In 1999, J. Michael Straczynski allowed his original notes on Babylon 5 to be released via his Last Word column in the Babylon 5 Magazine (Vol. 2, Issue 9). These notes were the first written record of Babylon 5, made moments after he had his inspiration for the series while taking a shower.

Though the magazine is long gone, on this, the 10th anniversary of this column’s publication, he wanted to share the origins of Babylon 5 again. While many fans saw them when they were originally published, he realizes that many more have not.

In addition to the notes, there is a brief introduction that formed part of that column.

Click here to read the column

Sorry devoted Live Feed listeners. No live feed tonight. Mike has a pet emergency and can’t host and engineer the show tonight.

No need to fear. We’ll return next week with some fresh live feed goodness.

Until then here’s a few thoughts:

Why was Lyta kicked out of her room for lack of space when all of Grey 17 was empty?

Does Rising Star work as a better ending than Objects at Rest?

As promised, here are the breadcrumb hints for the Season 4 podcast opening:

It was the year of Deep Geeking… he’s one of the Cultured Pod people
the year of Feedbackapalooza… the voicemail line is his and his alone
the year we discussed our favorite show. the Narn is always trying something

It was the year without Zima… she’s everywhere, and she’s Beta Clone #062
the year of great tequila… he’s our primary audio god
the year of puns… he’s a wiseacre, he’s Captain Hammer, and Giles
and a year of more interviews. she’s Writing, For Keeps

It was a new chance for fun. he is the Netherlands Captain
It was the end of the series. and he is the unnamed Agent
It was the year we made it to Crusade. Summer Brooks

The year is 2009. Jeffrey Willerth
The show: Babylon Podcast Tim Callender

I hope this helps someone win!

The Great Maker has sent out a call to the masses:

From: “jmsatb5@aol.com”
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:01:39 -0700 (PDT)

So here’s the deal. I’m calling on everybody in sight to help me
bring back a word. It’s a conspiracy, see, and you’re all part of it
if you choose to be.

I want to bring back the word “anon.” As in, “I’ll call you anon,” or
“See you anon.”

It isn’t as specific as “see you tomorrow,” when you may not, or “I’ll
call you later” which is even more ill defined and inelegant…”anon”
means simply again…”I’ll see you again” or “I’ll call you in the
fullness of time.”

I’ve started using it, and slowly, over the last year, I’ve noticed
the people around me starting to pick up on it: friends, agents,
business folks.

I think it’s time for anon to make a comeback.

If you want to be in on the conspiracy, just start using it in your
day to day speech and, when it can be done quietly, because this is a
conspiracy after all, enlisting others to do the same. But it’s best
if it’s just used regularly, without making a deal out of it.

If every B5 and SF fan who sees this helps out, I think we can work
this word back into everyday English within two years.

C’mon…let’s play.

jms

Welcome to Show #149!

Tim, Summer and Jeffrey try their hands at an Irish brogue, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Jeffrey also serenades us with his guitar when he gets a little distracted by our geeking.

Tim gives us the news about the contest to name the new ISS module that’s heading up. Read here to see the status of the vote — we here at The Babylon Podcast are supporting the Browncoats and the quest to have the winning name be “Serenity”.

the naming contest ended by the time this episode was posted

Contest: We’ve come up with a contest to give away a copy of the B5 Chronologies scriptbook! Can you identify all the voices in the podcast opening montage? If you think you can, submit your entries to contest [at] sliceofscifi [dot] com with the Subject line of Babylon Podcast Chronologies Contest, and include your mailing address.

We need all 12 voices correctly identified and in order, and a single winner will be selected from all the people who submit fully correct entries, and participants who helped with the lines are not eligible to enter this contest… maybe next time, gang.

Submit your entries by midnight Pacific time, March 3rd, and we’ll randomly pick a winner from pool of correct entries live on the live feed on March 4th (extended to March 25th)

Check out the hints for the Chronologies Contest — in acknowledgement that many of the voices might have been hard to discern, we have provided hints.

Deep Geeking: The team gets involved in geeking on “Rising Star”, and musing on when the cast knew whether there’d be a 5th season, and on if that notice came before or after the initial airing of this episode.

Discussion: Summer and Tim succumb to the temptation and try out their best Irish brogues. Tim reads an email from Captain Jaclyn, correcting the info on the release date of the “Asked and Answered” scriptbooks (April 7th, not April 1st).

Gary sends us in a scenario on what it might have sounded like if we had heard the opposing commander’s transmissions during Ivanova’s “I am Death Incarnate” speech; Todd from Grand Rapids thinks he’s figured out why Zima seemed to be so popular in the 23rd century; Neil from Bowie remembers the B5 Mall Tour, and he’s going to try to dig up his memorabilia from his visit to it; Brian in NY submits his guess that the new scriptbooks might contain Lost Tales stories (apparently we’re a little behind in voicemails); Johnny from Michigan comments on Lyta’s “I’m gonna sue somebody” interlude, adding it to the “over the top” category.

Stay tuned next week for a visit from Stephen Furst!

Second Life Info: FarPoint Media’s Second Life space is now the penthouse suite of Third Life Books. You can find the castle at http://slurl.com/secondlife/beraudes/203/151/49. Come see the castle roof pool, and more!

Babylon 5 Information Gathering: If you know of a dead or abandoned B5 related website that may be in need of a new home, let Summer know! Maybe we can mirror it here or house it on a sister site.

Visit Deep Geeking, and if you want to contribute a geeking essay, send an email to Summer.

If you can, please Donate.

Promo: J.C. Hutchins’ “Personal Effects: Dark Arts”
Promo: Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing

Captain Jacyln wants you to know she hasn’t forgotten about the surprise mailing that she mentioned on the Babylon Podcast.  

“The Scripts Team is most likely going to send the mailing next week instead of this one because the contents of the mailing have changed. Three days ago we got clearance to share something timely with the fans that has postponed our previous mailing because this is a timely piece of content and that is also super cool.”

 

Thanks for the update.  

 

Check with the podcast and in the comments on this post for any new information.

On the Babcast forum at farpointforums.com, KaveDweller (aka Mike) posted a link to photos of his visits to The Babylon 5 Mall Experience.

He has photos of various props on display, wall structures, and Jerry Doyle, Tracy Scoggins, and Andreas Katsulas. Go check ‘em out!

And thanks to Mike for graciously sharing these with the Babcast fans!

We thought that the entry requirements for the chronologies contest would be more fun for you guys than this.

Finding the names for all the voices in the open seemed simple enough… but you have mentioned that the requirements for entering the contest were a bit too challenging, given the time frame.

We hear you, and we are there.

To help things along a little bit, here is the script for the open:

It was the year of Deep Geeking…
the year of Feedbackapalooza…
the year we discussed our favorite show.

It was the year without Zima…
the year of great tequila…
the year of puns…
and a year of more interviews.

It was a new chance for fun.
It was the end of the series.
It was the year we made it to Crusade.

The year is 2009.
The show: Babylon Podcast

All but two of them have been on the podcast at some point in time or another (yes, that was your first hint), and one of those two is still directly connected to the podcast (yes, that’s your second hint). All of them can be found somewhere in the FarPoint Media universe (yes, that’s your third hint).

We’re also thinking about picking riddles to help lead you to those voices, if it’s still not easier to figure out.

We haven’t decided when we’re going to drop the breadcrumbs that will lead you to the other voices, but it will be announced ahead of time. Most likely there’ll be a 24-hour window to get entries in after the breadcrumbs are dropped.

We don’t have to give you guys hints for those last three voices, now do we?

update, 3/18: Of all the entries currently sent in, everyone’s gotten the last three voices wrong. The only thing we can come up with is that Tim’s voice sounds so different when not over a crappy phone line, that it’s throwing everyone off!

No, Jeffrey did not do both of the last two lines. So here’s another helper:

It was the year we made it to Crusade. Summer
The year is 2009. Jeffrey
The show: Babylon Podcast Tim Callender

Welcome to Show #148!

Tim and Summer lament about whether or not the entry requirements are too hard for the Chronologies contest, since we haven’t received any entries yet. Not a one.

Is the contest entry requirement too hard? Seriously, as of 2pm PT, March 11 2009, I have received ZERO entries for this contest. Is this too hard a task for our lurkers and rangers, or does everyone already have the Chronologies book?

Tim also relays a note from JMS saying that the studio has completely scrapped the screenplay for the Forbidden Planet remake, so we hope the person that leaked it was held responsible for theft of intellectual property and is now working off a period of indentured servitude in that studio’s salt mines.

Contest: We’ve come up with a contest to give away a copy of the B5 Chronologies scriptbook! Can you identify all the voices in the podcast opening montage? If you think you can, submit your entries to contest [at] sliceofscifi [dot] com with the Subject line of Babylon Podcast Chronologies Contest, and include your mailing address.

We need all 12 voices correctly identified and in order, and a single winner will be selected from all the people who submit fully correct entries, and participants who helped with the lines are not eligible to enter this contest… maybe next time, gang.

Submit your entries by midnight Pacific time, March 3rd, and we’ll randomly pick a winner from pool of correct entries live on the live feed on March 4th (extended to March 25th)

Interview: Captain Jaclyn, Jason Davis and Amy Guskin from the Babylon 5 Scripts Team join us to discuss the new scriptbooks project that’s been kept secret and tightly under wraps until now.

Asked and Answered: JMS answers Thousands of Fan Questions about Babylon 5 is the title of the new series, and it’s an exhaustive compendium of questions ever asked about B5. Starting in November 1991, and current through 2008, the team went through over 20,000 questions from many sources that aren’t available online anymore (online chat transcripts, convention transcripts, etc) in addition to the newsgroup archives from GEnie, AOL and Usenet.

It’s arranged in chronological order, without editing, so it’s a rare glimpse at the actual development process as the show is ongoing. Most people have seen some of the answers before, but a lot of work went into establishing the original question with the answer to preserve the original context.

Keep an eye out at the Babylon 5 Scripts store for more details as the official announcement date of March 17th and the release date of April 7th (not April 1st) draw near.

Feel free to ask the Scripts Team any questions about the project, and if you want to see that electronic version (for easier searching) or an electronic index, then let the Scripts Team know! (you know, there’s a free Kindle app available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, if a Kindle version of the book could be made available someday)

Discussion: Tim and Summer nitpick a little more about the contents of these new books, and are looking forward to having the finished product to dig into later. But now Summer won’t get her Crusade books until 2010… grumblefrack.

Second Life Info: FarPoint Media’s Second Life space is now the penthouse suite of Third Life Books. You can find the castle at http://slurl.com/secondlife/beraudes/203/151/49. Come see the castle roof pool, and more!

Babylon 5 Information Gathering: If you know of a dead or abandoned B5 related website that may be in need of a new home, let Summer know! Maybe we can mirror it here or house it on a sister site.

Visit Deep Geeking, and if you want to contribute a geeking essay, send an email to Summer.

If you can, please Donate.

Promo: The Geek Survival Guide
Promo: The Signal Season 5, flying high in 2009!

Welcome to Show #147!

Tim, Summer and Jeffrey chat about spring training, the early Daylight Savings shift, JMS winning a writing award from AARP, and the contest.

Mike plays Edmund’s “My Funny Vorlontine” parody for Jeffrey, and there were pulled muscles from the laughter.

Contest: We’ve come up with a contest to give away a copy of the B5 Chronologies scriptbook! Can you identify all the voices in the podcast opening montage? If you think you can, submit your entries to contest [at] sliceofscifi [dot] com with the Subject line of Babylon Podcast Chronologies Contest, and include your mailing address.

We need all 12 voices correctly identified and in order, and a single winner will be selected from all the people who submit fully correct entries, and participants who helped with the lines are not eligible to enter this contest… maybe next time, gang.

Submit your entries by midnight Pacific time, March 3rd, and we’ll randomly pick a winner from pool of correct entries live on the live feed on March 4th (extended to March 25th)

Interview: We talk with journalist Frank Garcia about his history as a freelance writer for many scifi magazines over the years, and the research that he and Mark Phillips undertook to compile the books Science Fiction Television Series, 1959-1989 and Science Fiction Television Series, 1990-2004.

We talk with Frank about his experience with Babylon 5 and Crusade over the years the show was in production, and the information pulled together for the second volume.

Find out more about both books at http://legacyweb.com/scifibook/index.shtml

Feedback and Discussion: Andy wonders if our Jeffrey is the one listed in the credits of The Faculty — he was, and Jeffrey recounts his experience working with Robert Rodriguez; Todd from Grand Rapids disagrees with Summer and thinks that Gary Cole as an EA Captain just doesn’t work for him because of the Brady Bunch memories (and Summer will always think of him as Sheriff Buck); Gary wants to know who wrote the copy of the B5 episode teasers that aired during the first 4 seasons on PTEN (Jeffrey says it was the promo folks at PTEN/WB).

Second Life Info: FarPoint Media’s Second Life space is now the penthouse suite of Third Life Books. You can find the castle at http://slurl.com/secondlife/beraudes/203/151/49. Come see the castle roof pool, and more!

Babylon 5 Information Gathering: If you know of a dead or abandoned B5 related website that may be in need of a new home, let Summer know! Maybe we can mirror it here or house it on a sister site.

Visit Deep Geeking, and if you want to contribute a geeking essay, send an email to Summer.

If you can, please Donate.

Promo: Dragon Page With Class
Promo: The Gmail Podcast