--- Natasa wrote:
It seems we primarily have to thank Boucher for introducing such individuals
- and also for making Blake himself morally dubious.
Blake's 'transformation' designed by Boucher starts with 'Shadow'. Someone on the Lyst suggested the name of the episode, apart from the drug, also alludes to the Terra Nostra being the Federation's 'shadow'.
<bows modestly>
I think it's also because Boucher has decided to turn Blake into a 'dusky' hero, past his zenith of perfection and moral purity, whose shadow starts becoming visible.
Neat. I hadn't thought of that. Of course part of that transformation involves Blake's actions paralleling (shadowing ?) those of the Federation. The episode's denoument with the revelation that the Federation control the evil drug trade absolves Blake from the fact that he was planning to do exactly the same.
The next step in the transformation is Star One, with those weird scenes in which Blake's so successful in pretending he's Travis.
Of course, on one level they show the alienness of the aliens who are taken in by Blake because they don't really understand human beings. But the two interpretations aren't mutually exclusive. On one level Blake and Travis are polar opposites. On the other they have a great deal in common.
Blake wants to destroy Star One. Travis wants to enable the Andromedans to do the same. As Avon would say, there must be a subtle difference which escapes me at the moment. And then there's 'Blake', where Our Hero appears as an unshaven one-eyed bounty hunter who shoots people in the back. I wonder what would have become of Blake in Boucher's interpretation had the series continued. I try hard to incorporate the changes he introduced into the character, but sometimes I give up. In my hours of darkness I've concluded that Boucher is really a Federation's secret agent assigned to destroy Blake's reputation.
I think that Blake's darker side had been hinted at earlier in Mission to Destiny, Breakdown and Bounty for example. I think that Blake was always capable of shooting people in the back. What I think is different about Boucher's portrayal is that he is more interested the ambiguities in Blake's character. So in Trial he takes more effort to make Travis seem sympathetic. In Star One he shows air traffic and weather control being disrupted as opposed to, say, the Federation military. I think Boucher is more detached from Blake. Nation's Blake is a bit like the wartime view of Churchill - shown fighting for freedom in a heroic light. Boucher's version is more like Churchill as shown by modern historians - yes he was a good guy but he could be ruthless, nasty and just plain wrong on occasions. So I think that Boucher is a revisionist, subverting the orthodox view, rather than a propagandist seeking to replace it with a dark legend.
Stephen.
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