Fox to air Star Wars documentary in June. Fox has already begun running promos for its hour-long special which goes behind the scenes of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The special, which will reportedly include scenes that were cut from the theatrical release of the movie, will air at 8pm EDT on Tuesday, June 15th.

Fox to air Star Wars movie in 2000. Bypassing the usual route of premium cable and pay-per-view, Fox has also paid a large sum of money for the rights to air Episode I in November 2000. At least one early report says that the movie will air without commercial interruption (like NBC's broadcasts of Schindler's List), and possibly with some of the aforementioned trimmed scenes restored.

Why not just chop her head off? A 38-year-old Connecticut woman has been arrested and ordered to undergo psychological testing to determine if she's competent to stand trial. The crime? Stalking and threatening to kill Adrian Paul of Highlander fame. Paul's number one fan reportedly called him repeatedly, referred to him as "bunny nose," and threatened that she would hurt him "in ways you wish to God you didn't have to be hurt." There is no word on whether or not Mr. Paul is keeping his katana under his pillow...

Soundtracks added to Grammy Awards. The next Grammy Awards, to be held in February 2000, will feature a new category - Best Soundtrack Album. Since the recording industry doesn't differentiate between movies and TV, both film and television soundtrack releases will be eligible for this award. So who wants to bet that John Williams' soundtrack from The Phantom Menace will be at least nominated?

Robbing Peter to pay Phil. As his fans wait for his next album, Peter Gabriel has taken a break from his Up sessions to join the original Genesis lineup to record a new version of Carpet Crawlers for an upcoming Genesis best-of CD. At last report, Gabriel's new album Up, which stands to be one of his most eclectic and experimental releases yet, may be seen around this time next year.

Gearing up for Crusade. It's almost June, which means it's almost time for Crusade, the much-delayed and severely-truncated spinoff of Babylon 5. And for some reason, I can't get myself to care that much.

I'm sure the likelihood that Crusade will never go beyond its first 13 episodes has done something to dampen my enthusiasm - imagine Babylon 5 ending after Signs and Portents, its thirteenth episode, and it doesn't make much sense to try and get involved in this story right when it would most likely be picking up steam. The lackluster fifth season of B5, a season that seemed as much about setting up spinoff projects as it did resolving the central story, isn't helping matters much either. I do believe that there is every chance that a rested and reinvigorated JMS might rediscover the skill in plotting, characterization and dialogue that seemed to abandon him during that highly-anticipated and ultimately disappointing year, but I also believe that there is every chance he won't.

JMS' response to the cancellation hasn't done much to endear him or the show to me. He's been bashing the people at TNT, once the folks who "got" B5 and were squarely in the show's corner, for being more focused on Westerns and movies than giving B5 and Crusade the time slots and attention they deserve. But he ignores the fact that B5's daily ratings drop with each cycle through the reruns, as people watched the show move through its beginning, middle and end - and then moved on. He forgets that he wanted to bring B5 to TNT and not the Sci Fi Channel in the first place, because TNT would appeal to a broader audience than the SF crowd. And after deriding TNT's emphasis on wrestling programs, he has selected Sci Fi as the most likely savior of Crusade - somehow overlooking that Sci Fi's parent network is USA, home of the World Wrestling Federation. If JMS thought TNT was into cartoony sex and violence, he hasn't seen anything yet. I'm not defending TNT here by any means; I definitely think that many of the changes some of the suits wanted would have been detrimental and silly. It just bothers me that JMS lately seems to put all of the blame squarely on the other guy, while never acknowledging that some of his choices might have something to do with the situations in which he finds himself and his shows.

(I also can't help but wonder, given some of JMS's charges that Deep Space Nine is essentially redoing Sleeping in Light for its conclusion, if he's planning on sending any royalties to the creators of Japan's Space Battleship Yamato series, or if he'll get indignant when someone mentions that there's already been an SF series about a spaceship crew trying to find a cure for a deadly plague that will render Earth lifeless in a given period of time. After all, I doubt I'm the only one who found the similarities between the Excalibur's main weapon and the Yamato's wave motion gun...intriguing. Do I think JMS stole from a 20 year old animated series? Not at all. I just wish he'd extend to others the benefit of the doubt he expects us to extend to him.)

None of these, however, are the reason I'm hesitant to embrace Crusade. I'm simply no longer sure that the five-year-arc epic is a viable structure for a series. Even with JMS writing three quarters of B5's episodes, inconsistencies popped up from time to time. Deus ex machinas from seasons past were suddenly rediscovered, or just as mysteriously forgotten. The alien healing device, which couldn't help the Centauri Emperor because it couldn't repair injuries, allows Marcus to sacrifice himself to repair Ivanova's internal injuries. The White Stars, a hybrid of Minbari and Vorlon technology, are powerful enough to oppose the Shadows, and presumably possess the vaunted Minbari stealth technology that Earth never cracked. Yet Earth destroyers manage to destroy significant numbers of them during the resolution of the Earth Civil War.

I'm not trying to be an annoying nitpicker here, although I probably am. And I am certainly not trying to minimize JMS' achievements. B5 was at many times a great show, and it built its mythology and continuity better than any other long-running SF show around. Indeed, it was the best of the breed, with an obsessive-compulsive stickler for details running the show and enough reference material to fill a small library. And with all those advantages, it still collapsed under its own weight, making me think that, to be truly viable, a TV entity should confine itself to a season or two.

So now, even though I am sure that there will be at least one or two episodes of Crusade that will make me lament its passing. I want JMS to surprise the hell out of me and give me a show on the level of third-season B5, I can't shake the feeling that these 13 episodes will be first tenth of an unfinished book that I ultimately wouldn't have found satisfying anyway. And with so many other stories out there competing for my time and energy (including this little movie a guy named Lucas put together), that's just not enough to get me excited anymore.

Dave Thomer
theLogBook.com Assistant Editor