{"id":919,"date":"2017-06-18T19:38:19","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T23:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/?p=919"},"modified":"2017-07-23T13:23:18","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T17:23:18","slug":"stephen-furst-1954-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/?p=919","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Furst, 1954-2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The cohosts of\u00a0<em>B5AG<\/em> are mightily tired of saying good-bye to the stars of\u00a0<em>Babylon 5<\/em>.\u00a0If\u00a0<em>Babylon 5<\/em> has a moral center, it&#8217;s Stephen Furst&#8217;s Vir Cotto.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_918\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-918\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Stephen_Furst_July_2014.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"918\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/?attachment_id=918\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Stephen_Furst_July_2014.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2426,1930\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;3.2&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot SD780 IS&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1404559821&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;5.9&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;640&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.05&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Stephen_Furst,_July,_2014\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;By &lt;a href=&quot;\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=User:Lois_Benton&amp;amp;action=edit&amp;amp;redlink=1&quot; class=&quot;new&quot; title=&quot;User:Lois Benton (page does not exist)&quot;&gt;Lois Benton&lt;\/a&gt; &#8211; Stephen Furst, July, 2014, Moorpark, CA, &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0&quot; title=&quot;Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0&quot;&gt;CC BY-SA 3.0&lt;\/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=41194803&quot;&gt;Link&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Stephen_Furst_July_2014.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Stephen_Furst_July_2014.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-918\" src=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Stephen_Furst_July_2014.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"239\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-918\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By <a class=\"new\" title=\"User:Lois Benton (page does not exist)\" href=\"\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=User:Lois_Benton&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1\">Lois Benton<\/a> &#8211; Stephen Furst, July, 2014, Moorpark, CA, <a title=\"Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=41194803\">Link<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We have only to look at other intended-recurring characters in B5&#8217;s early years to see how important it was for the actors to bring JMS&#8217;s characters to life. Mary Woronov as Ko&#8217;Dath only lasted for one episode (largely due to an inability to work with the prosthetics), leading to the character&#8217;s replacement by Julie Caitlin Brown as Na&#8217;Toth. When Brown chose not to re-sign for Season 2, Mary Kay Adams attempted but failed to essay the role, leading to the character&#8217;s disappearance.<\/p>\n<p>Is there any question that had Stephen Furst not been up to the task, Vir would have possibly met with an &#8220;airlock accident&#8221; as well? And yet the &#8220;comic relief&#8221; soldiered on as the first character to challenge Morden to his face, the first Centauri to display shame before G&#8217;Kar, the assassin of Emperor Cartagia, and always&#8211;always&#8211;Londo&#8217;s conscience.<\/p>\n<p>Furst went on to direct episodes of\u00a0<em>Babylon 5<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Crusade<\/em>. His DNA is quietly intertwined with the whole of the series&#8211;a constant reminder of the show&#8217;s theme that it is our individual choices that define us and that humans build communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The cohosts of\u00a0B5AG are mightily tired of saying good-bye to the stars of\u00a0Babylon 5.\u00a0If\u00a0Babylon 5 has a moral center, it&#8217;s Stephen Furst&#8217;s Vir Cotto. We have only to look at other intended-recurring characters in B5&#8217;s early years to see how important it was for the actors to bring JMS&#8217;s characters to life. Mary Woronov as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/?p=919\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Stephen Furst, 1954-2017<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[67],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-in-memoriam"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/B5AG-004-featured.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p74nkr-eP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b5audioguide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}