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 ...)
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