So they can keep showing him 'on TV' without having to pay the extra money he apparently insisted on for future media rights. It was either that, or not bring out the season 5 dvd set at all.īut again, the broadcast rights were already settled when it first appeared on TV. A page for describing YMMV: Babylon Five S 05 E 04 A View From The Gallery. I don't remember all the details now, but I do recall something about how the Byron actor's contract for future releases of the show - dvd, etc - called for a lot more money than the studio wanted to pay, so by cutting back his appearances to what qualified as 'supporting' or something rather than 'guest star' status, they were able to avoid paying him that much more. But at the same time the DVDs didn't have it, stations that broadcast them normally still had the music, because those rights had already been settled. It is the year 2258, and the human race, still beaten and bloody 11 years after its second great interstellar war, has built what may be humanitys finest. It is the dawn of the third age of mankind, a dawn whose light casts shadows of the past as indistinct portents of things to come. That's why, as I've also mentioned before, for years when the Married With Children DVDs came out, they did NOT include the original theme song, because the Frank Sinatra estate wouldn't allow it. Publishers blurb: " It is a time of danger and of hope, a time of unhealed wounds and new opportunities.

Make no mistake, it's possible for broadcast rights and digital/DVD/streaming/etc rights to be quite different. As mentioned, there were no 10-minute breaks in what I saw, even filled with ads.īut I think if you compare the DVD episode versions with what Comet is showing, you'll find the Byron episodes are definitely shorter on DVD.

Babylon 5 a view from the gallery