Crusade
"Warzone"

Their premier episode starts with ISN re-capping "A Call To Arms" and ends with Galen signing onto the mission. In the middle we have an attempted mutiny, a downed Drakh ship, a supercool archaeologist, a super-cool crew, Mars, pissy EAS officials, Galen quoting Kosh to the effect of me soiling myself, a nice space battle, a nine-year old mystery...Gee, I like this show very much, thank you.

I am going to say there could not be a worthier successor to Babylon 5's throne of "Best Drama/Action/Adventure on Television". JMS said that this was the series weakest episode since it was written under the idiotic eye of Turner Network Television, so I'd love to see what JMS considers to be a stronger episode.

Gary Cole was superb as Captain Matthew Gideon, as was Peter Woodward portraying Galen. Daniel Dae Kim played Lieutenant Matheson with underlying subtlety to great effect, and Carrie Dobro had the right mix of cockiness and quiet intelligence for Dureena.

As for David Allen Brooks as the character of Max Eilerson...Well, suffice it to say I have a new Garibaldi. I want this character to start doing product endorsements. "Coca Cola --- Drink it because they're paying me money to say this."

And Alex Mendoza as Trace Miller and Marjean Holden as Dr Sarah Chambers...Don't know enough about the characters yet to make a fully formed decision. Trace could either turn out to be cool or the second coming of Zach Allen (which wouldn't really be that bad in and of itself). And Dr Chambers, in this first episode, doesn't have the vorascious and insatiable sex drive of B5's Franklin, which is a nice change of pace.

I am going to talk about the music in another article. But, briefly, I LOVE it, which puts me in direct opposition to a huge number of people, and I applaud JMS loudly for having the sheer balls for putting a composer like Even H. Chen (who sounds like he should be on a Drag City comp or something) on a project like this. Let a million other producers learn from this example.

All in all, very much like Futurama, it was an excellent introductory episode that can only lead to better things.

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Michael Keegan
6.15.1999