Foundation

[altariel]

I've spent the past couple of days in the library reading through back issues of Foundation, looking for articles on and reviews of Bujold. (One article, a couple of reviews, some nice leads.) But I wanted to post about the single article I found about Blake's 7, which made me very happy. Titled "Spock, Avon, and the Decline of Optimism" [Foundation 25: 43-45], it had clearly been written as the fourth season was being transmitted, and it regretted the shift of SF TV and general - and B7 in particular - away from the optimistic humanism of Trek and into pessimistic nihilism:

"Consciously or not, the creators of Blake are not only reflecting, but reinforcing the sense of lost hope. Ultimately, all they give us to identify with is a senseof alienation that we can easily find in the objective world. After the dream, the nightmare - carefully designed to win viewers and successful too. Why exactly do so many viewers like it?"

I think I'd probably take issue with the idea that anything about Blake was "carefully designed" (AND YET STILL I LOVE MY MAD OLD SHOW), but what I chiefly thought on reading this was, "Blimey, you're really not going to like the final episode..."

And, to my thoroughgoing delight, in the very next issue [26: 79-80], there was a letter from the author of the article in which she was heartbroken about the ending: that was not what delighted me, but rather the fact that the letter was written in the mode of squee that I found tremendously touching in the middle of a quite serious journal, and which caused me to raise my hand and greet her as "Friend". ("[I]sn't Paul Darrow gorgeous?" she wrote. Yes, sister. Yes.)

I'm just about to give a set of my B7 videos to someone who has never seen it, knows nothing about it, and - particularly - doesn't know how it ends. Can't wait to see what happens.

On Foundation: there was so much material on Le Guin that I had to file these under 'another time' (BUT IF NOT NOW THEN WHEN?); however, I think my favourite was the review of Four Ways to Forgiveness which fretted that it read like a valediction and that Le Guin might be planning to retire. Don't worry, she has The Aeneid to rewrite first.

Comments

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Season 3 is an odd one: I think it plumbs some real lows ('Volcano', 'Harvest of Kairos') whilst offering one of the most tightly-scripted episodes ('Death-Watch') and some of the most memorable ('Rumours of Death', 'Sarcophagus'). I think the higher number of writers on Season 4 didn't do it a service but, still, I wouldn't not have 'Gold', or 'Orbit', or 'Blake'.

Contradictions in my TV shows never particularly bother me because they provide such fertile ground for my own imagination. I guess B7 was good training :-)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I guess B7 was good training :-)

You bet. I had even better training, starting with the Warner Brothers westerns, but it never took. In fact, I get pickier as I get older.

There isn't a single episode in series 4 that I'd own and, while I rather like City at the Edge of the World and Sarcophagus (though inamac hates the latter) there are other episodes, notably Children of Auron, that I won't have in the house. (A broadcast telepath who whispers to another, for no other reason that the writer needs a guard to overhear - please!) Indeed, we haven't bothered with the DVD sets for 3 and 4.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten 'City at the Edge of the World', which I adore. 'Sarcophagus' was very important to my eight-year-old imagination. 'Children of Auron' is a real teeth-gritter, particularly the godawful ending.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I had a big bust-up with Chris Boucher (by snail mail) over this episode - and over the lack of any scientific expertise or internal logic. This ended with me sending him a bar of soap to wash his mouth out with after Sand. (He had promised me that no-one would sentimentalise Servalan - who I think was one of the main problems with the later series, and who should have been used much more sparingly - on his watch.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's a shame you were so disappointed with the final two seasons. CB once rather sweetly apologized to me for 'Blake': I'd been out to interview him, told him that the ending of the show had seared itself into my 10-year old imagination; about an hour later, while driving me back to the station, he offered a full and frank apology! :-)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I had a lot of problems with these two seasons - I loathed Tarrant and Soolin (neither of whom had a decent characteristic between them), and was alarmed by the amount of over-the-top and out-of-character acting from both Paul Darrow and Jacquie Pearce. (A woman who once stated in an interview that Servalan "Only wanted to do what was best for her people.") We were expected to swallow Servalan's sudden obession with a man she had addressed precisely one line to in the first two seasons, and had hardly looked at. Cally's background was messed up completely, contradicting much of what had been said in The Web and Bounty and she turned into a wimp. Josette Simon, an actress who I now adore, was just out of drama school and so blew her dialogue in the first few episodes that the writers stopped writing good lines for her. Servalan appeared to be able to teleport across the galaxy (a trend that started at the end of Season 2) because they had to have her in the story. Without Blake, they lost focus. I could go on...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

As I say, it's a real shame you were disappointed in the last two seasons. For myself, I really like Steven Pacey's performance throughout, and I think Glynis Barber puts in a very understated and dry performance, particularly as that season goes on. Josette Simon is a little too theatrical for my taste.