Steve R wrote: <During my current watching of season one, I've been looking at the command structure on the Liberator. It seemed fairly clear early on that Jenna was second in command. However, in the episode Deliverance, near the end of season one, we suddenly see a shift, and it is now Avon who is second in command and is giving Jenna orders when they go down to the planet. In fact, just before they go down, Jenna makes a half-hearted disagreement with something Avon says and is shot down.>

Yes, I noticed this too :-) Can think of both an out-of-series and an in-series expanation. It does appear that - when pitching the series and populating it, Terry Nation intended Jenna to be the second-most important character (she's in the central role of pilot, there's that lightly sketched 'romantic' thing with The Hero, she *does* have a background full of promise and possibilities). Therefore, in the scripts he delivered, she was in that position on the flight deck as well as the credits.

Deliverance, however, was fairly heavily re-written part-way through the filming of S1. In its original form, presumably, she was subordinate, as usual, to Fearless Leader, who was meant to go down and play god, but when it was rewritten, Blake's and Avon's roles were switched, leaving Avon quite emphatically in authority over Jenna (since no one considered making *Jenna* play goddess instead). I do think this was exacerbated by Chirs Boucher's openly admitted preference for writing for Avon (I'm not sure if the scene where Avon gives Jenna orders in Orac was also a rewrite - possibly, since if Deliverance had been filmed as originally written, Blake would have been the one left on board with radiation sickness :-))

<This was such a sudden change, especially after the episode Bounty, which was one of Jenna's best episodes, that one suspects it was part of a deliberate decision to elevate Avon's role. Whether this came from pressure from the actors or from feedback from viewers, I suspect we won't know.>

I doubt if it were audience pressure at this stage, since the high-pressure filming schedule wouldn't have allowed for it - they had enough to do keeping up with necessary changes like the deliverance one.

<However, from now on, Jenna's role is reduced. She had a good first season but a bad second season, the reason quoted for Sally Knyvette's decision to quit the show.>

Agreed with this, and here I *do* think audience reaction to My Darling had an impact, as well as the writers' preference for writing for Avon (let's face it, Paul, Gareth and Michael could make their writing sound so much better - of *course* they're going to give the best stuff to them :-)) and Sally Knyvette's relative inexperience and inability to grab some control over her character. Piloting a completely alien ship is all very well and good and clever, but Jenna would have been better off script-wise fighting Blake as well as the Federation.

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