Random B7 musings

[altariel]

1. Why are the DVD interiors so stupidly labelled? To watch 'Voice from the Past', I have to look down a list of episodes, discover that it's episode 23, and then check under the DVDs to discover which contains that episode. Why not put the titles there instead? I mind even when it's a good episode, but this is just heaping on the insults. (Mm, though, that black shirt.)

2. Why am I not enjoying season 2 as much as I used to? Why did I like the anthology style of season 1 more this time round? Is this something to do with watching all that Hartnell? Why has it never crossed my mind before that this is the BBC's first stab at serialized space opera when this explains so much? Or have I forgotten something?

3. Why, in 'Cygnus Alpha', does Avon not stash away a pile of loot during the four hours that Blake is on the planet? Blake doesn't even know it's there, never mind how much there is. The great lummox. (Having said that, it's taken twenty-odd years for it to occur to me, so I probably shouldn't be too scathing.)

Comments

[inamac.livejournal.com]

3. I thought this was addressed in the episode? Avon doesn't do it because Jenna knows about it, and Jenna has the hots for Blake and would fink on him.

(I seem to recall several fanfics exploring this scenario - I may even have written it myself...)

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Maybe he did, stashed it in a nice safe place,and that's what they're spending in S4.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

He put it all into stud production.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Before he tells Jenna, I mean. Which is another stupid thing to do, actually, before pocketing some of it.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

1. Absolutely (though I will maintain to the end that there is nothing wrong with Voice from the Past which dropping the mind-control device wouldn't solve. Hang on, Avon did that... Mm, the shirt.)

2. I cannot say. Haven't seen it in a while myself.

3. I think he could stash it pretty much any time, if there's as much as he implies. Blake wouldn't be all that bothered as long as there was enough left to fund the revolution. Except that I don't think we ever see him funding the revolution. Are we sure Avon and Jenna told him about it? "Er, yes, there's another room next to the clothes room, nothing interesting, er... women's clothes, you're not transvestite are you? Ah... petite women."

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember writing (and being published) by the Radio Times and remarking that I had been promised a space opera and had waited around until I got one. (About The Web.)

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

He'd rather show off his cleverness than act upon it.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I don't think Jenna is so committed to Blake yet. She does seriously consider leaving him behind, and personally I think that if Avon showed the remotest interest she might at that stage have gone for him - she does rather preen about in front of him.

I do think though that once Jenna knows about the stash, Avon would be courting disaster by snaffling any, not because of Blake but because Jenna wouldn't fancy being robbed either. Why he doesn't snaffle it first - well, as some have suggested, who knows he hasn't? But he has no present use for it and might feel it was asking for trouble to move it yet.

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

1. I like Voice for the way it ramps up the tension - some good story elements in there, although the Shivan/Travis thing rather spoils it. That stupid disguise, and why did it *have* to be Travis anyway? And yes, the lack of ep titles in the discs is annoying.

2. Each to their own, i guess...

3. At that stage, Avon might reason that Blake might be dead or missing so he's no need to instantly plunder the stash - it will be his and Jenna's anyway, together with the bounty for Liberator. But who knows - he may have pocketed the odd handful...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

And who can blame him?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

1. As it turned out, I enjoyed 'Voice from the Past' a lot more than I had expected. There is a lot less of Shivan than I remembered, and that really is shocking. But the rest of the episode was fine.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I couldn't think of anything else before it. (I wasn't counting the occasional Who story like 'Frontier in Space'.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, once he's told Jenna he's stuffed. I think that if he had stashed away some money, he simply wouldn't stay. Avon throughout the first season strikes me as a man who seriously regrets not having access to that money.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

BBC1 bought in their space operas - remember that they showed Star Trek. Spaceships were expensive (and, as Matt Irvine would tell you) invariably wobbled.

There were plenty of alien invasions - Counterstrike being the obvious example - and BBC2 had its quota of space opera in Out of the Unknown. I remember an excellent version of Colin Kapp's Tau Zero, and then there was Get Off My Cloud which was interesting.

There was, of course, a great amount of science fiction, from The Quatermass Experiment through to Doomwatch.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

They haven't done Space Opera since, either, as far as I can remember. Plainly, they regard B7 as a failed experiment.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I think it's a vital episode, because it answers the question "Could Blake have pursued his aims by conventional political methods, without resorting to terrorism?" What annoys me (so much that I tend to forget about the whole Shivan thing) is the idea that Blake would have to be under Evil Mind Control to contemplate such a policy. It would be a much better story if it concentrated on the political debate; Cally and Avon would still oppose Blake's attempt (she's been a guerrilla all along, he doesn't trust anyone on principle). But they had to put some boring SF stuff in it!

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

He has to have Jenna onside. At this stage he can't fly the Liberator without her, and is therefore stuck. Telling her about the dosh is an attempt to get her on his side.

Doesn't work, among other reasons, because Jenna is loyal to her friends who are on Cygnus Alpha, not just to Blake.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that the fannish name for Voice from the Past in the early 80s was "The Curse of the Mummy."

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The Shivan stuff loomed large in my mind and then turned out to be less than I'd remembered. The political plot turned out to be rather good!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Also, resorting to mind control strikes me as a poor tactic on the part of Ven Glynd, if he's trying to restore Blake's trust in him.