Interview: Writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski Novelist, author and screenwriter Joe Straczynski has a long relationship with science fiction and related genres. He was the story editor and primary writer for the first-run syndicated episodes of The Twilight Zone revival series, and his cable adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde earned him nominations for both ACE and Writers Guild awards. He worked as a story editor on two animated series, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future and The Real Ghostbusters, and, among his other accomplishments, created and wrote most of the scripts for the Babylon 5 series and telefilms. We sat with him for an hour last May in his Vancouver production office, two stories above the soundstage. Q: What made the timing right to pursue another Babylon 5 project? A: The show started running on the SCI FI Channel pretty early on, and it began doing extremely well in the ratings. Someone said this might not be a bad idea to explore some more. Q: When you were working on the sequel series Crusade you had to contend with what you considered meddlesome intervention by cable network TNT. What kind of creative latitude are you getting from SCI FI Channel? A: So far, a very special latitude. I gave them the outline, which had to be done very quickly because by the time they made up their minds to proceed, we were looking at a possible labor action by the Writers Guild. So I had about four days to write the outline, and then a week-and-a-half to write the script. And then [SCI FI Channel] had about six or seven notes on the outline, and about five or six notes on the script. And they were all reasonable notes; that's par for the course. Q: What are you going after with the look and feel of the Rangers' spacecraft, the Liandra? A: This, should it go to series, isn't meant to be a ship-bound show. For the times that we are there [on board], we wanted a look that is definitely not [that of a] traditional science-fiction program. This is not a 200-person starship; it's a 20-guy ship, max. Q: Of all the original cast members, why choose G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) to return? A: I was already thinking about which character to bring in, and G'Kar was a strong prospect, but to literally sit down next to Andreas [in a chance restaurant meeting] after not seeing him for two-and-a-half years, it was [a sign], like, "Oh, thank you very much, I get it." Q: Tell us about how you came up with the unusual approach for the Liandra weapons system, which is symbiotic with specialist Sarah Cantrell (Myriam Sirois). A: Sarah is the ship, in that respect: If she moves, it fires. She jumps into the gunnery pod, and if she sees an incoming ship, she points at it, and the ship fires. It's a much faster reaction period [than conventional controls]. She's constantly getting sensory impulses from every part of the ship. Q: How did you come up with the balance of characters? A: It was a question of looking at what you'd actually need. You'd have a covert-operations person, you'd have someone who could handle first contact and political stuff, a translator, someone to fight, a leader, a healer, and so on — the very minimum crew you'd have to make this work. Q: Tell us about the contrast inherent in the very human, independent-thinking David Martel (Dylan Neal) captaining a ship in the Rangers, an organization steeped in Minbari tradition. A: The Minbari are very regimented and very precise, and while there's room for that, what makes us human, what makes us interesting, is our natural rebellious streak. And I wanted someone to embody that. Humans need to have reasons for things; just to obey isn't enough — you have to explain why. It is a cliché that the captain will go do what he has to do, and break the rules. What character is not that, in any TV serial? [Martel, on the other hand] would actually like to try and abide by the rules. But he butts up against them sometimes because they chafe, and he wants to know why. And a character who wants to know why is my kind of character. Q: Is it comfortable having a new story within the framework of this universe you'd created? A: Yes. It's very comfortable and familiar to me. I think it's funny in that, when I created the Babylon 5 universe, I created in broad strokes a history of a million years in either direction from our point of the story, and a thousand years in either direction in fine strokes. And the universe is saying, well, you did this, you know these stories, now you have to tell all of them. Having those stories worked out gives me something to stand on. Give me any place in the Babylon 5 story a thousand years in either direction, and I can tell you a story that takes place at that point. In [the episode] "Deconstruction of a Falling Star," we saw some hints of that — I [went forward] a hundred years in one act, 500 years in the next, a thousand thereafter, and a million in the final act. It was an overview of the whole B5 universe. Q: If this goes to series, would we ever get to see the Rangers crew cross paths with that of Babylon 5? A: I would like to go to B5 from time to time — that would be [the latter-day cast of] Lochley [Tracy Scoggins] and Zack [Jeff Conaway] and those guys — to see our established characters where possible, where logical. To read the transcript of the SCIFI.COM chat with J. Michael Straczynski, click here.