The CW is adding yet another science-fiction series to its stacked roster of shows. The network has announced that it is partnering with Warner Bros. Television to create a reboot of the Emmy-winning space opera series Babylon 5, developed by original series creator J. Michael Straczynski, who most recently created and show-ran Sense8 with The Wachowskis for Netflix. According to the network, the reboot will be a “from-the-ground-up” project, leaving no trace of the original 90s series behind and opting for a brand new take on the sci-fi classic.
Straczynski is set to write the series, which will follow John Sheridan, an officer with a mysterious background, assigned by his employer Earthforce to a Babylon 5, a five-mile-long port of call for space travelers, corporate explorers, shifty smugglers, and extraterrestrial diplomats during a time in the distant future threatened by war. Sheridan finds himself in the line of fire when an exploration company dives into war with an alien civilization a million years ahead of Earth, unintentionally ending up as the last hope for the survival of the human race.
The original Babylon 5 series, which starred Michael O’Hare, Bruce Boxleitner, and Claudia Christian, was much-beloved by fans and critics alike, earning itself a number of awards, including two Hugo Awards and Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Special Visual Effects and Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series. The series is generally lauded as the beginning of a new era for CGI and special effects on television, running for five seasons between 1994 and 1998 and spawning a number of spinoffs, including a miniseries, five television movies, and twenty-two novels.
Straczynski is also set to executive produce the series with his studio JMS, alongside Warner Bros. Television. No cast or release dates have been released for the series.