I've been introducing a few folks from a college science fiction group to Blake's 7 this academic year. We're in the final stages now... we watched Traitor and Stardrive this week. It's been very instructive to see the series through new eyes. The group includes an Avon fan, a Vila fan, a Gan fan who is amazed that anyone might deny the intensity of the Blake-Avon relationship, and someone who watches to glory in the bad special effects and good stories. We took some time after these last episodes to talk about it (and the Neon Genesis Evangelion marathon we'd all attended recently, but I digress).
Some observations:
* They don't like Servalan.
One of them thinks she's just dumb and ridiculous; others tolerate her. But none of them *likes* her, and I've always thought she was wonderful fun. I'm thinking they won't be waiting for her to appear at the end of Blake like so many other people I know did their first time through. I'd say these are just people with an insufficient appreciation of camp, but they *adored* Gambit.
* Warning people about Ben Steed helps.
I said he was my least favorite writer and horribly sexist, before each of his episodes. It helps... if people go into those episodes with low expectations they can find, I think, more enjoyment from them than they would otherwise. However, the other girl in the group found no redeeming value in Power whatsoever. I had said that it was Steed's most sexist episode, but that it had redeeming factors (I was thinking of Nina and Cato, and Vila's work on the door, pretty much--and I find Gunn Sar hilarious). Cassia disagreed... she said she felt just dirty after watching it. Oh dear.
* No Tarrant fans.
They seem pretty much to regard him as an interloper, and more than one has called him an asshole during episodes--none of the other regulars has gotten such harsh negative language. They liked him in Deathwatch and Rumours, but they don't *like* him.
Opinions are much divided on Vila (buffoon? clever schemer? nice guy caught up in larger events?). The Avon fan dismisses *his* confrontation with Pella as never having happened, and the Vila fan (who also likes Avon) rejects Stardrive's "Who?" as wrong, as doing violence to the character of Avon. I think that line fits well with what is yet to come, but I can't tell her that yet.
The main criticism at this point in the series (again, early season 4) seems to be that nobody but Vila and Avon is getting any character development. Tarrant and Dayna have regressed to different degrees of followerness without the spark they had when they were each introduced. Soolin we haven't seen enough of yet. I'd say that Vila and Avon are reacting to their new direr circumstances, but that the others aren't particularly.
They were all but one *furious* at Servalan's return in Traitor. They felt it was a cheap cheat. What could I say? Yeah, it rather is, but those making the show thought the series was ending as they filmed Terminal, right? I suppose people who liked Servalan more would be more willing to overlook the flimsiness of her continued existence.
The guy who comes for the bad effects and good story is much disappointed with the beginning of the "find scientists, kill them off" series of episodes. Other than the bike racing in Stardrive, for example, he felt the effects were too good and the story too weak. ;-)
And various characters that people would like to see as new regulars have not been added, and have mostly died. People they've thought might be added to the crew (or might stick around the show, before its format became clear) most recenly include Dorian and Dr. Plaxton, but I thought people might be interested in the list of what-ifs so far. It's not exhaustive of the good possibilities, of course, it's just what this group saw:
The Way Back: Tel Varon Space Fall: Nova (of course), Leylan and Artix (!!! Interesting potential there) Cygnus Alpha: Arco Mission to Destiny: Levett Project Avalon: Avalon Orac: Ensor Pressure Point: Veron (especially since Gan had just died and seemed to want replacing) Killer: Dr. Bellfriar or Gambrill (okay, these are just me)
City at the Edge of the World: Kerril, of course Rumours: Okay, they didn't expect Grenlee and Forres to join up, but oh did they love them. They also appreciated Quute and the general in Traitor.
Moloch: Doran (but only early on) Rescue: Dorian Stardrive: Dr. Plaxton
I must say that I'd love to see Artix or Dorian or Plaxton continue to interact with our crew.
Claudia
Some lysters said they'd like to hear more as I show my friends the series for the first time. Well, we reached the end this week... on Tuesday we watched Warlord and Blake. So I thought I'd give one more update on reactions.
Animals was received with great indifference, but Headhunter wowwed them. Somehow I think of this as the most classic science fiction episode of all, and I think my friends agreed. Even though they pretty much despise Tarrant, they approved of the way he went into action at the end of this episode, and seemed to enjoy Avon not always winning (though they still enjoy it when he wins). And they gained an appreciation of Soolin at about this point. (My biggest regret about the series ending when it does is that we don't get to know Soolin terribly well.)
Assassin... oh, so cheezy, and yet, so good! They were still guessing up past when Neebrox was killed (because he's the obvious first suspect and they had to rearrange their thoughts). This is largely because one of them talked over the "better than sitting around waiting for them to bring in the mangon" line, and there's no graceful way to say "wait, you missed an important line! here, let me rewind so you can listen again!" without completely giving away the ending.
They took the acquisition of the star drive very seriously, however, and were wondering how it could possibly be in doubt whether Scorpio would get back to Cancer's ship before Servalan. "Well", I shrugged, "they're not *infinitely* fast. They could have been heading home at a fairly fast clip, so have a lot of distance to make up." They found this a weak explanation, but it's all I had.
Games: they loved Gambit, and Vila being resourceful. They asked about the shooting game, so it's a good thing I'd checked with you all. ;-)
Sand: okay, they really resent Sleer. They feel there's no excuse for Servalan to exist in season four, because they don't particularly like her and they'd just as soon have seen a new Federation villain in charge. And, they largely dislike Tarrant. That said, they enjoyed this episode quite a bit when they weren't yelling at disliked characters.
Gold: Not much to say here. They found the "two federation guards/ two bodies/Avon and Soolin" thing pretty obvious, but I think it's supposed to be obvious to the viewer.
Orbit: Goodness, I'd forgotten quite how nasty Egrorian was to Pinder. One girl anticipated Orac's "Vila weighs 73 kilos" and we patted her on the back. Then nobody breathed during the rest of the shuttle ride. The Vila fan was very quiet afterwards.
We had the usual debate about whether Avon would really have done it, whether he meant it, and then an interesting "what if Blake had been on the shuttle" (in place of either Vila or Avon) conversation. They all feel Blake's influence on the series even though he's been gone so long, which made me feel even better about the effect of the final episode.
Warlord: Nobody argued when I nominated "But words are no more than... words" as the worst-delivered line of the entire series. Some laughing Star Wars references were made when Zeeona reacted to Zukan's death. Other than that, no huge reaction one way or the other to this one. They laughed at Avon in the flight uniform, which is one of my favorite costumes of his. But then, I grew up in the 70s and most of them didn't.
Blake: the room was completely hushed whenever Blake was onscreen. They were all, naturally, trying to figure him out. There were seven of us watching. Two of them had been spoiled for the finale by reading web pages about the series; the others were in total shock. The guy sitting nearest to me gasped at Avon's first shot at Blake; his arm dropped nervelessly at the second one. He'd been the one following the intensity of the Avon-Blake interactions most closely through the series.
They didn't have any coherent reaction to the episode immediately afterwards--nor did I expect it. One argued that with the sense of encroaching doom that pervades the fourth season, they were bound not to survive Blake's base anyway, even if they hadn't been picked off one by one in the final scene. After all, one gets the sense that far more Federation military are on their way than we see in the tracking gallery. On the other hand, Blake surely had a plan.
We didn't get much into the "is Avon mad?" discussion. The general consensus was "yes; saw that coming", and a couple of people observed that Blake was being stupid in how he handled Tarrant and that even with Avon as unstable as he apparently was, it needn't have ended that way (real-life constraints aside).
Many of the students watching this time around were freshmen. I'll let them alone for a while and then maybe we'll watch it again their senior year. *grin*
Claudia
In message 20010519145233.0EAB966B12@bantha.org, she goes out and steals the king's english padme@bantha.org writes
Thanks for posting this - it's interesting to see the fresh new reactions:-) Especially for me, as I was in the odd position of going straight from reruns of the first three series in Australia to seeing the final few episodes during the first showing on the BBC. I didn't get the buildup that most people did, but I also had no idea what was going to happen the first time I saw the last four episodes.
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Julia Jones -
padme＠bantha.org