I have a couple of quibbles with the point you made. First, you say that he suddenly became obsessed with the Shadow ship in his final episode. In fact, it was established a few episodes earlier that Keffer was taking out his star fury during his off hours and searching for it. With so little screen time for him, his obsession was one of the more fleshed out aspects of his character. Second, you say he is never mentioned by the main characters again after his last episode. That is not quite correct, as they talk about him at the start of Season 3 as Earth investigated the incident. After that though, he is forgotten.
Agreed, in a lot of shows you get a new character that gets killed off quick, you can sort of feel the set up. Imagine if instead you had a whole season getting to know the guy so that his death was a punch to the gut, this would have been two decades before Game of Thrones or Walking Dead made that a regular occurrence.
@@Liethen I just think back to how Americans reacted to the off-screen death of Col. Blake on the TV series M*A*S*H. No one expected it. Even the cast didn't expect it. Actor Gary Burghoff was given a note at the last minute and told to enter the operating theater and just read it, and that's how everyone learned of it. That was a true Gut Punch!
Imagine the effect it would have on us had he been in the room with Mr. Morden and Anna Sheridan when John Sheridan went to Z'ha'dum. Completely reprogrammed with an unrecognizably different personality. Perhaps him with the old man's personality, manners, and lines.
even Star Trek fans don't get attached to red shirts in the original series, they were convenient to discover things and promptly get killed by them. he was basically a red shirt.
It's the old theory of "if the audience knows a character's name they will care about them." That theory's *wrong*, but then so is the theory of gravity. :-)
I feel like the character of Zach ended up taking on Keffer's role in later seasons, as the "everyman" who reports to the big main characters without being a top guy and part of the inner circle.
@Phintasmo We see exactly what you mean about Zack being an everyman type character plus his growth over the seasons into the seasoned officer we know. We also see his skills as a cop he learned by being Garabaldi's second in the season 5 episode "Learning Curve" when he examines the murdered body and determines it was placed out where it was as a warning.
I think in season 2 JMS definitely added a few characters seeing Zach and saying "hey Zach!" because he wasn't allowed to make Zach the title roll character
I agree Zach is the guy that always need to put the garbage out and clean the floor after the fight, the guy that puts the bad guys on the cell after the movie ends, the guy that was there when they blew it off.
The main reason for Keffer was so that there was an individual character who would expose the Shadows. Remember the full Keffer arc. While helping to save the EAS Cortez, Keffer's StarFury was damaged by a passing Shadow vessel. This started his obsession on finding out more information. His trips searching for the Shadows caused Sheridan, after he found out about them, to put a stop to his flights so that the Shadows would still think they haven't been discovered or known about. Keffer's last act of filming a Shadow vessel in hyperspace, just before that vessel killed Keffer, started the whole Shadow war rolling. With it being a character we knew, it made the sacrifice more personal to the audience.
Yea he was underused as a character, but do you know what? I still remember being shocked when Keffer got killed by the Shadows. I mean he was in the credits and at the time I couldn't recall any other TV show killing off a 'main character' like that.
Well, for a character who was literally forced on a writer by the studio, I think JMS had treated Keffer pretty well. He really could use him only as a generic pilot for a fight / reconnaissance sequences like with the Tragati, Centauri cruiser or a dead Markab ship. But Keffer actually got his own complete mini-arc related to the main plot of the show, with a solid beginning in 2x04 and the end in 2x22.
Ugh. You're right that Keffer was underutilized and underdeveloped. His obsession with the Shadow vessels could have been better handled by JMS. But you're not taking into account the craziness of the year JMS was creating Season 2 of the show. Let's recap that, shall we? - Michael O'Hare left the show because he had schizophrenia and JMS had to make it look like it was no big deal. Even Claudia Christian didn't know how bad it was when she wrote her memoir. - PTEN was having a load of grief trying to stay on the air. - JMS never knew how much time he would actually have to tell his five year story, and he was dealing with Andrea Thompson (Talia) getting ready to leave the show. - JMS was writing basically every episode this season. He started developing carpal tunnel this year between writing these episodes and being online. So yeah, he could have done better with Keffer. Robert Rusler was a decent actor in the 80s and 90s. He got to work with Robert Downey, Jr. on "Weird Science". But the fact that season 2 of Babylon 5 was this good was a minor miracle. So please, take this into account in your analysis.
Rusler was also "Seether", a hot-shot (and genetically engineered evil) space fighter pilot in one of the Wing Commander games - that was shortly after his B5 stint (I think), but I wonder if it was amusing to him.
He didn't WANT the character though. It was forced on him by the execs, he already had a "young sexy, hip character" in mind for the show, and that was Marcus. But Marcus wasn't fit for the story yet. So yeah, he didn't do anything with the character that he didn't want, didn't have a place for, and didn't need for his narrative.
On one hand I agree with the decision, on the other hand I think JMS missed an opportunity to have him start as a Hot Shot, but then mature out of that to become something more agreeable, and be a window to the fighter pilots.
I recently thought about this character and kept thinking "what must the actor have felt like?". I mean, you get a new job, even as a supposed series regular, yet your part is basically non-existent, you almost never interact with other main cast members, and even if he knew why, I doubt it was a great experience for him.
@@robbybevard8034That depends on whether he just wanted a bit of free money, or if he actually wanted to be able to participate in the show he was hired to be a part of.
JMS had a 5 year story planned. He wasn't writing it episode to episode like most shows. The networking wanted to insert a character that didn't have a place. Not surprised he was killed off.
I actually liked him. He could have been kept around, and it would have been interesting to have him around during the civil war scenes. Maybe his girl back home supported Clark, putting him at odds with her. He could have been a guy you used to show how the decisions made by the big dogs affect the little guy.
@@Phintasmo season 4 had so much crammed into it because they thought they weren't getting a season 5, but if they knew they didn't have to rush, there would have been plenty of time to dive into all of that.
Or maybe he's loyal to President Clarke and is forced to leave the station. Or he pretends to be loyal so his girlfriend isn't targeted. Lots of drama potential there and you don't lose a major character.
Weird thing is, like so many other things in early B5, it sorta works by accident. If he was just a one of guest star I wouldn't really have cared so much about his obession to find the shadows or eventual death. As it was he was featured *just enough* for me to recognize and give half a shit about him when he finally gets melted but without spoiling too much of the mystery of the Shadows. Sure, he could have been used more and more effectively, but it still worked for me.
I think if they had given him a couple of more scenes in a couple more episodes, looking into the Shahow vessel, it would have made him feel more like a regular character and would have made his final death more impactful at the end.
He needed a side plot with Garabaldi where he was helping him with something, maybe Franklin to. Basically what they ended up doing with Marcus in Seasons 3 and 4 I guess, lol.
Without knowing the story, at least for me he was a memorable character. I am pretty sure a lot of people remember him and you said it yourself - 20ish min in a whole season. But somehow almost everyone remembers him... So in a way he made an impact, I never thought of him as a min character though
I always thought his death was the point and the short appearances and placement in the credits were to give it at least a small amount of impact over that of a normal redshirt.
I think the fact that Keffer has been floating around in the background all season gives his death gravitas. If JMS had just killed a one episode red shirt, no one would have felt anything. So the note had merit. Also, if the guy was just there to die, good he didn't waste too much time on screen taking away opportunities from main characters.
Watching through it again now, i forgot about keffer. He has a few tiny little moments in the station that just helped to flesh out the station as a real place. He's not the only minor character either.
I dont mind Keffer. He kind of reminded me of Captain Kelly from the BSG Reboot. You know, people that are sort of 'there" but are not really important to the plot. But here and there they appear to tell the audience that a functioning spaceship needs a crew besides the main characters to keep everything working. They dont need huge story archs and sometimes you can kill them off like Keffer to show the audience the threat of an enemy like the shadows. I think JMS handled his mini-arc nicely. He was one tiny but not unimportant part in the epic storytelling of Babylon 5 that showed us a whole universe of places and characters besides our main heroes.
I like that Keffer was a barely there character. This is how it should be with some characters. We had a guy on our team, can't remember his name, he was on for 9 months, worked on a side app that I barely knew about and was barely acknowledged, I barely knew him, had two lunches with him (as a team thing), and he retired. That is how life is. Some people, while part of the team, are just side characters. The fact that he was in the titles as a main character is great since we expect to get to know him but he ends up becoming almost useless. Good misdirection even if is wasn't really planned that way. I think that side characters should be billed as main characters as a misdirection more often (like the guy who says: "There goes my faith in the Almighty" to Ivanova (I para-quoted there).
yeah if you have some characters that are barely there it ads a level of depth to the show cause there are people that are barely there in terms of there presence in the real world so a show should have that same depth to it as well they didn't need to kill him off just keep him barely there it was enough that he was just barely there
It was a missed opportunity. Honestly, if the studio really made so few requests, then doing this just comes off as really petty. Not the killing him off part, that was fine. But giving him next to no development and lying to the actor to boot? Yeah, that was a really shitty thing to do, and makes me want to believe Claudia Christian's version of events with what drove her off the show, now that I know JMS can be such a dick.
Thanks for shedding some light on a character that had always seemed a bit odd when I watched (or rewatched) the show. While it would have been theoretically possible to force Keffer into more storylines, given how JMS was focused on an overall story arc for the whole run of the show, I'm not surprised that he didn't react with enthusiasm to the network pushing the character. Could Keffer have been Babylon 5's Wesley Crusher, and alienated more viewers with more hamfisted efforts to push him as important? Sure. But I think the show (and even the actor) are better off without the audience hate that would have generated. Remember Byron, aka Telepath Loreal Hair Care Model guy from Season 5? There are worse fates than only getting a little screen time. :)
I hated him because he did this huge 180 personality-wise and started actively proving Bester right. It also didn't help for *some* reason, no one wanted to accommodate a few dozen people who'd just keep to themselves
Keffer was one of two in-the-credits characters in Season 2 who was deliberately underused and then disappeared by JMS, the other being Na'Toth. Originally played by Caitlin Brown in Season 1, she had to be recast in Season 2, played by Mary Kay Adams. JMS didn't like the new actor's characterization, so Na'Toth was deep-sixed. Babylon 5 was an unforgiving place, apparently.
Na'Toth is different, though. Her fate was left vague, and this paid off because she was able to have her arc resolved in season 5. Keffer's fate was not at all vague, and just in case you tried to argue that it might be, JMS was literally calling him an ex-Keffer on either Usenet or Compuserve, a la the dead parrot sketch from Monty Python. Na'Toth was an actor problem - Keffer was gleeful vengeance by JMS.
I never really noticed this, but you're right. He seemed like a much bigger character because of the Shadow ship reveal, but he was always underused. It's hard to see how much more JMS could have done with him though given all the other stuff happening in season 2.
to me he's part of a massively important plot point, more so than zach or lou welch in the early days, who were pretty much run arounds under orders and someone the main character could fire off lines and exposition to (obviously Zachs role changes massively later on) but Kiefers role is so much more, its the first known contact for the humans and the shadows, all 3 of those characters are bounce off characters, characters that where a legitimate part of the station, and had that balance of being informed without being the guest star or someone who turns into a villian keifer also ensures a more realistic military feel and structure to the show and prevents the kirk syndrome of the CO doing everything, everytime at any cost and often in dire peril, yet surviving by plot armour
I'm seeing alot of COmments, saying they could have done this or that with him.... but the fact is, it was a network ask in the show and JMS never wanted the character in. He hated that kind of character. As a writer, lets be honest, that he got 18mins of screentime basically was mooooore than generous. There are character sthat simply don't work in your vision and you have to get them off screen or off page as quickly as possible for your own sanity. JMS could have done a ton of this with keffer sure, but far more likely, the character was being shoehorned in as is, and probably mucking about with the planned story arcs. That's why he was kept minimal and then tossed. I feel sorry for the actor on that, I really do... on the other hand, professionally speaking, at the time he had his name and face in the opening credits every epsiodes of season 2, so..looks good on the resume'. But yeah, Keffer didn't really belong in the story beyond what we got, and I'm glad JMS was able to deal with the situation until he ... dealt with the situation.
Keffer ended up effectively a series of one-dimensional one-off characters. Having a single character play those roles was a better story idea than an actual series of one-off characters. I wouldn't call it a lost opportunity necessarily but I would agree that even just a few more lines of dialogue could have made him a more substantial and interesting character. On the other hand, it also works for the overall story that while the audience is seeing some of the initial moves by the Shadows, there's a little misdirection because none of the seemingly important characters are paying attention, making the "fore-Shadowing" more subtle.
@@Phintasmo Yeah the opening Credit for season 2 were weird. But Natoth got it worse than Keffer. The actress was in just 2! Of 22 episodes, although she appears in the opening Credits. Normally the names of such guest actors would appear in the episode directly, while the names of the main stars are reserved for the intro.
The character never clicked with me from the beginning. This was how he was introduced, as a person who was already part of the inner circle of cast. Think it would have been interesting, he was a transfer problem pilot. He's that way because he saw something (a Shadow ship in hyperspace) and is obsessed. Perhaps he knew Sheridan, worked on the Agamemnon, a good intro into how he would know the inner cycle of cast. There were many better ways to introduce him. But, the biggest problem was the suits higher up wanting this character. Compare him with Marcus next season and its vastly different in how the characters were introduced and used.
If I were the actor I'd be totally cheesed. Given the way they rolled him out, he probably thought he'd be dedicating real time/effort to the show and likely turning down other opportunities. Meanwhile, as mentioned in the video, I think his death would've had much more impact if they had developed him further. I understand JMS' stance on the whole thing but that's an innocent person's career he's messing with. Now I understand why I never personally liked Keffer's arc at all, it was JMS not really caring. Let's face it the one big part of Keffer's role was to get the footage of a shadow vessel. Well, that could've easily been done by having a drone do an after-survey of damage from an attack and the footage being the last thing the drone transmitted. For me, that would've been much more dramatic. The B5 crew getting lucky catching a short clip of the Shadows going about their business. The clip could've been expanded to more footage of the Shadows using the excuse the drone's low power was too low for the Shadows to consider an issue.
I think developing Keffer further would have been a mistake. JMS had plotted the entire series as a single novel. The type of deeper interactions you suggest at the end of the video were appropriate later, and we see them for Ranger Marcus Cole at the right time for the development of the whole story. Also, Keffer did move two central themes of Babylon 5 forward. I see it as no accident that he had a significant role in Gropos, a story about how grunt troops are used and killed off, real people who's lives are cut off and then are forgotten. That the same happened to hotshot pilot Keffer shows a realism at the core of Babylon 5 about the horrors of war and waste in human society that we don't see in unrealistic hero stories like Star Wars and Top Gun.,
@@Phintasmo Marcus was considerably cooler because of his accent. And his mannerisms and whole portrayal. Keffer was too much "just another pretty face."
I think it would have been interesting if Keffer had still been around for Severed Dreams so that we could have seen a character that was not in the command staff & didn't know what was really going on dealing with orders to fire on Earth Alliance ships. It would also have been interesting if he had gone with Sheridan's fleet in No Surrender, No Retreat for much the same reason.
Wow, I never realized that Keffer was in so few episodes. And I guess I also implied a lot of what you think should have been done with the character! Fundamentally, it's Joe's show and I won't challenge his decisions. Much. With everything else going on with the main characters, primarily Sheridan, I can see why further development of Keffer would be 86'ed. And the Shadow War was just getting underway, so that needed more servicing than a character Joe didn't want in the first place. Still, if there had been time, the descent of Keffer into obsession about the Shadows that you suggest might have been an interesting road to go down.
Here's a featured starfury pilot! Name in opening even! And HERE'S JMS, standing off screen, hands on tassels, ready to pull the rug. His advice to the actor, "if you have anything you want to use that health care on, use it quick"
the more I find out about JMS and his decisions regarding the actors, the less I think about him. He hired his work girlfriend: Patricia Tallman as an extra, he forced Claudia Christian and Andrea Thompson into an uncomfortable lesbian relationship (which Thompson cited as one reason for quitting), and then pulled some last minute shit with Claudia near the end of season 4 when her agent went up to bat and negotiate for more money because Claudia was set for second billing, becoming the Station Captain, and effectively getting her raise. Claudia Christian tells the same story every time: She was dealing with personal stuff, her agent fought for more pay, and she was let go/walked away. JMS flip flops between firing her over pay, her not playing ball, or just saying "I don't know, she didn't talk to me." Bruh, you wrote a Spiderman story where Gwen Stacy has twins with Norman Osborne because you wanted to write a 16 year old losing her virginity to an older guy, instead of Peter Parker.
Keffer could have been an interesting character, but that would have required a lot more work to wedge him into the stories that were produced for S2, which was already chaotic AF. Killing the character off was rather peckish, but I get why JMS did it.....Were it my show to write, I would have brought Keffer back as a Shadow Agent, like Anna Sheridan or Morden, or, I would have brought him back in Season 5 as some kind of war leader against the Shadow's minions who had remained behind when the Shadows left....I never hated Keffer, but the character was not part of the creator's vision, and shoehorning him into the series was a bad move on the part of the network.
His obsession could have had a Lovecraftian aspect to it, it leads down a rabbit hole that he comes to regret do to learning terrifying things and end tragically for him both with the loss of life and loss of his relationships, for but his death was not in vain do the to info sends back to the station just before he dies.
I never even spotted that he was the same character throughout rather than just a generic pilot who happened to get a few lines. If he had to be there it would probably have been better to give him a bit more time to become recognised. But, considering he's clearly Babylon 5's equivalent of Poochy, maybe the right call was made at the time.
I'd say a missed opportunity, but agree with forced network characters. When you try to force the creative process it doesn't generally end well. So I don't blame JMS for not wanting to use the character. That said, he could have been a good middle to the old conundrum of sending out command staff to do every little thing despite it not being practical. With a little tweaking he probably could have actually contributed something more to the plot. Oh well.
His job was to exist so that EVERYTHING doesn't happen to the few main characters. His main job was the Shadow/hyperspace plot line and that was it. That's what he was there for.
I never realized how little screen time Keffer got. I agree his introduction was handled poorly just appearing out of the blue like that. However he showed up usually where appropriate and just enough to get to know him a bit and his death is the key that moves the plot along to the next season.
JMS left a few loose threads in his show. Though to be fair, it was quite the epic with so many moving parts, there was bound to be loose threads left behind. One of those threads was the shadows ground troopers. That intelligent, invisible thing that fed off life and could walk through walls - truly nightmare inducing creatures. There was supposedly a whole bunch of them making their way back to Z'ha'dum. But we only get one episode and they are never mentioned again.
Been awhile since I watched. But I thought there was a later reference that they were among the former shadow aligned species that were on Centari Prime when Londo was Emperor. Maybe I am misremembering.
Was it a missed opportunity with him? Maybe, but there's only so much time to devote to each character and story arc so other things would have needed to be cut to get more of him. So that plus the fact that he was forced into the story, I can totally understand why he got the treatment he did
@Phintasmo I think that if they really wanted to use his character to its fullest extent and we can argue about screen time and episode duration because everybody knows, things will need to be dropped off the side of a cliff, other stories and what not in order to bring what is a disposable character to life. So this is how I think they should have used the character - much like they had the episode where they follow the two technicians around during a day. Warren Keffer should have been a fine addition to the kind of background stuff, encounters in hallways, just being there every now and again. In scenes with Garibaldi or G'kar or Londo. Having drinks in the background with squad mates, perhaps having G'kar in the earlier seasons while he is still a bit more angry talking to him, perhaps talking trash about the Centauri. Even having him giving combat tips on how to fight Centauri raiders and ensuring him that the information will prove useful one day because darn those Centauri, its only a matter of time you know. When his squads captain dies, he gets promoted, well, they could have done a lot more with that. How the staff deal with the death of somebody and the fact that they barely knew him and how this hotshot is going to be the new guy. Then when they promote him, he could have really stepped up in the show by telling them he wouldn't take the promotion if all he was going to be was another name on a sheet to them and he wanted more access and more responsibilities. Something like Zeta squad was the best and the commander made sure it was the best and nobody can replace him. Have him talk about the need to train up the pilots they currently have, possibly even showing the influence of G'kar with what he says or asks for. Also give the first signs of the shadows being super scary, have the command staff realize something is out there and its big and strong and a possible security risk to the station but they want to keep it hush hush for now. After that, bring him around kind of like a perfect recruit to the rangers - even to the point where an observant person you might see a few cloaked figures, Mimbari and what not keeping an eye on him. This could even be a trigger in to him feeling that he is being watched and that somehow it is linked to the ship. Then finally his ship gets plastered by that Shadow ship, the last thing he does is eject in hyper space. Later on we find out that he didn't die because there was a Minbari probe in the area that watched the whole thing and a white star picked him up and his story arc is that he becomes one of the first human rangers. In later episodes, you can bring him back to give information to Ivanova - there is a reason she always knows what is going on, not just because she says a corny line like "Be afraid when I don't know what's going on." Then use him as a spotlight for the rangers, how the operate, where they get their information and instead of having the Captain see the shadows in the cell by having him use the sensors, have Keffer show up, tell him and then use a piece of Minbari technology on the camera feed that shows them. Have him be the bridge between the Captain and Delen about the shadows. Make it his actions be the fulcrum to bringing the alliance together, through subtle work or just plain exposition man running around and providing everything that is needed. Then one day, when Marcus shows up instead of him, you can get why people are a bit put off and when nobody will say what happened to him, its fine. Then when the episode comes up where they have to check on how much telepathic power is required to stop a shadow vessel, instead of having Leta experience the mental image of Kosh's death, she instead can hear the anguished call from Keffer as he is still resisting despite becoming the central control unit of that ship. This is why Leta takes so much time to break through because he is in essence going to put one of her friends up as a target and you could make that episode a bit more dramatic. Does she tell the Captain or not? Why of course, she does but only after they destroy the ship and we can see the Captain upset that he just murdered his friend without knowing it even though it was the only way. This gives him more of a reason to dislike and distrust telepaths and well, that means his death holds more meaning for the future as well. A full arc from green new Lieutenant to Hot shot flight leader to member of the Rangers to Shadow computer core to dead. That is just how I would have put him in to give him more screen time and more meaning. Of course this means detracting from others like Delen, Sheridan and Marcus. So most people probably wouldn't like cutting the main cast screen time and having a character move the story along.
From a writer's stand point I'd say JMS showed a lack of creativity & far too much ego with the Keffer character. The worst part though is the way he treated the actor. As a director/producer you should NEVER lie to an actor to get them to sign on for a role or "get a better performance". That's the sort of thing an egotistical jack ass does.
One of his scenes in the first episode was probably the best for him. They're facing the Minbari ship, fighters are fast approaching, and Sheridan orders them to do nothing. I always felt his nerves in that scene, and the more you can relate to him, the better. Give him a better connection to the main cast and use him more, and you could have a good character, even if he does only last one season.
I mean to be fair, most space operas suffer from "main character syndrome", where the entire command staff personally goes on the most dangerous missions again and again with no plan for continuity if they all die. They should have minions for that. Even if it wouldn't make as good TV.
It's just kind of a shame that JMS chose to screw over the actor for something that wasn't the actors fault. He could have easily taken the cliche character and transformed him into something very different, as a result, giving the actor a decent and challenging role, while simultaneously annoying the people who forced the cliche character on JMS in the first place.
I feel bad for the actor. It’s not his fault that the character was unwanted, ultimately unnecessary (in that yes, assorted guest stars OTW etc. could have filled the same purpose), an underused. But he turned up, he did the work, to the best of his ability, and with what little material he was given.
Most of the characters in B5 were appreciated for what they were- even the villains like Morden and Bester, but Keffer? He added nothing much to the series that couldn't have been done by others. This is not a slight on his acting ability- he played the part given to him, but as a character, quite irrelevant. JMS had more than enough to contend with keeping the series going without having the networks adding characters. I had never realised this was the case until seeing your video, but your analysis of this seems logical. B5 still remains my favourite Sci-Fi series of all time.
A little bit petty behaviour by JMS there IMO. He could have at least tried to make lemonade from the lemons the network gave him. Any "type" of character can be good, it depends how you write them. Put a new spin on the stereotype, etc.
I always found it weird how a run of the mill Starfury pilot was suddenly having meals etc with the stations command staff when no pilot had done before and no others apart from Keffer did now. I did like the character of Keffer though and I felt having someone we had come to know a bit be the one killed by the Shadows at the end of the season did give the scene a bit more impact than if it had just been some nameless extra who we didn't give a crap about. Yes, it would have been nice to flesh him out further during season 2 but since the network forced JMS into shoehorning Keffer into the story he had already decided on, it was never going to happen. JMS did the best he could without disrupting his planned storyline. I wonder what he did have to take out in order to fit Keffer into the episode's he was in. If the network hadn't insisted that he be a hotshot type character and was more of an everyman then maybe he could have been utilised more. Maybe. He certainly should not have been a main character featured in the opening titles/credits. He should have been classed as a recurring guest star. So yeah, Warren Keffer fulfilled what I believe his purpose was on the show but his arc wasn't, and never could be, as good as it should have been. And that was the networks fault. Just one more way they screwed the show.
I think Keffer was a missed opportunity. JMS could have given him a nice character arc, showing that even a Maverick-type flyboy may become a descent responsible and humble person. But then again, it was also correct to kill him off in the way that it happened, because he payed the price for his obsession and it showed just how awe-inspiring the shadows were. It would have been interesting to bring him back in Season 5's "Day of the Dead". Another missed opportunity.
Keffer could have had a great character arc, and it was indeed a missed opportunity, BUT... If I had a show and the execs pushed a character into it, I would have treated that character worse than JMS did. I can be quite pig headed.
Great video. But you left out the way that other fighter pilots who had died previously on the show got (brief) funerals, while Keffer just gets an exasperated sigh from Sheridan at his demise triggering the Shadow War.
Disdain does not belong alongside creativity.You can see it in the writing.JMS calls himself a professional?He knew the industry.Could have been a really good character by adding some more audience relatable aspects.A common man in the mix if you will.Let's see what else we can foul up!B5- Done!,Star Wars-done!,Star Trek-done! Who's Next! I'm going back to Red Dwarf!
Love watching B5 growing up! Bounced back-and-forth between that and DS nine every week. Personally, I didn’t have any problem with the guy! It was rough when he got blown two pieces by the shadow ship but, what are you gonna do?
I kinda read between the lines on this one. J micheal talked about the studios wanting to hedge difficult contract negotiations and having people who they could write into the already established storybook outline he sold to the studios. The fact that such a long story could be hijacked by a character central to the story decides to leave. Natoth was around in case the one armed man got another movie.
Yeah, Weird Science where he is the best buddy with his namesake Robert Downey Jr. In a different timeline his career maybe could have been as big as that of Downey Jr., lol
@@paulanerruhrpott6188 it's weird how it can be so lopsided at times with careers ostensibly starting at the same place. Also with "Bosom Buddies" co-starring Peter Scolari and TOM HANKS and "Two Guys, a girl and a pizza place" co-starring Richard Ruccolo and RYAN REYNOLDS.
You've never watched B5??? You lucky so-and-so 😁 Well... If... When you ever do, you'll be in for a real treat! Especially if you like epic, sci-fi opera with LONG story arcs that stretch back 1000s of years! 👍
I actually liked Keffer. And it was good that they didn't overuse him. He was a Starfury pilot after all and not from the command echelon or the other main story cast. JMS was quite right putting a "in-between-character" into the series...AND in finishing him off that easy. That's life of the foot soldiers the starfury pilots...the red shirts
He should have been used better, I understand JMS's frustrations but his actions were unprofessional, and he should have been more open to the actor this was probably the biggest gig Robert Rusler ever got, and while he did get other jobs, and is still working who knows what could have happened to his career if he had taken some of the other options he couldn't take due to his commitment to B5.
Forcing JMS to add a character to show was unprofessional. JMS's actions were perfectly professional. He did the bare minimum to satisfy the executives demands, and didn't let it harm the show.
That's pretty sad this actor got treated this way because of his introduction to JMS. Very similar to what happened with the actor who played a Destroyer Captain in the "Severed Dreams" episode. He only got the role because they mixed his name up with another actor.
he gets introduced just so they can kill him off at the end of the season. thing was with what little time he got i really liked the character, and it really broke my heart when the shadows cut his star fury in two. by next season i had mostly forgotten. it was a good device to introduce the shadows. still not as forgettable as cnc guy. i don't even remember his name.
Ah, good old Corwin. I do have a soft spot for recurring bit-players. It’s nice to see familiar background faces on cnc or on the bridge of the enterprise.
Both. If he had been touched a few times in the earlier seasons and had his Maverick persona softened he could have been a decent character. He could have taken on a latent telepath substory with Ivanova, or taken on some of the "maintenance bot" work. Being forced into the story late in the full story arc doesn't work for a storyteller like JMS.
If JMS didn't like that kind of character he should have had the command staff feel that way as well instead of having him be friends. Then they could feel a bit of guilt when he's killed doing his duty. Even if he didn't get B stories, just having him around as a reoccurring face would have been better than having the commander or Ivanovo out in their Star Fury doing routine stuff.
So many series have this character,one that shows up reasons unknown , used sparingly then discarded eventually people say whatever happened to what’s his name.
i think they should have done a little more with him, a small subplot or just him doing his searches each episode or him looking at a monitor mapping out a search would have done something and making him more unstable would have worked. the other thing is making him out to be a main character makes it seem more like his actions that trigger everything matter. but i agree he just seems like an extra more than a main.
I remember back when the season was airing that all the science fiction magazines I read at the time interviewed cast members regularly enough. But they never interviewed Rusler at all. That did seem odd...
In low budget TV filmmaking, every alternate choice is a compromise that has to be made elsewhere. On a higher budget network show, they would pay for the actor options for every episode just in case they are needed (they have the extra resources to be wasteful). So they would get paid whether they appear in an episode or not. Babylon 5 didn't have the luxury of that, they could only afford to pay actor options on main cast for a portion of each seasons' episodes and then they have to play musical chairs to mix and match a cast that works for all the episodes. That's how you end up with late season clunkers like "Grey 17 is Missing," you have to save most of your remaining secondary main cast options for the final 3 episodes. Paying for more options for Robert Rusler's Lt. Keffer means fewer appearances by Lennier, or Vir, or G'Kar, or Molari, etc. So they took the carton of lemons the network forced on them, made the majority of the lemons disappear with slight of hand, and instead spaced out a few squeezes to the show mix for a little flavoring that wouldn't overpower it, and so you would care when he died just a little more than an extra or a guest star. He's also used as a narrative device to reveal knowledge of The Shadows to the general public without it coming out of nowhere at the start of S3. Keffer being reprimanded for constantly taking a Starfury out on his own time to search for ghost ships is also a plausible reason why he isn't around for most of season. The idea of a main cast member being a pilot is not a completely unsound idea, that way whenever there is a space battle the audience would have someone on the battlefield to root for (other than silent extras) without constantly making excuses for command staff to hop into fighters when their place really should be on the station. Though space battles don't happen often enough, particularly in S2 before war with Earth or the shadows heats up, for the pilot character to have much else to do than what Lt. Keffer did, sit around having drinks with the gang. You can't really overcome that without giving him some other secondary skill (maybe he could have been a latent telepath hiding his abilities like Ivanova, an explanation why he is such a good fighter pilot) or job on the station while not piloting a starfury.
B5 was a tight ship and did amazing things on a relatively small budget. If you gave JMS the money of a modern Trek show I think he could make something really special.
Keffer was mentioned in season 3 as going out in his own to try and find the ‘Ghost’. Even ivanova in S2 dressed him down for being too obsessed with trying to look for it. I did NOT know that the actor was told he was simply injured and not killed at the season 2 finale. That was naughty
I am a huge b5 nerd. used to be active at b5tech, and the b5 facebook group back in the day. Honestly barely remembered this character at all. Just almost saw him as a back ground character representing the pilots. oh well nice episode. :)
As mentioned, the studio directed JMS to have such a character, and JMS accommodated the mandate but didn't put much effort into developing the character. That being said, I suspect that JMS knew from a story standpoint he needed the character of Warren Keffer and that character would need to appear in several episodes throughout the season. Thus they needed an actor "on staff" to avoid any potential availability issues. And since JMS had the actor available he was able to use that character in a couple of other episodes (rather than "unnamed Starfury pilot"). And while it would have been nice to flesh out the character's backstory and give him more screen time - the character really only had one purpose - to be the truth that comes out.
I am not sure many know, but the actor Robert Russler was picked up by Chris Roberts & his roll as Keffer revisited with a darker theme in "Wing Commander IV 'The Price of Freedom'" Where he played "Seether" .. the brash commander of a black-ops fighter squadron under the direct control of Admiral Tolwyn during his efforts to start a war between the confederation, & the border worlds. If you can find the game? Don't bother. It's too old & won't hold up well. The cutscenes are MOVIE quality though, from a time when actors were seen as the next step in digitization. (Before Digital Anvil dropped the ball) But that's another story altogether. As it is? If you want to see a good tale? Check out the linked together cutscenes for "Wing Commander IV : 'The Price of Freedom'
I have a couple of quibbles with the point you made.
First, you say that he suddenly became obsessed with the Shadow ship in his final episode. In fact, it was established a few episodes earlier that Keffer was taking out his star fury during his off hours and searching for it. With so little screen time for him, his obsession was one of the more fleshed out aspects of his character.
Second, you say he is never mentioned by the main characters again after his last episode. That is not quite correct, as they talk about him at the start of Season 3 as Earth investigated the incident. After that though, he is forgotten.
Well spotted! Thanks for keeping me honest!
Can you imagine how effective his death would have been if the audience had an opportunity to get to know him first?
I thought he was kidnapped
Agreed, in a lot of shows you get a new character that gets killed off quick, you can sort of feel the set up. Imagine if instead you had a whole season getting to know the guy so that his death was a punch to the gut, this would have been two decades before Game of Thrones or Walking Dead made that a regular occurrence.
@@Liethen I just think back to how Americans reacted to the off-screen death of Col. Blake on the TV series M*A*S*H. No one expected it. Even the cast didn't expect it. Actor Gary Burghoff was given a note at the last minute and told to enter the operating theater and just read it, and that's how everyone learned of it. That was a true Gut Punch!
Imagine the effect it would have on us had he been in the room with Mr. Morden and Anna Sheridan when John Sheridan went to Z'ha'dum. Completely reprogrammed with an unrecognizably different personality. Perhaps him with the old man's personality, manners, and lines.
even Star Trek fans don't get attached to red shirts in the original series, they were convenient to discover things and promptly get killed by them. he was basically a red shirt.
The reason Keffer wasn't in so many episodes is he was busy fighting Mark Hamill, trying to take down the Border Worlds for Admiral Tolwynn. Busy guy.
lol!
I'm just trying to keep Crying Freeman/The Chairman of Kitchen Stadium/The Crow/Mani/Zero alive.
Underrated comment😆
WC:4 WAS MIND BLOWING. such a great time to be a teenager.. until 9/11 rolled around of course.
I always viewed this as being a character we were supposed to care about losing without having to kill one of the regulars.
It's the old theory of "if the audience knows a character's name they will care about them." That theory's *wrong*, but then so is the theory of gravity. :-)
Yup
@@breesco In what way is the theory of gravity wrong?
It only the "Strong suggestion of gravity" then?
I feel like the character of Zach ended up taking on Keffer's role in later seasons, as the "everyman" who reports to the big main characters without being a top guy and part of the inner circle.
Yeah, he’s the closest we got to the average joe. They needed a guy like him to show how a good man could get sucked into the Nightwatch.
...ish? However, I always felt that he was more of a replacement for Lou Welch.
@Phintasmo We see exactly what you mean about Zack being an everyman type character plus his growth over the seasons into the seasoned officer we know. We also see his skills as a cop he learned by being Garabaldi's second in the season 5 episode "Learning Curve" when he examines the murdered body and determines it was placed out where it was as a warning.
I think in season 2 JMS definitely added a few characters seeing Zach and saying "hey Zach!" because he wasn't allowed to make Zach the title roll character
I agree Zach is the guy that always need to put the garbage out and clean the floor after the fight, the guy that puts the bad guys on the cell after the movie ends, the guy that was there when they blew it off.
Oh man, that poor actor.
The main reason for Keffer was so that there was an individual character who would expose the Shadows. Remember the full Keffer arc. While helping to save the EAS Cortez, Keffer's StarFury was damaged by a passing Shadow vessel. This started his obsession on finding out more information. His trips searching for the Shadows caused Sheridan, after he found out about them, to put a stop to his flights so that the Shadows would still think they haven't been discovered or known about. Keffer's last act of filming a Shadow vessel in hyperspace, just before that vessel killed Keffer, started the whole Shadow war rolling. With it being a character we knew, it made the sacrifice more personal to the audience.
Yea he was underused as a character, but do you know what? I still remember being shocked when Keffer got killed by the Shadows. I mean he was in the credits and at the time I couldn't recall any other TV show killing off a 'main character' like that.
Well, for a character who was literally forced on a writer by the studio, I think JMS had treated Keffer pretty well. He really could use him only as a generic pilot for a fight / reconnaissance sequences like with the Tragati, Centauri cruiser or a dead Markab ship. But Keffer actually got his own complete mini-arc related to the main plot of the show, with a solid beginning in 2x04 and the end in 2x22.
Ugh. You're right that Keffer was underutilized and underdeveloped. His obsession with the Shadow vessels could have been better handled by JMS.
But you're not taking into account the craziness of the year JMS was creating Season 2 of the show. Let's recap that, shall we?
- Michael O'Hare left the show because he had schizophrenia and JMS had to make it look like it was no big deal. Even Claudia Christian didn't know how bad it was when she wrote her memoir.
- PTEN was having a load of grief trying to stay on the air.
- JMS never knew how much time he would actually have to tell his five year story, and he was dealing with Andrea Thompson (Talia) getting ready to leave the show.
- JMS was writing basically every episode this season. He started developing carpal tunnel this year between writing these episodes and being online.
So yeah, he could have done better with Keffer. Robert Rusler was a decent actor in the 80s and 90s. He got to work with Robert Downey, Jr. on "Weird Science". But the fact that season 2 of Babylon 5 was this good was a minor miracle. So please, take this into account in your analysis.
Rusler was also "Seether", a hot-shot (and genetically engineered evil) space fighter pilot in one of the Wing Commander games - that was shortly after his B5 stint (I think), but I wonder if it was amusing to him.
He didn't WANT the character though. It was forced on him by the execs, he already had a "young sexy, hip character" in mind for the show, and that was Marcus. But Marcus wasn't fit for the story yet. So yeah, he didn't do anything with the character that he didn't want, didn't have a place for, and didn't need for his narrative.
PTEN? Patricia Tallman?
@@ramonribascasasayas7877 Paramount Television Entertainment Network.
@@ramonribascasasayas7877 Prime Time Entertainment Network.
On one hand I agree with the decision, on the other hand I think JMS missed an opportunity to have him start as a Hot Shot, but then mature out of that to become something more agreeable, and be a window to the fighter pilots.
I recently thought about this character and kept thinking "what must the actor have felt like?".
I mean, you get a new job, even as a supposed series regular, yet your part is basically non-existent, you almost never interact with other main cast members, and even if he knew why, I doubt it was a great experience for him.
If he was in the opening credits he got paid for every episode regardless of it he was in it or not. He probably enjoyed it just fine.
@@robbybevard8034That depends on whether he just wanted a bit of free money, or if he actually wanted to be able to participate in the show he was hired to be a part of.
JMS had a 5 year story planned. He wasn't writing it episode to episode like most shows.
The networking wanted to insert a character that didn't have a place. Not surprised he was killed off.
I actually liked him. He could have been kept around, and it would have been interesting to have him around during the civil war scenes. Maybe his girl back home supported Clark, putting him at odds with her. He could have been a guy you used to show how the decisions made by the big dogs affect the little guy.
That’s brilliant! The girlfriend could have bought into all the anti-alien propaganda!
@@Phintasmo season 4 had so much crammed into it because they thought they weren't getting a season 5, but if they knew they didn't have to rush, there would have been plenty of time to dive into all of that.
Or maybe he's loyal to President Clarke and is forced to leave the station. Or he pretends to be loyal so his girlfriend isn't targeted. Lots of drama potential there and you don't lose a major character.
I always thought of Zack as the everyman character, just trying to get by.
I liked him too.
Now I really feel bad for actor Robert Rusler. I wonder what his take on all of this was?
Sadly, I’ve never found an interview where he talks about it.
Weird thing is, like so many other things in early B5, it sorta works by accident. If he was just a one of guest star I wouldn't really have cared so much about his obession to find the shadows or eventual death. As it was he was featured *just enough* for me to recognize and give half a shit about him when he finally gets melted but without spoiling too much of the mystery of the Shadows. Sure, he could have been used more and more effectively, but it still worked for me.
I think if they had given him a couple of more scenes in a couple more episodes, looking into the Shahow vessel, it would have made him feel more like a regular character and would have made his final death more impactful at the end.
He needed a side plot with Garabaldi where he was helping him with something, maybe Franklin to.
Basically what they ended up doing with Marcus in Seasons 3 and 4 I guess, lol.
Without knowing the story, at least for me he was a memorable character. I am pretty sure a lot of people remember him and you said it yourself - 20ish min in a whole season. But somehow almost everyone remembers him...
So in a way he made an impact, I never thought of him as a min character though
I always thought his death was the point and the short appearances and placement in the credits were to give it at least a small amount of impact over that of a normal redshirt.
I think the fact that Keffer has been floating around in the background all season gives his death gravitas. If JMS had just killed a one episode red shirt, no one would have felt anything. So the note had merit. Also, if the guy was just there to die, good he didn't waste too much time on screen taking away opportunities from main characters.
I liked Keffer. It's sad to hear he was a request from the studio, and JMS wasn't going to give him more than the bare minimum.
Watching through it again now, i forgot about keffer. He has a few tiny little moments in the station that just helped to flesh out the station as a real place. He's not the only minor character either.
I dont mind Keffer. He kind of reminded me of Captain Kelly from the BSG Reboot. You know, people that are sort of 'there" but are not really important to the plot. But here and there they appear to tell the audience that a functioning spaceship needs a crew besides the main characters to keep everything working. They dont need huge story archs and sometimes you can kill them off like Keffer to show the audience the threat of an enemy like the shadows. I think JMS handled his mini-arc nicely. He was one tiny but not unimportant part in the epic storytelling of Babylon 5 that showed us a whole universe of places and characters besides our main heroes.
I like that Keffer was a barely there character. This is how it should be with some characters. We had a guy on our team, can't remember his name, he was on for 9 months, worked on a side app that I barely knew about and was barely acknowledged, I barely knew him, had two lunches with him (as a team thing), and he retired. That is how life is. Some people, while part of the team, are just side characters. The fact that he was in the titles as a main character is great since we expect to get to know him but he ends up becoming almost useless. Good misdirection even if is wasn't really planned that way. I think that side characters should be billed as main characters as a misdirection more often (like the guy who says: "There goes my faith in the Almighty" to Ivanova (I para-quoted there).
yeah if you have some characters that are barely there it ads a level of depth to the show cause there are people that are barely there in terms of there presence in the real world so a show should have that same depth to it as well they didn't need to kill him off just keep him barely there it was enough that he was just barely there
It was a missed opportunity. Honestly, if the studio really made so few requests, then doing this just comes off as really petty. Not the killing him off part, that was fine. But giving him next to no development and lying to the actor to boot? Yeah, that was a really shitty thing to do, and makes me want to believe Claudia Christian's version of events with what drove her off the show, now that I know JMS can be such a dick.
Well said. Lying to an employee and giving them false hope about their long-term prospects is a classic d**k move from a horrible boss.
Thanks for shedding some light on a character that had always seemed a bit odd when I watched (or rewatched) the show. While it would have been theoretically possible to force Keffer into more storylines, given how JMS was focused on an overall story arc for the whole run of the show, I'm not surprised that he didn't react with enthusiasm to the network pushing the character.
Could Keffer have been Babylon 5's Wesley Crusher, and alienated more viewers with more hamfisted efforts to push him as important? Sure. But I think the show (and even the actor) are better off without the audience hate that would have generated.
Remember Byron, aka Telepath Loreal Hair Care Model guy from Season 5? There are worse fates than only getting a little screen time. :)
I hated him because he did this huge 180 personality-wise and started actively proving Bester right. It also didn't help for *some* reason, no one wanted to accommodate a few dozen people who'd just keep to themselves
Imagine the execs, Strazinsky is trying to make an epic space opera and they're like "we want an ace pilot, pew pew!"
Keffer was one of two in-the-credits characters in Season 2 who was deliberately underused and then disappeared by JMS, the other being Na'Toth. Originally played by Caitlin Brown in Season 1, she had to be recast in Season 2, played by Mary Kay Adams. JMS didn't like the new actor's characterization, so Na'Toth was deep-sixed. Babylon 5 was an unforgiving place, apparently.
Na'Toth is different, though. Her fate was left vague, and this paid off because she was able to have her arc resolved in season 5. Keffer's fate was not at all vague, and just in case you tried to argue that it might be, JMS was literally calling him an ex-Keffer on either Usenet or Compuserve, a la the dead parrot sketch from Monty Python. Na'Toth was an actor problem - Keffer was gleeful vengeance by JMS.
It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace.
No-one here is exactly what he appears.
After having so many actresses not able to tolerate the SFX makeup they gave up.
I remember watching b5 as a kid and lots of times during the credits I went "who?"
I never really noticed this, but you're right. He seemed like a much bigger character because of the Shadow ship reveal, but he was always underused. It's hard to see how much more JMS could have done with him though given all the other stuff happening in season 2.
to me he's part of a massively important plot point, more so than zach or lou welch in the early days, who were pretty much run arounds under orders and someone the main character could fire off lines and exposition to (obviously Zachs role changes massively later on)
but Kiefers role is so much more, its the first known contact for the humans and the shadows, all 3 of those characters are bounce off characters, characters that where a legitimate part of the station, and had that balance of being informed without being the guest star or someone who turns into a villian
keifer also ensures a more realistic military feel and structure to the show and prevents the kirk syndrome of the CO doing everything, everytime at any cost and often in dire peril, yet surviving by plot armour
I'm seeing alot of COmments, saying they could have done this or that with him.... but the fact is, it was a network ask in the show and JMS never wanted the character in. He hated that kind of character. As a writer, lets be honest, that he got 18mins of screentime basically was mooooore than generous. There are character sthat simply don't work in your vision and you have to get them off screen or off page as quickly as possible for your own sanity.
JMS could have done a ton of this with keffer sure, but far more likely, the character was being shoehorned in as is, and probably mucking about with the planned story arcs. That's why he was kept minimal and then tossed.
I feel sorry for the actor on that, I really do... on the other hand, professionally speaking, at the time he had his name and face in the opening credits every epsiodes of season 2, so..looks good on the resume'.
But yeah, Keffer didn't really belong in the story beyond what we got, and I'm glad JMS was able to deal with the situation until he ... dealt with the situation.
Keffer ended up effectively a series of one-dimensional one-off characters. Having a single character play those roles was a better story idea than an actual series of one-off characters. I wouldn't call it a lost opportunity necessarily but I would agree that even just a few more lines of dialogue could have made him a more substantial and interesting character. On the other hand, it also works for the overall story that while the audience is seeing some of the initial moves by the Shadows, there's a little misdirection because none of the seemingly important characters are paying attention, making the "fore-Shadowing" more subtle.
Keffer was insignificant and almost not on screen... and yet I recognized his name and face immedialtely after all those years.
It may be partly down to the subliminal effect of seeing his face in the opening credits so many times
@@Phintasmo
Yeah the opening Credit for season 2 were weird. But Natoth got it worse than Keffer. The actress was in just 2! Of 22 episodes, although she appears in the opening Credits. Normally the names of such guest actors would appear in the episode directly, while the names of the main stars are reserved for the intro.
The character never clicked with me from the beginning. This was how he was introduced, as a person who was already part of the inner circle of cast. Think it would have been interesting, he was a transfer problem pilot. He's that way because he saw something (a Shadow ship in hyperspace) and is obsessed. Perhaps he knew Sheridan, worked on the Agamemnon, a good intro into how he would know the inner cycle of cast. There were many better ways to introduce him. But, the biggest problem was the suits higher up wanting this character.
Compare him with Marcus next season and its vastly different in how the characters were introduced and used.
Yeah, Marcus was much more of a JMS character than flyboy jock.
To be fair, Zack also just kinda showed up like Keffer
I'd argue that the biggest problem was that JMS was so against the idea that he pretty much deliberately sabotaged the character.
If I were the actor I'd be totally cheesed. Given the way they rolled him out, he probably thought he'd be dedicating real time/effort to the show and likely turning down other opportunities. Meanwhile, as mentioned in the video, I think his death would've had much more impact if they had developed him further. I understand JMS' stance on the whole thing but that's an innocent person's career he's messing with. Now I understand why I never personally liked Keffer's arc at all, it was JMS not really caring. Let's face it the one big part of Keffer's role was to get the footage of a shadow vessel. Well, that could've easily been done by having a drone do an after-survey of damage from an attack and the footage being the last thing the drone transmitted. For me, that would've been much more dramatic. The B5 crew getting lucky catching a short clip of the Shadows going about their business. The clip could've been expanded to more footage of the Shadows using the excuse the drone's low power was too low for the Shadows to consider an issue.
Yeah, he got screwed through no fault of his own and it was pretty crappy to let him think it would be otherwise.
I think developing Keffer further would have been a mistake. JMS had plotted the entire series as a single novel. The type of deeper interactions you suggest at the end of the video were appropriate later, and we see them for Ranger Marcus Cole at the right time for the development of the whole story.
Also, Keffer did move two central themes of Babylon 5 forward. I see it as no accident that he had a significant role in Gropos, a story about how grunt troops are used and killed off, real people who's lives are cut off and then are forgotten. That the same happened to hotshot pilot Keffer shows a realism at the core of Babylon 5 about the horrors of war and waste in human society that we don't see in unrealistic hero stories like Star Wars and Top Gun.,
Now that you mention it - what if Keffer lived and came back later as a Ranger - usurping the Marcus role?
@@Phintasmo Marcus was considerably cooler because of his accent. And his mannerisms and whole portrayal. Keffer was too much "just another pretty face."
I think it would have been interesting if Keffer had still been around for Severed Dreams so that we could have seen a character that was not in the command staff & didn't know what was really going on dealing with orders to fire on Earth Alliance ships. It would also have been interesting if he had gone with Sheridan's fleet in No Surrender, No Retreat for much the same reason.
Yes! He’d have been there for Sheridan’s big speech and could have had a quiet word with him afterwards. It would have been a nice little touch.
Wow, I never realized that Keffer was in so few episodes. And I guess I also implied a lot of what you think should have been done with the character! Fundamentally, it's Joe's show and I won't challenge his decisions. Much. With everything else going on with the main characters, primarily Sheridan, I can see why further development of Keffer would be 86'ed. And the Shadow War was just getting underway, so that needed more servicing than a character Joe didn't want in the first place. Still, if there had been time, the descent of Keffer into obsession about the Shadows that you suggest might have been an interesting road to go down.
Here's a featured starfury pilot! Name in opening even!
And HERE'S JMS, standing off screen, hands on tassels, ready to pull the rug.
His advice to the actor, "if you have anything you want to use that health care on, use it quick"
the more I find out about JMS and his decisions regarding the actors, the less I think about him. He hired his work girlfriend: Patricia Tallman as an extra, he forced Claudia Christian and Andrea Thompson into an uncomfortable lesbian relationship (which Thompson cited as one reason for quitting), and then pulled some last minute shit with Claudia near the end of season 4 when her agent went up to bat and negotiate for more money because Claudia was set for second billing, becoming the Station Captain, and effectively getting her raise.
Claudia Christian tells the same story every time: She was dealing with personal stuff, her agent fought for more pay, and she was let go/walked away. JMS flip flops between firing her over pay, her not playing ball, or just saying "I don't know, she didn't talk to me."
Bruh, you wrote a Spiderman story where Gwen Stacy has twins with Norman Osborne because you wanted to write a 16 year old losing her virginity to an older guy, instead of Peter Parker.
Keffer could have been an interesting character, but that would have required a lot more work to wedge him into the stories that were produced for S2, which was already chaotic AF. Killing the character off was rather peckish, but I get why JMS did it.....Were it my show to write, I would have brought Keffer back as a Shadow Agent, like Anna Sheridan or Morden, or, I would have brought him back in Season 5 as some kind of war leader against the Shadow's minions who had remained behind when the Shadows left....I never hated Keffer, but the character was not part of the creator's vision, and shoehorning him into the series was a bad move on the part of the network.
His obsession could have had a Lovecraftian aspect to it, it leads down a rabbit hole that he comes to regret do to learning terrifying things and end tragically for him both with the loss of life and loss of his relationships, for but his death was not in vain do the to info sends back to the station just before he dies.
That would have been completely possible I’d they’d given another 20 minutes of screen time across the season.
I never even spotted that he was the same character throughout rather than just a generic pilot who happened to get a few lines.
If he had to be there it would probably have been better to give him a bit more time to become recognised. But, considering he's clearly Babylon 5's equivalent of Poochy, maybe the right call was made at the time.
I'd say a missed opportunity, but agree with forced network characters. When you try to force the creative process it doesn't generally end well. So I don't blame JMS for not wanting to use the character. That said, he could have been a good middle to the old conundrum of sending out command staff to do every little thing despite it not being practical. With a little tweaking he probably could have actually contributed something more to the plot. Oh well.
His job was to exist so that EVERYTHING doesn't happen to the few main characters. His main job was the Shadow/hyperspace plot line and that was it. That's what he was there for.
There was definitely an opening for a ‘lower rank’ character who wasn’t a division head or a diplomat.
I never realized how little screen time Keffer got. I agree his introduction was handled poorly just appearing out of the blue like that. However he showed up usually where appropriate and just enough to get to know him a bit and his death is the key that moves the plot along to the next season.
I have no problem with Keffer being as he was. He was useful for the story.
JMS left a few loose threads in his show. Though to be fair, it was quite the epic with so many moving parts, there was bound to be loose threads left behind. One of those threads was the shadows ground troopers. That intelligent, invisible thing that fed off life and could walk through walls - truly nightmare inducing creatures. There was supposedly a whole bunch of them making their way back to Z'ha'dum. But we only get one episode and they are never mentioned again.
Been awhile since I watched. But I thought there was a later reference that they were among the former shadow aligned species that were on Centari Prime when Londo was Emperor. Maybe I am misremembering.
Was it a missed opportunity with him? Maybe, but there's only so much time to devote to each character and story arc so other things would have needed to be cut to get more of him.
So that plus the fact that he was forced into the story, I can totally understand why he got the treatment he did
@Phintasmo I think that if they really wanted to use his character to its fullest extent and we can argue about screen time and episode duration because everybody knows, things will need to be dropped off the side of a cliff, other stories and what not in order to bring what is a disposable character to life. So this is how I think they should have used the character - much like they had the episode where they follow the two technicians around during a day. Warren Keffer should have been a fine addition to the kind of background stuff, encounters in hallways, just being there every now and again. In scenes with Garibaldi or G'kar or Londo. Having drinks in the background with squad mates, perhaps having G'kar in the earlier seasons while he is still a bit more angry talking to him, perhaps talking trash about the Centauri. Even having him giving combat tips on how to fight Centauri raiders and ensuring him that the information will prove useful one day because darn those Centauri, its only a matter of time you know. When his squads captain dies, he gets promoted, well, they could have done a lot more with that. How the staff deal with the death of somebody and the fact that they barely knew him and how this hotshot is going to be the new guy. Then when they promote him, he could have really stepped up in the show by telling them he wouldn't take the promotion if all he was going to be was another name on a sheet to them and he wanted more access and more responsibilities. Something like Zeta squad was the best and the commander made sure it was the best and nobody can replace him. Have him talk about the need to train up the pilots they currently have, possibly even showing the influence of G'kar with what he says or asks for. Also give the first signs of the shadows being super scary, have the command staff realize something is out there and its big and strong and a possible security risk to the station but they want to keep it hush hush for now. After that, bring him around kind of like a perfect recruit to the rangers - even to the point where an observant person you might see a few cloaked figures, Mimbari and what not keeping an eye on him. This could even be a trigger in to him feeling that he is being watched and that somehow it is linked to the ship. Then finally his ship gets plastered by that Shadow ship, the last thing he does is eject in hyper space. Later on we find out that he didn't die because there was a Minbari probe in the area that watched the whole thing and a white star picked him up and his story arc is that he becomes one of the first human rangers. In later episodes, you can bring him back to give information to Ivanova - there is a reason she always knows what is going on, not just because she says a corny line like "Be afraid when I don't know what's going on." Then use him as a spotlight for the rangers, how the operate, where they get their information and instead of having the Captain see the shadows in the cell by having him use the sensors, have Keffer show up, tell him and then use a piece of Minbari technology on the camera feed that shows them. Have him be the bridge between the Captain and Delen about the shadows. Make it his actions be the fulcrum to bringing the alliance together, through subtle work or just plain exposition man running around and providing everything that is needed. Then one day, when Marcus shows up instead of him, you can get why people are a bit put off and when nobody will say what happened to him, its fine. Then when the episode comes up where they have to check on how much telepathic power is required to stop a shadow vessel, instead of having Leta experience the mental image of Kosh's death, she instead can hear the anguished call from Keffer as he is still resisting despite becoming the central control unit of that ship. This is why Leta takes so much time to break through because he is in essence going to put one of her friends up as a target and you could make that episode a bit more dramatic. Does she tell the Captain or not? Why of course, she does but only after they destroy the ship and we can see the Captain upset that he just murdered his friend without knowing it even though it was the only way. This gives him more of a reason to dislike and distrust telepaths and well, that means his death holds more meaning for the future as well. A full arc from green new Lieutenant to Hot shot flight leader to member of the Rangers to Shadow computer core to dead.
That is just how I would have put him in to give him more screen time and more meaning. Of course this means detracting from others like Delen, Sheridan and Marcus. So most people probably wouldn't like cutting the main cast screen time and having a character move the story along.
I just hope the actor never knew at the time how squeezed out he was being. Not one of JMS' finer moments.
From a writer's stand point I'd say JMS showed a lack of creativity & far too much ego with the Keffer character.
The worst part though is the way he treated the actor. As a director/producer you should NEVER lie to an actor to get them to sign on for a role or "get a better performance". That's the sort of thing an egotistical jack ass does.
but how he was pointless if he confirmed existence of Shadow presence and that it's time to prepare big time ...
One of his scenes in the first episode was probably the best for him. They're facing the Minbari ship, fighters are fast approaching, and Sheridan orders them to do nothing. I always felt his nerves in that scene, and the more you can relate to him, the better.
Give him a better connection to the main cast and use him more, and you could have a good character, even if he does only last one season.
I mean to be fair, most space operas suffer from "main character syndrome", where the entire command staff personally goes on the most dangerous missions again and again with no plan for continuity if they all die. They should have minions for that. Even if it wouldn't make as good TV.
It's just kind of a shame that JMS chose to screw over the actor for something that wasn't the actors fault. He could have easily taken the cliche character and transformed him into something very different, as a result, giving the actor a decent and challenging role, while simultaneously annoying the people who forced the cliche character on JMS in the first place.
I feel bad for the actor. It’s not his fault that the character was unwanted, ultimately unnecessary (in that yes, assorted guest stars OTW etc. could have filled the same purpose), an underused. But he turned up, he did the work, to the best of his ability, and with what little material he was given.
Keffer still haunts my nightmares.
“Maybe it’s the ghost.”
“What ghost?”
Never noticed he had so little air time .
JMS showed us a huge tapestry and unraveled it for us one thread at a time. Every character mattered.
Most of the characters in B5 were appreciated for what they were- even the villains like Morden and Bester, but Keffer? He added nothing much to the series that couldn't have been done by others. This is not a slight on his acting ability- he played the part given to him, but as a character, quite irrelevant. JMS had more than enough to contend with keeping the series going without having the networks adding characters. I had never realised this was the case until seeing your video, but your analysis of this seems logical.
B5 still remains my favourite Sci-Fi series of all time.
Amusingly I liked good character. Didn't realise his role was that limited.
A little bit petty behaviour by JMS there IMO. He could have at least tried to make lemonade from the lemons the network gave him. Any "type" of character can be good, it depends how you write them. Put a new spin on the stereotype, etc.
Seems pretty petty of JMS.
I always found it weird how a run of the mill Starfury pilot was suddenly having meals etc with the stations command staff when no pilot had done before and no others apart from Keffer did now.
I did like the character of Keffer though and I felt having someone we had come to know a bit be the one killed by the Shadows at the end of the season did give the scene a bit more impact than if it had just been some nameless extra who we didn't give a crap about.
Yes, it would have been nice to flesh him out further during season 2 but since the network forced JMS into shoehorning Keffer into the story he had already decided on, it was never going to happen. JMS did the best he could without disrupting his planned storyline. I wonder what he did have to take out in order to fit Keffer into the episode's he was in. If the network hadn't insisted that he be a hotshot type character and was more of an everyman then maybe he could have been utilised more. Maybe.
He certainly should not have been a main character featured in the opening titles/credits. He should have been classed as a recurring guest star.
So yeah, Warren Keffer fulfilled what I believe his purpose was on the show but his arc wasn't, and never could be, as good as it should have been. And that was the networks fault. Just one more way they screwed the show.
Yeah, those social outings with the command staff seemed so phony. Never rang true.
He was a officer and eventually head of one of the squads, but if would've been nice if that had been fleshed out a bit.
I think Keffer was a missed opportunity. JMS could have given him a nice character arc, showing that even a Maverick-type flyboy may become a descent responsible and humble person.
But then again, it was also correct to kill him off in the way that it happened, because he payed the price for his obsession and it showed just how awe-inspiring the shadows were.
It would have been interesting to bring him back in Season 5's "Day of the Dead". Another missed opportunity.
He would have been a neat addition to day of the dead but I don’t think he had enough of a connection to any other character to make it work.
Keffer could have had a great character arc, and it was indeed a missed opportunity, BUT...
If I had a show and the execs pushed a character into it, I would have treated that character worse than JMS did. I can be quite pig headed.
Great video. But you left out the way that other fighter pilots who had died previously on the show got (brief) funerals, while Keffer just gets an exasperated sigh from Sheridan at his demise triggering the Shadow War.
I always assumed, with hindsight, he was there to show the audience how the monster worked.
Disdain does not belong alongside creativity.You can see it in the writing.JMS calls himself a professional?He knew the industry.Could have been a really good character by adding some more audience relatable aspects.A common man in the mix if you will.Let's see what else we can foul up!B5- Done!,Star Wars-done!,Star Trek-done! Who's Next! I'm going back to Red Dwarf!
Love watching B5 growing up! Bounced back-and-forth between that and DS nine every week. Personally, I didn’t have any problem with the guy! It was rough when he got blown two pieces by the shadow ship but, what are you gonna do?
I likes this character, I did not think he was a useless character, and he fulfilled his purpose.
I kinda read between the lines on this one. J micheal talked about the studios wanting to hedge difficult contract negotiations and having people who they could write into the already established storybook outline he sold to the studios. The fact that such a long story could be hijacked by a character central to the story decides to leave. Natoth was around in case the one armed man got another movie.
All the ‘trapdoors’ built into the narrative are fascinating!
They really were prepared for many unforeseen challenges.
Without roads a movie centered around stunt driving would make no sense. I've never seen a critic complain about the roads in a movie.
Except, people aren't roads. There's a person here, trying to make a decent living and pay his bills.
I never watched B5, but this is the legendary Robert Rusler from VAMP and WEIRD SCIENCE!
I’m discovering through these comments that the guy has some legit fans, good for him!
Yeah, Weird Science where he is the best buddy with his namesake Robert Downey Jr. In a different timeline his career maybe could have been as big as that of Downey Jr., lol
@@paulanerruhrpott6188 it's weird how it can be so lopsided at times with careers ostensibly starting at the same place. Also with "Bosom Buddies" co-starring Peter Scolari and TOM HANKS and "Two Guys, a girl and a pizza place" co-starring Richard Ruccolo and RYAN REYNOLDS.
You've never watched B5??? You lucky so-and-so 😁 Well... If... When you ever do, you'll be in for a real treat! Especially if you like epic, sci-fi opera with LONG story arcs that stretch back 1000s of years! 👍
I actually liked Keffer. And it was good that they didn't overuse him. He was a Starfury pilot after all and not from the command echelon or the other main story cast. JMS was quite right putting a "in-between-character" into the series...AND in finishing him off that easy.
That's life of the foot soldiers the starfury pilots...the red shirts
He should have been used better, I understand JMS's frustrations but his actions were unprofessional, and he should have been more open to the actor this was probably the biggest gig Robert Rusler ever got, and while he did get other jobs, and is still working who knows what could have happened to his career if he had taken some of the other options he couldn't take due to his commitment to B5.
Weird Science was his biggest gig I think.
Forcing JMS to add a character to show was unprofessional. JMS's actions were perfectly professional. He did the bare minimum to satisfy the executives demands, and didn't let it harm the show.
That's pretty sad this actor got treated this way because of his introduction to JMS. Very similar to what happened with the actor who played a Destroyer Captain in the "Severed Dreams" episode. He only got the role because they mixed his name up with another actor.
I've seen every episode of this show (admittedly I last watched it like 22 years ago) and I have no memory of this guy even existing.
he gets introduced just so they can kill him off at the end of the season. thing was with what little time he got i really liked the character, and it really broke my heart when the shadows cut his star fury in two. by next season i had mostly forgotten. it was a good device to introduce the shadows.
still not as forgettable as cnc guy. i don't even remember his name.
Ah, good old Corwin.
I do have a soft spot for recurring bit-players. It’s nice to see familiar background faces on cnc or on the bridge of the enterprise.
Both. If he had been touched a few times in the earlier seasons and had his Maverick persona softened he could have been a decent character. He could have taken on a latent telepath substory with Ivanova, or taken on some of the "maintenance bot" work. Being forced into the story late in the full story arc doesn't work for a storyteller like JMS.
I had NO idea the Simpsons ever acknowledged Babylon 5 like that. That's awesome.
Lol!
If JMS didn't like that kind of character he should have had the command staff feel that way as well instead of having him be friends. Then they could feel a bit of guilt when he's killed doing his duty. Even if he didn't get B stories, just having him around as a reoccurring face would have been better than having the commander or Ivanovo out in their Star Fury doing routine stuff.
It’s one of those things we often let slide on tv - like Star Trek shows sending the whole bridge crew on away team missions.
Missed opportunity yes but I think it'd have given the Network a reason to interfere again, perhaps disastrously!
So many series have this character,one that shows up reasons unknown , used sparingly then discarded eventually people say whatever happened to what’s his name.
i think they should have done a little more with him, a small subplot or just him doing his searches each episode or him looking at a monitor mapping out a search would have done something and making him more unstable would have worked. the other thing is making him out to be a main character makes it seem more like his actions that trigger everything matter. but i agree he just seems like an extra more than a main.
Yeah, just a little more work fleshing out of his obsession would have gone a long way to making him more memorable.
What hit windshield.?
A Sheridan Teddy Bear - official B5 merchandise. It was thrown out an airlock.
@@Phintasmo 😂
BaBEARlon 5
I remember back when the season was airing that all the science fiction magazines I read at the time interviewed cast members regularly enough. But they never interviewed Rusler at all. That did seem odd...
I was hunting for an interview where he talks about B5 but couldn’t find a thing.
In low budget TV filmmaking, every alternate choice is a compromise that has to be made elsewhere. On a higher budget network show, they would pay for the actor options for every episode just in case they are needed (they have the extra resources to be wasteful). So they would get paid whether they appear in an episode or not. Babylon 5 didn't have the luxury of that, they could only afford to pay actor options on main cast for a portion of each seasons' episodes and then they have to play musical chairs to mix and match a cast that works for all the episodes. That's how you end up with late season clunkers like "Grey 17 is Missing," you have to save most of your remaining secondary main cast options for the final 3 episodes.
Paying for more options for Robert Rusler's Lt. Keffer means fewer appearances by Lennier, or Vir, or G'Kar, or Molari, etc. So they took the carton of lemons the network forced on them, made the majority of the lemons disappear with slight of hand, and instead spaced out a few squeezes to the show mix for a little flavoring that wouldn't overpower it, and so you would care when he died just a little more than an extra or a guest star. He's also used as a narrative device to reveal knowledge of The Shadows to the general public without it coming out of nowhere at the start of S3. Keffer being reprimanded for constantly taking a Starfury out on his own time to search for ghost ships is also a plausible reason why he isn't around for most of season.
The idea of a main cast member being a pilot is not a completely unsound idea, that way whenever there is a space battle the audience would have someone on the battlefield to root for (other than silent extras) without constantly making excuses for command staff to hop into fighters when their place really should be on the station. Though space battles don't happen often enough, particularly in S2 before war with Earth or the shadows heats up, for the pilot character to have much else to do than what Lt. Keffer did, sit around having drinks with the gang. You can't really overcome that without giving him some other secondary skill (maybe he could have been a latent telepath hiding his abilities like Ivanova, an explanation why he is such a good fighter pilot) or job on the station while not piloting a starfury.
B5 was a tight ship and did amazing things on a relatively small budget.
If you gave JMS the money of a modern Trek show I think he could make something really special.
Keffer didn't get more developed, because they didn't have more space battles.
And it's still fine and well done for a network mandate inclusion.
Keffer was mentioned in season 3 as going out in his own to try and find the ‘Ghost’. Even ivanova in S2 dressed him down for being too obsessed with trying to look for it.
I did NOT know that the actor was told he was simply injured and not killed at the season 2 finale. That was naughty
I totally forgot this character even existed, he seemed like a background part. I remember the two janitors more during that attack.
I am a huge b5 nerd. used to be active at b5tech, and the b5 facebook group back in the day. Honestly barely remembered this character at all. Just almost saw him as a back ground character representing the pilots. oh well nice episode. :)
Thanks!
He got Chuck Cunninghamed or Eugene Barkleyed.
As mentioned, the studio directed JMS to have such a character, and JMS accommodated the mandate but didn't put much effort into developing the character. That being said, I suspect that JMS knew from a story standpoint he needed the character of Warren Keffer and that character would need to appear in several episodes throughout the season. Thus they needed an actor "on staff" to avoid any potential availability issues. And since JMS had the actor available he was able to use that character in a couple of other episodes (rather than "unnamed Starfury pilot"). And while it would have been nice to flesh out the character's backstory and give him more screen time - the character really only had one purpose - to be the truth that comes out.
I have never seen Babylon 5, but Robert Rusler is welcome on any and every show IMO.
I saw a blooper when Keffer was at the bar and a voice over said " go get your pay check you will be killed off
I am not sure many know, but the actor Robert Russler was picked up by Chris Roberts & his roll as Keffer revisited with a darker theme in "Wing Commander IV 'The Price of Freedom'" Where he played "Seether" .. the brash commander of a black-ops fighter squadron under the direct control of Admiral Tolwyn during his efforts to start a war between the confederation, & the border worlds.
If you can find the game? Don't bother. It's too old & won't hold up well. The cutscenes are MOVIE quality though, from a time when actors were seen as the next step in digitization. (Before Digital Anvil dropped the ball) But that's another story altogether. As it is? If you want to see a good tale? Check out the linked together cutscenes for "Wing Commander IV : 'The Price of Freedom'
Yeah I never understood why that guy a a top billing in the show, he was never hardly in it.
Same could be said for the Shuttle pilot in crusade only added in the reshot early episodes to bridge the gap
I have zero memory of the shuttle pilot. Maybe it’s time to revisit Crusade…
I liked Keffer and his actor. He needed much more fleshing out. I like what you're doing here. Babylon 5 is the BEST!
Much appreciated!