Four From Five

I don't care what Sheldon Cooper says--for all its flaws, Babylon 5 was a pretty special show.  Planned as a single story that would take five years to tell, it ran from 1993 to 1998, though I didn't watch it until a few years later. What flaws am I referring to?  Well, weak dialogue, some poor performances, actors leaving the show and having to be replaced, and a fairly pointless last season, for starters.  But I can forgive it all when the plot, which has a sweep few shows have even attempted, is working.

Creator J. Michael Straczynski recently talked about the show at a Phoenix ComiCon, and explained something that I've always wondered about.

He spoke about a number of actors on the show who are now gone. There's Andreas Katsulas, whose work as G'Kar may be the best acting in the series. Katsulas was dying a few years ago, and so the two had a dinner where JMS told him all the behind-the-scenes stuff Katsulas wasn't privy too.  Also dead are Jeff Conaway, who became a regular on B5 after essentially flushing his career down the toilet due to drug use, and Richard Biggs, who played Dr. Stephen Franklin. Conaway begged for a chance to prove himself, and got it. Biggs, it turns out, was almost completely deaf and had to read lips to get his cues.

But the one I wanted most to know about was Michael O'Hare, who played Commander Jeffrey Sinclair in the first season.  But then the actor left the show, only returning for occasional appearances, while Bruce Boxleitner essentially replaced him as Commander John Sheridan. This was tricky for the show, since Sinclair was not only the lead, but central, I believe, to the whole five-year arc.  Removing and replacing him would only happen for some pretty serious reason. I'd always assumed it was because, as an actor, O'Hare was stiff, while Boxleitner was far more charismatic.

But according to JMS, that wasn't the reason at all. In fact, it was because he had severe mental illness, and could barely make it through the first season.  The show almost had to be shut down.  O'Hare was able to soldier his way through, but after that someone else had to be brought in.

JMS promised to not reveal this until after O'Hare was gone.  He retired from acting and died last year, so now it's finally out.  I can't know for sure what the original plan was, but my guess (with as little spoiler as possible) is the big moment saved for Sinclair in a later seasons was perhaps meant to be the big ending to the show.