Crusade - The Complete Series

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: All I can say is despite the bad jumbling of episode order caused by TNT's interference, this show was really wonderful. The worst thing about viewing this is feeling anew the lost potential.

And for cast commentaries, the one on Well of Forever was easily the best of any B5-related DVD. Intelligent, funny, incisive, rueful.

Rating:
Summary: Show had potential, episodes are mediocre, DVD set is weak
Review: Everything I know about "Crusade" indicates that it would have grown up into a TV show nearly as spectacular and flawless as B5. Everything I've read about JMS's plans, everything I know about the cast, and everything that's laid out in these first few episodes points to that inescapable conclusion.

This show was gonna be good.

However... it wasn't good. It didn't have a chance to get good. The cast and crew hadn't quite worked out the kinks yet. The writers hadn't found their groove. The CG effects weren't *quite* where they needed to be to do landscapes. The musical scores overreached. The costuming... sigh. In short, this half-season of TV was pretty bad.

Hold your horses, though. Let me repeat: It was *going* to get good. Every scene, mediocre, bad, or funny, all seemed to say, "Just wait 'til the end of the season when we're going full-steam. We'll knock your socks off."

But the TV executives, short-sighted as they were, killed the show before it got revved up. Then they added insult to injury by packaging these few episodes in a weak set, skimping on features, and overpricing it.

My advice? If you don't already love "Crusade," don't buy it. I firmly believe that it could have become a great show, but there is no greatness evidenced in these episodes, this box set, or this price. Go watch B5 instead. At least *those* overpriced sets are worth their weight in gold.

Rating:
Summary: Another series killed too soon
Review: I eagerly awaited the series, and watched it even knowing that it had been cancelled before it even aired. The cast is great, the storyline is interesting and complex. Too bad they didn't get a chance to really tell the story. But if you loved Babylon 5 , then give this a try, just be aware that the story never got finished.

I particularly liked the archeologist. He was arrogant and oblivious and thoroughly fun to watch.

The techno mage was another interesting character, we didn't learn anywhere close to all his secrets I'm thinking.

And it was fun to have a Captain who was a gambler and not so rule bound as many ship captains are portrayed to be especially if they are military.

Can I mention again how dissapointed I am that I will not ever find out what the intended end of the story was?




Rating:
Summary: Crusade
Review: I enjoyed this show when it first came out and I'm glad we were able to get it on DVD.
The actors all interact very well with each other. The ship is awesome, episodes are well written and the special effects are extemely well done.
Thank you JMS for giving us another well thought out story.
Just one nit, I would have liked to have seen them in the order that JMS intended them to be rather TNT's version. But I'm still happy to have it.

Rating:
Summary: So much potential but....
Review: I first have to say I loved the babylon 5 series and most of the B5 Movies. The casting for this show is a real mixed bag. Gary Cole as Captain Gideon? He did a decent job of it but I felt he was playing the role too close to the annoying boss in OFFICE SPACE but it is nice to see he can mix it up. After all he was great in those Brady Bunch Movies. Daniel Kim, Peter Woodward and Carrie Dobro all play their roles very well. The doctor played by Marjean Holden has very little performance in the show, David Allen Brooks Character is so so and Tracy Scoggins, reprising her role from B5, is out of place. Not to mention she is listed as starring and is only in 3 episodes. The writing is interesting and the direction is by some B5 Veterans including episodes Directed by Stephen Furst (Vir). With all that said it is still very watchable if you are a B5 fan. But the worst thing in this series is the music. Evan H. Chen's style just isn't for this show. I frequently felt the music would kill an episode. So if you are not a B5 fan this isn't for you. If you are a B5 fan watch for inconsistencies. Oh, and I only saw one of these episodes when it aired, so I had to check it out on dvd. I'm sure some of you will love it, personally I'll watch FARSCAPE or the original B5 shows.

Rating:
Summary: A flawed show that needed to be overhauled
Review: Like others who have reviewed this DVD set, I was a very big fan of Babylon 5. But even saying that I have to admit that the 5th season was the weakest. Some fans excuse the weaknesses in Crusade (and JMS as well) by saying "it was going to be good later on." But from a story and character point of view, Crusade did not build on the strengths of Babylon 5 and it ultimately continued the downward slide that began with season 5 of B5.

(1) A gloomy concept - humans will be wiped out in 5 years. Sure JMS now says he would have "found the cure" by the end of year 2 but the overall tone of the 1st 13 episode is a downer. As much as 5b5 of full of war and destruction, there was always an element of hope.
(2) Repetitive story lines - how many worlds killed off by mysterious viruses were we going to visit? In 13 episodes the stories were already retreads.
(3) Awful music - I like abstract music and the theme was interesting but the music in the battle scenes is cheesy and often sound like an amateur teen on a synthesizer.
(4) Acting - some of the acting was also very amateurish - especially the Fox Mulder/Dana Scully/Cigarette Smoking man wanna-bees? Why do most aliens have fake English accents and talk as if they are on a bad episode of "Are you being served?" And the guy who "redesigned" the uniforms was one of the most offensive stereo-type I have seen in modern television.
(5) Costumes - No wonder the network requested changes - the gray-red uniforms look like very bad bellboy uniforms from the 1930s.

On the plus side, Gary Cole made an interesting lead, the ship was nicely designed, the alien woman/thief had strong possibilities and Elizabeth Lockley was far more interesting here than on B5. Galen was okay but why did he always sound like he was acting on a theater stage. I guess that was supposed to make everything he said sound more important.


Rating:
Summary: Flawed show grew on me
Review: Much has been made of the concept that this show isn't as good as Babylon 5, and it's true, but I found to my surprise that every time I see Crusade I like it a bit more. There weren't enough episodes for the actors to convey a full sense of their characters, but with such strong characters it starts to come through pretty early anyway, and these people are, by and large, very likeable, and the actors are very talented. The effects are good. The music leaves something to be desired, but I can ignore that pretty easily.

One thing that I found helped me a lot in understanding the show is to know that the author intended the episodes to be shown in a specific order, but then the station paying for them insisted that they be re-ordered and that a new pilot episode be created. Because of this, characters occasionally refer to something that hasn't happened yet, and character development seems weird because it no longer progresses in the intended sequence. If you search the web, you can find out what the *intended* episode order was, and some swapping around of discs would allow you to watch them in that order.

Rating:
Summary: Solid show that was killed before it had chance to blossom
Review: The aborted TV show "Crusade" had a lot going for it. It had breeding ("B5"), a built in audience, support from a major studio and a two outstanding performances by Gary Cole and Peter Woodward. Then TNT realized that when audiences tuned into the old "B5" show no one stuck around for their other entertainment (gee, I wonder why!). So they withdrew their support, despite the fact that the full season hadn't been completed and after the expense of redesigning the costumes and sets. The show, beyond the pilot, felt disjointed and for good reason--with half the episodes missing from the first season story arc, it was half a story told with major gaps between some.

Set after the conclusion of the Shadow War, the Drakh an alien race that served the Shadows, contaminates Earth's atmosphere with a deadly virus that will kill all life on Earth within five years. Captain Gideon (Gary Cole), a Techno Mage (one who uses technology in such a way that it appears almost like magic) named Galen (Woodward)and the crew of the Excalibur must search for a cure. Their first stop is a planet where a Drakh spaceship has crashed after a bruising fight with an Earth destroyer. Excalibur is sent to investigate.

While the series could be inconsistent (all the reasons are listed in the next paragraph), it also offered a lot of potential. I have to disagree with those that compare these 13 episodes to the first season of B5 stating that they were of similar quality. No, these 13 episodes, despite gaping narrative holes, are better than the first season of B5. JMS had already set up his universe and it allowed him more time to play with the concepts and characters and that shows from the very first episode of the series. Is it as good as the best two seasons of B5 (seasons 3 & 4)frankly, no but it's a lot better than most of the dreck out there and then some.

Luckily, there's life after death for TV shows. The DVD picture quality is exceptionally good although the series isn't presented in widescreen. The soundtrack has been remastered for 5.1 and we get a documentary on the show as well a featurette on the design of the Excalibur. Two audio commentaries are included one featuring two of the actors from the show (Peter Woodward is one of them), director Janet Greek and writer Fiona Avery. Then we JMS' commentary track which, from all accounts, was edited after the fact to prevent him from venting his feelings about the poor way that TNT handled the show.

The DVDs are priced a bit high considering what you get but the presentation is handsome. You get all thirteen episodes and the extras spread over four discs with brief descriptions of each episode, writer/director and guest cast on the flaps of the accordian style DVD holder. Hopefully sales will be good enough to convince Warner Brothers not to recast the B5 movie with other actors (JMS and Babylonian Productions are fighting against it). Since its currently in preproduction, it's hard to say who will win out on this one. Hopefully, Warner will see the response that Sci-Fi (when Sci-Fi cancelled "Farscape" it was as boneheaded as TNT's decision to cancel this show without giving it a chance) got when they aired the "Farscape" concluding movie and allow the production to move forward with the original cast. Either way, fans do have "Crusade" and hopefully the B5 movie will tie up all the loose ends.



Rating:
Summary: Thank you TNT
Review: TNT now has a history of ruining great shows, starting with The Pretender continuing to the final season of B5 and ending with Crusaders.
I hove no doubt this could have been a great show - it did start to pick up toward the end of the run, but compared to the first 13 episodes of B5 this was lacking.

Rating:
Summary: Good show, but it's not widescreen, and not complete.
Review: Unlike all of the Babylon 5 series, this DVD set is not widescreen - big disappointment. Obviously, it is also incomplete. The show is good, but not up to B5 quality. I think it was just cut-off before the characters had a chance to gain lasting appeal.

Some cool technology is shown, especially the high-powered Excalibur ship. The techno-mage also has neat tricks, but there's just so much wasted potential.