I wish Gerrold well. I own the complete Star Wolf book in one volume and it is an interesting story. I highly recommend reading it, if you can find it.

I think Gerrold is shoring up his base and trying to be more expansive in his vision.
Or maybe he is just testing the waters.

It still looks like a 'fan project', I mean I'm not convinced the execution (acting especially) will be any different or better than the dozens of other low budget sci-fi shows we've seen which have been made for far, far less.  Despite all the money, it won't have the quality look of Firefly or anything we see on proper TV, it'll probably look like ARK (and yet cost a magnitude more) or feel like LOTR: Born of Hope (where acting/directing is cheap).

The Early CGI shots they show on the video are atrocious, to the extent that I'm wondering whether they are making an animated show? No matter how early, I can't imagine anyone thinking that those shots are acceptable for a live action show, when they don't even look good enough for an old computer game.

Oh, and much of the saving of B5 at the time was that they were set in one place (fewer sets) and used CGI rather than models.

Back in the start of home video era, Japanese anime companies came up with a rather intriguing format, the "Original Animated Video". As first practiced, they'd release a standalone episode of a potential series, see how it sold, then do another with the money coming in funding it. You could see the increase in budgets as they went (or decrease, as the case may be). That worked because, one, the Japanese were willing to pay $60 for a thirty minute laserdisc, and two, because the studio had other projects. They would just switch their people between them as needed.

I honestly think Gerrold came out of his experience with Star Trek Phase II thinking, "Hey, it's not that hard!"

I've downloaded it 

well they made $88,746 which is about 600,000 short of their goal.