The Babylon 5 Reboot Just Hit A Major Snag

If you were looking forward to the upcoming "Babylon 5" reboot on The CW, we have some bad news — but all hope is not yet lost.

"Babylon 5" was one of the most influential TV series of the 1990's. True, it might not have drawn quite the same ratings as other 1990's sci-fi TV juggernauts like "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine," but it did develop a cult following of diehard fans. That was enough to spawn a TV miniseries, five movies, several novels, and multiple tabletop games (via The Guardian).

The show has such a devoted fanbase that The CW decided to bring back "Babylon 5" in September 2021. The new iteration is described as a "from-the-ground-up reboot," and will be written by the show's original creator J. Michael Straczynski. According to Deadline, "the new version would follow John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space."

Whether that's the same John Sheridan from the original series remains to be seen. For now, all we know is that fans will have to wait a little longer to find out.

As reported by Deadline, the "Babylon 5" reboot is being pushed back to the next development cycle. That means "Babylon 5" has been delayed from a Fall 2022 launch to Fall 2023.

It's definitely disappointing for fans, but at least it's not an outright cancellation. As "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Straczynski pointed out on his Patreon page, "When a pilot script is not picked up to production, 99.999% of the time, that's the end of the road for the project, the script is dead."

So, it could be much worse.

In Straczynski's post, the TV writer gave fans even more reasons to be optimistic. According to Straczynski, the president of The CW, Mark Pedowitz, is apparently a big fan of the series. Pedowitz worked for Warner Bros. when the original "Babylon 5" was airing in the 1990's on the Prime Time Entertainment Network and later on TNT. Even better, Pedowitz called the pilot reboot teleplay "a damn fine script." Having the president of the network so fully invested in a project is certainly a good sign for its prospects. 

Straczynski wrapped up his post with a final note of hope: "What matters is that the project is still very much alive," he said. "And when the time is appropriate, that window will give B5 fans the opportunity to express their passionate support for the series."