When the now-legendary filmmaker J. Michael Straczynski pitched his “novel for television,” he understood that he was at a disadvantage that actual novelists don’t have. His characters were largely reliant on not only the whims of a fickle entertainment economy but also on specific actors continuing in their roles.
“In drafting the story for Babylon 5, I made sure to compensate for any possible changes,” Straczynski wrote in 1994. “For lack of a better term, there is a ‘trap door’ built into the storyline for every character.” And on November 2, 1994, in the second season debut of Babylon 5 (“Point of Departure”), he used one of these contingency plans to swap out the lead actor of the entire TV series.
While this might seem like a risky gambit, there’s no way the show could have continued without this switch. In Season 1 of Babylon 5, the primary hero was Jeffrey Sinclair (played by the late Michael O’Hare). But in Season 2, Captain John Sheridan (played by genre icon and Tron himself, Bruce Boxleitner) became the star. And with this happened, everything changed.
Commander Sinclair is “reassigned”
Why did Michael O’Hare leave Babylon 5? Throughout Season 1, the show teased a ton about his character, from his missing memory at the Battle of the Line in “And the Sky Full of Stars” to his possible future in a strange timeline in “Babylon Squared.” Then, in the Season 1 finale, “Chrysalis,” the show ended on a few cliffhangers:
- Earth Alliance President was seemingly assassinated in a bombing
- Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) was shot in the back
- Delenn (Mira Furlan) entered a literal cocoon, leaving Commander Sinclair to contemplate the future of the galaxy, and whether or not Babylon 5 can maintain its peacekeeping mission.
“Chrysalis” aired on October 26, 1994. Hard cut to one week later, however, and the debut episode of Season 2, “Point of Departure,” aired on TV. The Season 2 premiere revealed that Commander Sinclair has been reassigned to the planet Minbar — forever — and would be replaced by John Sheridan (who the Minbari hate with a passion and refer to as “Starkiller” since he blew up some of their ships a decade prior). In-universe, this switch sets up a later plotline in which we learn that, via time travel, Sinclair will become the Minbari religious leader known as Valen.
In the 1990s, Straczynski made it clear that because he had additional plans for the lead of the show, he was worried that “lumbering Sinclair’s character” with “additional material would be stretching credulity to the snapping point.”
In reality — which wasn’t revealed until 2014 — actor Michael O’Hare was suffering from serious mental health problems and, for a variety of reasons, could not continue into Season 2.
“I kept the secret because I didn’t want to kill his career,” Straczynski said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. He also covered O’Hare’s “rent needs and food” during this time, and made sure to bring back Sinclair in Season 3 to complete the time travel arc set up in Season 1.
Sinclair’s story of being reassigned to Minbar was also told in detail in an official DC Comics tie-in series, written by Straczynski, starting in January 1995. But the future of Babylon 5 officially was in the hands of Captain Sheridan at that point, not Commander Sinclair.
Sheridan as the new “Chosen One”
In contrast to the more contemplative Sinclair, Boxleitner plays Sheridan with his signature gee-shucks charm, which almost makes him feel like a 1960s throwback Captain Kirk, but for the 1990s. (Keep in mind Star Trek: The Next Generation had just gone off the air that same year.) At first, the show suggests that Babylon 5 is trading a pacifist for a military hawk, but the truth is that both Sheridan and Sinclair were soldiers, just very different kinds. A stand-alone episode of Babylon 5, “Points of Departure,” makes it clear this is now John Sheridan’s show from the very first shot. We start, not on the titular space station, but instead with Sheridan in command of his ship, the Agamemnon. For there, bringing Sheridan into the fold involves the hunt for a rogue Minbari cruiser that is trying to stir up tensions between Earth and Minbar. In a kind of Star Trek-ish vibe, Sheridan, a guy who fought the Minbari, has to prove his commitment to peace.
Twenty years later, it’s fascinating to watch how seamlessly Boxleitner immediately fits in with the cast. Conveniently, we’re told he and Commander Ivanova (Claudia Christensen) have already worked together before, making their chemistry natural and cozy. In 1997, Christensen described Boxleitner’s arrival as a “breath of fresh air.”
By the end of its five-season run, Babylon 5 would put Sheridan through much more than this first episode suggests, proving that Boxleitner’s range is perhaps wider and more subtle than casual sci-fi fans might assume. In “Points of Departure,” Sheridan is the smiling new guy, trying to make the best of a bad situation. Throughout the rest of the series, he becomes the leader of a renegade government, a messiah figure with Dune-like influence over his followers, an unwitting time traveler, and the President of the Galaxy.
Not all of that is evident in “Point of Departure” — which is how it should be. The strength of Babylon 5 is that the show transformed all of its characters over time in ways that were deliberate and profound. More than any other sci-fi show of its era, Babylon 5 pushed back against what you expected of people. Sheridan may have started as a kind of ready-made sci-fi trope, a Buck Rogers figure on a kooky space station, but that was just the beginning.
