jms: More Than Words Can Say

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: fianna at netcom.com (Fianna)
Date: 28 Nov 1998 14:00:29 -0700
Lines: 42


It's been six years since The Gathering first aired on television and 
moments ago I wiped almost sixty minutes of tears from my eyes as 
Sleeping in Light concluded.  I know you receive multitudes of letters 
like this one from people thanking you for your contribution to 
television, the genre of science fiction, the art of storytelling, and 
their lives; I promised myself, however, that as I finished watching the 
Final Five I would let you know just how much this magnum opus you have 
created has affected one more fan.

You've created something that all writers dream of and few succeed in 
completing: characters that are at once individuals and yet we can each 
see part of ourselves in them all; a universe that seems real, that makes 
us believe, that makes us cheer, that makes us hate, that makes us smile 
and laugh and cry.  In my thirty years and all the thousands of books I 
have read and stories I have watched, none has affected me like Babylon 
5.  A place where you care for the characters, hope with them, ride out 
their tense moments on the edge of your seat, and in the process perhaps 
learn something about yourself.

I have never in my life been moved to tears by a story as much as I was 
by the scene with G'Kar and Londo in The Fall of Centauri Prime; by the 
entirety of Sleeping in Light.  I think I went through an entire box of 
Kleenex.

I could probably go on forever about all the things I think about the 
show and all the things I feel you have done, but the most important 
thing to me out of all the rest is that you stood up for something you 
believed in.  You persevered each season when the stations threatened to 
cancel the series and followed through with your spectacular vision to 
finish your five year arc.  To finish the story you wanted to tell.  
You've probably sacrificed more than any of your fans will ever know for 
your work, nothing this good comes without a price.  

For this dedication and vision I thank you.  I don't believe that those 
words are strong enough to express the emotions you've been able to evoke 
over the years watching your characters change and grow as we all have 
over the passage of time, but they are all I have.

Dave Welch



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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 30 Nov 1998 15:17:55 -0700
Lines: 13

Thanks...that's the goal, more than anything else: to make people feel
something for the characters, to break the glass in the TV set and pull people
through.  If we succeeded in that, then the effort was worthwhile.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com




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