Since the CW announced its fall lineup showing mostly reality-based programs, fans of Babylon 5 grew concerned the series had been scrapped. Before the WGA writers’ strike, Babylon 5 was scheduled to premiere on August 15th. Now, it’s somewhat uncertain if the original series will air as reported by Comicbook, though not all hope is yet lost.
The reboot series was announced back in September of 2021 with J. Michael Straczynski writing the pilot episode as well as running the series. The project is “still in limbo at the CW and is now, like many things in the biz, on hold,” according to a recent TVLine article.
J. Michael Straczynski worked on the original Babylon 5 series as a writer, director, and producer. The series spawned from a 1993 made-for-television movie and ran from 1993 to 1998 totaling 110 episodes over five seasons as well as inspiring several spinoff series and films.
The plot as described by The CW:
“In a from-the-ground-up reboot of the original series, John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers, and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.”
With the project being in perpetual limbo for now, fans must wait out the ongoing WGA writers’ strike and possible SAG-AFTRA strike before more news on further developments of Babylon 5. Everything is pretty much at a standstill until then.