More of the B5 legacy

So, the impending continuation of the B5 universe sent me back to Crusade, which I haven't watched in quite some time. This spinoff series lasted all of 13 episodes before it was cancelled, with a handful of unproduced eps on the drawing board.

The premise of the show revolves around Capt. Matthew Gideon [played by Gary Cole], as he & his appropriately caricatured crew travel the galaxy in search of a cure for a plague that was unleashed on Earth by former allies of the evil Shadows [see Babylon 5, seasons 1-4]. It wasn't a great show, but I wouldn't call it a crapfest either. The writing is on par with what can be expected from JMS, which means it ran the gamut from painful to pretty great. We probably would have seen extraordinary even, if the show had lasted longer. Though the premise didn't leave much room for advancing an actual story [either they find a cure or they don't], had it gone beyond 13 episodes it could have done a lot in the way of character development. Pretty much all the main characters are damaged in one way or another, and their adventures could have provided the opportunity for depth and growth. But even with all monster-of-the-week eps, it had some decent ones that hinted at the potential the show had. There is a pretty funny Crusade-meets-X-Files ep featuring two aliens who believe humans have been visiting their homeworld and taking part in a conspiracy to cover up human involvement in their culture's development.

Some highlights include a main character who is a technomage, played by Peter Woodward. His acting is a bit heavyhanded, but Galen is also the character who most often provides some much needed comic relief. There's also Daniel Dae Kim [fans of Lost will recognize him as Jin], who actually does a pretty impressive job amid mostly B-grade actors. Also, Crusade features the Excalibur, the most phallic ship a scifi show has ever seen, vast and long and requiring downtime before it's fully functional again after firing its main guns. Heh.

The order in which JMS intended them to be aired was different from the order in which TNT actually aired them, resulting in chronological inconsistencies that end up confusing the story. Oddly, even if they're aired in JMS's preferred order, things still don't make sense [for instance, Gideon & Lochley meet "for the first time" in two different eps, and the ep in which Gideon is assigned to his flying phallus is several eps after the start of the series]. However, such inconsistencies really do little more than give it the feeling of being experimental, like JMS had an idea for a story, but wasn't really sure what to do with it once it got started. Not a fatal flaw, by any means. I wouldn't suggest it's worth purchasing to anyone but serious B5 fans, but if the SciFi channel ever airs it again, it's worth catching.