Leslie wrote: <From what I know about production-line television, a read through with the cast would involve the camera ready script. Not a script typed up by Chris's wife!>

Again, fair enough, I concede to your experience. I only suggested GT because [a] it's on record that he changed a line and *very* much for the better in 'Horizon' (both that post and at least two other sources I've read confirm it) and [b] it was fun imagining someone *trying* to say the line and cracking up till it was dumped.

I'm certainly not wedded to the concept as canon.

<Certainly, leaving my professional experience aside, from my involvement with Fanderson, when actors start getting script approval, disaster ensues.>

But it did happen occasionally on B7 - on the 'Blake's back' tapes, Stephen Grief and Chris Boucher himself confirm it (the latter, not surprisingly, with disapproval :-))

Interestingly, there seems (from what I've read/heard) to be some confusion over exactly *whose* idea it was for Avon to step protectively over Blake's body three minutes later - Jenny, you've got a camera script, is it in there?

<It would be logical to assume that the reason the scene was changed was because Chris Boucher found a better way of doing it.>

That is not *nearly* as much fun, Leslie. :-)

<At the end of the Trial article Alan Stevens says: "The fact that so much of the script's first draft appears virtually unaltered in the final transmitted episode is, quite frankly, astonishing, and it can only serve as a testament to what a fine, dedicated and extremely talented writer Chris Boucher is." I think this is a fair comment.>

Oh, absolutely - the the same script as this dud line, he's written some quotable quotes to (pun intended) die for, some fabulous lines ... Avon's "Is staying alive too good for you?" Tarrant's "Thinking of making an offer?" Blake's "it's getting so you can't make a dishonest living on this planet anymore" and "That central computer doesn't care who it makes respectable, does it?" to name just a few. And we could go through his other scripts as well and pick out plenty of gems (checking first, of course, to make sure they're not the ones he borrowed :-))

It's no slur on a fine writer to say this one cut line was a dud. Personally, though I think RoD is chock-full of great writing, it IMO contains one of his other rare duds, in the last three lines, which strain too hard for effect. *Those* ones not only got into the filmed version, they were used for the title (obviously, a lot of people disagree with me on this point).

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