>By now I've realized that the announcement has to come from an outside source
>before you can talk about it. Can you tell us when/where that'll be?

I don't know, as I said, we just closed the deal for me to come on board as
executive producer/show runner this week, and the first substantial creative
meetings start on Wednesday.

What I *can* say is this:

* it's in the SF genre

* it's for one of the pay cable networks (which means no censoring of language
or ideas or images, which is a terrific situation for any writer, allowing you
to go as far as they have on, say, The Sopranos or Oz)

* it's slated to start with a 2 hour pilot which I'll be writing and is due no
later than December

* it'll probably be shot in Vancouver since there are a lot of locations in it
that we can find in one place only up there

* there's a high profile director attached to the project and that involvement
was one of the real inducements for me to sign on with this because I've always
admired his work in TV and film

* assuming the pilot script passes muster, we'll probably begin shooting in
February or March for a Fall debut. (What's nifty is that while there's a
pilot required, as with ANY new series, in this case they're willing to go into
production on the series based JUST on the script, we don't have to go out and
shoot a full pilot first)

* on a personal level, it pays over double what I got on B5 or Crusade, which
is kinda nice

* it will have an arc to it, but not as rigorous as the B5 arc

And like that.

My *guess* (and that's all it is) is that the network will release some info
about this over the next couple of months, but will probably hold back anything
more substantive until after the pilot is written.

Practically from the first day after Crusade went down, there have been various
offers, but except for the Chris Carter deal, which went down when Harsh Realm
was pulled, none of them were things I could get really excited about. This
one, though, is something I think I can really sink my teeth into.

It's really been an amazing year so far... Tribulations has been the #1 read on
bookface.com for three weeks running, City of Dreams is a bonafide hit on
scifi.com, we closed the deal for me to write the Rising Stars movie for MGM,
and now the series deal is now in place....

You just got to keep doing what you're doing, and do it to the best of your
ability, and sonuvagun, somehow things work out.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)

>incidentally, after looking through the long list of shows jms has done, i
>find
>i unknowingly have enjoyed nearly everything with his name on it(i didn't
>even
>know who he was until late in B5S5), so i'm fairly sur i'll enjoy the new
>show
>too.

I've been getting this a lot from people lately. "Oh, I just knew you from B5,
I didn't know you had done (fill in the gap) until I was watching my old tapes
the other day and...." Sometimes it's Murder She Wrote, but more often it's
The Real Ghostbusters or Jayce or He-Man or Twilight Zone or Captain Power or,
well, pick one...which invariably gets followed by, "I *grew up as a kid*
watching your stuff."

At which point I want to smite them with a very large mallet. Or a very large
mallard, whichever is nearer at hand.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)

>And while we're on the subject of your older stuff... I just have to ask
>(and from what I've heard, it wasn't a pleasant experience for those
>involved)... Did you have anything to do (develop/story edit?) with
>"Spiral Zone"?

I wrote the pilot, then when I saw what they were going to do with the show, I
took my name off it and walked away from the show. I think I put on Fettes
Grey as my pseudonym, which are the names of two grave robbers from a well
known piece of fiction.

How the heck did you know about that one?


jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)

>For our curiosity, just how much of those shows, especially "He-Man" and
>"Real Ghostbusters", did you write? The occasional script? Most of them?
>Consultant?

I was story editor on both shows (also on the He-Man followup series, She-Ra).
I wrote something like a dozen eps for those two shows, and around 18 for
TRGBs.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)

>> How the heck did you know about that one?
>
>Michael Reaves blabbed in an interview.

Hand me my chain saw, mother, I'm going out to catch dinner....

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)

>Do you get the sense that your career is just really hitting its stride,
>or has it been there for some time?

I've really no idea....

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)