PLUME: Which is the type of audience needed to mesh with the storytelling style of B5…
STRACZYNKSKI: It’s not a jingoistic show. If you really want to, I suppose you could just watch it for the space battles and stuff, but to really see what’s going on, you’ve got to pay attention. There’s stuff happening all the time in the corner of the eye and small little references. Some folks say they can watch the Trek shows while knitting or making dinner or whatever else, but with B5 you gotta stop, sit down, and watch the program – and you have to bring something to the table… Bring intelligence to it. Which is why it will never be a huge, popular show. It will always be a cult show, because it requires a lot of the viewer.
PLUME: And it’s a show not just with a past, but also with a future…
STRACZYNKSKI: Oh yeah. Most definitely. It’s just a different philosophy. One NASA engineer once sent me a note that said on a bulletin board there at NASA they pout up a sign saying, “Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem.”
PLUME: Do you see a lot of crossover between Trek fans and B5 fans? Or do you see it as being very segmented?
STRACZYNKSKI: It was segmented originally, because there was a religious war where the Trek universe offered one view of the future and we offered a different one. It was perceived at the time that you could only belong to one camp or the other. Either you bought into the Rodenberry future or you bought into the JMS future. There was a great deal of animosity amongst a large number of Trek fans towards the show…
PLUME: It’s ironic, considering the message behind Trek, that they would be so militant…
STRACZYNKSKI: Yeah… IDIC – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Once the show entered into syndication and it became less of an obvious threat to some of the Trek shows, I’ve heard more and more from fans that we’re getting more of the Trek crossover audience. There isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t get two or three pieces of e-mail from someone saying, “I didn’t watch the show when it was first on – I was a Trek fan and I thought it would be disloyal to watch it. I just started watching the show and I realize I missed one of the most important science fiction shows of the last several years, and I think it’s a great show.” So that audience – now that it’s safe to watch the show since it’s over – are now coming to the show as well.
PLUME: What were the difficulties that you had in casting the show, and what was your involvement in the process?
STRACZYNKSKI: Total involvement in the casting. I would just sit in the room until the character walked in the door. I always have a very strong image in my head of what the character is, and I just wait until someone walks in with that character. Obviously, in terms of the regulars, the studio had final approval, but they more or less went ahead with whatever we wanted to do. It was myself and my other producers – Doug Netter and John Copeland – who sat in the casting sessions for every episode, every character, and also for the main characters. Invariably, whenever I said, “That’s the character I see in my head…” – that was good enough, and that was that.
PLUME: In regards to the main characters, were there any actors that walked in and completely surprised you, and whom you never would have thought beforehand would meet your expectations, based on previous work?
STRACZYNKSKI: My failing as a producer is that I don’t tend to know actors by name or by previous work. I should keep up on that and I don’t, unfortunately. Andreas Katsulas, I really didn’t know of his work before B5. I’d seen him here and there, but I didn’t know much about him. Peter Jurasik, I already knew from Hill Street Blues. I tend not to bring that kind of baggage with me to casting, because if you tell me an actor’s name and background, I’ll forget it a week later – so everyone that walks in the door is tabula rasa.
PLUME: For example, the casting of Walter Koenig…
STRACZYNKSKI: That was a different scenario, because Walter’s a friend of mine. I had always wanted to use him, because I felt that he that he really never got the opportunity on the Trek projects to show what he can do. I had done one role which I had tailored for him, but he had a heart attack and bypass, and we had to recast on that one. I promised him, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll write another character for you.” I wrote Bester for Walter as a gift, to give him an opportunity to show what he could do, and the character took off.
PLUME: And it provided the audience a means to see that there was more to him than the often comic-relief of Chekov…
STRACZYNKSKI: Yeah, and what is kind of fun is that we were at a convention in the UK -the full cast, including myself and Walter – and we were standing in front of an audience of about 3,000 B5 fans who had come from all over the world to be there for this thing. We walked offstage, and I’m talking to somebody when I look over and I see Walter sitting by himself. I go over to him, and I said, “What’s up?” He had this faraway look in his eye, and he says, “I thought I would never see it again. I was there when Star Trek became a phenomenon and I saw this kind of reaction, and I thought I would never see it again in my lifetime. Here I am part of something again that has that same following.” I said, “Well, what’s the one common denominator between that show and this show? You! So it must be your fault…” He’s always loved the idea. It really gave him a chance to show his many colors, and I think he’s always appreciated that.
PLUME: And a lot of those Trek actors have been pegged as one-note genre actors…
STRACZYNKSKI: Which is unfortunate, because the reason the original Star Trek lingers in memory so well and has done so well is that those actors did a great job of creating those characters. That unfortunately became the stone around their neck, because they got typecast as being able to only do that. Well, the fact that they did it so well is because they’re good actors. It’s no that they are those things – they are good actors, but they could never get past that limitation. It was nice to be able to go back with Walter and show that he is much more than that.
PLUME: It makes me wonder how the militant Trek fans reacted when Koenig was cast…
STRACZYNKSKI: They weren’t happy about it.
PLUME: Did they see that as a betrayal?
STRACZYNKSKI: Yes… Even more so when Majel appeared on the show. She loved Babylon 5 and said as much at conventions, and was not well received at times when she said those things. When I heard about it, I said, “We have to do something symbolic here to stop this silly rivalry, because there’s no point to it. Both shows are different kinds of shows, so both shows deserve to live.” I called Majel and said, “Do you want to come and do an episode?” She said, “Absolutely. I’d love to do it.” I wrote that part for her and gave the script to her at a convention. She signed on immediately, and I think that did a bit to help to ease some of the tension amongst the Trek fans. Part of the problem in the fan community, also, is there were a lot of disaffected Star Trek fans before there was a Babylon 5, who felt that something wasn’t there – and they found what they were looking for in Babylon 5. This led them to say what they’d been saying before about the problems with Trek, but then it was perceived as Babylon 5 fans attacking Trek fans – when what it was disaffected Trek fans saying what they thought about the show, referring to what they thought it should be. That further added to the perception that there was a schism, when in fact there really wasn’t.
PLUME: Are you ever surprised by the passion by which the fans operate?
STRACZYNKSKI: Not really, because I’m a fan myself… I came out of the ranks of fandom. I went to conventions – the whole thing – as a younger person. I understand what it is to be passionate about something -whether it be about a book, a television show, or what have you. I mean, I’m a Superman fan. I collect Superman paraphernalia -books, pinbacks, statues… whatever. That’s why I understand what it is to be a fan, so no, I’m not appalled or surprised by it. I fully understand it.
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