Blakes7 June 2001

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61 participants
258 discussions

Veron in the midfield
by Harriet Monkhouse 03 Jul '01

03 Jul '01

I keep doing double takes when I open the newspapers' sports pages and find that my football club is trying to sign Veron. That slip of a lass an international footballer... Maybe that's why Servalan was so interested. -- Harriet "There is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory." - Aime Cesaire

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Re: [B7L] Robert Holmes ... a few wandering musings
by Marian de Haan 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Judith wrote: >Didn't care for Reeve, but then he was meant to be a slimeball (and I always see him with mental shadings of another part played by the same actor - he was in Morgan's Boy - also playing a slimeball)< I agree Reeve was a detestable character but I consider him well written as a slimeball. I was sorry to see him being killed off so early in the episode because he had the potential for making life very difficult for Servalan. Marian

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Re: Blakes7 digest, Vol 1 #538 - 9 msgs
by Helen Krummenacker 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

> Oh but do admit, Holmes just did it *better*. Even a three line minor like > Dr Wiler, the almost silent Klute or the OTT Croupier are memorable; his > character cliches (such as Docholli, Chenie and Cevedic) are fun, and his > major creations - Bellfriar, Gambrill, Tynus (so ever-so-slightly slimy), > Jarriere, Krantor, Toise, Hunda and his people - are > just wonderful, and tend to figure *a lot* in my 'guests so good they would > make terrific regulars' musings :-) > And yet, NOT his: Carnell, Rashel, Kasabi, Ensor, Ensor's floating guardian that would have made a good pet for Avon, the moon disks, Tyce, Sarkoff, Neebrox, Dr. Plaxton-- you could make quite a list of one time appearances that people have wished for as regulars.

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Re: other scriptwriters
by Helen Krummenacker 30 Jun '01

30 Jun '01

B7 by: The writers for Star Trek: Next Generation. Avon is kicked off the ship halfway through season one because he doesn't get along with the rest of the crew. Somewhere along the way, the Federation is totally forgotten about, and we get a season3-like meandering among alien planets, or else post-Star One, Blake and the others are honored by being made the crew of the flagship of the Federation. Characters get weepy and emotional as they run into former lovers, family member, or schoolmates, but they never seem to continue the relationship after the particular show. Joss Whedon: much the same. But Guada Prime is only the beginning. Michael J Strazinski: The rebels might have actually had a feasible, if desperate, plan and had a chance in h*** of winning.

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Robert Holmes ... a few wandering musings
by Sally Manton 30 Jun '01

30 Jun '01

I was watching Killer again (the pain, the pain:-)) and got to thinking about the fact that Robert Holmes, who wrote this, Gambit and Orbit, was offered the script editor's job ahead of Chris Boucher. And I do have to say I think we were lucky he turned it down. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy all three episodes, and absolutely *love* Killer, which I do think is the strongest, scriptwise, of the three. It's got its problems, but the contrasting Avon/Tynus and Blake/Bellfriar interactions are very appealing. Gambit suffers from extreme unevenness, with the Travis/Servalan/Krantor line getting all the attention and the Blake/Jenna/Cally/Docholli one being seriously starved of oxygen or interest, but its cleverness and the sheer style with which it was put together carry it through; Orbit is better than average fun, but IMO only gets its classic status because of that lethal kick in the last ten minutes. But some of the things that are common to all three episodes would IMO actually harm the show as a whole if (as Boucher was) he was re-writing whole slabs of the thing. For instance, he really does have a penchant for exposition, his quite complex plots (for TV action-adventure, okay?) involving quite blatant 'let's stop and let character A tell character B what the audience has to know' scenes (Blake and Bellfriar in Killer, Servalan and Jarriere in Killer). These can be very entertaining (I never like Servalan *more* than when she's trying to keep her temper with My Favourite Gnome) but they're not exactly subtle. The main problem I have with his scripts is that, while he writes terrific Avon-Vila, good Travis, and wonderfully memorable guest characters (Jarriere, Krantor & Toise, Bellfriar, Tynus & Gambrill, Egrorian) he shows almost no interest *at all* in the rest of the crew (except Blake in Killer. But *only* in Killer.) Jenna (a bimbette in both of his S2 scripts) Cally (pure wallpaper) and the Scorpio youngsters are barely acknowledged. Maybe it's unfair to compare, since CB wrote more scripts, but I have noticed that oft-mentioned favourites by him include those episodes - especially Shadow, Star One and DeathWatch - in which *all* of the crew get a goodly share of the action; Boucher had his favourites (and has freely acknowledged that Avon was No 1 :-)) but wrote well for *all* of the crew. Holmes episodes tend to be 'Blake's Two, Not Including Blake' ... would this, do you think, have bled over if he were overseeing the whole series? (I hate to think how his blatant disinterest in the Blake-Avon relationship might have affected the whole Star One crescendo, *especially* the episode itself). Anyone like to throw some thoughts on either scriptwriter? Or maybe muse on how one of the other writers *might* have gone in the role? (Let no one mention Ben Stee ...) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Other script editors [was Robert Holmes] (fwd)
by Angria＠t-online.de 30 Jun '01

30 Jun '01

I think Oliver Stone and B7 would go together quite well. Imagine "RB" - an investigation into the murder of Roj Blake which looks at the subject from all angles and concludes that Avon didn't do it. Or even "Servalan", a film biography of Madame President starring...um...Angeline Jolie as Servalan, Rupert Everett as Carnell, Anthony Hopkins as Secretary Rontane, Patrick Stewart as Bercol, Ewan MacGregor as Blake and Colin Firth as Avon. Tanja

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Re: [B7L] Robert Holmes ... a few wandering musings
by Marian de Haan 30 Jun '01

30 Jun '01

Sally wrote: >Judith: ><But I like his ability to write well-rounded guest characters> > >and Marian: ><The other B7 writers were equally capable of that, with the possible exception of Roger Parkes and James/Jim Follett. Even Ben Steed managed it quite well. :-)> >Oh but do admit, Holmes just did it *better*.< Sorry, I don't agree :-) I find the London command trio, the Ortega crew, Largo, Rontane and Bercol, Grenlee and Forres, Gunn Sar, investigator Reeve and Keiller - to name a few - equally well written and memorable. Marian

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Re: [B7L] Other script editors
by Sally Manton 30 Jun '01

30 Jun '01

Walt Disney ... On second thoughts (said thought being Blake singing 'When You Wish Apon A Star' to his crew) do we really want to go there? _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Robert Holmes ... a few wandering musings
by Sally Manton 29 Jun '01

29 Jun '01

Judith: <But I like his ability to write well-rounded guest characters> and Marian: <The other B7 writers were equally capable of that, with the possible exception of Roger Parkes and James/Jim Follett. Even Ben Steed managed it quite well. :-)> Oh but do admit, Holmes just did it *better*. Even a three line minor like Dr Wiler, the almost silent Klute or the OTT Croupier are memorable; his character cliches (such as Docholli, Chenie and Cevedic) are fun, and his major creations - Bellfriar, Gambrill, Tynus (so ever-so-slightly slimy), Jarriere, Krantor, Toise, Hunda and his people - are just wonderful, and tend to figure *a lot* in my 'guests so good they would make terrific regulars' musings :-) As the person who started this, I will say that I think the series is richer for having his episodes, far richer, even though I don't think he would have been a good script editor for this particular show. But for a hypothetical spin-off about the Federation in general ... (Of course, I'm now imagining the pseudo-documentary 'historical' viscast specials on Blake's Crusade in future centuries, complete with computer-generated Heroes (the Sims, anyone?) elderly film of Servalan's last moments on Geddon, interviews with descendants of Sarkoff and Governer Le Grande and with people from Destiny and Kaarn, and the 24th century Magnus Magnusson strolling through the romantic concrete ruins of Xenon, which has been turned over to the Historic Homes of the Galaxy ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Robert Holmes ... a few wandering musings
by Marian de Haan 29 Jun '01

29 Jun '01

James Mansson ARGO wrote: >Actually in his Series Four episodes, he does quite a good job on sharing out the action; in Traitor, Tarrant/Dayna are in the spotlight, while in Orbit it is Avon/Vila. Only Soolin gets neglected, presumably because she was something of an afterthought (didn't they originally want to retain Cally, but Jan C didn't want to continue?) and there wasn't much for RH to go on with her.< IMO Soolin got neglected because in a crew of five there wasn't anyone left he could pair her with. Holmes seemed to think in pairs: Blake-Jenna, Avon-Vila, Tarrant-Dayna. In "Killer" Cally falls victim to this and I suspect that in "Gambit" she gets to accompany Blake and Jenna solely because Avon and Vila need to remain alone on Liberator and Holmes didn't know what else to do with her. :-) Marian

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Blakes7 June 2001