Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight
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[edit] Overview
A made-for-TV movie titled To Live and Die in Starlight was produced by the SciFi Channel. It was the proposed pilot episode of a new series titled Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers. Its stories would revolve around the crew of the Liandra, an old Ranger ship with a ragtag crew consisting of a wide range of races, including a Narn and a Drazi. After this new crew takes the ship out for the first time, they make the startling discovery of a terrible new threat to interstellar peace.
[edit] Summary
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[edit] Airing Controversy
Rescheduled after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the movie aired on January 19, 2002. However, it was scheduled against an NFL AFC Divisional Championship playoff game featuring the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders. The pilot's poor ratings killed the network's interest in a series. Straczynski posted the following to Usenet on January 27, 2002:
- The east coast ratings got hammered by the football game, which was the highest rated such game in something like 5 years. The B5 male demos are pretty much the same as for sports, and we lost heavily to football. So there we did not do well. By contrast, on the west coast, where the show aired *after* the game had finished, we not only met but *exceeded* SFC's expectations, getting a 3.2 or 3.6 in many markets, which is actually pretty unheard of for a basic cable network. The problem is that the average, 1.7, is still what's used for advertising.
[edit] Criticism and fan backlash
("The Hand") (hyperspace redesign) (forced G'Kar presence) (low quality CGI and multitude of screwups) (acting)
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