Crusade 

A team of soldiers and scientists has five years to find a cure for a plague decimating Earth.

Creator:

J. Michael Straczynski

Stars:

Gary Cole, Tracy Scoggins, Daniel Dae Kim

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Gary Cole	...	Capt. Matthew Gideon 13 episodes, 1999
Tracy Scoggins	...	Capt. Elizabeth Lochley 13 episodes, 1999
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Lt. John Matheson 13 episodes, 1999
David Allen Brooks	...	Max Eilerson 13 episodes, 1999
Peter Woodward	...	Galen 13 episodes, 1999
Marjean Holden	...	Dr. Sarah Chambers / ... 13 episodes, 1999
Carrie Dobro	...	Dureena Nafeel 13 episodes, 1999

Storyline

Several years after the end of the Great War (detailed in the main Babylon 5 TV series) the former servants of the now-exiled Shadows attempt to avenge their old masters by introducing a powerful biological weapon into Earth's atmosphere. After five years of adapting itself to humanity's genetic makeup, it will kill every human being on the planet. Since this plague was the product of a technology far ahead of humanity's, there isn't enough time to develop an original solution - instead, humanity will have to comb through the ruins of older alien civilizations with the hope of finding some ancient, advanced technology that can cure the disease. Leading this high-stakes archeological mission is a starship of the new Interstellar Alliance, the Excalibur, and its crew drawn from the Alliance's elite troubleshooting corps, the Rangers.

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Plot Keywords:

outer space | plague | alien | space opera | post apocalypse | 

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Taglines:

A bold new flight of adventure.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 June 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Crusade: The Babylon Project

Company Credits

Production Co:

Babylonian Productions, Warner Bros. Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

44 min (13 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

J. Michael Straczynski had completed the script for episode 14 before the series was cancelled, titled "To the Ends of the Earth". The episode would have seen Gideon using the Excalibur and the Apocalypse Box to hunt down the mysterious hybrid-Shadow vessel (the ship, as seen in flashback, that destroyed the EAS Cerberus), setting him at odds with other crew members. After a space battle with the Excalibur, the hybrid vessel would have self-destructed, and the final scenes of the episode would have suggested a connection between the hybrid vessel and EarthForce. The events of this episode would have set up the series' main story arc.

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Quotes

Dureena Nafeel: Did you find your answer to "why", Galen?
Galen: [pause] That one, may take little longer.

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Connections

Follows Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (1999)

User Reviews

Murdered during birth by TNT!

To those of you who only saw it when broadcast on TNT, the broadcast "opener" was not in fact the true opening episode. The series is now being rebroadcast in the order in which it was intended by Sci-Fi Channel, and after only a week it remains far more satisfying than it was two years ago. The story detailed on all the chatrooms at the time. Basically, B5 was bought for TNT by the people who bought re-broadcast rights, but supervision for Crusade was taken over by people who supervised original series and evidently didn't like it -- they were into westerns. They wanted a new character added, a female who 'explored' other species sexually. They were responsible for the change in uniforms, and they demanded a new opener, one which gave away too much. JMS went as far as he could, then told them to stuff it. They took 13 episodes, no more, and at the time the Sci Fi channel had committed its financial future to Farscape. I liked Farscape -- now I love it -- but I LOVE Crusade. Watch the series as it is broadcast here, and write Sci-Fi asking if they can't get new episodes. Marjean Holden may be trapped in Beastmaster, but I suspect the other actors would jump at the chance to play such complex characters.