Blakes7 February 2001

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80 participants
929 discussions

Re: Penny Dreadful invokation response
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

> And here I am one of the apparently very small number who actually think > "Rumours of Death" was a classic exactly as broadcast Oh, I liked it a lot. One of my favourite episodes. I even thought that the flashbacks were good-- do people expect him to be as Snarly with his sweetie as he is with Blake. Oh, yes, silly me forgets that so many fans think of Blake as Avon's new sweetie. I even liked Servalan's 'loke at my breast' dress design-- because she WOULD wear something like that, the runway model wannabe that she is. No, I just thought a comic version of it would be fun. > > [SCENE: Servalan's wine cellar] > > SERVALAN [smacking self in forehead]: Why didn't I just *shoot* him? Note > to self: take cold showers more frequently in future. [looks around, past > various and sundry corpses] Say, I've got some mighty fine plonk down here, > if I do say so myself. Now, where *did* I conceal that corkscrew? [begins > rummaging around in the depths of her pearly bustier] > Proving I was right. <g> You're a brilliant humourist.

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Re: Deliverance
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

> I grant you that Avon is suffering radiation poisoning and that quickly > leaving and getting the needed medicine must rank pretty high so, no, I > don't think he hung around too long after. I also admit that I like to > think the Liberator came back later and offered to take her and her > people to another planet Also, Meeghat's people had survived for generations on that planet. Yes, with a drop in level of civilization. Yet she had beautifully woven clothes and is certainly of fairly high status within her own society. I think her social status would be further boodsted by the successful accomplishment of her mission; to find someone who could lauch her people's ship (note, it is HER people's ship. Not symbolic of Avon fertilizing the race; rather, he's-- if there *must* be a metaphor-- he's a fertility clinic, not a father). I think it's safe to say he did her no harm. Taking her away from the planet without knowing the nutritional needs of her people (they look human enough, but there was nothing that indicated they were lost humans, was there?) would have been potentially hazardous to her health. No signs of radiation poisoning in her, so I guess she's shelthered and adapted enough. Also in regards to the rocket... This *is* science fiction. There was a need to launch something from the ground. Meeghat's people had, presumably, been at a stage of development similiar to 20th Century Earth's when a nuclear disaster caused a rapid decline of civilization *and* a high level of background radiation. The rocket is meant to make us think of Cape Canaveral and such, not the contents of Avon's pants (wardrboe designers are so much better at that than props people). It's just a rocket.

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Deliverance
by Dana Shilling 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

I would have to rate this episode as embarrassingly stupid, and another example of the series' "do not pass Go, do not collect $200" devotion to the shabbiest sci-fi cliches, but I wouldn't say it's sexist, except to the extent that the series is unable to find very many interesting things for Jenna or Cally to do, or create a credible background for Servalan. IMO, the real text of Deliverance is that Avon is unable to live up to his own PR--that is, either as the lordly figure Meegat expects or his blackening of his own reputation. One would expect Avon to scam Meegat into believing that he is the awaited one, remove all movable valuables, get a leg over, then tell her that it's not his problem whether she gets her damn rocket launched or not. What actually happens in the episode is that, through no fault of his own, Avon is acclaimed as the awaited one; does manage to do what is expected of him (although more by luck than judgment); and doesn't insist on abducting the entire remaining population off the planet they don't want to leave. -(Y)

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Re: [B7L] (OT) A bit of silliness...
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

If Officer Crabtree ('ALLO 'ALLO) were a Watcher: "Good moaning." "His nome is Dincan MacLaid, the Hoaghlender." "He was beern in 1592 in the Haoghlends of Scootland and he is stoall aleve. He is Immetal." "For 400 yars he's bone a wearier, a louver, a windower, a chimpion. But he is not a loone. There are others lick him; some god, some oval." "For canturies he has bottled the feirces of dorkness, constantly feecing other Immetals in cumbat to the deeth. The winner tokes his enemy's hood and, with it, his peewer." "I am a Witcher, part of a sucret soceety of moon and womoon who obsorve and recud but never interfire. We know the treeth about Immetals: In the and there can be only une - may it boo Dincan MacLaid, the Hoaghlender." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --

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Re: Subject: [B7L] Another fanfic
by Ellynne G. 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:53:03 -0700 Betty Ragan <ragan(a)sdc.org> writes: > Una McCormack wrote: > > > Perhaps Avon could then torture Garak? > > Garak would laugh at him. > > Actually, come to think of it, I think I'd *like* to see that. > I'm now imagining Shrinker somehow brought back to do the torturing and Garak doing a critique. "Oh, come now, you don't really expect that to break him, do you?" "Four days of torture and you think you're the first one to bring up permanent removal of sensory organs? Tell me the truth, have you _really_ done this before?" "Well, I liked the bit about bringing up the transmitter when he _should_ have least expected it. It wasn't your fault you got it wrong. That was a very nice attack at his self confidence. But it needed a better follow through, don't you think?" "If you really _must_ break the first rule of interrogation and get captured by your own prisoner, could you _please_ avoid all the groveling? If not for yourself, think of the dignity of the profession." Side critique from Quark when Avon gives Shrinker a 'way out.' "Rule of Acquisition #XXX: Never finalize a deal until you have proof of payment and know exactly what form you can expect it to take." Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Deliverance
by Ellynne G. 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

OK, I will admit my language defense was a little off. I was trying not to step out of the box on this one. Stepping outside of the show, I know the he/she pronoun issue had been heating up at the time this show was written, but I believe the use of masculine forms as neuter or when gender was unknown/uncertain was still widely accepted without much thought. That may say something about bias in our own culture, but it seems unfair to penalize an author for slipping into a common usage of his own time. Especially since the author was dealing with a scenario in which the story was one where an author these days could be excused for forgetting to give Meegat gender neutral language (temporarily disregarding arguments about other gender issues). As for the Aztecs, it wasn't stupidity that made them mistake Cortez for a god. It was a very detailed tradition that Cortez happened to fit with freaky perfection. The Hawaii incident is less clear. They may or may not have thought Cook was a god. In both cases, the groups seem to have caught on rather fast (though not fast enough in the Aztecs case [still, they may already have been doomed. I understand something like a third of them died from smallpox carried by ONE of Cortez' men (although I'd have to look that up again to be certain). Civilizations don't just bounce back from things like that, especially when expansionist hostiles have entered the territory]).

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Re: [B7L] Deliverance
by J MacQueen 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

>From: "emma" <emmapeel(a)calvino.freeserve.co.uk> >(very quiet scared-don't-usually-get-involved-in-debates voice, please >don't shout!) If you can be heard over the hooves of the hobbyhorse, of course. <shrug> I should talk. But then again, the only one of my hobbyhorses that gets regular exercise, these days, is that damned Deathwatch Jacket. Now there's a perennial favourite - what Avon is wearing at any given time, rather than what might be going on in his head. Not that the latter isn't highly prized, if it comes to that... Regards Joanne (little sleep, horrible weather, homesickness, etc. No wonder my brain feels like a souffle. The only thing it's grasping just at the moment is this tennis match, Sexism vs Lazy Writing. Please let me know later on who won, or if it was a draw. Won't surprise if it's a draw, though.) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Subject: Re: [B7L] Deliverance
by Sally Manton 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

Stephen wrote: <I don't imagine they'd have done something really radical like leave Avon tied up in a tent for most of the episode, and have Jenna meet a personable young bloke in flowing robes, who thought she was the Messiah. - Sorry Sally.> <Sigh for lost opportunities ...> S'allright, I don't think I'm the only one who would have much preferred to see My Darling bound and gagged by hairy barbarians ... <I love the bit when she reassures Gan and Vila that the Lord Avon will protect them.> Oh yes - and would have liked to see Jenna's face at that line too, given their history. Blake? <Power is frankly, rather confused and silly, but there is a definite streak of misogyny in Steed's scripts (the whole Avon-Pella dynamic, for example) which I think is absent from Nation's. (I agree with Neil here).> There are in fact three main episodes where this god/dominant male bit rears its head - Deliverance, Power and Sand. The reason I find it far less grating in Deliverance is because Terry Nation at least had the sense to make *Avon* aware of how silly it is. And after Ellynne said: <Er, it's just possible the rocket looked like a rocket because that's what rockets look like, isn't it? I don't recall Freud being hired as a consultant for NASA.> Wendy answered: <No. The author used a rocket because it looked like a giant phallus.> No. The *director* used a rocket because that's what he had the spare BBC stock footage of that he could use (and at that stage, rocket-shaped rockets were probably the only ones they had stock footage of). Why go to the totally unneccessary expense (given B7's miniscule budget) of making a new pc-shaped model? And after *I* wrote <g> <For the most part, he treats her rather nicely, but as a sweet, idiot child.> Wendy wrote: <Okay then, so he treated her like an idiot child instead of murdering her or beating her up. But that's hardly respecting a woman's intelligence, maturity, humanity, ability to make her own decisions etc.> Errrmmm ... this is Kerr Avon, not Dudley Do-Right. He doesn't respect *anyone's* "intelligence, maturity, humanity, etc" (except Blake's IMO, and I wouldn't bet any money on the maturity bit); *everyone*, male, female or something-else-completely, is an idiot, and gets told so in no uncertain terms. Do we really want him to suddenly turn into someone out of Star Trek, just for one episode? JMHO and no offence meant ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Subject: Re: [B7L] Deliverance
by Sally Manton 01 Feb '01

01 Feb '01

Wendy wrote: <I think the evidence in a lot of episodes, especially deliverance, suggests that PD's interpretation of the character was *not* as a macho psychopath,> He also made it clear in interviews (and in "Avon: A Terrible Interpretation") that he did too see and thought he was playing Avon as a callous and fairly brutal MachoMan. The fact that he was wrong (about what he was actually doing :-)) is just our good luck. <How can you back something up with "evidence", if by your own admission, you are just reading something you choose to see into the episode, an episode that you agree is sexist?> Re-read my post. I gave the reasons for my interpretation - the way Avon and Meegat actually act in the episode being the central ones. The fact that you don't see it doesn't make it invalid for me, since you are also reading a lot of things *you choose* to see into it, and the fact that I and some others don't see it doesn't make it invalid for you. <What you are saying hear is that it's okay for a woman to conform to a sexual stereotype, as long as it gets the man to do what she wants.> She's acting naturally - she is not doing it to get him to do what she wants, she is doing it because that is how she sees *him* (not how she sees men, for goodness sake - look at the way she *totally* ignores both Vila and Gan.) and what she sees his role is, a prophesised Lord to complete a particular very vital task. The reason it's Avon (and not Jenna or Cally or Blake or whoever) is that - quite correctly - Terry Nation realised that none of the others would be nearly as much fun to *watch* in this situation (except maybe Vilakins). <This is true, but by that implication it means the Avon is just using her.> And she's not using him? Or are you suggesting that Avon - *Avon*, for goodness sake! - should put political correctness before survival? If he did, he would *not* be the Avon I know and love (despite himself) and I wouldn't want to watch him. <As for people left behind to a terrible fate,it has happened before,look at every other single prisoner who came to Cygnus Alpha on the London, for example.> And it's made clear in Cygnus Alpha that the ones left behind *chose that option*. Blake gave them the choice (at the top of his not inconsiderable voice). We have no evidence Meegat and her peple weren't given the same option; you can't deny anyone else the assumption that they weren't, since you are likewise assuming without evidence that they were. <So Gan's cruel then is he? This is a situation the author has set up. We should be looking at the implications of the scenario and not how various characters react to it.> Oh. I see. However, I *totally * disagree with this, and with the idea that people "should" be watching the show for any reasons but their own, and what they personally want to get out of it. I'm sorry, but it's clear that you and I watch Blake's 7 for totally different reasons, since as far as I'm concerned "how characters react" is central to my enjoyment of the show; I'm not interested in how Generic-SF-hero *should* act, but how Blake, being Roj, and Avon, being Kerr, *do* act. Obviously this isn't so for you, and no reason why it should be. But I really think it means you and I at least have no common ground to discuss, so I'm afraid this is where it comes to a . _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Blakes7 February 2001