After I wrote: <They're a reticent crowd, after all. We never hear the names of Blake's murdered siblings,>
Jenny wrote: <Blake is hardly going to say, "Guess what everyone? I was arrested and convicted on paedophile charges. They weren't true of course." Mud sticks.>
But what have the pedophile charges to do with his murdered family? They're two completely separate incidents (the murders being before TWB even starts). I don't follow you.
<These people are fictional characters within a fictional universe. Backstory seeds may be sown, but the full back story will only be activated when it is significant to the plot. For example Soolin's history tells us about GP and what we can expect. As a consequence Gan telling us about his "woman" is significant to the episode Time Squad, and Gan's actions in Time Squad are designed to tell us about Gan, or to lay future plot seeds for Gan.>
Again, I am aware that they're fictional characters, but I'm having trouble following your reasoning. (For a start, imputing that amount of deep and meaningful intent to two words written in extreme haste by Terry Nation doesn't work for me). What is the difference between Gan's words/actions telling us about Gan, and Soolin's telling us about her? In 'Blake', it could have been shown that she told Dayna - who she's friendly with - some of her history; she'd still have to tell the others, nothing would be lost. But it's made clear she didn't tell Dayna. Therefore, IMO it's an indication of her reserve.
We seem to have two systems of interpreting the series here. One of them is the time-honoured (and vastly enjoyable) Playing the Game, which is concerned with internal consistency - external constraints (authorial intent or lack thereof, budget constraints, acting etc) simply doesn't count, what matters is making sense of what's on the screen. The viewer has the right/responsibility to interpret what is on screen without recourse to external factors. It's my preferred system; though I enjoy hearing what the makers thought or intended, it is of far less importance to me than making sense of the on-screen action as a whole (not, I emphasis, episodes in isolation.)
The other is that the intent of the writers/actors/etc takes precedence over what the viewer may perceive from the episode; that what Terry Nation/Paul Darrow/David Maloney etc intended has to be factored into the interpretation even if I as viewer don't agree with it (or can't even see it). Personally, though I'm always interested to hear what these people have to say, I'm not much interested in doing things this way (especially when I find Playing the Game more satisfying) especially when what Terry Nation/Paul Darrow/David Maloney etc intended has to be interprete anyway and we all disagree on what they meant to say. I can and have done this in literary criticism, but I'm not about to do it in fandom.
<grin> perhaps all posts need a multiple warning system - Character Junkie Who Plays The Game and Sometimes Forgets the IMHOs ...
_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.