Mistral wrote: < I find the Tynus-Avon-Vila interaction in Killer to be crucial to my concept of Avon and also A-V.>
Agreed, but would you also include the other two? Killer, Gambit and Orbit are central IMO to defining the relationship between Avon and Vila, bit the good and the not-at-all-good (other episodes have good A-V in them - Volcano, Deliverance, City and Bounty, for starters - but aren't *built* around it).
<I wish Holmes had written more episodes,>
And maybe used some of those earlier guests in them (if they could bring back Bercol and Rontane, they could bring back Krantor and Toise, impoverished and itinerant after the post-War near-collapse of the Federation destroyed Freedom City's whole clientele :-))
<Seriously. Why do I watch Killer more than Shadow, when I *know* Shadow is the better ep, and love it, too? Unless it's the A-V in Killer, and the rotten Cally hallucination sequences in Shadow.>
Could be it. I *do* watch Shadow - lots - but then it's an A-B episode in its way, so it comes into my main area of interest (which is why my tapes of Time Squad, The Web, Breakdown, Redemption, Pressure Point, Hostage, Countdown, Voice from the Past, Star One, Terminal and Blake are getting plenty of use whether they are as good as Shadow or definitely *not* :-). Also, I'm a sucker for Our Heroes Behaving Appallingly, which is one reason why I also love Horizon and Assassin.
Then again <veg> could it be the costumes? You have to admit, they all look *gorgeous* in Shadow, but that has nothing to do with why I consider it so superior. Nothing at all. (Now the costumes in Killer ...)
<I could cheerfully chuck Deathwatch from canon, were I not such a purist.>
Now that's a good game - I do recall someone saying they tended to bar Dawn of the Gods from canon, you want to chuck Deathwatch and I like to believe that Power was Vila's bad dream. Anyone else want to nominate 'it didn't really happen' eps? Only rule is either [a] it doesn't affect the main thrust of the series plotline or [b] you can explain away where it does (for instance, in Power we're told that the hangar to Scorpio is locked and booby-trapped; in my fanon, it wasn't the latter and Soolin was perfectly capable of opening it while Vila was still dreaming :-).
_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.