E-mail Item 9646022 98/01/05 02:53 From: D.KINNEY Don H. Kinney To: D.KINNEY Don H. Kinney Sub: #134-A The Zocalo (1 of 4 /*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ THE ZOCALO #134 A Web Site: http://www.highfiber.com/~katana /*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ 6768 Subscriptions Est. 9000+ readers January 4, 1998 <*><*><*><*><*> TABLE OF CONTENTS <*><*><*><*><*> Part A Introduction Note from the Publisher Note from the Editor What's New J. Michael Straczynski Speaks News from Around the Networks B5 Fans on the Net: Erez Zadok Part B Zocalo Cafe - Let's Talk Discussion Replies Topic for Next Week Letters to the Staff Part C Zocalo Newsstand Convention Reports Upcoming Cons Schedules/Programs Convention Attendance B5 Cast in Other Roles B5 Fan Clubs and Mailing lists New B5 Publications B5 Merchandise B5 Sightings B5 Chase Part D Odds and Ends Trading Post Convention Calendar The Babylon 5 Collectable Card Game - A Review Earth Force Sourcebook for the Babylon Project - A Review Important Addresses Newsletter Basics ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ INTRODUCTION ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> Well, another year has come and gone! Wow, where did the time go? But ....we have something to look forward to this year - a constant viewing time for the show! In a number of areas in the country, that's something very unique. I don't know about you, but I just can't wait. Not only do we get new movies and a re-worked pilot to view, but we have new episodes and all of our old favorites to watch! Doesn't get much better than that! A big THANK YOU must go to JMS and everyone involved with Babylon 5. You've brought us something quite special. Looking back over 1997, I can say that it was a VERY good year. There have been a lot of changes, lots of new developments, and I've made a LOT of new friends! I've enjoyed myself, not only here at the Z, but as I've traveled around the country to conventions in places like Brisbane, Australia; San Francisco, Denver, Cincinnati and Baltimore. I hope I'll be able to get out more this year and can't wait to visit Sydney and Berlin! Frequent flyer miles - here I come! I just hope that everyone has enjoyed the experience as much as I have. On a more serious note, we hope that the Z will continue to grow - and improve in 1998. This is only possible with your help and cooperation. YOU make the Zocalo a publication that brings together B5 fans to share their views, concerns, and feelings. It's a "virtual" community - and a pretty neat one! We hope that you will continue to give your support to the show and to the Zocalo over the next year. We can not understate our gratitude to all of you who have sent in convention reports, reviews, letters, topic suggestions and discussion replies. You've taken time out from your busy schedules to share with us. Thank you for being there for us! No one knows what 1998 will bring. But everyone at the Zocalo sincerely hopes that each and every one of you has a safe and happy New Year. Take care. Sandy <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> NOTE FROM THE EDITOR <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> Happy New Year to everyone! I hope your holidays were wonderful and safe. The Zocalo has gone through so much growth and change since we sent our first issue out in March of 1995. It's hard to believe that our first issue was only 4 pages! So much has been added and changed from that first issue and it's been all through contributions from you, our subscribers. Don does a wonderful job of interviews! We all miss Eric dreadfully but his work load became too heavy for him to keep up his weekly, highly detailed synopsis of our favorite series. After 3 years of handling the mailing list manually through Access and Eudora Pro, with the help of Adam the Zocalo is now set up on a listserv which takes a lot of the headache away. It has been amazing how our mailing list has grown from 24 subscribers to over 6700. Before switching to the list serve, I had a listing of subscribers from 50 different countries. Unfortunately, the listserv doesn't do a complete demographic breakdown as it groups all addresses ending in .com or .org as originating in the US. I do know we still have many people subscribing from outside of the US and I'm hoping that their local TV stations or even a syndicated network in their country will be able to contract with TNT or Babylonian Productions or whomever for the rights to broadcast the telemovies and season 5! I would hate for anyone to miss this series! JMS has brought us one of the best Science Fiction TV series we have had the pleasure of watching in many years. He has breathed life into characters and has made them very real for each of us. I'm amazed at what he has been able to create on the limited budget he has and would dearly love to see what he could do with the huge budget available to the other SF series/movies. Talk about blowing your socks off . . . . . you would need a full shoulder harness seatbelt for your chair! Thank you, Joe, for the wonderful series and for the opportunity to create The Zocalo. We hope to continue hearing from all our subscribers in 1998! If you have an idea for a submission or possibly a short series of submissions, please let us know! We have found many good writers among our subscribers and we would love to hear from more! Thank you to all our subscribers! Without you, we wouldn't be here. Jan ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ WHAT'S NEW ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI SPEAKS <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> Q: Can you give me an idea of when the Psi Corps pins will be available? A: The Psi Corps pins are in, have been in for a couple of weeks now, and they're just gorgeous...I don't know why they haven't been added to the Emporium yet, they should be there now or soonish. They're absolutely the same as the ones we use in the show, same as with the Earthforce pins. Among the crew, so far the Psi Corps hats have turned out to be the most popular...they're buying 'em up fast. BTW, down the road there may be a limited edition of the Psi Corps pins signed by Walter.... Q: We've seen Lochley in the old EA uniform. How will we see everyone dressed in season five? A: Sheridan: civvies (as President of the Interstellar Alliance). Franklin and Zack: the black uniforms. Lochley: in EA blues (and will stay that way). Garibaldi: civvies (for a different sort of position). Q: Where are you more comfortable? Writing? On the set where you see your words come to life? A: First and foremost, I'm a writer. That's not just what I do, it's who and what I *am*. So of all the things I do, that's when I'm most in my element. John Flinn can beat me on stage in composing a shot, John Copeland can configure a fight scene better in editing than I can (most days), Chris Franke can come up with touches in music that I would never think of... But behind the keyboard, nobody can touch me. (Hmm...I wonder what my subconscious would make of that statement; I think I just said more than I wanted to.) Anyway...this is where I'm at home. My goal is real simple: to write better than anyone who can write faster than me, and faster than anyone who can write better than me. Q: For new people, is it going to be confusing to begin watching season 5? A: My gut reaction...because S5 starts pretty cleanly, and Sheridan's new situation is set up right from the git-go, I think that you'd be okay to just dive in. Not knowing at the time that there'd be any kind of problem in the airing of the final 4, but having learned from experience that nothing about this show is EVER easy or predictable, I did sort of a primer about where things stand now in the top of the teaser, done breathlessly by Corwin as Lochley arrives. (That ain't much of a spoiler since it happens in the first few minutes of the show.) Q: Can you tell us a little about how the re-editing of "The Gathering" was done? A: The first thing I did was to sit down with the editor assigned to the re-edit, Suzie, and go through the original script for the pilot. My first words to her were, "Put everything in that ain't there." To that end, she redigitized all of the footage from missing scenes, and had available all of the available footage of the other scenes for digitizing as we went. Note that I said all the *available* footage. The folks at WB who held custody of the film (we don't keep that stuff, we're not allowed to by contract, they store film, negative, prints, all that stuff) put the negative canisters into storage...and at one point in the intervening 4 years, there had been water damage, and on another occasion, apparently rats had gotten in there and chewed some of the original negatives (and in most cases there weren't positive struck of those takes). Take your reaction to the foregoing, put it in front of the Hubble telescope, and you will have mine. However, we lucked out...where there were some takes that are gone, we were able to find enough others (masters instead of a two-shot, or a close-up instead of an over-shoulder) and B-camera footage that we were able to build solid versions of those scenes. We didn't always have as many choices as we're used to but there was more than enough for our needs. Suzie then dumped all of the newly edited additional scenes into the existing pilot, and that gave us the new running time (we added about 14 minutes). So at that point, John and I went in and worked to slice down the previously existing scenes, doing what we do with B5: tightening every loose screw and nut as much as we could. One or two incidental, unimportant scenes in the original pilot went out, because they added nothing and shouldn't have been there in the first place (a total of about 3 minutes). The remaining 11 minutes we made up in just tightening scenes, which were *so* lax and slow that it's amazing at times. In some cases, we substituted one take for another in the pre-existing pilot when we had a better reaction, or played scenes closer for more intimacy. (One of the problems with the pilot is that it kept the audience far from the action, and the actors far from each other, something we changed in our shooting style for the series...here we tried to change it when we could and when we had the coverage.) Tiny example: when Kosh falls down upon arriving at B5, that sequence ends with a big honking wide downshot of a nearly empty docking bay, with Kosh far from us, and Sinclair looking down (away from us) when he says "Damn." Then we go from that to a wide shot of the MedLab. Same framing. So I had Suzie look for a take where we panned up from a close on Kosh, to a close on Sinclair for that line, so it's more immediate, more personal, and the jump to the next scene doesn't feel like the one before. See, directors like to stay wide in their cuts, so you can see their nifty camera angles, see the set, the lighting...but after you've established where we are, most people want to see the *characters*, not the walls or how the camera moves. That was what we tried to fix where we could. We couldn't totally re-edit the pilot, because we hadn't been given the money for something that intensive (the main expense is in opening up all the audio stems in the sound mix). But all the stuff I wanted back in, is now in, and the scenes I wanted to fix, I fixed. I also got the thing back to its original format. All TV movies are 6 acts. Because PTEN wanted more commercial breaks, I had to re-jig the structure of the thing into 9 acts, which meant moving some scenes into places where they weren't as effective, and frankly after 9 acts you just get tired of watching. Here I was able to move scenes around and get back to the original 6 act structure that was intended for the thing, and that alone makes a huge difference in how the film feels. One of the biggest changes is the one least immediately apparent. After we finished the original pilot, some folks at WB felt that Laurel was too...strong. They will rarely put it in terms quite as blatant as that, but that was the message...she was "unlikeable, unsympathetic, harsh." Meaning some of the guys felt she was too strong, let's cut to the chase, okay? They wanted her to loop her lines, soften their (her) delivery. I fought this tooth and nail. I fought this until finally I was pulled aside and it was communicated to me that B5 was, after all, still an unknown property, could be a big failure, and if we ever wanted to see this thing on the air, we'd accommodate this note (which was, I have to admit on balance, one of the few they had). The advice was, in essence, "Pick your battles." So, reluctantly, I let it get looped by Tamlyn. But now, when the re-edit was commissioned, and with the person at the studio who insisted on this now no longer AT the studio, I told Suzie, "Screw it, put back her original production track and trash the loops." Instantly, Laurel's energy level comes up, the performance is better...it just *feels* more natural now. So basically, we did a lot...some of it may not be immediately apparent (improving a sound here, altering coverage, adding additional sound layers, redoing a composite shot of the garden), but over the duration of watching it, it's just *better*. It's still a *tad* slower around the middle than I would've liked, but that's a WP (writer problem), nothing that can be fixed in an edit. It's just exposition-dense there, and nothing of a sort that can be cut. Q: If "Crusade" gets a go-ahead, what will your involvement be? A: I'll exec produce, same as with B5, develop the overall arc, as with B5 (though it's not as rigorous an arc), do all the same stuff in editing, post, all the same stuff. About the only real difference I foresee would be my intent to only write about half the episodes this time around; I'm looking forward to seeing what other writers can do in the B5 universe. COMMENTS ON THE TNT "Guide" Q: Are you concerned by the amount of attention TNT seems to be placing on "you" and the show? A: I find I'm alternately pleased and chagrined by the attention. When I saw that part of it, I kind of cringed, but what they tell me is that this is the sort of thing that's useful to promoting the show in general. The firsts represented by B5 mainly come from the storytelling aspects of it, and that it's really one vision in an intense sort of way not really done much before. So that's something they can pin their promotion on. It comes out of their real respect for what we've done here. It's very weird to look around one day and discover, by doing what you've been doing in fair anonymity for as long as you can remember, that suddenly you're a celebrity, even a minor-league one. You're talking to a guy here who couldn't get a date in high school, for cryin' out loud.... Q: There's been a lot of emphasis on the amount of "fun" you all have. Any comment? A: Yeah, it's a struggle, and hard work, no mistake, but we also have our fair share of fun as well. What makes it more bearable is that we've instituted a humane system of film-making. Most shows shoot 16 hour days and then some. We shoot 12 and that's it. If you plan out what you're doing properly, and don't get reckless, you can do that. The Directors' Guild has been fighting for 12 hour days for years, and been told that it couldn't be done. Then recently they heard about us, and their jaws dropped, and they're coming out to do an article that says, in essence, see, it CAN be done. And has been done successfully for 5 years. Q: Any news on the cookbook? A: I just finished my notes on it before we broke for the Xmas hiatus, so sometime in the early Spring, I would think. <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> NEWS FROM AROUND THE NETWORKS by Sandra Bruckner (sgbruckner@aol.com) <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> I have a few quickies for you this week, since this issue is rather long already. 1. Mira Furlan was in the BBS at TV Guide last week answering questions. The transcript should be available soon, but you can catch the questions asked at http://bbs2.tvguide.com:8086/television/furlan. Transcripts are available for other B5 folks, including Richard Biggs, Peter Jurasik and Bill Mumy. 2. For those of us not in a major metropolitan area being bombarded by the wonderful advertising by TNT for our favorite show, check out http://www.netopia.geocities.com/k57/pages/view/index.nhtml. It has great pictures of the HUGE poster series in New York City. 3. I found a great new web site I just happened upon while doing a generic Babylon 5 search on web sites. The URL is http://www.speedlink.com/mholtz/logbook/babylon5/default.htm -- The Babylon 5 LogBook. It's a wonderful resource. It lists all the episodes in order with a brief synopsis for each, along with basic information about the episode: cast members, guest cast and special notes. I love this site and I think you will too. Here's one to show or point new viewers to - and one that you can now to use as you watch along with TNT. 4. I pulled the following schedule from the Lurker's Guide of Babylon 5, It has the current schedule for all B5 episodes - old and new. B5 premieres on TNT Sunday, January 4 in a four-hour block ("In the Beginning" followed by "The Gathering") starting at 8PM Eastern, with a repeat immediately afterwards. "The Gathering" will be a reedited version with missing footage from the original and a new score by Christopher Franke. Specials / Prequel / Pilot Movie Air Date Time (EST) Title 97/12/31 10:00AM The Guide to Babylon 5 98/01/03 11:00AM The Guide to Babylon 5 98/01/03 5:30PM The Guide to Babylon 5 98/01/04 8:00PM Babylon 5: In the Beginning 98/01/04 10:00PM The Gathering 98/01/05 12:00AM The Guide to Babylon 5 98/01/05 12:30AM Babylon 5: In the Beginning 98/01/05 2:30AM The Guide to Babylon 5 98/01/05 5:30AM The Guide to Babylon 5 98/01/10 8:00PM Babylon 5: In the Beginning 98/01/14 10:00PM Babylon 5: In the Beginning 98/01/21 5:30AM The Guide to Babylon 5 Season One ("Signs and Portents") TNT will rebroadcast seasons 1-4 weeknights at 7PM Eastern. Air Date Ep# Prod# Title 98/01/05 1 103 Midnight on the Firing Line 98/01/06 2 102 Soul Hunter 98/01/07 3 104 Born to the Purple 98/01/08 4 101 Infection 98/01/09 5 108 The Parliament of Dreams 98/01/12 6 110 Mind War 98/01/13 7 107 The War Prayer 98/01/14 8 106 And The Sky Full Of Stars 98/01/15 9 113 Deathwalker 98/01/16 10 105 Believers 98/01/19 11 111 Survivors 98/01/20 12 114 By Any Means Necessary 98/01/21 13 116 Signs and Portents 98/01/22 14 119 TKO 98/01/23 15 109 Grail 98/01/26 16 122 Eyes 98/01/27 17 115 Legacies 98/01/28 18 120 A Voice in the Wilderness part 1 98/01/29 19 121 A Voice in the Wilderness part 2 98/01/30 20 118 Babylon Squared 98/02/02 21 117 The Quality of Mercy 98/02/03 22 112 Chrysalis Season Two ("The Coming Of Shadows") 98/02/04 23 201 Points of Departure 98/02/05 24 202 Revelations 98/02/06 25 203 The Geometry of Shadows 98/02/09 26 204 A Distant Star 98/02/10 27 205 The Long Dark 98/02/11 28 206 A Spider in the Web 98/02/12 29 208 Soul Mates 98/02/13 30 207 A Race Through Dark Places 98/02/16 31 209 The Coming of Shadows 98/02/17 32 210 GROPOS 98/02/18 33 211 All Alone in the Night 98/02/19 34 212 Acts of Sacrifice 98/02/20 35 213 Hunter, Prey 98/02/23 36 215 There All the Honor Lies 98/02/24 37 214 And Now For a Word 98/02/25 38 217 In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum 98/02/26 39 216 Knives 98/02/27 40 218 Confessions and Lamentations 98/03/02 41 220 Divided Loyalties 98/03/03 42 219 The Long, Twilight Struggle 98/03/04 43 221 Comes the Inquisitor 98/03/05 44 222 The Fall of Night Season Three ("Point of No Return") 98/03/06 45 301 Matters of Honor 98/03/09 46 302 Convictions 98/03/10 47 303 A Day in the Strife 98/03/11 48 305 Passing Through Gethsemane 98/03/12 49 304 Voices of Authority 98/03/13 50 306 Dust to Dust 98/03/16 51 307 Exogenesis 98/03/17 52 308 Messages from Earth 98/03/18 53 309 Point of No Return 98/03/19 54 310 Severed Dreams 98/03/20 55 311 Ceremonies of Light and Dark 98/03/23 56 313 Sic Transit Vir 98/03/24 57 312 A Late Delivery from Avalon 98/03/25 58 314 Ship of Tears 98/03/26 59 315 Interludes and Examinations 98/03/27 60 316 War Without End, Part One 98/03/30 61 317 War Without End, Part Two 98/03/31 62 318 Walkabout 98/04/01 63 319 Grey 17 Is Missing 98/04/02 64 320 And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place 98/04/03 65 321 Shadow Dancing 98/04/06 66 322 Z'ha'dum Season Four ("No Surrender, No Retreat") 98/04/07 67 401 The Hour of the Wolf 98/04/08 68 402 Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi? 98/04/09 69 403 The Summoning 98/04/10 70 404 Falling Toward Apotheosis 98/04/13 71 405 The Long Night 98/04/14 72 406 Into the Fire 98/04/15 73 407 Epiphanies 98/04/16 74 408 The Illusion of Truth 98/04/17 75 409 Atonement 98/04/20 76 410 Racing Mars 98/04/21 77 411 Lines of Communication 98/04/22 78 412 Conflicts of Interest 98/04/23 79 413 Rumors, Bargains and Lies 98/04/24 80 414 Moments of Transition 98/04/27 81 415 No Surrender, No Retreat 98/04/28 82 416 The Exercise of Vital Powers 98/04/29 83 417 The Face of the Enemy 98/04/30 84 418 Intersections in Real Time 98/05/01 85 419 Between the Darkness and the Light 98/05/04 86 420 Endgame 98/05/05 87 421 Rising Star 98/05/06 88 422 The Deconstruction of Falling Stars 98/??/?? Thirdspace Season Five ("The Wheel of Fire") 98/01/21 89 501 No Compromises 98/01/28 90 502 The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari 98/02/04 91 503 The Paragon of Animals 98/02/11 92 504 A View from the Gallery 98/02/18 93 505 Learning Curve 98/02/25 94 506 Strange Relations 98/03/04 95 507 Secrets of the Soul 98/03/11 96 508 In the Kingdom of the Blind 98/03/18 97 509 Cat and Mouse 98/03/25 98 511 Phoenix Rising 98/04/01 99 510 Day of the Dead 98/04/08 100 512 The Ragged Edge 98/04/15 101 513 The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father 98/04/22 102 514 Meditations on the Abyss 98/06/17 110 522 Sleeping in Light <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> B5 Fans on the Net: Erez Zadok - Keeping Lists, Keeping the Faith (Part 1) By Don Kinney (d.kinney@genie.com) <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*> The maintainer of the JMS-Digest -- a collection of Joe Straczynski's posts to the newsgroups and online services -- and Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Columbia University has a life outside BABYLON 5 and computers. Erez Zadok likes to cook, experimenting with well-known recipes to try to improve them. The greatest compliment to his cooking skills are the diners intent on his repast. After a stressful day, he'll come home and put on one of his favorite classical CDs to revitalize himself. He finds that blasting away with classical music on the headphones helps him write computer programs faster. Erez also likes 60s and 70s rock though you're likely to find him attending a classical concert at one of the fine New York venues like the Lincoln Center. He's an amateur photographer. He always carries a manual camera in his bag. When Erez is out for any reason -- not just travel or vacation -- and comes across an interesting scene, he'll snap a couple of shots. To save himself time to write a Ph.D. thesis and still have something of a life, Erez created the JMS-DIGEST and saved us some time. Don: Why did you get involved with promoting the show to this degree? What drove you to become involved in the show on a deeper level than most fans? Erez: I'd say it was a progression over time, stemming from several traits of my personality: I've been a Star Trek fan for years. I've watched and recorded every episode of each series and movie. I was particularly fond of TOS and TNG. I also watched and liked other unusual and unique shows like Twin Peaks, Ren & Stimpy, and The Simpsons. You'll note that all of these were considered ground-breaking TV shows -- the first of their kind that pushed the envelope further in one aspect or another. What attracted me to all of them was that they all offered me something new, never seen before, and that made me *want* to tape the show and watch it a few more times. After a taping a few episodes of B5's first season, it was clear to me that I was watching another unique show. I'm a Computer Scientist. As part of my profession, I learned much about time optimization. Having been raised in Israel, and served 3 years in the Israeli army, I also learned much about efficiency (the country has to make the most out of what limited resources it has.) So, like everyone else, I'm a busy person. If I could find a way that will provide me the information I needed in the most efficient way, I would. For example, I find it annoying to watch the 1-hour news shows on most networks; instead, I watch CNN Headline News or listen to 1010 WINS for 10-20 minutes a day and I get my fill of "what's going on around me." I was very pleased to find out that the creator of B5 was online. It was an unheard of act. Finally, I could read the words directly from the "horse's mouth," and even pose questions directly to him! Wow. After reading the B5 newsgroups for a few weeks, it became apparent that there were several "classes" of posts: the highly valued and informative ones from JMS on one end, and the spam/flames/junk on the low end. There were, and still are, many useful posts and discussions not involving JMS; sometimes I would read them, but often I'd have to skip them for lack of time. I needed a way to cut the time spent reading USENET newsgroups. I decided to put my programming skills to some good use. Several months before people started posting JMS' digests on the review list, I already had a very crude script that pulled JMS' posts out of the unmoderated newsgroup, and mailed them to me. The script was very simple, but it freed me from having to read hundreds of messages on rastb5 daily - - a task I would have been delighted to do, but simply didn't have the time to pursue. I kept on tweaking the script every month, so as to increase the signal to noise ratio of the posts it pulled out the newsgroup. It wasn't perfect. An automatic system can never be as accurate as a human sifting through posts by hand, but it's close to it, and does not require human intervention. If I had to collect JMS' posts by hand, B5JMS would never have existed. When the moderator of the B5 review list asked if anyone else would volunteer to collect and post JMS' posts, I offered to make such a list. I'm an experienced system administrator. So I know what it takes in terms of disk/CPU/bandwidth resources, and how to manage mailing lists. Making my script into a mailing list was easy. I set things up, and went through two test phases: an 'alpha' testing with about 10 subscribers, and a 'beta' phase with about 50 subscribers. After a few weeks I was ready for prime time. Initially I had expected a few hundred subscribers, and that my involvement would be minimal. I designed the list to be a "read-only" list (i.e., no posts or discussions allowed), and from its inception I said that my maintainer (I don't call myself moderator) involvement would be minimal. My expectations and seriousness towards maintaining the list changed when I realized that it was more popular than I expected. I know that most of my subscribers are in the same boat: they don't have time to read USENET or other B5 discussion groups. So I figured that there are other pieces of information that they might find useful, even if they do not involve JMS' posts directly, and so I posted them to the list. Examples include the Claudia Christian situation, announcements of new newsgroups, the TNT deals, etc. I've always received thank you notes from subscribers for this extra info (as well as the usual notes telling me how much they like the list and that it saves them time). So one reason I've become more involved was simply to provide a better and more informative service to the many subscribers. But there's a more serious and bigger reason. Over the years, having watched various shows, I've noticed their inconsistencies, wide-ranging writing qualities, and their tendency to get "stale" after a few seasons. These were, and continue to be, favorite topics of heated debates on the Star Trek newsgroups. I found it annoying that some shows left unresolved threads forever (ST:TNG among others) or used science that blatantly defied all known laws of physics. I found it tiring to watch the same stuff essentially season after season (I feel that way about the X-Files). I found it particularly frustrating that there was no way for the fans to really understand what goes on behind the scenes, and that the "Big Networks" never seem to cater to the really devoted fans -- only to what advertisers want, often appealing to the lowest common denominators. So I resigned to the fact that I will have to watch every episode of a show I generally like, because occasionally a true gem will come a long. And then Babylon 5 came along and shattered my expectations... Here there was a show that left no thread unresolved; a show with mostly one writer, and only one creative force behind it. A show for which the story was more important to the creator than how much money he could make off it. A show that kept on getting better, thus not becoming stale after 1-2 seasons. A show whose promises were fulfilled realistically. A show that showed you that there are no quick and easy solutions, but also gave you hope. A show that managed to do more with fewer resources. A show that had all the big guns against it: Paramount and the ST franchise, WB, UPN, and FOX networks squeezing out the available spots syndication market, as well as numerous naysayers on the Nets. In short, an underdog. So I decided to try to help the show as much as I can, no matter how little. Even if my contribution was to be tiny, at least I would have tried. I *had* to do something to make sure the show remains on the air. If I didn't, and it got canceled, I would forever beat myself for not doing something. In the spirit of the show itself, I took the motto that one man *can* make a difference. So I opted to improve the B5JMS scripts to provide even more info in less words, and offer a DIGEST version, and a Web page, and occasionally post related messages that I believed my subscribers will find useful. For an example, during renewal seasons I asked my subscribers to join the letter writing campaigns to their local stations and WB. As a computer science theoretician might say, I'd like to think that I've had a small, positive, non-zero effect on the show's success. If I had made it possible for only a handful of subscribers to remain informed about the show, rather than dropping out of reading USENET due to lack of time, and if only one of those subscribers sent a letter to their local station or WB asking for renewal of the show -- then I feel it was worth it. Don: What's the strangest thing that's happened to you since you started the list? Erez: I guess it'd have to be when I found out that a very small number of my subscribers are actually "non-fans." They are some of the more vocal people who criticize the show and JMS at every opportunity, and were responsible for some of the heated flame wars on the unmoderated newsgroups before rastb5m was created. I was surprised, but not displeased. I created the list with the promise that it is open to everyone, fans and critics alike. I think it is a testament to the list's success, that even its critics find it useful to get a concise thread involving what JMS says publicly. Continued in the next ZOCALO. <*><*><*> The Zocalo continues in part B <*><*><*> =END=