Crusade 1-01: War Zone

Episode:

1

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Janet Greek

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Air Date:

09-Jun-1999

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching an episode of the short-lived Babylon 5 spin-off series Crusade! I thought it was called Babylon 5: Crusade, but nope it's just Crusade.

The series began airing about six months after the end of Babylon 5, in June 1999... which means if I'd just waited another couple of months I could've published this on the show's 25th anniversary. It's too late for that now, I already promised this would be my next review, but it shows how it helps to plan things in advance.

Crusade had actually been planned out while Babylon 5 was still airing and they'd kicked off the show's story arc in the movie A Call to Arms back in January. Everything was going great... until it wasn't. The TNT network's meddling made such a mess of the continuity that it's hard to figure out what order to watch the episodes in. It's not as simple as just putting the events in a sensible order as there's a change in uniforms partway through the series, so all the grey uniform episodes have to be in a block together.

War Zone seems a safe bet as a starting point, seeing as it's chronologically earliest and it's numbered episode one, but creator J. Michael Straczynski would disagree. He wasn't impressed by how it turned out and would've preferred that the series had started off with the 9th episode, Racing the Night. His thinking was that he'd already established the premise in the movie so there was no need for a lot of extra exposition.

Okay, I'm going to be going through the episode scene by scene, sharing my reactions and observations as I go, so there are going to be SPOILERS here. There'll also likely be a few spoilers for Babylon 5 and A Call to Arms, but I won't ruin any Crusade episodes but this one.

Babylon 5: A Call to Arms - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the final third of the 5th Babylon 5 movie, A Call to Arms.

I'm getting really close to the end of the Babylon 5 franchise now, with only 13 episodes of Crusade, one more pilot movie and two Lost Tales left to go before it's all over. Oh, plus an animated movie that came out of nowhere recently. And there is always the threat of that reboot series actually getting made, along with more animated films. But after all that I'll be done.

I suppose it could be worse. I could be working my way through Doctor Who or Star Trek...

This is the third and final part of my A Call to Arms review, so if you want to go back to PART ONE or PART TWO click the appropriate text. This is going to include big SPOILERS for the movie and the rest of Babylon 5, but I'll not spoil anything about Crusade.

Babylon 5: A Call to Arms - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the middle third of the Babylon 5 movie A Call to Arms, which is basically the pilot for the short-lived spin-off series Crusade. Or the prologue to it at least. It lays the groundwork.

The film aired on TNT right at the start of 1999, just 7 weeks after the previous movie, The River of Souls... which was arguably a bit too soon. Especially considering that it had only been a month since viewers had said an emotional goodbye to the characters in Sleeping in Light. It's like when half the Star Trek cast came back for the movie Star Trek: Generations right after wrapping their era up with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, except worse because those guys at least waited three years!

This is part two (of three) so if you want to go back to PART ONE, click that text. This will include big SPOILERS for the movie and the rest of Babylon 5, so be aware of that. I'll not spoil anything about Crusade, however.

Babylon 5: A Call to Arms - Part 1

Written By:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Directed By:

Mike Vejar

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Release Date:

1999

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the first part of my three-part review of the Babylon 5 TV movie A Call to Arms! Here's a fun fact for you straight away: this is one of only two Babylon 5 stories to share its name with a Deep Space Nine episode (the other being Chrysalis). 

A Call to Arms is the last of the four Babylon 5 TV movies made for TNT, as The Legend of the Rangers was actually made for the Sci Fi Channel. Legend of the Rangers features a new cast and new sets, and it goes off doing its own things. Call to Arms, on the other hand, is a proper Babylon 5 movie, featuring the station and the lead characters and everything. A Call to Arms and The Legend of the Rangers are similar in some ways though, as they were both designed to function as a pilot movie and both of their spin-offs got cancelled before a single episode had aired. At least Call to Arms' series, Crusade, was able to get 13 episodes filmed before being shut down.

Call to Arms also had the proper Babylon 5 production team behind it, with J. Michael Straczynski writing and Mike Vejar returning to direct. They didn't bring back composer Christopher Franke however, making this the first B5 story to be missing his music since the original pilot (and they eventually went back and rescored that to match the rest of the series). Instead, this features a soundtrack by Evan Chen, who'd continue to work on the Crusade series.

Alright, I'm going to go through the whole film scene by scene sharing my reactions and observations, so there will be huge SPOILERS here for the movie and perhaps the rest of Babylon 5. I won't spoil a thing about Crusade or Legend of the Rangers, however.