Jason Davis (4)

This book consists of a collection of scripts written by J. Michael Straczynski for television and DVD movies related to the Babylon 5 television series. Specifically, this volume contains scripts and related commentary for Thirdspace, River of Souls, Legend of the Rangers and The Lost Tales.

As with previous volumes in the series, Straczynski provides commentary before each actual script - in this volume the commentary takes the form of a question and answer session in which various popular queries concerning the movies are discussed. The book also contains a listing of the significant differences between the draft scripts in the book and the final version that appeared on screen. The book also has various photographs taken on set (including, sadly, a photograph taken on the last day Andreas Katsulas appeared as G'Kar), an unfinished outline of a proposed Babylon 5 feature movie featuring the Telepath War, and a short story featuring Asmodeus.

While the commentary and extras in the book are of the same quality as previous volumes in the script book series, this volume suffers the same problem that the Other Voices volumes do: the stories in the scripts themselves are at best average for the series. River of Souls and Legend of the Rangers are weak, The Lost Tales is indifferent, and Thirdspace is merely slightly above average. (To be fair, Legend of the Rangers, being a pilot for an unrealized show, suffers mostly because it is setting up a potential story - although it does make the Rangers look like an idiotic organization rather than an elite fighting force, and the silly weapon system karate chamber was just downright goofy). The book does offer some insight as to why these installments turned out as they did - casting limitations, funding problems and so on, but they remain among the least interesting portions of the Babylon 5 saga, and this volume suffers because of that.

Those who are not familiar with the series, or who are not fans, will probably find the volume to be impenetrable or uninteresting. For a serious fan of Babylon 5 or merely a completist, this book is worthwhile. It fills out some of the last corners of the televised series, and gives further insight into Straczynski's thought processes and ideas as well as hints at some tantalizing "might-have-beens" that never materialized.… (mere)