of a plus for me.

Although O'Hare's story is tragic, and obviously deserving of a happier ending in any ATL, I feel that someone else probably would have been cast in the role ITTL.

IIRC, the first fate of Laurel Takashima - what was planned IOTL - was in part driven by Tamlyn Tomita's desire to pursue a Movie Career and factored in by setting a proper means for her to leave, which got derailed by the 12+ Month gap between the Pilot and Series start. If you have sources suggesting otherwise, I'd like to know about them.

My sources concur with yours - this is why I chose to cast a different actress as Takashima (probably someone a few years older).

Onto the other point. Apollo 13. AFAIK, it was The Postman and not Waterworld that finished off Costner as an A-List Actor - the two coming back-to-back.

You're absolutely correct - it is a testament to the sheer star power and charisma that Costner had that he actually survived Waterworld - as you say, following it with The Postman sealed his fate. He might still make The Postman ITTL - Costner was definitely the risk-taking type (and a lot of people forget that Dances with Wolves was nicknamed "Kevin's Gate" before it turned out to be a smash success and won Best Picture), so perhaps this is only delaying the inevitable.

And I recall Dave Scott - or NASA Management - asking them if they could have some of the footage for their own vaults, specifically that of the Saturn V Launch Sequence - despite getting the Stage II and Stage IV-B exhaust flame colour wrong, it's supposed to be dark blue IMHO.

This oversight was caught in post-production ITTL, for the record. I suspect that NASA has several copies of Apollo 13 on hand (as they probably do IOTL).

And I do have to ask this, did you keep Lovell's cameo in TTL's Apollo 13? I certainly hope so.

Indeed I did - he played Captain Leland E. Kirkemo, just as he did IOTL.

I kinda want to know if its still directed by Ron Howard.

No, Robert Zemeckis directed the film ITTL (instead of Forrest Gump). Accordingly, the film is probably heavier on the special effects than it was IOTL.

BTW Brainbin, an excellent update!

Thank you, nixonshead!

I particularly enjoyed the idea of 2020, and it'd be interesting to see a re-cast Trek crew so much earlier than IOTL. I do wonder though what that implies for any future Trek spin-offs, since ITTL all Trek has featured the same characters. Given the resistance there was to a new crew IOTL for TNG, I can only imagine the Trekkie reaction ITTL if someone were to suggest it here!

Although the kernel of your argument is true, it should be noted that TNV did introduce several new characters (standing alongside all the originals except for Spock, granted - larger, more ensemble-oriented casts were in vogue by then), and some of them (especially Decker) did become quite popular in their own right (though, as with TNG IOTL, it took time). The absence of Spock - the most popular character on TOV - does prove to an extent that the success of the franchise isn't necessarily tied to any one character.

We'll just have to see what happens if or when anyone ever suggests such a thing ITTL...

Also fascinating to see a Gore victory, and at a very different point than the standard PoD for such scenarios!

It was certainly very interesting to write, as the ticket was entirely the invention of our two main authors, and I was tasked to write about their road to victory.

Looking forward to the next interlude!

And I look forward to writing it!

A brilliant update and a superb brush stroke giving us a show of whats going on down on terra firma.

You flatter me immensely, sharlin Thank you.

Interesting fact: This is the first time that a Major Shift in the US Political Scene - in terms of Office - has occurred ITTL.

It's certainly the first one of which I've been made aware - though I wouldn't discount any earlier changes to more local races in Texas or Indiana

Also, once you subtract the Endeavour bump, funding was actually pretty flat during the '90s. Congress and Clinton weren't raising budgets, but they weren't cutting them, either. If NASA was getting squeezed, it was because it was operating Shuttle and building Station...and note that the astronomical and, especially, planetary programs were much more active than during the '80s.

For reference, NASA funding IOTL, measured as a percentage of the annual federal budget, bottomed out at 0.75% in 1986, before recovering to a high of 1.05% in 1991. It would not decline below 1% until 1994, and not decline below the historic low of 0.75% until 2002, after the end of the Clinton Presidency (and the cultural 1990s).

INTRODUCTION
Starting Babylon 5 in 1989 and expecting it to work is like starting Star Wars in 1971: the techniques and the showrunners haven't yet evolved to sustain it.

Viewcode, I'd like to thank you for your thoughtful and well-structured response to my update. However, I feel the need to address several of your premises.

Before Babylon 5, televised science fiction was self-contained episodes, with space battles involving two or three spacecraft, reaching a mainstream audience.

Even IOTL, the "mainstream audience" you refer to were Trekkies and those lured in by the Star Wars craze (Battlestar Galactica). Little else lasted for long.

After Babylon 5, televised science fiction was arc-heavy, with space battles involving hundreds of spacecraft, reaching a niche audience.

Because the technology existed to allow space battles involving hundreds of spacecraft on a TV budget. I'm not sure where you get "reach a niche audience" from, unless you mean most science-fiction shows are on cable now. Funnily enough, over the same time period, cable itself transformed from "niche" into "mainstream".

In 1988 CGI is beyond the reach of even ILM: the "water tentacle" in "The Abyss" is still a year in the future, and the networked desktop hardware and affordable software that enabled OTL 1993B5 to work doesn't exist, period. Space battles in ITTL 1989B5 will be two spaceships facing each other at short distance, not hundreds of spacecraft with fast intercut action. That qualitatively changes the show: no longer able to depict action, it will have to be described, and that makes it even more talky.

No, there won't be as many ships ITTL. But I can't think of a better example of quality over quantity. The few ships there are will look much better. There were battle scenes in Battlestar Galactica which may not have been as impressive in terms of scale as those in Babylon 5, but they (along with uncounted Japanese programming) prove that it is possible to depict space fighters on a TV budget (and yes, Battlestar Galactica was ruinously expensive, but it's over a decade later, and the same technology is comparatively cheaper - especially with the effects work done on TNV to serve as inspiration). Also, as Star Trek has always proven, more talky is almost always a good thing, especially with high-calibre writing. I mentioned in the footnotes of the update that the show will have an overall slower pace - this will contribute to that.

To start a ITTL 1989B5 you will have to butterfly away 87-88's "Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future", where JMS eventually became showrunner/head writer. JMS's "Captain Power" stint enabled him to develop his ideas and skills, providing a dry-run for IOTL 1993B5. So ITTL, JMS doesn't have the experience, confidence and resume to propose, sell, run and damn-nearly write a IOTL 1993B5-sized program

There's no reason that JMS couldn't have worked on Captain Power ITTL. The show ended on March 27, 1988, and production would likely have ceased months before (especially since there was an animation component, which requires longer lead time). Production on The Gathering probably would have started in late spring of 1988 at the earliest. Does this mean the pilot movie might be somewhat rushed and of lower-than-average quality compared to the rest of the series? Perhaps, but nothing can be perfect.

I'll have to run these two together since they feed off each other. In the 80's, mainstream television successes were episodic with limited character development.

This statement is plainly incorrect. The (non-soap) program credited with introducing story arcs to dramatic programming was Hill Street Blues... which premiered in 1981. Other shows like St. Elsewhere and L.A. Law followed, and these were critically-acclaimed and popular with viewers. Dramatic series with some level of focus on character development and continuing storylines were commonplace enough that as early as 1990, when Law & Order premiered, its lack of focus on these elements was considered radical. You are correct that, IOTL, science-fiction shows were far more episodic; however, Star Trek: The New Voyages experimented with story arcs and even serialization in its later seasons, inspired by the success of not only Dallas and Dynasty but also Hill Street Blues. ITTL, Babylon 5 is building on that.

Programs with more intense development did exist (they're called "soaps"... but there are still reset buttons. But in the present day, radical character development is more accepted (cf "Breaking Bad"). The reason for the change is wider choice in consumption options: now you can watch box-sets, blu-rays, via the internet, on demand, wherever. Back in the 80's you still had (3?) main networks and your consumption options are more limited. So successes had to appeal to a wider audience.

Then why were primetime soap operas the most popular genre on "mainstream" network television in the 1980s? Not to mention the many non-soap dramatic series with such strong focus on continuity which I've already mentioned, and even certain sitcoms (Cheers, for example). The notion that continuity only started mattering in the last ten years is a fallacy. Even as early as the 1970s, many of the most popular shows of the day (such as All in the Family) placed emphasis on continuing storylines.

But ITTL 1989B5 still has the monolithic networks.

FOX existed in 1989 (it was founded in 1987). There's also a giant hole for B5 to fill in syndication - one in which TNG managed excellent ratings IOTL; despite two horrendously badseasons. You say "but it's Star Trek" - but in the minds of many people at the time, it wasn't. Star Trek was TOS, and this was, to be blunt, a cash-in. Now, people changed their tune once the show improved in quality (coupled with the unfortunate timing of a truly awful film outing for the original crew), but that didn't happen overnight.

JMS is inexperienced.

Even if he doesn't have Captain Power - and I don't see why he wouldn't - you discount his work on The Real Ghostbusters.

There is no better way to gain experience dealing with meddling executives than showrunning a cartoon series intended for young audiences.

Effects supervisor ITTL Steven Begg is experienced in the British tradition of special effects (all physical effects in real time, model work, minaturised explosions, filmed at high-speed then replayed at normal speed) which lends a charm but it's a sloooooow process and he won't be able to produce all the effects shots required for a IOTL storyline. Space battles are scaled back, plot is changed, it becomes an (even more) verbal show where action is described rather than depicted, the viewing figures are even lower.

But remember what it was like before CGI - everything was like that. People had no frame of reference for how it "should" have been because it didn't exist yet.

ITTL 1989B5 won't make it to season 5, and might not even make OTL season 3 or 4.

I must disagree. Perhaps a B5 which were exactly the same as the OTL B5 wouldn't make it, but this is going to be a different show (in style, if not substance), as nixonshead explains. I do want to think you for keeping us honest, viewcode. We did indeed think a lot about the decision to move B5, as I'm sure you can see

The biggest problem Babylon 5 suffered from IMHO was that Star Trek DS9 had started its seasons shortly before B5 began theirs - although the B5 Pilot had been broadcast the year before - leading to assumptions that B5 had basically stolen DS9's idea(s).

The lack of competition with DS9 is, creatively speaking, probably a net negative - because I suspect that both shows were probably better for the competition posed by the other. (This same drive restored professional wrestling as a major force in the late-1990s - the Monday Night Wars forced the WWF out of their complacency).

While JMS was searching for someone to pick up his ideas in the mid-late 80's, one of the companies he approached would be the one that made DS9. So my honest opinion is that DS9 took some creative liberties from B5.

I avoided stating anything categorical on the subject in my footnotes, and I'll continue to maintain my neutrality here.

But the story and character growth/development were what really made it stand out for me. So I really want it to be the same in this critical regard ITTL.

It most certainly will. As I've said, think about how most of the best Star Trek episodes are bottle shows. I can't imagine the same principle not applying to Babylon 5. All those alien races with starkly divergent motivations trying to live together in peace and harmony on a tin can? That is already a very exciting premise.

---

I've also created a map of the United States Presidential Election of 1992. Gore/Richards are in RED, and Bush/Quayle are in BLUE, as is only proper.

 

[viewcode]

if we place the border in the 90's, then...

The (non-soap) program credited with introducing story arcs to dramatic programming was Hill Street Blues... which premiered in 1981. Other shows like St. Elsewhere and L.A. Law followed, and these were critically-acclaimed and popular with viewers. Dramatic series with some level of focus on character development and continuing storylines were commonplace enough that as early as 1990, when Law & Order premiered, its lack of focus on these elements was considered radical. You are correct that, IOTL, science-fiction shows were far more episodic; however, Star Trek: The New Voyages experimented with story arcs and even serialization in its later seasons, inspired by the success of not only Dallas and Dynasty but also Hill Street Blues. ITTL, Babylon 5 is building on that.

I just looked up the 87-88 schedule.

• IOTL 87-88 series that observe a broadly episodic structure are:

Spenser: For Hire, Murder, She Wrote, Married... with Children, My Two Dads, Family Ties, Kate & Allie, Designing Women, The Wonder Years, Matlock, Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Hunter, The Equalizer, Sledge Hammer!, Max Headroom, The Cosby Show, Cheers, L.A. Law, Night Court, Miami Vice, Beverly Hills Buntz, Beauty and the Beast, The Golden Girls​

• IOTL 87-88 series that have overreaching arc plots are:

Cagney & Lacey, Moonlighting, Dallas, Thirtysomething, Crime Story, Falcon Crest, Beauty and the Beast​

(Some appear on both lists because they're a mix)

You are correct about the influence of Hill Street Blues. You are also correct that ongoing storylines were not unknown during the 80's. But I'd argue that a single individual going through a newsworthy life event spread over several episodes (e.g Cagney's drink problem, Murphy Brown's pregnancy, et al) is significantly different from the preplotted arc plots as we understand them today. Even an ensemble drama with multiple overlapping storylines like St Elsewhere is different from a show like B5, where the events of episode X are part of an overarching plot that can only be understood by watching episode Y some years hence.

Even IOTL, the "mainstream audience" you refer to were Trekkies and those lured in by the Star Wars craze (Battlestar Galactica). Little else lasted for long.

No, they weren't. IOTL:TNG was watched by a mainstream audience, not just Trekkies, and I assume ITTL:TNV would have the same audience profile. We're so used to televised science fiction being the province of geeks that we forget that TNG was a mainstream success. A peer for TNG would be, say, "LA Law": a successful program written by an ensemble with an ethnically balanced cast that deals with conflicts between people and watched by a mainstream audience. A peer for B5 would be, say, "The West Wing": a critically successful program written mostly by an individual which deals with conflicts between ideas and is forever in danger of cancellation due to poor audience figures, but is kept afloat by advertisers realising that its affluent niche audience can be targeted.

Because the technology existed to allow space battles involving hundreds of spacecraft on a TV budget. I'm not sure where you get "reach a niche audience" from...

Sorry, the "space battles" thing was not part of the logical chain for the "niche audience" thing. My point was that the way TV was consumed changed during the 90's, becoming more fragmented. In the 1960's, 70's and 80's you could say to someone "did you see X on TV last night" and feel confident that they did. In the 2010's, you can't. And one good place to put the border was the 90's.

If you don't have a fragmented audience, then the way to make money is a mainstream audience and an episodic structure. But if you do have a fragmented audience, then the way to make money is a niche audience. And one way of attracting a loyal niche audience is an arc plot: you stay with it for seasons to see how the arc resolves itself.

I'd argue that in 1989 the audience was not fragmented enough to allow ITTL 1989B5 to survive (although I've outlined a Vancouver approach that might work). YMMV, and I understand that you disagree with this conclusion.

 

[Unknown]

An interesting note about Murder, She Wrote: Angela Lansbury learned that Madlyn Rhue was about to lose her Screen Actors Guild medical coverage because she was short of earning the annual earnings requirement, so she created a recurring role for Rhue so that she could earn that and keep her medical coverage.

That makes me respect Lansbury even more (and, please, don't start with the Jessica was the killer theories on that show. My uncle believes them (1)).

(1) Maybe it has something to do with her role in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) where she played Laurence Harvey's controlling mother...despite being only a few years older than Harvey.

 

[viewcode]

Hairy on the inside...

An interesting note about Murder, She Wrote: Angela Lansbury learned that Madlyn Rhue was about to lose her Screen Actors Guild medical coverage because she was short of earning the annual earnings requirement, so she created a recurring role for Rhue so that she could earn that and keep her medical coverage.

That makes me respect Lansbury even more (and, please, don't start with the Jessica was the killer theories on that show. My uncle believes them (1)).

(1) Maybe it has something to do with her role in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) where she played Laurence Harvey's controlling mother...despite being only a few years older than Harvey.

If you want to add further fuel to your uncle's paranoia, there's always her role in "The Company of Wolves"...

 

[Unknown]

About Matagorda: What's the population of the area at this time (I live in Corpus Christi, so I am interested in this)? I know Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca are in this area.

As I stated, the Houston-Matagorda area might become a megaopolis (sort of the Northeast Corridor version of Texas). One problem, though: water. Texas has had droughts in the past (and is in one now) and that will have an impact on population in Texas.

Can't wait to see where this goes next (my mom was a fan of Ann Richards, so it's good to see her as vice-president (although she's president in A Giant Sucking Sound.).

 

[e of pi]

About Matagorda: What's the population of the area at this time (I live in Corpus Christi, so I am interested in this)? I know Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca are in this area.

As I stated, the Houston-Matagorda area might become a megaopolis (sort of the Northeast Corridor version of Texas). One problem, though: water. Texas has had droughts in the past (and is in one now) and that will have an impact on population in Texas.

Well, fortunately water won't be too much of a problem. The spaceport employs probably something like a couple hundred people on the upper side, which snowballs to maybe a couple thousand extra people in the area once you add their families and any extra service jobs in the area that are required to deal with that increase. Not much of a megaopolis, I fear.

 

[nixonshead]

Given this is a 'week off' for me for illustrating, I instead had a go at updating the timeline in the Wiki, and whilst entering the stuff for 2020 I got to wondering... Given all the action taking place on Discovery II, did the film makers go to the (huge, but IMO worthwhile) expense of re-building a centrifuge set, or did they fudge it by staying in the zero-gee sections of the ship and wearing slippers as an excuse for sticking to the deck (as in OTL's 2010?) Or maybe they took the third option of changing the design of Discovery II versus the original Discovery to something more set-friendly?

 

[Shevek23]

Given this is a 'week off' for me for illustrating, I instead had a go at updating the timeline in the Wiki, and whilst entering the stuff for 2020 I got to wondering... Given all the action taking place on Discovery II, did the film makers go to the (huge, but IMO worthwhile) expense of re-building a centrifuge set, or did they fudge it by staying in the zero-gee sections of the ship and wearing slippers as an excuse for sticking to the deck (as in OTL's 2010?) Or maybe they took the third option of changing the design of Discovery II versus the original Discovery to something more set-friendly?

That's really a question for just The Brainbin, isn't it?

For what it's worth, I guess that 2020 was filmed on the premise that 2010 was a box-office winner, and so the budget would have been reasonably lavish by mid-80s Hollywood standards. And they already had the zero-G sets from the prior movie, so they'd only have to rebuild the centrifuge. While cursing Kubrick for scrapping his originals of course!

There is no redesign possible, unless they want to assert that the experience of Discovery I proved that actually there was no need to keep the crew in moderately heavy gravity after all--that post-2000 advances in space medicine let them maintain health, whether in cryo-sleep or awake, with no centrifuge.

Actually I suspect that's more plausible than the assertion that galactic cosmic rays wouldn't fry them to death in the course of the voyage long before bone decay could hurt them. The designs of both Discovery and the Leonov prove that both American and Soviet space agencies have decided that "all this talk of dangerous radiation is just so much pernicious nonsense!" To quote a rather lower-budget SF movie of OTL 1980s that I somehow fear is not made in any form ITTL.

To be sure--to return to track--if in fact astronauts can live for years in microgravity with every assurance of a safe return to Earth afterwards, that greatly simplifies the design and opens up all sorts of nifty possibilities.

I think I've mentioned one of the premises of Spider and Jeanne Robinson's Stardance in this thread before--that in general human beings might adapt physically to zero G, but that Skylab (the only really accessible information available to the authors at the time, in the late 1970s) showed that most of us adapt poorly psychologically. Given an environment with visual cues implying a definite "up and down" axis, ordinary people can handle it; take that away with an environment with contradictory cues adding up to chaos in this matter, or simply forgetting the whole "up/down" business completely, and most humans can't adapt and function well there. But a few--the Robinsons chose Owen Garriot of Skylab II as their star example--can adapt to 3-D thinking just fine. The open question the "Stardancers" ask at the end of the book is--given lots of time, can more people, perhaps everyone in the end, make the switch?

If they can, then a truly 3-D layout might be very efficient and allow a larger crew.

But vice versa--if they can't, and all spacecraft have to be designed to cue a visual vertical that is reassuring, still that's a minimal cost compared to making an actual vertical with a centrifuge. And whether or not future astronauts can learn to live gravity-free mentally as well as physically--neither the Hollywood setmakers, nor actors, nor audiences in the late 1980s stuck making and watching a movie on the ground will have access to their zero-G Feng Shui, and would probably be disturbed and distracted by it.

So no, I guess if Discovery II omits the centrifuge because it isn't physically needed, the resultant cylindrical deck will still be laid out as though it were on Earth. Because of course the set really is.

Personally, I'd vote for replicating the centrifuge, because I doubt there is any substitute for an acceleration in the range of 2-8 meters/sec^2 for arresting and limiting and rendering reversible the bone and muscle deterioration inevitable in microgravity. For a voyage of years, the centrifuge is a must. And the set is so iconic; it's a shame it costs so much and has to be rebuilt, but it definitely helps set the right atmosphere.

There should by all means be improvements in the detail work to indicate the second ship was after all built a decade or more later.

 

[Brainbin]

Fair points. There is one thing I forgot to mention, which does throw a spanner in the works: the 1988 writer's strike. However, one solution presents itself...

Have you thought of filming your ITTL 1989B5 in Vancouver?

I actually really like this idea - Vancouver also works because the Babylon 5 production will receive film credits from the city, the province, and the country in order to film there (this is the same reason many other shows filmed in the area, including genre programs The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, and Smallville).

Mainframe Entertainment had worked out how to do CGI by 1990/1, tho' they had to wait for the hardware to catch up.

I agree with all of your above points, although the 3D animation degree reference gave me pause, as does this. Star Trek, for example, did not make the shift into CGI until the late-1990s, several years after the trend began - even as late as Voyager (which began after Babylon 5 would be ending ITTL), physical models were built and filmed. By the time Mainframe (or anyone else for that matter) would be "ready" to contribute to B5, I think it would probably be too late - every Star Trek show (and certainly Battlestar Galactica) was ready, willing, and able to reuse footage as often as possible, and I don't see why Babylon 5 would be an exception to that.

The scenes look a lot like "Moon" or "Moonraker" or "Space 1999", and are very different to the Hubble-inspired brightly-coloured nebulae backgrounds of IOTL 1993B5

Although sometimes all you need is the right backdrop. Or compositing with the right matte paintings.

The main cast do not include Michael O'Hare nor Tamlyn Tomita, so the characters of Jeffrey Sinclair and Laurel Takashima remain and continue on their arcs as foreshadowed in the pilot.

Filming in Vancouver means that it is much more likely that one (or both!) of our leads will be Canadian, not to mention the supporting cast.

The viewing figures remain low, but it begins to get critical notice and is somewhat of a success d'estime.

I remind you that all of those OTL TNG viewers have to go somewhere. Some of them are bound to go to Babylon 5. As with TNG, it has no real competition.

Just as IOTL DS9's physical effects were wholly replaced by CGI, eventually B5's model spacecraft are replaced by CGI by 1993.

DS9 didn't replace its models with CGI on a large scale until almost five years later than that.

ReBoot is butterflied away.

Speaking as a fan of the show in first-run (good old 1990s YTV), do you really want me to deal that show a worse hand ITTL?

You are correct about the influence of Hill Street Blues. You are also correct that ongoing storylines were not unknown during the 80's. But I'd argue that a single individual going through a newsworthy life event spread over several episodes (e.g Cagney's drink problem, Murphy Brown's pregnancy, et al) is significantly different from the preplotted arc plots as we understand them today. Even an ensemble drama with multiple overlapping storylines like St Elsewhere is different from a show like B5, where the events of episode X are part of an overarching plot that can only be understood by watching episode Y some years hence.

To address your statement on its own terms, I remind you that ITTL, TNV attempted a proper serialized arc in the vein of at least DS9 (if not with quite the intensity and duration of B5) as early as 1981-82 (yes, the same year that Hill Street Blues premiered) in the Doomsday War. It built up to this drastic decision based on the success of Dallas and Dynasty (and remember that Harve Bennett was formerly in the employ of Aaron Spelling), with the earlier Bennett-run seasons containing many sequel episodes and references to previous adventures from TOV/TAV (including Khan's first reappearance). As you later note, TNV remained a hit throughout its run - the fifth season is unequivocally arc-based even according to your narrower definition of the term. Executives balked but Bennett was allowed to repeat his experiment in 1983-84 (again, as Dallas and Dynasty are two of the biggest hit shows in the country, and Hill Street Blues wins raves and heaps of Emmys). I feel very strongly that this would accelerate the pace at which more thorough serialization and arc-based storytelling would come to be accepted by audiences.

No, they weren't. IOTL:TNG was watched by a mainstream audience, not just Trekkies, and I assume ITTL:TNV would have the same audience profile. We're so used to televised science fiction being the province of geeks that we forget that TNG was a mainstream success.

I'll concede that TNG became successful with mainstream audiences later on, but it started out an audacious experiment which would not have survived the growing pains of those first two seasons (and, as you mention, the writers' strike) were it not for their core audience of Trekkies (even though many of them were very vocal in their criticisms - but that's Trek fandom for you). I really don't see why, just because Babylon 5 isn't episodic as TNG was, it couldn't achieve a modicum of the same success.

A peer for TNG would be, say, "LA Law": a successful program written by an ensemble with an ethnically balanced cast that deals with conflicts between people and watched by a mainstream audience. A peer for B5 would be, say, "The West Wing": a critically successful program written mostly by an individual which deals with conflicts between ideas and is forever in danger of cancellation due to poor audience figures, but is kept afloat by advertisers realising that its affluent niche audience can be targeted.

And remember that first-run syndication has a lower threshold for success than the networks.

In the 1960's, 70's and 80's you could say to someone "did you see X on TV last night" and feel confident that they did. In the 2010's, you can't. And one good place to put the border was the 90's.

I would argue it was the late-1980s - when cable hit critical mass. The highest-rated show(s) on the air in the 1986-87 season was The Cosby Show, with a 35 rating. Three years later, in the 1989-90 season (the first in which Babylon 5 would air ITTL), the highest-rated shows were (in a tie) The Cosby Show and Roseanne, both with a 23. The amount of households watching the highest-rated show on television fell by more than one-third in those three years alone. Note that the peak rating leveled off after that - it wouldn't fall below a 20 until 1998-99, nearly ten years later, and in the interim recovered to as high as a 22 (for ER, in 1995-96). Looking at these numbers, it's hard to argue against the late-1980s collapse in the network television ratings ceiling as having had an impact on TNG's ratings in turn. I'd say the same would be true for B5 ITTL.

If you don't have a fragmented audience, then the way to make money is a mainstream audience and an episodic structure. But if you do have a fragmented audience, then the way to make money is a niche audience. And one way of attracting a loyal niche audience is an arc plot: you stay with it for seasons to see how the arc resolves itself.

This will be the key difference for Babylon 5 story-wise, ITTL; it will be plotted out more as a cohesive whole as opposed to the piecemeal season-by-season scripting that JMS did IOTL. Obviously, concessions will still have to be made and emergency "trapdoors" will still have to be prepared, but I really think that the successful example provided by TNV will prove far more influential than you credit it for. And if Babylon 5 does go further than TNV did, I think that audiences are ready for it.

Given this is a 'week off' for me for illustrating, I instead had a go at updating the timeline in the Wiki, and whilst entering the stuff for 2020 I got to wondering... Given all the action taking place on Discovery II, did the film makers go to the (huge, but IMO worthwhile) expense of re-building a centrifuge set, or did they fudge it by staying in the zero-gee sections of the ship and wearing slippers as an excuse for sticking to the deck (as in OTL's 2010?) Or maybe they took the third option of changing the design of Discovery II versus the original Discovery to something more set-friendly?

e of pi and I both agreed that they would largely fudge it, as 2010 did, for the very simple reason that 2001 is just too expensive for what is clearly going to be a "budget" picture. So the "centrifuge" will be partitioned in such a way that the sets are of small, individual rooms whose floors have a slight curvature, and the scenes on the expanded bridge set in zero-g all feature everyone keeping their feet pretty firmly on the floor as often as possible. This "cheating" is a large part of the reason why the all-out, shiny-new-CGI extravaganza Apollo 13 won for Visual Effects over 2020. Go big or go home, as they say; Apollo 13 managed to do both

That's really a question for just The Brainbin, isn't it?

That's the Brainbin. The article is never capitalized unless it's at the beginning of a sentence

For what it's worth, I guess that 2020 was filmed on the premise that 2010 was a box-office winner, and so the budget would have been reasonably lavish by mid-80s Hollywood standards. And they already had the zero-G sets from the prior movie, so they'd only have to rebuild the centrifuge. While cursing Kubrick for scrapping his originals of course!

2010, though more financially successful than it was IOTL, was certainly not a blockbuster on the level of Star Wars or even the OTL Star Trek films. It likely would not have made money were it as comparatively expensive as 2001 had been. 2020 also follows the law of diminishing returns. In addition, an "out" was written into both the original novel and into Clarke's script for the film: the Discovery II is in fact an entirely new and larger class of vessel built for the express purpose of exploring the Jupiter system.

 

[e of pi]

Given this is a 'week off' for me for illustrating, I instead had a go at updating the timeline in the Wiki...

In addition to Brainbin's answers above, I just wanted to also say thanks for that--the updates look really good.

 

[Bahamut-255]

This will be the key difference for Babylon 5 story-wise, ITTL; it will be plotted out more as a cohesive whole as opposed to the piecemeal season-by-season scripting that JMS did IOTL. Obviously, concessions will still have to be made and emergency "trapdoors" will still have to be prepared, but I really think that the successful example provided by TNV will prove far more influential than you credit it for. And if Babylon 5 does go further than TNV did, I think that audiences are ready for it.

Interesting. I was always under the impression that Babylon 5 was a cohesive multi-season story - at least for its first four seasons - even if it did have a number of filler episodes.

Which brings up a question I have. IOTL, JMS ended up having to write all the Season 3 & 4 episodes by himself - unplanned according to him - which is something that had never been done before in TV. Would this be the case here? Especially if, as you suggest, the script is just one long story with little to no filler.

 

[Unknown]

Well, fortunately water won't be too much of a problem. The spaceport employs probably something like a couple hundred people on the upper side, which snowballs to maybe a couple thousand extra people in the area once you add their families and any extra service jobs in the area that are required to deal with that increase. Not much of a megaopolis, I fear.

You're right about that. But the Port Lavaca high school sports team (Port Lavaca Calhoun) might be called the Rockets (like the NBA team Houston Rockets), instead of the...Sandcrabs ITTL, IMO. (Not that Sandcrabs is a bad name. I've been to Port Lavaca; yes, it's a small town. BTW, Hurricane Carla caused gusts of 170 miles per hour in that area (and virtually destroyed it) in 1961; I hope ALS has a hurricane plan.)

BTW, when was the launchport constructed?

 

[viewcode]

I remind you that all of those OTL TNG viewers have to go somewhere. Some of them are bound to go to Babylon 5. As with TNG, it has no real competition.

Alien Nation and Quantum Leap both debuted in 1989

DS9 didn't replace its models with CGI on a large scale until almost five years later than that.

I know that. That is why I mentioned "Netter Entertainment" and "NTS Digital Entertainment" above. ITTL "Netter Entertainment" is the equivalent of IOTL "Foundation Imaging", and ITTL "NTS Digital Entertainment" is the equivalent of IOTL "Netter Digital". So:

• In IOTL, Foundation Imaging (supervisor Ron Thornton) did the CGI model space scenes for IOTL 1993B5 until B5 producer Douglas Netter created a new company (Netter Digital), poached some talent from Foundation Imaging, and fired them after season 3. Thornton understandably went to work for the opposition, doing seasons 6-7 of IOTL DS9
• In ITTL, Netter Entertainment (supervisor Steven Begg) did the physical model space scenes for ITTL 1989B5 until B5 producer Douglas Netter created a new company (NTS Digital Entertainment), poached some talent from Netter Entertainment, and fired them after season 3. Begg understandably went to work for the opposition, doing the model effects for, hmm, Goldeneye probably.

...the key difference for Babylon 5 story-wise, ITTL; it will be plotted out more as a cohesive whole as opposed to the piecemeal season-by-season scripting that JMS did IOTL.

If you omit adapted screenplays, it would be difficult to think of a series that was more plotted out beforehand than IOTL:B5. Famously, JMS did an outline beforehand, although mishaps, events and changes of mind meant that the final 5-year IOTL:synopsis looks very different to the IOTL original plan

Filming in Vancouver means that it is much more likely that one (or both!) of our leads will be Canadian, not to mention the supporting cast.

Filming in Vancouver in that timeframe means that it is much more likely that one of the supporting cast will be Geraint Wyn Davies, since I believe it was illegal to film a genre drama in Canada during the period without him. That legislation was of course superseded in 1993 by the International Mark Sheppard Treaty.

 

[viewcode]

Interesting. I was always under the impression that Babylon 5 was a cohesive multi-season story - at least for its first four seasons - even if it did have a number of filler episodes.

See my answer to Brainbin above

Which brings up a question I have. IOTL, JMS ended up having to write all the Season 3 & 4 episodes by himself - unplanned according to him - which is something that had never been done before in TV.

John Sullivan wrote every episode of Only Fools and Horses.

 

[Michel Van]

I start this

with much delay it finish

 

[Bahamut-255]

And the release of Soviet State Secrets now reveals more about their Space Programme than we otherwise knew about.

And it looks like they still use "Fire-In-The-Hole" staging tactics here, whereby the upper stage is ignited while still attached to the previous stage. Simpler in using the accelerative forces of the engines to supply positive pressure to aid ignition of the next stage, and it's a given that the tanks were reinforced to allow for it.

I have to ask though, how does the Vulkan Second Stage steer? IIRC, the Soyuz, Proton, and Zenit LVs IOTL use either multiple engines or specialised vernier engines to steer on all three axes in most - if not all - their main stages.

 

[Brainbin]

Interesting. I was always under the impression that Babylon 5 was a cohesive multi-season story - at least for its first four seasons - even if it did have a number of filler episodes.

It was, in broad strokes, but JMS had to make more concessions IOTL than he does ITTL. However, I should have been more clear that I was speaking in relative terms.

Which brings up a question I have. IOTL, JMS ended up having to write all the Season 3 & 4 episodes by himself - unplanned according to him - which is something that had never been done before in TV. Would this be the case here? Especially if, as you suggest, the script is just one long story with little to no filler.

I don't see why he wouldn't write the overwhelming majority of episodes, especially if the budget for the writing staff is smaller (so that more can be spent on the effects).

Alien Nation and Quantum Leap both debuted in 1989

Alien Nation was cancelled after a season, and although I will concede that Quantum Leap is science-fiction, it isn't even remotely space opera. That would be like lumping Lost and The West Wing together because they're both dramatic series. If anything Quantum Leap is alternate history - which, granted, is a genre near and dear to all of us

I know that. That is why I mentioned "Netter Entertainment" and "NTS Digital Entertainment" above. ITTL "Netter Entertainment" is the equivalent of IOTL "Foundation Imaging", and ITTL "NTS Digital Entertainment" is the equivalent of IOTL "Netter Digital".

They aren't going to switch to CGI in their final season. Nothing can justify that expense when they have four seasons worth of stock footage to fall back on, and it's probably much cheaper to build and film any additional models than it would be to make the switch (an expensive proposition in 1993). Yes, DS9 made the switch with just two seasons to go, but that's still more proportionally (2/7 - 28.57%) than it would be for B5 in this instance (1/5 - 20%), and DS9 could also create infrastructure for the much-younger Voyager at the same time (meaning that Paramount got an additional return on their investment). Although there will be a spinoff ITTL (starting in 1995), and it will be all-CGI, that's certainly not a done deal in 1993, so switching to anticipate for it doesn't make the same amount of business sense that switching on DS9 to help Voyager does.

If you omit adapted screenplays, it would be difficult to think of a series that was more plotted out beforehand than IOTL:B5. Famously, JMS did an outline beforehand, although mishaps, events and changes of mind meant that the final 5-year IOTL:synopsis looks very different to the IOTL original plan.

That original plan is seven pages long. The rule of thumb in scripting is that one page equals one minute of runtime. That's seven minutes total, out of 968 (22 episodes times 44 minutes), or 0.7 percent. Surely there's room for more plotting out than that. As I said to Bahamut, however, I meant it in a relative, as opposed to absolute, sense.

Filming in Vancouver in that timeframe means that it is much more likely that one of the supporting cast will be Geraint Wyn Davies, since I believe it was illegal to film a genre drama in Canada during the period without him. That legislation was of course superseded in 1993 by the International Mark Sheppard Treaty.

Would you like to suggest a particular role for Davies?

 

[e of pi]

I have to ask though, how does the Vulkan Second Stage steer? IIRC, the Soyuz, Proton, and Zenit LVs IOTL use either multiple engines or specialised vernier engines to steer on all three axes in most - if not all - their main stages.

I'm reminded of the old saw--"How does it steer?" "Quite well, thank you." Like you say, based on Soviet history, probably a vernier engine. Don't ask me for the specs on which specific engine, though.

And, of course, I'd like to thank Michel for his hard work on these great-looking drawings.