Posted in: CW, Preview, TV | Tagged: babylon 5, cw, Exclusive Preview, j. michael straczynski, preview

Babylon 5: The CW, J. Michael Straczynski Teaming on Reboot Series

Published Mon, 27 Sep 2021 12:29:38 -0500

Proving once again that you just can't keep a good franchise down for long. On Monday, The CW announced it was teaming with original series creator J. Michael Straczynski for what is being described as a "from-the-ground-up" reboot of the original sci-fi drama Babylon 5. With Straczynski set to write the script and the potential series penning from Warner Bros. TV, the new series would focus on John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner in the original series), an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers, and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.

Should the project be given a series greenlight from the network, Straczynski will executive produce via his Studio JMS and Warner Bros. TV on board as the studio. Originally airing in 1993, WBTV's Babylon 5: The Gathering would go from being a one-and-done television movie to a series once viewers' reactions for more continued to grow. Running for five seasons and 110 episodes (moving to TNT for its fifth and final season), the still-beloved epic drama starred the likes of Michael O'Hare, Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, Mira Furlan, and more. The series would launch several spinoffs across a number of mediums, including TNT's spinoff series Crusade as well as a number of feature-length movies that charted the years from 2245-2281 when the Babylon 5 station was decommissioned. In addition, the lucrative franchise would go on to find success as a series of novels, short stories & comics, and more, and is still a cosplay mainstay at pop culture conventions & special events.

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