Racing the Night (no spoilers)

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: Roanna <roanna at mindspring.com>
Date: 8 Aug 1999 15:44:17 -0600
Lines: 20

By the time I was through with this episode, I had questioned
the lineage and early childhood education of TNT executives and
had wondered just how many times the handbook said that the
network head had to have been dropped on his cerebellum to
qualify for the position.

Don't I recall, somewhere in TNT's spin control words to the
effect "we wanted an adventure series, and this wasn't what we
expected" ?


Feh!!! Booms, big guns, chases, and CGI effects weren't what
they expected, eh?  Not only do they not keep their contracts,
they are too stupid to understand action outside of a wrasslin
ring.

BUT I'M NOT BITTER.  I'M JUST CALLING THE THENTA MEKUR...

Ro, channeling the spirit of Na'toth.


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 8 Aug 1999 17:05:16 -0600
Lines: 47

>Don't I recall, somewhere in TNT's spin control words to the
>effect "we wanted an adventure series, and this wasn't what we
>expected" ?
>

Yup.  They said the first episodes were "too intellectual" and didn't have any
action or humor.  

But sooner or later these episodes have to air, and that kinda takes care of
that.  As the remainder of these first 5 will show.

Aside from the fact that the action they wanted was fist-fights, they were
totally unable to visualize the EFX sequences.  We put storyboard sequences
into the edited master so they'd have an idea, but they kept saying there's no
action...they looked at Racing and the one next week and said "no
action"...now, you look at those two (hell, those five) eps and tell me if
there's no action.

Best of all...after they stopped production after these first 5 were shot,
there were many demands made that, it was clear, had to be given or we would
not be allowed back into production.  One of the notes that came...and I'm
quoting this verbatim...had to do with Dureena, who if you look here in these
episodes has a more exotic look, there's  a bit more prosthetic work, and so
on.

TNT note: "Why do we have to go for the cliche that aliens always look
different than humans?  Why can't she look just like a human but be alien by
her *attitude?*"

Hence her makeup was softened, the forehead prosthetic minimized almost to
invisibility, and the contact lenses minimized.  

(As an aside...they *almost* didn't let us complete these five episodes.  I
think they wanted to let nothing come out to contradict their cover story.  The
only reason they got finished was that WB said that if they *didn't* let 'em
get finished, TNT would bear the brunt of the cost, and that was that.)


 jms

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




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