@MLClark Hi, just watched your podcast on Voyager ... Lots of observations (which I will spare you), but as someone who was working in Trek world at the time I do have one insight.
VOY was a different animal for the studio because, unlike TNG/DS9, it was a network show. It was the first show for UPN, the anchor show.
Mulgrew has talked about the suits who would come on the sets, constantly fretting about her hair, her "femininity," etc ... (1/x)
@MLClark TNG/DS9 didn't have those pressures, so they could be a little more free with story ideas. VOY got forced into a network formula -- "This show is targeting a young adult male demographic, therefore we must do this and this and this ..."
David Gerrold has a phrase, "pissing in the bottle," for network suits who feel they have to interfere to put their imprint on a show and take credit ... (2/x)
It reminds me of the fact that Braga claims a UPN exec wanted a different boy band on Enterprise every week to guest star and perform.
@nblumengarten "Billingsly says knowing the fourth season was the last reduced studio input and gave the writers a greater freedom that improved the series."
Pretty much all you need to know ... although to be honest writers with free rein might focus on the art at the expense of the budget. Harlan Ellison's battle with Gene on the "City on the Edge of Forever" script is a famous example. They couldn't get him to finish it, or cut some scenes that were too expensive to film.
Babylon 5, as you mentioned, reportedly operated at half the budget per episode as DS9. Granted the CGI may show it (it never bothered me, but I know others are turned off by it.
BSG famously had a tight budget, leading them to "cut the corners" of papers seem in the miniseries as an injoke.
As with all things, a balance is needed, but there is something to be said for the creativity needed with a tight budget.
@nblumengarten Budgets are secret, so can't say if that's true, but JMS found efficiencies such as the entire operation in one building, writing almost the entire series himself, etc.
As for the CGI, it was the first show to attempt it. That advanced the state of the art.
When the show went to TNT, Joe got money from them to re-edit the pilot with all-new CGI.
Eventually the show brought CGI in-house, another cost-saving move.
@nblumengarten I'll also note that Hollywood accounting is very much a dark art. Back in the 1990s, Trek was Paramount's cash cow, so lots of other projects got charged to Trek's ledger even though it wasn't involved. The show even had to pay rent on its sound stage.
With B5, it was in a converted hot tub warehouse in Sun Valley, not on the lot, so no accounting games with the studio.
I've often seen references to the budget, often as fact (the B5 vs DS9 bit came from The Lurker's Guide, a highly respected site):
"Babylon 5 is produced on a per-episode budget of roughly $800,000, quite low for a science-fiction series; "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," by comparison, has a budget of roughly $1.6 million per episode, and Fox's "Space: Above and Beyond" is rumored to cost $2 million."
Interesting only SAaB got a "rumored" budget amount. No citations, sadly.
@nblumengarten "Bakula says he was not permitted to take his uniform with him at series end, then years later found himself autographing that very uniform (now somehow owned by a fan)."
Paramount sold off sets, props, costumes etc. sometime around the end of the 2000s, if memory serves. One promoter bought a lot of it and took it on tour. All that was on display at the #KSC Visitor Complex in 2011. I'd just started working there; the props made me feel like I was home. 😍