Blakes7 April 2001

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70 participants
295 discussions

Director vs Writer (Was: Re: [B7L] Mission to Destiny)
by Tavia 06 Apr '01

06 Apr '01

Earlier today, I wrote: >Perhaps if I reconstituted my list of likes and hates according to >director I'd find some trends (Excel must have some uses...). Well, a wasted evening, a deal of RSI pain, and several spreadsheets later, I'm proud to announce... um ... It didn't. My liking of B7 episodes appears to depend on Season (2 > 1 = 3 = 4) and Writer (Boucher = Holmes > Nation >> Parkes = Other > Prior = Steed), but hardly at all on Director. A short-cut to this earth-shattering conclusion might have been to observe that Mary Ridge directed one of my two favourite episodes as well as my least favourite. (I leave proving the identity of these episodes as an exercise to the reader.) The only other conclusion I drew was that there was a definite bias towards my liking episodes produced by those writers and directors who lasted more than two episodes; with 'Warlord' being the exception to prove the rule. Tavia

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Re: [B7L] RE: Sex & evangelism (moving back to B7)
by Tavia 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Betty wrote: >Wasn't there a mention of Maryatt's wife >in "Deliverance"? Or am I misremembering? The references appear to be to 'family', and 'a woman and two children', not 'wife'. & Dana wrote: >I think there is a canonical reference to Maja as >Tel Varon's wife. Maryatt has a wife and children, >of course, and I believe Hal Mellanby refers to >Dayna's mother as his wife. The word 'wife' doesn't seem to appear in TWB, but yes you're right on Mrs Mellanby. Mebbe someone with all the scripts downloaded and a decent grep function could compile a 7cyclopaedia entry ? (It amused me slightly that the 'M' entries included seemingly B7-irrelevant trivia on the 'M16 assault rifle', and sod-all on 'marriage'.) Tavia

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Re: [B7L] More thoughts on Mellanby
by Fiona Moore 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

>From: "Dana Shilling" <dshilling(a)worldnet.att.net> >Fiona said: Actually, *Marian* said (it seems to have been one of those posting days :) ), > > >Still, one would expect someone with Avon's survival instinct to want to > > >keep his only means for returning to Liberator with him at all times, > > >especially when his enemy is around. All the more since Servalan has >told > > >him that she's after Orac. (This is what I meant by sloppy writing :-) ) >Roger Ebert calls this sort of thing the "idiot plot"--the film, etc. gets >to be >feature length only by everyone acting like an idiot. True, plots do tend to get advanced in adventure stories by random acts of carelessness :). But as I did say, this act wouldn't have been so but for Servalan deciding to take a desperate chance. And she was in a desperate situation-- seducing Avon hadn't worked, the Mellanbys weren't likely to sympathise with her and the only apparent way of getting off the planet was by blackmailing Avon. (now I did say this, though) > > Hm, but let's look at it another way. Avon, as it stands, has a choice of > > leaving Orac in the workroom or keeping it with him wherever he's >sleeping. > > Now, if he suspects that Servalan is after Orac, to keep Orac with him >would > > mean that he would spend a sleepless night, >Not much of an obstacles for a confirmed insomniac Where's the evidence for Avon's confirmed insomnia? > > Furthermore, Avon probably doesn't expect her to try anything. >If he doesn't he has a brilliant future in US electoral politics :)! But Avon thinks in logical, rational terms-- he is trying to outcalculate Servalan, and he's nearly right. He couldn't have foreseen either the gun being left out or Mellanby being around to be shot (had Mellanby not been there she would likely have hid Orac and used it to bargain with); he's a computer technician, not a psychostrategist. > >However, > > the fact that one of the Mellanbys leaves a gun lying around changes the > > balance of power, >Leaves a gun lying around? Chez Mellanby that's like finding a bit of >paper in the London Times printing plant Actually, I *do* find it surprising, because the Mellanbys seem to be fairly careful with their firearms-- all the guns have at this point been cleared away except for one which is lying on the workbench, and which as a result could be assumed to be nonfunctional or in the process of manufacture (and Mellanby is in any case sitting armed in the room with it). And while I personally don't know a heck of a lot about firearms, I do know that one of the main things people who keep them (or keep them responsibly, anyway) do is ensure that they're locked up where the kids/dogs/jealous spouses can't get at them easily. So I'd say it's a bit more like finding gold at Fort Knox-- of course it's there, but it's a bit odd to find it just lying around. > > But really, it works against that, since she's likely to want sympathy not > > sarcasm-- but then as you say, compassion was never Avon's forte. >Actually he can be quite compassionate behind someone's back (the way >he looks at Vena, not the way he talks to her) or when s/he is unconscious-- >the tenderness in the way he touches Cally in Project Avalon after the >android has slugged her, or Blake in Voice From the Past. That's all open to interpretation-- e.g. when he touches Cally it is fairly gentle and tentative, but she has just been slugged on the head and he doesn't know how badly, or whether there's been any damage to the brain. But let's not go down the interpretation route again <GRIN>... >PS--do you think Mellanby's optical recognition gadget was an influence >on Geordi LaForge's visual visor? No, but as I was semi-watching Voyager last night I was surprised to find that the villain was apparently called Seska (and talking of which, wasn't Monday's episode of Angel [the S1 one with the demoness from another dimension] just basically a rehash of Power with an upbeat ending?). Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Acting just like a Hommik at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Sara...
by Nathan Hook 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Haven't watched this for a while, but I have alsways considered it a vert enjoyable, though a bit offbeat, episode. The bit that always gets me is Avon turning his back on sarah before announcing that she did it. Bit daft. Perhaps it's a bait. he wanted her to become violent and gave her the oportunity to prove it, further credence to his argument. Violence beguiles the innocent exterior. 'Yes folks, it really is "her".' 'I really rather enjoyed that,' is my favourite line in the episode. Well, life's so sterile and pee cee these days ain't it. it's sickly. Nathan. Nothings so difficult as a beginning/ In poesy, unless perhaps the end. Byron. ------------------------------------------------------------ Free, BeOS-friendly email accounts: http://BeMail.org/ Free Peepshow - http://twinfusion.com/comic/peep/

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RE: Sex & evangelism (moving back to B7)
by Rita d' Orac 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Tavia wrote: > The word 'wife' doesn't seem to appear in TWB, but yes you're right on Mrs > Mellanby. > Mebbe someone with all the scripts downloaded and a decent grep function > could compile a 7cyclopaedia entry ? (It amused me slightly that the 'M' > entries included seemingly B7-irrelevant trivia on the 'M16 assault rifle', > and sod-all on 'marriage'.) The word "wife" only appears in 5 episodes (not sure about the radio plays - can't bear to listen to them again to find out): AFTERMATH: Mellanby: Instead, the security forces massacred everyone, men, women, and children. That night I watched them all die. My own wife, my friends, everybody. POWERPLAY: Avon: My name is Chevron, this is my wife, Dayna. DAWN OF THE GODS: Tarrant: You had a family on Xaranor? Groff: A wife and two children. RUMOURS OF DEATH: Sula: No, Chesku. This is no kind of a joke. Chesku: I don't understand. You're my wife. Grenlee: Stopped them? Forres: Councilor Chesku and his wife. Maybe we should have stopped them leaving the surveillance zone. Grenlee: Absolutely, Section Leader. And what I say is that if a High Councilor wishes to swing stark naked through the trees and spit on the surveillance scanners, then swinging stark naked through the trees, spitting on the surveillance scanners, becomes standard procedure, at least for him. Or his wife. Grenlee: [V.O.] Councilor Chesku and his wife left the perimeter some time ago, ma'am. They were taking the air. Grenlee: [V.O.] Have you seen Councilor Chesku and his wife? POWER: Nina: I'm the wife of Gunn Sar. Kate: Wife? But you're a Seska. ===== rita d'orac "If you think of this mouse as a space captain..." http://www.vilaworld.com ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Mission to Destiny
by Fiona Moore 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

>From: Tavia <tavia(a)btinternet.com> >As I picked this, I felt it my duty to watch it. Serves you jolly well right :). > But then I picked it as >the worst Terry Nation episode I could come up with, and I stand by that >assessment. I agree with you totally on that, actually (though I dunno, Time Squad...). (I won't read Fiona's MtD expose' which I note has arrived as I >was composing this...) And I'll respond to your response separately, cos I'm a bugger for filling up other peoples' mailboxes with posts with identical subject lines :). >First season B7 (in which all episodes were written by Nation) strikes me >sometimes as a set of experiments in writing in different styles/genres. I'd agree. >One can almost imagine Nation sitting down and thinking well, 13 episodes, >Robin Hood in space, when was the deadline, god, last week... what cliche's >can I rehash... and raiding the cupboard of action/adventure (SLD, Project >Avalon), Star Trek (Duel, Deliverance), evil/mad scientist-style sf (The >Web, Orac) &c &c before finally pulling out the Agatha Christie.... Or, perhaps a bit more kindly to Nation: well, 13 episodes, total blank slate of a programme beyond the Robin Hood in Space line-- why don't I try out a few different formats and see what sort of stories work best? This seems to happen with a lot of shows, look at early Doctor Who: ("let's do a caveman story, then let's do a New Wave story, then let's do a hard-sf story, then let's do a story where the characters are shrunk down to one inch tall...") or ST:TNG (let's do a time-travel story, an alien-child story, a story where one of the crew gets godlike powers, a rehash of a script from TOS...)-- before both settle down to an established format. I think perhaps a little too much emphasis has gotten placed, over the years, on the famous story of Nation writing a script to a tight deadline, then getting Boucher to do the edit while he goes away and works on the next one (the usual quote is something along the lines of "What do you want, the edit or next week's story?"). However, from what I've heard, the editing was not so much Boucher having to rewrite the story, as him having to edit down the scenes which contained concepts they couldn't afford to realise (huge crowd scenes, pitched space battles etc) into something they could. >So we're treated to vintage detective fiction in the Poirot style -- >mysterious series of murders, closed system crime, outsiders happen by and >get pulled in to solve the mystery, events cast suspicion on each member of >the group in turn, before finally plot device clue reveals the answer .... But see my last post for the meaning of the plot device clue. I.e., that the answers *were* bloody obvious-- because the interesting bit is not in the solving of the mystery so much as in the watching of all the characters but Avon come up with convoluted rationalisations. >All very well, but the tension here is entirely lacking because there's no >inherent threat to the crew of the Liberator. (The external tension devices >[dark corridors, music track] are all very well but can't really amplify >what just isn't there in the first place.) Not necessarily a problem. There's virtually no threat to the crew in "Killer," and in Doctor Who some quite tense and exciting stuff came out of stories in which the one-off characters were at greater risk than the regulars. The lack of tension is IMO due to cheap production and very uninspired directing. >I'm not even convinced that the 'spacisation' of detective fic would have >been novel at the time -- weren't there some Asimov novels that took this >idea (eg The Caves of Steel, published 1954)? No (remember, "The Robots of Death" also came out in 1977), but be fair, there are lots of stories that are good despite not being novel. >The original intent here was to discuss Terry Nation's writing, so we can >safely ignore one of the worst aspects of the episode ... the terrible >acting by the extras (with their budget they could either hire one or two >extras who could act or 8 who, in the main, couldn't). Technical point: an "extra" is a nonspeaking role; these are "supporting actors." >What we can't ignore is the succession of lame plot devices, not to mention >gaping plot holes (how does Liberator get back to the Ortega without going >through the meteor storm? The implication in the Blake and Vila exchange: "We've got to get back to them!" "Now I *know* I don't feel very well..." is that it did. >, why does Avon confront a known murderer without >a single thought as to the consequences?), Because, as you point out, the story is a Christie pastiche. And for it to work as a pastiche, it has to include Christie elements, chief among which is unfortunately the "now I've brought you all together to inform you that the murderer is one of you..." scene (sorry, I don't much care for Christie). Hence that scene. >and rather odd characterisation >(Blake destroying the Ortega). Blake does hard-bastard things before and since-- witness Breakdown. >And a couple of wibbles. The sub-light-restricted Ortega will take 5 months >to get to Destiny, while Liberator, the fastest ship in space, will take 4 >days -- assuming months are earth length that's only a 40-fold difference, >which doesn't seem to me to be enough. But when has bad science been a barrier to scriptwriting :)? Apparently, when Terry Nation received a letter accusing him of scientific inaccuracy on one point or another, he would send them back a stock letter beginning "Very interesting, but you've overlooked formula XYZ to the power of 39..." and going on :). >There seemed to me to be a strong implication that the fungus from Hell >might be some kind of Federation colonisation device, which in view of >later episodes (Children of Auron, say) seems rather plausible. Interesting, that's a reading I missed. At this stage in the series, though, it sounds like supposition-- going back through the script I can't find any implication that this is so. > In which >case, there's almost certainly a quick and cheap way of killing the fungus >once the existing colonists have been driven away/died. This type of >possibility would seem to make for a much more interesting/pointful episode >than watching Avon striding around with his hands behind his back imitating >Poirot... They did make that episode though, it was called "Killer" :). >So... sloppy hack writing ? Definitely. Hack writing? Maybe. But sloppy? No. >Deep meaning ? None that I can see. See elsewhere on Occam's Razor. >Entertaining ? Not really. Agreed on that score. The poor production *still* leaves me cold. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane I can't believe I just defended "M2D" at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Gun-toting blondes (was Re: [B7L] Terry Nation as Writer)
by Tavia 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Kanna-Ophelia wrote: >I really, really wish Soolin had more to do. But I do think she's a nice >counterpoint to Avon - somehow, all that cool cynicism coming from >someone who is young, pretty and above all female seems to change >its meaning. And, also, she draws attention to how erratic he's become >in contrast to S1 Avon - my favourite example is in Assassin, where >the men are running around with testosterone pumping and Soolin >just flops down on her shapely bottom and *thinks* her way through. Yeah, I wasn't saying she was entirely plot neutral, and she does have a good episode in 'Assassin' (well somebody had to). But her *character* is hardly developed until 'Warlord' and 'Blake' -- before then she could be summed up in a sentence. And I personally rather object to 'pretty and above all female' changing anything. (The fat and ugly have feelings too.) Tavia

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Re: [B7L] Mission to Destiny
by Tavia 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Re: Lystitis >Or posting accompanied by a burning sensation I was womanfully preventing myself from saying Or posting little but very frequently... Tavia

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Which Question(s) Would You Ask the Script Editor? (Hypothetical) ; Was Re: Mission to Destiny.
by seven＠gaudaprime.com 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Fiona wrote: >>I think perhaps a little too much emphasis has gotten placed, over >>the years, on the famous story of ... writing a script to a tight >>deadline, then getting to do the edit while he goes away and works >>on the next one Tavia >I wasn't thinking so much of that as the everyday realities of writing >for money and to deadlines, which has paid for my internet access for >several years now. Fiona >>However, from what I've heard, the editing was >>not so much ... having to rewrite the story, as him having to >>edit down the scenes which contained concepts they couldn't afford to >>realise (huge crowd scenes, pitched space battles etc) into something >>they could. Tavia >I'm already looking forward to hearing ... speak at Redemption 03. (snipped rest of post) David writes I am thinking of attending the event. Possibly I may hear what the Script Editor has to say on the following issue: G.R. Having said that, ... has commented before that ... was not averse to cutting expository dialogue, no matter how important to the plot it might have been. J.L.V. I can't find the quote right now, but ... said something similar in an interview, that he cut dialog out of the script in some episode without realising till it aired that it was a crucial piece of information. I've always wondered what bit that might have been? David If you, Tavia or Fiona, had the chance to spend quiet time with the B7 Script Editor, what would you ask him? DC http://tezcatlipoca.algonet.se/cgi-bin/getbyid.pl?id=11481

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Re: Mission to Destiny
by Steve Rogerson 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

Haven't watched this for a while, but I have alsways considered it a vert enjoyable, though a bit offbeat, episode. The bit that always gets me is Avon turning his back on sarah before announcing that she did it. Bit daft. -- cheers Steve Rogerson http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson Redemption 03, 21-23 February 2003, Ashford, Kent The 25th Anniversary Blake's 7 Convention The 10th Anniversary Babylon 5 Convention http://www.smof.com/redemption

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Blakes7 April 2001