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Crusade was designed by the creator of Babylon 5 when it
became clear to TNT, who took over production of the original series from
a less interested Warner Brothers, that there was plenty of mileage left
in the programme. Crusade was to be a separate story strand that takes
place about a year or two after the events of the Babylon 5 arc. The
Shadow War had concluded, but the allies of the Shadows, embodied in the
Drakh, remain homeless and masterless, now looking for a base of their
own, and to become masters of others. Towards that end, they target Earth
in the Babylon 5 feature length episode A
Call To Arms. Earth’s fate will be an example to the other races to
convince them to fall into line. But their attempt at conquest and
destruction ends badly for them.
As they retreat, they leave behind a little gift,
releasing a biogenetically engineered virus, a piece of leftover Shadow
technology. The virus has an incubation period of roughly five years,
during which time it adapts to its host species. At the end of that
adaptation period, it turns lethal. Released into the atmosphere of Earth,
it will essentially wipe out every man, woman and child on Earth who was
there when the virus was released. Unless a cure is found.
That is where the crew of the Excalibur came in. They
were given a mission of finding alien technology that would enable a cure
to be made in the time available. Central characters included one of the
nine surviving Zathras brothers; the command staff of one of the main
explorer vessels, the Excalibur; a warrior caste Minbari; the lone
survivor of a world wiped out by the Shadow allies; a lone Technomage sent
back to see if the coast is clear for the others to come back; a
biogeneticist and a representative from Interplanetary Expeditions, whose
goal may not be the same as the rest.
Unfortunately, the series was a huge disappointment, and
ended up being nothing more than the average "quest" series that
the US churns out for padding the schedules. That's precisely what
happened to Crusade. It eventually found a graveyard slot on Channel 4.
TNT did not find favour with the series and its run was limited to just
thirteen episodes.
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Creator: J
Michael Straczynski
Executive Producers: Unknown
Producer: Unknown
Co-Producer: Unknown
Associate Producer: Unknown
Conceptual Consultant: Unknown
Executive Story Editor: Unknown
Music: Unknown
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US Production/UK
Screenings:
Season One: 13 Episodes
1998-99/July - September 2000
A TNT Production for Warner
Brothers
13 colour 44 minute episodes
(Channel 4)
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