Sally Manton wrote:
It's also very forced, which prompts me to suggest - since we *can't* simply cite Bad Writer Syndrome - that it's more for a reaction for each other's benefit, as part of the sort-of-mending-fences 'pax' thing indicated by Avon's open-hand gesture, than anything to do with Vila.
I've *always* interpreted that scene that way. For one thing, any issues of appropriateness or hurtfulness-to-Vila aside, Avon's comment *isn't* particularly witty or amusing, certainly not enough to deserve that kind of a reaction on its own merits. But it serves as an excuse for Blake and Avon to indulge in that shared moment of laughter. I don't think it *is* about Vila at all: it's about Blake and Avon negotiating a badly-needed emotional rapprochement in one of the few ways they're actually capbable of doing so. IMHO, of course.
-- Betty Ragan ** bragan@nrao.edu ** http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bragan Not speaking for my employers, officially or otherwise. "Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions..." -- Isaac Asimov