Helen wrote: <Does Avon's view on this change as time goes by? He does tend to talk to the machine as time goes on. It helps him put his thoughts in order, but is he also seeing the machine as a companion?>

I think it probably does, though he doesn't realise it and would *never* admit it. Stands to reason that if you are in constant contact with something that anthropomorphic, you will start treating them as human without even thinking about it (how many of us anthropomorphise our pets?). And once Blake leaves, he doesn't *have* anyone approaching an intellectual equal in the crew (what he has with Vila is quite different, fun and interesting but not really a challenge; Servalan's a challenge, but also an enemy and met fairly rarely) so yes, it would probably develop into a more conversational thing.

_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.