Neil wrote: <And you still haven't answered my question: Why the *characters*?>
That's probably tougher to explain than it should be, actually. I know that of the other TV shows that I'd call my favourites, characters actually *aren't* in the central place they take in B7; important, yes, but I wouldn't call myself a 'character junkie' for them (OTOH, I don't love them the way I love B7. Go figure). And it's not all the characters, either (as you may have noticed :-)) but about half the regulars and a goodly sprinkling of the guests; like them as I do, were this Tarrant's 7 - or Gan's or Cally's - you would definitely *not* have to put up with my burblings.
There's other things I love - the brilliant mixture of doom&gloom and sharp, ironic humour, the cleverness of the dialogue, the lunatic elements (like the Wardrobe and Treasure Rooms), *some* of the politics ... have to admit that a lot of the background slides straight over me (I've been trawling the archives recently, and it's amazing how little sense I make of the discussions on how Orac and tarrial cells actually work, or what a spatial actually is, or technical aspects of the Liberator <g> but then I'm a real-life Luddite, let alone an SF one).
All I know is that these 'people' do strike a chord in me, far moreso than anything else in or about the show. The characters *are* the interesting stuff. Well, that and what they're wearing this ep ...
Yes, I know this is no answer at all. Perhaps if anyone else wants to throw some ideas in ... not so much why this character or that (especially Snarly), but why characters at all?
It was *meant*, after all, just to be action-adventure ...
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