Jenny wrote:

Marian wrote:

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Jacqui wrote:

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As I said once before, taking one of the 'natives' as a playmate for his

daughter, knowing the girl's likely fate, is debatable ethically.<

...

But we don't know the circumstances of him adopting her. If he'd found

her abandoned - the Sarrans seem savage enough for the practice of ridding themselves of superfluous baby girls - then taking her in would have been a charitable deed.<

Good point, Marian-- but I'd like to say that while that could be the

situation, but the girl's the same age as Dayna,<

It's some time since I watched Aftermath, but do they say there that she is Dayna's age? (I'm hopeless at estimating people's age but I think she may be a few years younger than Dayna, who must be twenty at least.)

and if he was that tender-hearted and they did expose their superfluous

girls, why didn't Dayna have *lots* of little adopted sisters?<

Possibly Lauren was the only abandoned girl in that whole generation. :-) (IMO one of the most silly claims in Power is that the Hommiks abandon all their new-born daughters. That would bring the tribe to extinction pretty fast, especially when they run out of Seska to abduct.)

If Lauren is the same age as Dayna, that could indicate that Mellanby has abducted her. But that seems a risky business - if he'd been caught Dayna would have been left unattended and probably died, unless she was old enough to fend for herself. But in that case it seems strange that Lauren didn't run back to her family at the first opportunity. Maybe she preferred to stay with the Mellanbys rather than go back to her own people?

The phrase "adopted daughter" may also indicate that Lauren came along with her mother to live with Mellanby. Maybe he wanted a woman to care for the young Dayna and either abducted or more probably charmed Lauren's mum into coming and live with them.

The episode doesn't give us much clues. Actually, I've always wondered why Terry Nation brought Lauren into the story at all, as - apart from being pretty - her only function seems to be that her death provides extra grief for Dayna. It would have been fun if she'd survived - imagine poor Avon having to cope with *two* high spirited teenagers aboard Liberator. :-)

Maybe Terry Nation was getting fed up with writing for the show, or he was too busy with other projects, but to me both this story and Terminal feel rushed and not properly thought through. IMO they would have benefited if he'd laid them aside for a fortnight and then gone through them afresh to weed out the flaws and plotholes.

Of course, it's those same flaws and plotholes that give us so much opportunity for discussion and speculation. :-)

Marian