Last year, theCW announced that they had ordered a pilot to reboot the epic sci-fi seriesBabylon 5from series creator J. Michael Straczynski. In the recentnews of CW’s fall 2022’s pilotsbeing announced, theBabylon 5reboot was curiously absent, causing fans to wonder if the show was dead before arrival. Now,thanks to a post to his Patreon followers that he has made public for all to read, Straczynski has made it clear that the show is being held for the 2023 pilot season.
In the salient quote from the post, Straczynski says, “However:shortly before that piece [the list of CW shows getting a fall 2022 pilot] was published, I received a call from Mark Pedowitz, President of The CW. (I should mention that Mark is a great guy and a long-time fan of B5. He worked for Warners when the show was first airing, and always made sure we got him copies of the episodes before they aired because he didn’t want to wait to see what happened next.)
Calling the pilot “a damned fine script,” he said he was taking the highly unusual step of rolling the project and the pilot script into next year, keeping B5 in active development while the dust settles on the sale of the CW.”
Babylon 5fans can be happy in the knowledge that the rebooted show is still in production but for a fall 2023 target instead of a fall 2022 target.
Babylon 5is a Reboot Rather than a Continuation
Babylon 5is a reboot of a show of the same name that premiered in 1993. The original show featured CGI graphics that were ahead of its time, although such graphics feel dated now. But whereBabylon 5truly set itself apart from other sci-fi series at the time was the way the seasons told a full story instead of “monster of the week” type of stories. These season-long story arcs allowed for greater plot and character development than other sci-fi shows of the time. It was a model thatStar Trek: Deep Space Ninewould also adopt in later seasons.
When it was announced that a newBabylon 5was in development with series creator J. Michael Straczynski at the helm, many fans were hoping for a continuation of the story from the original series. There was so much more story to tell after all! But with so many of the original cast having passed away, including Mira Furlan, who played the Minbari ambassador Delenn, just last year, it would be impractical to continue the story without those members of the cast. How can you tell John Sheridan’s story without Ambassador Delenn, after all?
Straczynski, therefore, decided the best route was to reinvent the whole story. Start over with the characters we know and love and tell all new stories. With anyone else behind the helm of the newBabylon 5series, such a reinvention would be far more difficult. But Straczynski, having created the original show, has a far better understanding of what needs to happen in the reboot than anyone else would.
Hopefully, as 2022 wears on, we will hear more about the upcomingBabylon 5reboot, but it is good to know that the project is not dead.
