Pat wrote:
So there aren't a lot of people of color in the universe during the New Calendar. This seems to be somewhat more reflective of modern British society's numbers of nonwhites overall which I think (please someone correct me here) is lower than in the States.
Current figures from ONS (Office of National Statistics) put the nonwhite population of the UK at 6.4%. This percentage varies vastly between regions.
In a message dated 3/3/01 12:21:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, tavia@btinternet.com writes in response to my comment about Boucher and Nation copping out in loading the dice against Blake in season two:
<< I'm not convinced that the makers of B7 had much of a choice here: the extent of terrorist action against the UK government probably made any other course of action impossible. It's easy perhaps to underestimate the effect that terrorist action has had on ordinary UK citizens over the past decades (e.g., Kathryn's 'where are the waste bins' question), e.g., commuting to London (early 90s) I recall approximately 1--2 bombs/bomb scares per week closing either chunks of the Underground or the major London stations....
In a society where large numbers of people have been affected directly or indirectly by terrorist action, valorizing terrorist actions on public-subsidised television would simply be impossible.
I agree with what you say here to some extent. And I think you are right to point out that my "blaming" of Boucher and Nation for copping out by not to continue to valorize Blake is really due to factors more widespread than just the individual beliefs or fears of two people. Really, your comment about the bomb scares in the London Underground shows the extent to which such fear was widespread, legitimate and that Boucher and Nation were really at some level playing with fire in the whole premise of the show itself.
Still, it's the impossibility that you mention here that strikes me. I wonder what it would be like were it indeed possible for Boucher and Nation to have continue to valorize Blake at the same time that real political groups were using similar tactics against the British State. Were it possible to do this, would B7 have possibly opened up a space of debate about the nature of "terrorism" that it is now virtually impossible to locate let alone discuss?
I'm not quite sure what this space would look like but it seems that in valorizing Blake's actions as a "freedom fighter" I guess Boucher and Nation run the risk of possibly having their audience see the tactics of say the IRA as legitimate political actions, no less legitimate than Blake's.
Two things: First, I'm wondering first if that could have really happened -- I mean, I think I'm assuming too quickly a transfer from the level of fiction to the level of reality. And quite frankly, I honestly don't think people are all that consistent in their beliefs, so what looks right in a fictional universe we may still affirm as wrong in the "real" world.
Only speaking from personal experience, but the connection between Blake's cause and the IRA was explicit in my mind as an eight-year old sitting down to watch B7 in 1980. This is probably substantially linked to having been brought up in an environment which was very strongly Irish Republican. It's certainly why I became so engrossed in the show.
My previous post about this notwithstanding, I've been thinking about this the past few days and wondering the extent to which this would have been the case more generally across Britain. As far as I can recall, IRA activity only reached the mainland during the early to mid 1980s, after the hunger strikes (and after B7 was cancelled). Given that I'm trying to think back to when I was ten, there may be some people out there who might remember differently, and I'd be very interested to hear what they can remember, and whether they made an explicit connection between B7 and the situation in Ireland. (And how B7 would have been watched in Belfast in 1978-79 is, of course, another matter entirely.)
I do think the construction of the Federation as an overtly fascist regime is of key importance here (I really think it's essential to remember the extent to which Nation repeatedly returned to his childhood fears of Nazism when he was writing for Who and B7). Another extremely popular BBC show in the mid 70s was 'Secret Army', which was about the Belgian resistance during WW2. I'm wondering if B7 was generally viewed as having more affinity with that type of resistance. But I cannot believe that the connection with the IRA did not occur to Boucher, at least (anyone read anything about this in an interview?).
It's not till the mid / late 1980s (when IRA activity on the mainland has started to make itself felt) that I can recall the debate about how terrorism should be handled on television. I remember that an episode of ST:TNG ('The High Ground', I think) was pulled by the BBC round about 1988 (?). There was also a tremendous furore over a documentary about the shootings in Gibraltar; I can't put a date to this and would be grateful if someone could jog my memory. (As a coda, BBC 1 have just finished transmitting a prime-time drama about the Easter Rising which was Republican in its sympathies.)
To sum up: the second season of B7 (in which the ambiguity of the premise is being dealt with) was transmitted in early 1979. I'm unsure of the extent to which IRA activity had reached mainland Britain at that time, and the extent to which the connection would have generally been made (I definitely made it, but then... well, that's my background). I'd be interested to hear what people can add to this.
This suggests to me: 1. they weren't necessarily thinking about the IRA (and I think Nation was constructing the show primarily in terms of his usual preoccupations with Nazi-like fascist regimes - although I'd be frankly amazed if Boucher hadn't thought of it); 2. you could get away with doing a show like this in the late 70s that you simply wouldn't be able to get away with two or three years later.
Also, it's BBC sci-fi. People can dismiss it more easily - as being a kid's show. Every other Who story in the 70s is about freedom fighting. But surely we aren't taking it seriously...? <g>
(Wow! I really did post something serious on Lysator.....Hijackers Welcome!)
Yippee! Hope we can keep you here!
Una