Neil said:
Also, I am less than impressed by the perennial fannish obsession with 'conditioning' as a cop out explanation for anything in the series that they're less than happy with.
But it's not their fault that they were conditioned to deliver rubber spiders and scripts full of plot holes!
There is also the problem of how thoroughly conditioned someone can be. Avon might be induced to come to Terminal, since that's not particularly contingent on anything,
Whereas I'd say that the extent to which the series makes any sense at all derives from "Avon being induced to come to Terminal is contingent on his feelings for Blake"
but Avon shooting Blake depends on him having a weapon with which to shoot.
Naah, if he were really upset he could throttle Blake, garotte him, grab someone else's gun, hit him over the head with a swivel chair...
There are too many variables, too much that can go wrong, and that throws the meticulous planning implied by conditioning conspiracies right out of the airlock.
In light of much of what occurs in canon, this is straining at gnat (Strained Gnat = Federation baby food flavor?) and swallowing camel.
-(Y)