Corrections.
Message:David Warner seeks the Grail in season 1. This is a terrible episode - one of two that series creator J Michael Straczynski says should have all copies gathered up and thrown off a pier - although it's notable for the Na'kaleenn feeder; the first time a non-humanoid character had been done in CG for TV. A total waste of David Warner.
Michael York appears in season 3, episode 13, "A Late Delivery from Avalon." York portrays a PTSD veteran who had retreated into a delusion of being King Arthur. Worth it for the scene where "Arthur" and G'kar go pub crawling.
If you're going to skip seasons, start with season 3.
As another correction JMS didn't have to cram "two seasons" of stuff into the back half of season 4. He did truncate by about 7 episodes. Season 4, ep 18 "Intersections in Real Time," was supposed to be the season finale. When you see that episode you'll realize having THAT as a finale would have been one ballsy move. Most of the material cut dealt with the Minibari Civil War, which is now three episodes instead of half a season.
Yes, season 5 suffers. Under TNT the show lost a quarter of the budget, went from six shooting days an episode to four, and, yes, had to pad out a subplot. Then the back half of the season gets on track. No show can lose that much budget and production time and not suffer - season 3 Classic Trek comes to mind...
Let's think about money for a moment. Babylon 5's budget for season 4 was just under $800k/episode ($1.4 million in 2022 money), shot 24 episodes a year, with basically one work week to shoot an episode. For comparison, Trek TNG was $3.6 million/episode after adjusted for inflation. The Expanse is in a different category altogether - about $5 million/episode and three work weeks to shoot for a ten-to-twelve episode season. The TV game has changed.
Then, of course, crap like The Big Bang Theory cost $7 million per 22-minute episode just for the salaries of the front credit cast. Total cost? I dunno, but that's a minimum of $14 mil per TV hour for a standing set sitcom. Let's call it $15 million for a TV-hour...
That vaunted "billion dollar budget" for Rings of Power is misrepresented, by the way. Amazon has said IF they do ALL FIVE seasons of the show TOTAL cost might reach a billion. Back out the $250 million paid to the Tolkien estate and divide the rest by 50 (projected number of episodes) and that's $15 million per episode. That's a lot of money, yes... Why, per TV hour it's the same cost as a stupid sitcom about autistic nerds with hot girlfriends.
Yeah, I digress. What else is new?
Yours,
IronMike
29-Nov-2022