What is Crusade? plz explain

eclipse8472 · **Mon Aug 19, 2002 11:04 am What is Crusade? plz explain**

can some one time the story of this sci fi show I know it is cancelled but I wanna know what its all about. I have never seen it

Lindley · **Mon Aug 19, 2002 4:32 pm**

Crusade was the first spin-off series of Babylon 5.

What happened was this:
B5 ran for the first four seasons on WB. However, it was going to be cancelled then. At the last minute, TNT picked it up for a fifth season and four telemovies.

Of the telemovies, "In the Beginning" ties together one of the running plot-threads in the show; "Thirdspace" and "River of Souls" are self-contained; and "Call to Arms" was the pilot for Crusade.

Essentially, "Call To Arms" takes place five years after the main arc of B5. The Drahk send an attack fleet to Earth, along with a leftover Shadow Planet-Killer. Sheridan and another Earth Alliance captain destroy the planet-killer using two brand-new Victory-class Cruisers, which are the result of the first attempt to fuse Vorlon, Human, and Minbari technology.

One of the cruisers is destroyed, but Sheridan and the Excalibur survive. However, the Drakh spread a bioengineered plauge into Earth's atmosphere. The movie ends with the realization that all life on Earth will be dead within five years unless a cure can be found. Since the plauge was engineered by the Shadows, the Earth Alliance sends out the Excalibur with a new crew to attempt to find a cure. That's how Crusade starts.

Captain Gideon is in command-----for thirteen episodes.

You see, TNT wanted to turn Crusade into a T&A show (not unlike Lexx), and for it to cut all ties to Babylon 5. JMS (the creator) didn't play ball, so TNT cancelled it; it was all he could do to make them finish post-production on the already-filmed episodes. The Scifi channel expressed an interest in buying the show, but TNT made it prohibitively expensive-----they were determined to kill the show if they didn't get their way.

Its really too bad-----Crusade wasn't going to be primarily about the virus. Actually, JMS revealed that they would find the cure sometime in season 2, but that other themes would have been introduced by then-----such as Earth working with Shadow Tech, and the crew of the Excalibur eventually becoming outlaws. I'm not entirely clear on the details, but it sounded incredible.

Captain Skyline · Vice Admiral Joined: 09 Aug 2001 Posts: 6646 Location: UK

I saw the first few episodes of Crusade i thought it had alot of potential ( oh well at least i got first epsiode on video.

eclipse8472 · **Tue Aug 20, 2002 7:38 am**

thx that helps clear up a lot of things

Lindley · **Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:42 pm**

Here's a review of the unfilmed season 1 finale script, which explains a bit about where the series was intended to go:

http://worldsofjms.com/crusade/reviews/script3.htm

eclipse8472 · **Wed Aug 21, 2002 7:32 am**

It does sound like a good series, shame that it had such an early demise

PhionexAlpha · **Wed Aug 21, 2002 10:09 am**

Lindley · **Sat Aug 24, 2002 7:01 pm**

I've gotten ahold of the three unfilmed Crusade scripts, "Value Judgements" (a Bester ep---he's my avatar), "To The Ends of the Earth", and "End of the Line" (season finale). If you'd like them, send me an email.

Lindley · **Sat Aug 24, 2002 8:02 pm**

I've just become aware that JMS, the show's creator, doesn't want those scripts distributed. So if you email me, I may not send you the scripts.

The keyword is "may", for legalistic purposes. As Ivanova would say,

"You had no idea what was in that bottle, or that it would make Mr. Garibaldi's hair fall out. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."