Blakes7 October 2001

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54 participants
274 discussions

Re: [B7L] Season 4 clothes - why so few?
by Marian de Haan 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

Dana wrote: >Marian de Haan said: >> I always assumed that all S4 clothes came from Dorian's and Soolin's wardrobes. And I'm convinced that Avon's "sunray suit" (Assassin-Gold) was Soolin's originally, but somehow got mixed up with Dorian's clothes. Of course Avon would choose it on the strength of it being the most outrageous outfit available.<< >Marian, have you forgotten the Deathwatch Matador suit, or has it caused traumatic amnesia? Anyway, I *like* the sunray suit, especially under its alternate title of "the Baryshnikov costume."< I meant the most outrageous garment in Dorian's wardrobe :-) Actually, the sunray suit is one of my favourites, especially in Sand, where he wears it without the jacket. It's one of the things which makes that episode watchable for me. As for the Matador suit - the thought that it went down with the ship makes Liberator's destruction a bit easier to bear. Marian

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Re: Re: [B7L] Narrative Complications
by Marian de Haan 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

Sally wrote: >Ellynne wrote: ><I've sometimes thought it would have been better if it was set up with the lawyer as the first episode's main character, with the story coming from his POV.>< >Sounds fine to me, as long as you still manage to write in Alta Morag - one of my favourite guest stars :-)< One of the few women in B7 who doesn't look like the victim of a prolonged famine. I like her. It would have been great to see her pit her wits against Servalan. And Avon should be in there too :-) I'd have loved to see the scene of his trial. Marian

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Avatars again
by Ellynne G. 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

It must be something about this time of year. It's Halloween, with little kids everywhere dressing up as their favorite whatevers (pink princesses, Harry Potters, witches, Power Rangers, and Other). So, naturally, I'm seeing B7 characters hiding in books, cleverly disguised as other people. I've been reading Anne Perry's latest William Monk mystery (spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't) and it suddenly hit me he could be Avon (although there are parallels with other characters as well). Oh, probably not (although the main detective in her other series looks suspiciously like Tom Baker's Doctor, so who knows?). Also, this got longer than I expected, but check out the quotes. They really do fit Avon. For the first B7 episode comparison, when Monk is introduced, he is a police detective who has just lost his memory in an accident, a fact he is at pains to hide. Although an evil government cospiracy is NOT trying to frame him for unspeakable crimes, somebody is, and Monk doesn't know himself whether the evidence he is looking at is real, false, or misinterpreted. Despite that, he's more Avonish. He quickly discovers nobody he worked with liked him and that he had never shared details of his past with any of them. Reflecting on one of his first meetings with a sargeant, we're told "Then is had been fear in the man's face, an instant respect born of the experience of Monk's lacerating tongue and his expectation that everyone should match his own standards, in precisely his way.' When Monk has to deal with an officer he used to treat with contempt, he's not happy. We're told, "It was largely pride. It stung like like a burn on the skin, but he could not possibly ignore either the duty . . . or the inner compulsion to learn the truth. The purity and the danger of knowledge had always fascinated him, even when it forced him to face things that hurt, stripped bare secrets and wounds. It was a challenge to his skill and his courage, and facing Runcorn was a price he never seriously thought too high." There's no one named Blake, but there is a doctor named Beck who fought in the 1848 revolutions in Germany. There's also no one named Cally, although one of Monk's few friends is a woman named Callandra. Oh, and Monk doesn't have a brother who appears briefly in the plot only to vanish and never appear again. He has a sister who apears briefly in the plot only to vanish and never appear again. However, in this latest book (Funeral in Blue), that themes of revolutions past come up. One woman who was a leader is described in Blakian terms. Her ability to inspire others is described as "it was the passion inside her, the force of her vision, which made her unique. She had the power to carry others into her dreams." Beck the revolutionary is described as "a pretty good hero too, a real fighter. Not only brave, but pretty clever, a sort of natural leader. He had the courage to face the enemy down. Could read people rather well, and knew when to call a bluff, and just how far to go. He was tougher . . . and prepared to take the risks." Also, when the soldiers had been given the information where to corner Beck and some others, he wounded their leader, his Travis-like archenemy in fact, leading to the guy losing his leg. Oh, there's no one named Anna, but there was a Hanna. She was in love with Beck, betrayed and captured by the enemy, and died under torture rather than betray him and the others (for the RoD Anna, that's the woman who betrayed Hanna and married Beck [only to be murdered in this book] and the first part of whose name, Elissa von, can _almost_ be rearranged into Servalan). Come to think of it, in discussing criminal motives, Monk speaks in revealing, hypothetical terms of how a man might react to an attack on a woman he loved. "[Does] he go storming off to kill the man he believes responsible . . . ? In his own rage and guilt that he was not there to protect her, he can attack someone who may or may not be responsible, and risk injustice and his own catastrophic blame, almost certainly arrest, and possibly prison or [death] for himself . . . Is that reasonable or intelligent? Is it going to produce good for anyone at all?" Oh, and Monk, in digging into his own past, did discover some unsuccessful bank fraud (Monk seems to suspect he was the guilty party and that the man who was accused and died in prison [who may or may not have been like a father to him] was innocent. Readers may give Monk the benefit of the doubt, noting that he joined the police right after that). OK, I could go on forever, but I'll stop with this quote which would be perfectly Avonish in a PGP. "I used to imagine that no one would act against their own iterests or do things that are going to result in something they passionately don't want. But that isn't true. Sometimes we just react to the moment, and don't look even to the very next thing after it. We lash out in terror or outrage. Something seems so monstrously unjust we seek reparation, or revenge, without looking further to think what it does to us, or to anyone else." Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

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Cult TV pictures
by Steve Rogerson 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

Pictures from last week's Cult TV are now up on my web site. They include some of Jan and Sally. Click the link below my name, then click "convention pictures" in the menu on the left. -- cheers Steve Rogerson http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson Redemption 03, 21-23 February 2003, Ashford, Kent Celebrating 25 years of Blake's 7 and 10 years of Babylon 5 http://www.smof.com/redemption

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RE: [B7L] Season 4 clothes - why so few?
by Nicola Mody-Nikoloff 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

Marian de Haan wrote: > I always assumed that all S4 clothes came from Dorian's and Soolin's > wardrobes. And I'm convinced that Avon's "sunray suit" > (Assassin-Gold) was > Soolin's originally, but somehow got mixed up with Dorian's > clothes. Of > course Avon would choose it on the strength of it being the > most outrageous > outfit available. And I can imagine Soolin keeping quiet about it and > enjoying the joke in silence :-) LOL! I like it! Dayna would have fitted Soolin's outfits; they looked stretchy. And they made poor Vila, who always got the dirty jobs, to lengthen Tarrant's and shorten his own. I can just see him with a needle and thread, complaining bitterly. Nico *** This e-mail is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient please delete the message and notify the sender. ***

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Fwd: Re: [B7L] Narrative Complications
by Sally Manton 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

Ellynne wrote: <I've sometimes thought it would have been better if it was set up with the lawyer as the first episode's main character, with the story coming from his POV.> Sounds fine to me, as long as you still manage to write in Alta Morag - one of my favourite guest stars :-) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Call for information
by Mac4781＠aol.com 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

I'm putting together Issue 46 of the Tarrant APA. If anyone has information they'd like me to include (call for zine submissions, merchandise for sale, upcoming cons, etc.), please let me know asap. As always, I've tried to save any such information that came through the lists, but feel free to confirm that I have *your* information. Carol

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Fwd: [B7L] Season 4 clothes - why so few?
by Sally Manton 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

Nico wrote... <I can just see him with a needle and thread, complaining bitterly.> Hey, if it was a choice between the darning and going our to do some derring-do, Vila would have been the first to grab the needle and thread. "Magic hands ..." wasn't it? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [B7L] Narrative Complications
by Ellynne G. 31 Oct '01

31 Oct '01

On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 22:17:49 -0500 "Dana Shilling" <dshilling(a)worldnet.att.net> writes: > The straightforward way of setting up > the series would have been to have Blake > arrested in the course of Freedom Party > activities, then mind-wiped, fitted up, and > shipped to Cygnus Alpha. Instead, we have > the whole (and rather anti-heroic) business > of the SECOND arrest, at a time when Blake > was pretty much minding his own business > and conforming. I've sometimes thought it would have been better if it was set up with the lawyer as the first episode's main character, with the story coming from his POV. From that angle, it would start as a story about an idealistic lawyer who defends a man he despises because of his commitment to justice. It would be best if the viewer shared this feeling instead of seeing Conspiracy Theory/X-Files signs flashing. If we saw the change in Blake from the outside, the shift from mild conformist to angry and potentially dangerous, it might be a little creepier. After all, he's accused of being someone with a darker, more violent, hidden side. Then, if even the emergence of his charisma seemed scary - when the lawyer starts believing him, should we wonder if maybe he's fallen under a psycho's spell? - it could be interesting, keeping the viewer guessing until the end what's going on. Then, when the solid evidence is found, we _really_ wouldn't be expecting the man we thought was the main character to die. Of course, this kind of undermines Blake's resolution at the end if we already have a pretty solid picture of how easily main characters can be blotted out, but still. To kind of play into strong Blake, maybe we should see Blake's realization that the lawyer's dead as the moment that crystalizes his lost resolution. A sort of 'He's baaaaaak' moment. Ah, for a time machine and fake BBC scriptwriter's ID. (Actually, I'd probably make a royal mess of it, but it's the thought that counts) Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

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Narrative Complications
by Dana Shilling 30 Oct '01

30 Oct '01

The straightforward way of setting up the series would have been to have Blake arrested in the course of Freedom Party activities, then mind-wiped, fitted up, and shipped to Cygnus Alpha. Instead, we have the whole (and rather anti-heroic) business of the SECOND arrest, at a time when Blake was pretty much minding his own business and conforming. The Blake we see in all his other episodes is a strong person who dominates the situation, so TWB not only has a very different atmosphere from the rest of the series (it's more like the last episode of The Prisoner than the first of B7) but presents Blake as a hapless victim rather than the flawed hero I suspect he was supposed to be. -(Y)

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Blakes7 October 2001