Well, since Natasa has cited me as a part-time Marxist critic, I suppose I
ought to rise to the challenge...
*
The only thing missing from Deliverance is the pith helmets, because this
episode is little more than a sad pastiche of Rider Haggard with pretensions
to being science fiction. Our stalwart bunch of middle-class Home Counties
adventurers find themselves ditched on a planet consigned to quaint notions
of barbarism through the magically convenient means of 'a war' at some
unspecified point in the past. Almost from the start we're told that
whatever society there was has undergone a 'reversion to primitive', and it
isn't long before we're comfortably assured that primitive means dangerous.
The planet itself is dangerous, what with all that radioactivity.
Despite which, there are some local primitives still knocking around. First
off, we have a bunch of men (plural), who are aggressive, inarticulate, and
unaccountably hostile. What better excuse could you need for shooting them
with impunity? Well, just in case, the script has one to offer - they like
to steal our women. We don't see Jenna get abducted, but surely she
wouldn't have gone off with them of her own accord? Heaven forbid! They
don't actually do anything with her beyond sticking her in a tent, thus
sparing all and sundry the anguish of singing Here Comes The Night.
As well as the men, we also have a Woman (singular), who is young, passive,
demure, extremely well spoken and has somehow managed to keep all her teeth
white. She instantly throws herself at the feet of our sturdy white giants
and hails them as the saviours of her people, singling out Avon as 'Lord'.
Vila and Gan presumably come from Another Place.