Reggie Bautista wrote: In the end, he decided not to prosecute. In various posts of his to the newsgroup Rec.Arts.Scifi.Tv.B5.moderated and on Genie and AOL, he as stated that he doesn't think Pillar, Berman, Taylor, or any of the other creative people involved in DS9 stole his ideas or even knew about his pitch (in fact, IIRC he is still good friends with Jeri Taylor, one of the original DS9 production and writing crew), but he thinks that the
network suits kept feeding ideas to creative about the kind of show that they would support. >From what I remember from reading JMS's posts at the time (I'm a B5 fan back from the >original season 1 days), the deal was that they brought him in to pitch his show, and he convinced them how a show set a space station would work (since the common belief was that a space show had to be set on a ship traveling around) and also that the show would have an overall story arc, rather than being totally episodic. They rejected him and then announced DS9 a few months later, set on a space station, and having something of a main arc, unlike the previous ST shows. Sleezy, but not actionable. The main annoyance was DS9 fans calling Babylon 5 a clone/rip off of DS9. The HUGE irony of it is that CBS did the same thing to Gene Roddenberry some 20 years earlier! Roddenberry was brought in to CBS, where they interviewed him for hours about how he would do things on his proposed show. Then they rejected his idea and announced their new show "Lost In Space". Apparently they had just brought him in to siphon any ideas he had so they could use them on their show. As for the B5 Season 2 DVD's - I suspect the cost difference between those of B5 and, say, Buffy, is likely because 1) Buffy has a bigger audience, and 2) maybe they spent more more remastering the B5 footage for DVD format - it's an older show and likely requires more effort to transfer. For those that have the Season 1 DVD's - what do you think? I thought the quality was great, and the shows were much better than I had remembered. I hadn't seen any Season 1 episodes in about 8 years, and had always thought the first season was the weakest, but I had forgotten all the best parts. -Bry _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l