A potential “from-the-ground-up reboot” of the critically acclaimed 1990s space opera series Babylon 5 is in the works over at The CW. The original series creator J. Michael Straczynski is on board to pen the new show.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the reboot will centre on John Sheridan (played in the original by Bruce Boxleitner), an Earthforce officer with a mysterious and complicated background who is assigned to Babylon 5, a space station designed as neutral ground for galactic diplomacy and trade in the aftermath of several major inter-species wars. Set during a subsequent and uneasy peacetime, Sheridan’s arrival “triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilisation a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race”.
The original show debuted in 1993 with the test pilot film, Babylon 5: The Gathering. Perhaps best known as the first mainstream television series to introduce the concept of a pre-planned, five-year (or five-season) arc, and which paved the way for shows with similar narrative structures like Battlestar Galactica and Lost, Babylon 5 also spun out its own universe: following the original series, Straczynski continued to develop the sci-fi world with the 1999 spin-off series Crusade – which only ran for a single season – as well as several feature-length films and a series of novels, novelisations, short stories, and comics from DC.
As of yet, none of the original stars are said to be attached to the reboot, which will presumably be casting a whole new and younger cast. Rebooting a series that has been described by many as one of the best science-fiction shows of all time and was praised for its depth and complexity at a time when many contemporary shows avoided longer arcs and, by extension, long-term consequences, is no easy feat. The younger audience-skewing network may also seem like an odd choice to house such a project, but Straczynski’s attachment is perhaps cause for (cautious) optimism.
Since, Straczynski created, wrote, and served as showrunner for the Netflix series Sense8, a collaboration with the Wachowski sisters. He also wrote the script for the Angelina Jolie-starring drama Changeling, Underworld: Awakening, World War Z, and Thor.
Stay tuned for more news on the development of the Babylon 5 reboot.
