New subject: Episode review - space fall

17 May 2001

      "Iain Walker" wrote:
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Gan is the next crewmember we see, standing in profile in front of Blake
and Jenna (so we just know he will be involved somehow ;-)).
Well spotted.
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Once again we are told of the societal decay (prevalent in late 70's UK)
by
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the captain of the London when he says in a very resigned way "nobody
bothers anymore."  This attitude was also shown by the computer
technician
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in TWB who is quite happy to be listening to music instead of working.
To be fair though, bastard though he was, that computer technician may not
have any work to do. Just because a Night Watchman watches TV it doesn't 
mean
that he's lazy :-)
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Finally we get to see Avon for the first time.  Interestingly, Vila
already
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knows Avon (or at least knows about him).  But we never get another hint
of
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backstory for these two.
There doesn't need to be a backstory. Avon is of interest to Vila because 
Avon is a
thief too, but on a much larger scale. Vila is clearly impressed by the
scale of  Avon's fraud in their first scene together, Avon however is
contemptuous of Vila. He considers him to be just a petty thief.
Vila certainly becomes Avons only friend (even
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before Blake leaves, they are good pals who do naughty things together
like secretly going out gambling), and visa-versa (well . until a certain
episode in season 4 .).
Avon tolerates Vila, and realises that he has certain skills that are
useful. That's all.
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(actually, its the civil administration - maybe the prison ships owners
are
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on contract to the CA and the contract allows the ship to use CA
authority?)
Who knows? However there is no evidence in the episode to support this nice
bit of conjecture :-)
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is on a fixed price contract to run the prison ship.  There is
speculation
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that their bodies could just be dumped in space and the company just
pockets  he cash.  So there must be some sort of system of checks and
balances
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here - i.e. the federation does not like to get ripped off - it wants the
services it has paid for, otherwise this is exactly what they would do.
One of the reasons they don't do it because they haven't got a top line
engineer to fake the running log. Also I think doing such a thing is a bit
too wild for Leylan.
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Another good bit for Jenna is that she can tell that the drives for the
ship need repair
That's true.
(too bad that in later episodes she looses all this knowledge
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about space flight :-().
Does she? When?
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The criminals on this ship are all pasty faced middle aged guys none of
whom look like a menace to society!  But it could all be the suppressant
drugs.
It is, and also the surveillance cameras and the armed guards.
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Maybe this is a ship full of guys who pulled banking scams or insurance
fraudsters.
It is a ship of serial rapists, murderers, paedophiles  etc. This is the
last stop for them. Many of them would have personality disorders.
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Time zooms by in this episode
That's true.
because Blake tells Avon he has had four
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months to think about his plan to fake the running log.
(did they avoid the food and water for four months to not be drugged?  This
doesn't make sense
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to me).
So they must have done something else. They had to eat and drink, but when
it came to taking action they would stop eating and drinking some hours
before.
The timeline in this episode is hard to follow - but I take this
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to imply that the London is near the end of its flight at this time
(which
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means something is wrong later in the episode!).
No. When Blake's revolt takes place, the ship still has 4 months of its 8
month journey to go according to the bit where Blake is talking to Avon 
about the running log; the rest of the episode takes place in real time. The 
best explanation I've come up with is that the "negative hyperspace" in 
"Cygnus Alpha" is a form of time travel (notice that the scenes on the 
London in Cygnus Alpha take place 4 months after the events of Space Fall, 
but the ones on the Liberator seem to be contemporaneous with Space Fall, up 
untill the point when Jenna presses the button and then the timelines catch 
up with each other).
The author has done this for two, possibly three reasons. 1/ He wants to
keep the contact between the three on Liberator fresh. 2/ If  the London was
just hours away from Cygnus Alpha when the Liberator flew away, then Leylan
would suspect that Blake would return to Cygnus Alpha to pick up a crew.
Also there would be no reason why Blake could then just blast the empty
prison ship to space dust. Leylan therefore would not have dropped the
prisoners off. He would have kept them as his insurance. 3/ It may have been
Nation's intention that this "Time Jump Facility" would appear again in
another episode, but for various reasons it didn't.
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We are made to "dislike" Ryker as the captain of the London glares at him
when he panics about the scanners.  Of course Ryker must be a weak and
scared bully.
He's a bully, but Raiker doesn't scare easily, and he certainly isn't weak.
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And the captain wishes he could get better staff
No. He's very happy with Raiker because he's the man who does all the nasty
jobs, allowing Leylan to keep his hands clean and practice his own brand of
"plausible deniability."
- like
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Arix, who is studying so he can get a better job!
Oh yes. He likes Artix. Artix is also useful cover.
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Then lots of action as the ship is taken over.  But why are the crew so
lax
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about safety when the show is being bashed by shockwaves,
Guards obey orders. If they don't receive any new orders they just keep
guarding.
they are sharing
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conjuring tricks with Vila.
Just guarding can be boring. And Vila is fun.
A good bit is Gan saying "we only need the
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hand".
Gan later kills the guard off screen, with the approval of the escaped group
he is with. Bit daft really, as he could have shown them to the armoury. I
know the same guard appears again later in the background, but that's just
sloppiness from the director. But if you follow the subtext Gan kills the
guard. Remember Leylan's report in Cygnus Alpha. "Five dead. Including
subcommander Raiker." The five mentioned are all crew members. As stated,
Raiker is one of them and the other three are the ones sent over to
Liberator. Krell did return, but he obviously died later. Who then is the
fifth? Gan's victim, that's who.
Vila drops the gun - what a nervous Nellie - but why entrust him
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with the gun in the first place - this is simply bad management.
Well not really. Gan says "grab the guns" and unfortunately Vila is the
closest.
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There is more of the "other side" of federation life in this episode
with
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the scenes between the crew members of the London.
Actually it's just more of the same. Greed, corruption, camouflage and
violence.
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the captain is shown to be a "good" man.
That's the surface reading, but the subtext tells us he's a right bastard.
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He says he wants no unnecessary violence,
That's true, he doesn't.
saves Jenna from
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molestation,
No. Actually he is telling Raiker that he can molest Jenna all he wants so
long as he's "discreet" about it.
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remains calm during the space battle scenes
That's true.
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and the rebellion,
Don't agree.
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he isn't stupid,
No he certainly is not.
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he doesn't like Raiker,
Like or dislike doesn't come into it. He's using Raiker.
he is not prepared to allow Raiker
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to get away with the "you said I could" defence, etc., etc.
But Leylan did let him do it. He gave him the all clear, and he had a good
idea what action Raiker was going to take. The reason Raiker doesn't tell
him what he's about to do is because he knows Leylan doesn't want to
"officially" know.
(I bet he is a
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good shot too, we don't get to find out.
Why bark if you've got a guard dog like Raiker.
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Too bad he didn't join the crew to help prevent their many failures.
They don't want him. They've got enough problems.
They
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should have brought him back instead of Tarrant.  He certainly showed the
potential to turn against the federation.
Leylan is part of the Federation.
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Without Raiker sending them across they would never have got the
Liberator
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it was his idea to use them.
Yes.
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A bit lucky, eh?
In the end it was, but Raiker's intention was to get them killed.
Also - I would never have
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sent the pilot Jenna over to the other ship.
They should have checked her record.
The Liberators "mind probe"
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self defence is a bit silly
I think it's very clever.
(how is it supposed to work - will it scan a
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mind and find out if it is from the system?
No it's just a defence mechanism. Perhaps a bit like a house alarm. If you
haven't pressed the right button in the allocated time it goes off.
But why is this security
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system
stopped by Blake shooting it - isn't that rather obvious),
Shoot a a thing with a gun and it's very probably going to stop working. A
pro keeps it simple.
but it gives us
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more insight to the mind tampering in Blake's head.  He knows the
detected
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memories are false.  The administrations mind tampering is what allows
him
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to fight the mind control.  In effect the federation created their own
problem in Blake & the Liberator.
Very good point. Thank you Iain for the insightful review.
Jenny
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Re: [B7L] Episode review - space fall