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This was a revolutionary new idea that combined the internet with television: a science fiction TV series where the viewer took part in the action. The story was downloaded in episodic packages, each building on the other to add more virtual sets, characters and items. The average episode was 45 minutes long, about half of which was gameplay, the rest of which was dialogue-driven drama. For the writers, the challenge was to write a 300-page script that could be divided into 12 episodes, when not only the action but also the available cast members and scenery escalated with each episode. The developers wanted TV quality so they paid TV money. There was plenty of scope for character development; the co-ed military fleet was modelled on that in Joe Haldeman's Forever War, with marriages as temporary contracts in the style of Larry Niven's Known Space. Leading man Dru Avery was conducting a not-so-clandestine affair with Rae Sherard a military attaché with the untrustworthy allied race, the Eridani. Dru's boss was falling for Rae's liaison officer. It was all going to end in tears. With animation limited by the size of the available episodes, the onus for originality lay on the script itself. The audience is kept guessing, that no character is safe and no opportunities for skulduggery go unused. The series gained a small but loyal following, particularly among Babylon Five newsgroups, who mistakenly believed that the writers were followers of the show. Its removal from the original distribution format turned it into a dated-looking, relatively low-resolution space shoot-'em-up, with non-game scenes that went on for far too long. |
