Crusade is a new science fiction series by Babylon 5 producer J. Michael Straczynski set five years after the close of Babylon 5. In the Babylon 5 television movie "A Call to Arms", allies of the Shadows (an ancient evil driven from the galaxy during season 4 of Babylon 5) called the Drakh released a deadly bio-genetic plague into Earth's atmosphere. The Drakh plague will wipe out all life on Earth within five years if no cure is found. Crusade is the story of the search for a cure.

J. Michael Straczynski intended Crusade to be a five-year story arc. Of his plans for Crusade, Straczynski said "We wanted to create more of an adventure show and tackle stories we couldn't do on Babylon 5." (Rob Owens, Online Post-Gazette, June 6, 1999, http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/19990606crusadea4.asp, quoting J. Michael Straczynski.) But a series of conflicts between Straczynski and Turner Network Television led to the cancellation of the series before a single episode had aired.

Straczynski has alleged that TNT canceled the show because he would not give TNT what they wanted—"Baywatch meets wrestling in space." (Rob Owens, Online Post-Gazette, June 6, 1999, http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/19990606crusadea4.asp, quoting J. Michael Straczynski; Tyler McLeod, "Beyond Babylon", Calgary Sun, June 11, 1999, http://www.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsC/crusade.html, quoting J. Michael Straczynski.) He claims that he rejected TNT's suggestions for the show because they were bad storytelling and also morally repugnant. For example, in one interview he remarked: "On numerous occasions they wanted one of our characters to become a sexual explorer, so whenever they met a new race he would have sex with them ... You know, to get the sex and violence quotient up there." (Tyler McLeod, "Beyond Babylon", Calgary Sun, June 11, 1999, http://www.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsC/crusade.html, quoting J. Michael Straczynski.) Straczynski also feels that Crusade got caught in a "power struggle between TNT's sympathetic Los Angeles creative office and the nefarious suits in Atlanta, the network's corporate headquarters." (Rob Owens, Online Post-Gazette, June 6, 1999, http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/19990606crusadea4.asp.)

TNT has generally refrained from comment. TNT's only remarks of record assert that Crusade did not "live up to Straczynski's original pitch: an action-oriented, dramatic adventure series." (Rob Owens, Online Post-Gazette, June 6, 1999, http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/19990606crusadea4.asp.) Scot Safon, TNT-Atlanta's senior vice president of marketing expanded on that, saying: "The scripts were very intelligent and well-rendered but extremely heavy on the talk and light on action. Joe was providing an adventure of the mind, and the network expectation was that it would be more visceral." (Rob Owens, Online Post-Gazette, June 6, 1999, http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/19990606crusadea4.asp, quoting Scot Safon.)

At present, Crusade is airing on TNT (U.S.), Space: The Imagination Station and CityTV (Canada), and SkyOne (Great Britain). It is being offered as a special limited series comprised of the 13 episodes filmed before production was suspended. When asked whether Crusade was dead, Straczynski replied, "I don't know that. Warners have said that if there are good enough ratings on the show, there could be a second season on the Sci-Fi Channel." (Interview with J. Michael Straczynski, Dreamwatch, iss. 58, July 1999; interview not available in full online.) While there were some negotiations with the Sci-Fi Channel back in February, the Sci-Fi Channel has not yet moved on Crusade.