What was understood at the time, and may still be the dominant narrative, because it's not even totally untrue, was that the cancellation of the show had forced JMS to cram as much of Season 5 as possible into Season 4, as a result of which he found himself with the equivalent air time to fill when the show was de-cancelled, thus leaving the impression that the original plan for Seasons 4 and 5 had been more or less what we got, only more evenly distributed
Yeah, that was also my (original) understanding and I think you're right that it's not completely untrue, but it is absolutely fascinating to realize that - if the Reddit account is basically accurate, but I believe it's at least mostly accurate because it tracks so well with some of the otherwise inexplicable aspects of the flashforward in season three, sudden shoehorning in of the Drakh, etc - JMS didn't just compress what would have been more or less the same storyline, he compressed a 15-year timeskip as well! This probably would have made the Minbari civil war make even more sense than having it spread across two seasons (15 years for things to fall apart to that extent, plus Shadow manipulation, makes a lot more sense, actually!) ... and it's still possible he would have once again scaled back his apocalypse plans during season four, as opposed to having season five take place in a Shadow-dominated nightmare cosmos with a destroyed B5 as seems to have been the original plan. (That still would have been interesting, and looking at it in the big picture of the show, it feels somewhat more thematically solid - but I don't think I would've liked it better than the S5 we got, even allowing for the Byron of it all and the uneven pacing.)
One thing I do categorically like better about the upended version of the show as opposed to - from the sound of things - ALL of the pre-editorial-messing versions is B5 lasting throughout the entire series and its decommissioning and destruction as very nearly the show's final scene. That just feels so thematically solid that I'm amazed at all the various versions of this that would have blown it up mid-series! It's such a presence throughout the show as a place. I think destroying it mid-series would have blown up a lot of my interest in the show along with it; it would have felt like losing a major character.
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Yeah, that was also my (original) understanding and I think you're right that it's not completely untrue, but it is absolutely fascinating to realize that - if the Reddit account is basically accurate, but I believe it's at least mostly accurate because it tracks so well with some of the otherwise inexplicable aspects of the flashforward in season three, sudden shoehorning in of the Drakh, etc - JMS didn't just compress what would have been more or less the same storyline, he compressed a 15-year timeskip as well! This probably would have made the Minbari civil war make even more sense than having it spread across two seasons (15 years for things to fall apart to that extent, plus Shadow manipulation, makes a lot more sense, actually!) ... and it's still possible he would have once again scaled back his apocalypse plans during season four, as opposed to having season five take place in a Shadow-dominated nightmare cosmos with a destroyed B5 as seems to have been the original plan. (That still would have been interesting, and looking at it in the big picture of the show, it feels somewhat more thematically solid - but I don't think I would've liked it better than the S5 we got, even allowing for the Byron of it all and the uneven pacing.)
One thing I do categorically like better about the upended version of the show as opposed to - from the sound of things - ALL of the pre-editorial-messing versions is B5 lasting throughout the entire series and its decommissioning and destruction as very nearly the show's final scene. That just feels so thematically solid that I'm amazed at all the various versions of this that would have blown it up mid-series! It's such a presence throughout the show as a place. I think destroying it mid-series would have blown up a lot of my interest in the show along with it; it would have felt like losing a major character.