Yes, they never did use the Great Machine as much as they could have/should have. Maybe that was partly because of the show being shortened to 5 years from JMS's original plan of 10. Getting the Machine into the battles could have made for a lot more stories. It also never made sense that Draal would just sit there and do nothing simply because the Shadows or whoever were jamming communications so they couldn't ASK him. Draal could see EVERYTHING!

Were you watching on their web site? That didn't happen on my local station.

My guess may be correct then, that it's about the Byron character. Or actually, the actor. Their online service is probably equivalent to DVD and other digital rights, which means they're streaming the version with much of Byron cut out. But on the actual broadcast, they can still show the original version. My broadcast recordings - without commercials - have all been consistent at just over 44 minutes, including the Byron episodes.

Also, I don't know if 10 minutes is a record. Maybe for "prime time." But in the past I've timed a few episodes of... one of the late-night comedian talk-shows, I don't remember which one now... and their mid-show break was routinely longer than 10 minutes.

That could have been the problem. As mentioned, there were no 10-minute breaks in what I saw, even filled with ads.

But I think if you compare the DVD episode versions with what Comet is showing, you'll find the Byron episodes are definitely shorter on DVD.

Make no mistake, it's possible for broadcast rights and digital/DVD/streaming/etc rights to be quite different. That's why, as I've also mentioned before, for years when the Married With Children DVDs came out, they did NOT include the original theme song, because the Frank Sinatra estate wouldn't allow it. But at the same time the DVDs didn't have it, stations that broadcast them normally still had the music, because those rights had already been settled.

I don't remember all the details now, but I do recall something about how the Byron actor's contract for future releases of the show - dvd, etc - called for a lot more money than the studio wanted to pay, so by cutting back his appearances to what qualified as "supporting" or something rather than "guest star" status, they were able to avoid paying him that much more. It was either that, or not bring out the season 5 dvd set at all.

But again, the broadcast rights were already settled when it first appeared on TV. So they can keep showing him "on TV" without having to pay the extra money he apparently insisted on for future media rights.

I don't know how much might have been greed versus something like "creative control" which always struck me as rather laughable for actors since they're not writing their own lines etc. But I think Ivanova leaving was actually one of those things that made the show turn out better. I don't think JMS's apparent original plan of having Ivanova be involved with Byron and the other telepaths, makes nearly as much sense as Lyta. Ivanova was only a "latent" telepath, where Lyta was already a full telepath plus had been modified by the Vorlons, etc. Plus they got back to the deal with G'Kar wanting access to telepath DNA, etc.

That's got to be a streaming problem from the site. There's no reason they'd show "Back Soon" if things were going properly.