What was New - 1998

December 24, 1998

Newsflash: TNT's daily B5 reruns move to 4PM starting January 4. See TNT's site for details.

December 17, 1998

Newsflash: GameSpot has a preview of the B5 space combat simulator, including screenshots.

Newsflash: Ain't It Cool News has a review of an early "Crusade" episode. The article also reports that Crusade might start in March rather than in June as previously scheduled.

December 11, 1998

A synopsis of "Movements of Fire and Shadow" is online, the last one that was missing. Special thanks to Arturo Magidin for going back and filling in the holes in the list of synopses.

December 10, 1998

A synopsis of "Darkness Ascending" is online.

December 2, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Sleeping in Light" are online.

Newsflash: Season five resumes in the UK on December 28.

November 30, 1998

What does the future hold for the Lurker's Guide? Find out.

A synopsis of "Sleeping in Light" is online.

A synopsis of "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father" is online.

November 29, 1998

Poll 5 results for "Sleeping in Light" are online.

November 26, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Objects at Rest" are online.

The following synopses are now online:

November 25, 1998

The guide pages for part 2 and part 3 of the comic series "In Valen's Name" now contain synopses. Thanks to Rich Handley.

November 24, 1998

Poll 5 results for "Objects at Rest" are online.

November 21, 1998

Newsflash: Bruce Boxleitner and Melissa Gilbert appear in the Nov. 22 episode of "Touched by an Angel" on CBS.

Poll 5 results for "The River of Souls" are online.

Poll 5 results for "Objects in Motion" are online.

Newsflash: The start date of "Crusade" has been moved to June 2 to accomodate the production of the new opening episode and so the show won't be preempted by NBA playoffs just after it starts. No word yet on whether the air date of "A Call to Arms" will be changed.

November 20, 1998

Newsflash: CNN and Playboy have articles about the end of B5.

November 11, 1998

The onscreen credits for "The River of Souls" are online.

The onscreen credits for "Objects in Motion" are online.

November 10, 1998

The onscreen credits for "The Wheel of Fire" are online.

November 9, 1998

Poll 5 results for "The Wheel of Fire" are online.

November 2, 1998

Newsflash: "The Gathering" will air November 9 on Channel 4 in the UK.

Newsflash: A petition to ask Warner Bros. to release B5 on DVD is being organized.

Newsflash: "Thirdspace" will air November 3 and 4 on CityTV in Canada. See CityTV's site for details.

A synopsis of "The Fall of Centauri Prime" is available.

Poll 5 results for "Thirdspace" are online. (Apologies for the delay.)

Poll 5 results for "The Fall of Centauri Prime" are online.

October 30, 1998

Newsflash (followup to previous one): Walter Koenig will be chatting online at SCIFI.CON 3.0 today at 6PM EST. At 10PM EST, he will be participating in a live Internet radio play based on "The War of the Worlds" (also available at the SciFi.Con site). The play will be broadcast on radio stations across the US on October 31.

October 29, 1998

JMS has announced he'll be writing a new 24-issue comic series, "Rising Stars."

The onscreen credits for "The Fall of Centauri Prime" are online.

Newsflash: Season five starts in Singapore on November 25.

October 28, 1998

Newsflash: Walter Koenig will be chatting online at SCIFI.CON 3.0 October 30 at 6PM EST. Neil Gaiman will be there November 1 at 1PM EST.

October 16, 1998

TV Guide's site has a transcript of the September 30 chat session with Peter Jurasik.

Newsflash: Peter Woodward, Galen the technomage in "Crusade," guest stars in the series premiere of Fox's "Brimstone" Friday, October 23 at 8PM.

October 13, 1998

New on the Products page: An updated URL for the B5 collectible card game Web site.

October 11, 1998

A revised version of the cast list is online. Thanks to Dirk Kocherscheidt for updating it.

October 2, 1998

Newsflash: The weekly encore of season-five episodes on TNT moves to 2AM Tuesday morning on October 12 and 19, then to midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning from October 26 onward. See TNT's site for details.

Newsflash: Fans interested in gathering for the series finale, "Sleeping in Light," may want to check out this page.

October 1, 1998

Newsflash: Ain't It Cool News reports that a new initial episode for "Crusade" may be in the works.

The JMS CompuServe and Usenet message archives have been split up; they'd been accumulating in one file for several months.

September 30, 1998

Newsflash: Season five starts in Australia on October 8.

Newsflash: Peter Jurasik will be chatting live on TV Guide Online tonight at 10PM Eastern.

September 25, 1998

The fifth volume of Jane Killick's "B5 Season by Season" series, "Wheel of Fire", is now available in the UK. It covers all of season five.

September 24, 1998

Slow Dazzle's 1999 B5 calendar is available for ordering.

September 23, 1998

Newsflash: Martin Sheen (who stars in "The River of Souls") will be on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" tonight.

September 21, 1998

Harlan Ellison has been given the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's Defender of Liberty Award.

September 19, 1998

Newsflash: Ain't It Cool News reports that production on "Crusade" has been temporarily halted in order to implement some changes. JMS said Saturday that TNT has provided additional funds to upgrade and build sets, which appears to corroborate the story. He also confirmed the existence of the memo previously reported by AICN, though at this time "the egregious points have gone away."

September 9, 1998

Newsflash: Ain't It Cool News has a report on some possible interference in the "Crusade" production by TNT. Though it hasn't been officially confirmed (it's not the sort of thing that would be, whether true or not) the report does appear to be legitimate.

September 4, 1998

The latest B5 novel, "Dark Genesis," has just been released.

Newsflash: Season 3 begins in Spain on September 14.

September 3, 1998

Newsflash: Season 5 begins in Norway on September 6.

August 24, 1998

German-speaking readers may want to visit a new site in the process of coming online, Der deutsche Lurker's Guide für Babylon 5, a translation of the Guide. It's the handiwork of some very dedicated German fans -- as the editor of the original site all I can say is I'm impressed and flattered.

Newsflash: Ain't It Cool News has a review of the final five episodes with very few spoilers.

August 21, 1998

Newsflash: The nightly TNT reruns move to 6PM starting September 7.

August 17, 1998

Netter Digital Entertainment has put out a press release about the involvement of scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the "Crusade" production.

August 12, 1998

TV Guide Online has an interview with John Copeland about "Crusade." Contains spoilers.

August 11, 1998

Newsflash: Babylon 5 resumes in Sweden on August 30.

August 10, 1998

New on the Books/Novels page: Authorized copies of Neil Gaiman's script for "Day of the Dead."

August 9, 1998

Reworked the Guide's list of books. All books are now listed on the same page (the Books/Novels page) instead of being split between there and the Products page. Books' listings now include links to Amazon.com, which includes a forum for reader comments and allows easy online ordering. (See the Help page for a brief note about why I linked there.) There are brief descriptions of each of the books now too.

Newsflash: Season 5 begins in New Zealand on September 5.

Newsflash: Babylon 5 begins nightly showings on Space: The Imagination Station in Canada on September 14.

August 4, 1998

Newsflash: Season 5 on TNT moves to 10PM Wednesdays starting August 19. See TNT's site for details.

Newsflash: Due to illness, JMS will not be attending this year's WorldCon (where he was scheduled to appear as guest of honor.)

July 22, 1998

Newsflash: Gary Cole (Lucas Buck on "American Gothic") has been cast in the lead role on "Crusade," according to radio reports.

July 19, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Thirdspace" are online.

Newsflash: Patricia Tallman will be chatting live at TV Guide on July 21 at 10PM Eastern.

July 13, 1998

Newsflash: Mira Furlan will be chatting live at TV Guide on July 14 at 10PM Eastern.

July 6, 1998

The novelization of "Thirdspace" has been released in the US.

July 3, 1998

Newsflash: Image Entertainment is releasing B5 on laserdisc. Follow the "Preview" link then the "July" link, or go directly to their B5 disc list.

July 1, 1998

USA Today has a short article on the end of B5's initial run.

Newsflash: Shari Belafonte-Harper ("Thirdspace") will be chatting live on Yahoo tonight at 9PM Eastern.

June 30, 1998

Newsflash: TNT is adding a West Coast satellite feed starting July 1. If your cable system picks up the new feed, you'll get B5 three hours later than before. Not all cable systems will switch right away, so check your local listings or call your cable company to verify.

June 26, 1998

Poll 5 results for "Movements of Fire and Shadow" are online.

June 22, 1998

Newsflash: Walter Koenig will be chatting live at the Sci-Fi Channel site Thursday at 9PM Eastern.

June 19, 1998

Newsflash: JMS will be showing a rough cut of one of the upcoming B5 TV-movies at the Wrap Party convention in the UK in August.

The onscreen credits for "Movements of Fire and Shadow" are online.

June 17, 1998

A plea, if you'll forgive a slightly off-topic entry here:

I'm being bombarded with tons of E-mail asking me B5 trivia questions. If you're considering asking me to help you cheat in a trivia contest, please don't -- you may think it's a clever and unique idea to ask the guy who runs the Lurker's Guide to help you out, but I assure you you'll be in line behind a couple hundred other clever and unique thinkers. It was already tiresome after the first 5 or 10; now it's downright frustrating and is taking up a substantial part of what little time I have to go through Guide-related mail.

June 14, 1998

Poll 5 results for "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder" are online.

June 11, 1998

A synopsis of "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder" is online.

The onscreen credits for "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder" are online.

June 8, 1998

B5 starts up again in Finland on August 30.

The onscreen credits for "Darkness Ascending" are online.

Poll 5 results for "Darkness Ascending" are online.

Poll 5 results for "Meditations on the Abyss" are online.

June 5, 1998

Season one has started again in Slovenia.

June 4, 1998

A lot of people have written asking why there aren't images for most of the episodes in season five. It's nothing nefarious, just a result of some household rearranging a few months ago that makes it a lot less convenient for me to digitize stills for the guide pages. Rest assured that I do intend to put stills on the pages that don't already have them. In the meantime, I've grabbed some images from TNT's site for the most recent few episodes as placeholders.

Newsflash: Bruce Boxleitner has been named to the board of governors of the National Space Society. A press release is available.

June 2, 1998

B5 starts airing again in the Netherlands on June 6.

May 28, 1998

The onscreen credits for "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father" are online (they were a couple hundred messages back in my Lurker's Guide E-mail backlog; sorry for the delay.)

Clearing out the backlog further, synopses for the following episodes are now online:

The B5 FAQ is retiring. Final versions of the various sections are available (the remaining parts will be finalized soon):

May 27, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Meditations on the Abyss" are online.

May 19, 1998

Newsflash: JMS and John Copeland will be chatting live on TV Guide Online tonight at 10PM Eastern.

May 17, 1998

Newsflash: Sierra's B5 space combat simulator will be shown to the public in Atlanta on May 28-30. Several cast members will be present as well. See the Products page for details.

Newsflash: "In the Beginning" will be shown on Canada's SPACE cable channel on June 13 at 9PM Eastern.

May 2, 1998

Poll 5 results for "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father" are online.

April 28, 1998

Another day, another problem. The permissions on the Lurker's Guide home directory were reset late yesterday and nobody could access it. I've tracked down the runaway script that caused that problem and it shouldn't happen again. Sorry for the additional downtime -- it's been a heck of a week so far!

April 27, 1998

The Lurker's Guide is back online after some extended downtime. www.midwinter.com's SCSI controller died and corrupted not only the disk containing the Guide, but also a critical backup tape. Luckily one of the mirror sites was able to supply a recent copy of all the relevant files, so the Guide is back online now.

April 19, 1998

Newsflash: Channel 4 in the UK will be reshowing the first two episodes of season five on April 21 at 1:20AM. The episodes may be shown uncut, but that hasn't been confirmed.

Poll 5 results for "Day of the Dead" are online. (They got buried in my E-mail backlog -- my apologies for the delay.)

Poll 5 results for "Phoenix Rising" are online.

Poll 5 results for "The Ragged Edge" are online.

Newsflash: CFCF in Montreal will be showing "In the Beginning" Friday, April 24 at 8:00PM.

April 9, 1998

The onscreen credits for "The Ragged Edge" are online.

April 7, 1998

Newsflash: Harlan Ellison will be on ABC's "Politically Incorrect" tonight.

Newsflash: TNT's site has the official "Crusade" announcement. Readers without frames support may prefer this link.

April 5, 1998

Three parts of the B5 FAQ have been updated:

April 4, 1998

Newsflash: JMS has confirmed that the sequel series, "Crusade," will begin production on July 27 for a premiere on January 6, 1999. An official announcement from TNT is due Monday.

April 2, 1998

Season three begins in Jordan on April 3. The broadcast reaches Israel and other countries in the region as well.

The onscreen credits for "Phoenix Rising" are online.

March 30, 1998

Poll 5 results for "A Tragedy of Telepaths" are online.

March 26, 1998

The onscreen credits for "A Tragedy of Telepaths" are online.

Newsflash: Season five starts in the UK on April 12.

Newsflash: TNT's Web site has a detailed rundown of their upcoming schedule, including reruns of "The Gathering" and the second cycle of daily reruns. Readers without frames support may prefer this link.

March 25, 1998

Newsflash: Harlan Ellison will be on ABC's "Politically Incorrect" tonight.

March 23, 1998

Newsflash: Peter Jurasik and John Copeland will be chatting live in The Sci-Fi Channel's chat area March 24 at 9PM EST.

Poll 5 results for "In the Kingdom of the Blind" are online.

March 19, 1998

Newsflash: Tomorrow, March 20, is the last day of shooting for the fifth season (and thus the series as a whole.) To help celebrate, the Official Fan Club site will have a computer on the set all day long, and people who visit the site's chat area will be able to talk live with whichever cast and crew members aren't busy with the actual production.

March 18, 1998

The onscreen credits for "In the Kingdom of the Blind" are online.

March 17, 1998

Newsflash: Ain't It Cool News has an unconfirmed report that TNT is considering making a commitment to buy "Crusade" for the full five years up front.

March 15, 1998

A synopsis of "Day of the Dead" is online.

The onscreen credits for "Day of the Dead" are online.

Newsflash: The TNT rebroadcast of "A Tragedy of Telepaths" has been moved to the Friday 7PM EST slot, delaying the rerun of "Interludes and Examinations." This is a one-time change.

March 12, 1998

A synopsis of "Learning Curve" is online.

March 9, 1998

Newsflash: The Saturday rebroadcast of season-five episodes on TNT changes to 11AM EST as of "The Day of the Dead."

Newsflash: CITY-TV in Toronto will be airing "In the Beginning" on March 23 at 9PM. CITY-TV is available on many cable systems throughout Canada.

A synopsis of "The Paragon of Animals" is online.

A synopsis of "Strange Relations" is online.

The current issue of Eon Magazine has the first of a two-part article on B5.

Poll 5 results for "Strange Relations" are online.

Poll 5 results for "Secrets of the Soul" are online.

March 5, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Secrets of the Soul" are online.

Newsflash: Jeff Conaway will appear on NBC's "Later" on March 10 (early morning March 11.)

Newsflash: "The Day of the Dead" has been moved to March 11 from April 1. The Guide's schedules have been updated accordingly.

March 4, 1998

Newsflash: TNT is scheduling a series of B5 exhibitions in 8 cities across the US. See their site for details. (Users without frames support may prefer this link.)

February 27, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Strange Relations" are online.

February 25, 1998

Newsflash: TV Guide Online has a Q&A session with JMS.

February 22, 1998

A transcript of Jerry Doyle's February 18 online chat session is available.

Poll 5 results for "Learning Curve" are online.

Newsflash: A new satellite feed of B5 is available.

Newsflash: UK viewers can see Claudia Christian on Channel 4's Light Lunch Thursday, February 26 at 12:30PM.

February 19, 1998

The onscreen credits for "Learning Curve" are online.

February 18, 1998

A transcript of the February 9 online chat session with Tracy Scoggins is online.

February 16, 1998

Poll 5 results for "A View from the Gallery" are online.

February 15, 1998

A synopsis of "A View from the Gallery" is online.

February 12, 1998

The onscreen credits for "A View from the Gallery" are online.

Poll 5 results for "The Paragon of Animals" are online.

February 11, 1998

Newsflash: Jerry Doyle will be chatting live at TV Guide Online on February 18 at 9PM EST.

February 5, 1998

The onscreen credits for "The Paragon of Animals" are online.

February 4, 1998

A synopsis of "No Compromises" is online.

February 1, 1998

A synopsis of "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari" is online.

Poll 5 results for "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari" are online.

January 31, 1998

New on the Products page: A link to an interview with some of the designers of Sierra's B5 game.

Newsflash: Tracy Scoggins will be chatting live at TV Guide Online on February 9 at 9PM EST.

January 30, 1998

The onscreen credits for "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari" are online.

January 27, 1998

Poll 5 results for "No Compromises" are online.

January 22, 1998

The onscreen credits for "No Compromises" are online.

An article in "Cable World" says that TNT plans to show the final 10 episodes of season five in the fall, rather than running the entire season with no breaks. That hasn't yet been confirmed. The article contains some spoilers for season five.

January 21, 1998

Put the "This Week's Episode" link back on the home page (it's now "Current Episode" instead.) The link will move to the next episode every Wednesday night just before the latest season-five episode airs.

January 15, 1998

Newsflash: TNT's Web site has QuickTime movies of the season five title sequence.

Newsflash: Harlan Ellison will be on "Politicially Incorrect" tonight. (A transcript is available.)

January 13, 1998

New on the Air Times page: A link to Stephen Christian's schedule page for viewers of CFMT in Toronto.

January 12, 1998

New on the Products page: the Starfury model from Revell/Monogram has been released.

Poll 5 results for "In the Beginning" are online.

Science Fiction Weekly has a review of the first fifth-season episode, "No Compromises." Contains spoilers.

January 9, 1998

Newsflash: CFMT in Toronto will be starting season five on Feb. 1 at 6PM. Watch the Air Times page for updates.

January 8, 1998

A synopsis of "Babylon 5: In the Beginning" is online.

A synopsis of "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" is online.

Newsflash: Bruce Boxleitner will be appearing on "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" on January 13.

January 7, 1998

Newsflash: "In the Beginning" and "The Gathering" were the two highest-rated movies on basic cable last week, according to a TNT press release.

Newsflash: CFCF in Montreal has revised its season five start time; they hope to start January 21, or January 28 if they don't get the episodes in time. Watch the Air Times page for updates.

January 6, 1998

TV Guide's January 5 issue has a brief article about season five. Contains some spoilers.

New on the Products page:

Toys/Games: Some (scant) information on the B5 Component Game System.
Toys/Games: A new Web site for the B5 Collectible Card Game.

Newsflash: Tracy Scoggins will be appearing on "Vibe" on January 8.

Newsflash: CFCF in Montreal didn't begin season five today. The reason is not yet known. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

January 5, 1998

Newsflash: According to TNT, the special edition of "The Gathering" will be reshown when the daily reruns cycle back to the first season in May.

The onscreen credits for "Babylon 5: In the Beginning" are online.

The onscreen credits for the special edition of "The Gathering" are online.

Sonic Images' Web site has a page of MIDI files of Christopher Franke's music, including the fifth-season theme.

To the current What's New page