--- Sally Manton smanton@hotmail.com wrote:

Wendy wrote: <That's your interpretation, not necessarily Terry Nation's. It seems to me that you are reinterpreting a disturbing scenario to make it more comfortable for yourself.>

Agreed that Terry Nation wrote a sexist plot, but what has that to do with it? That's like saying Paul Darrow played Avon as a silly psychpathic macho Dirty Harry so that's what *we have* to see Avon as.

I think the evidence in a lot of episodes, especially deliverance, suggests that PD's interpretation of the character was *not* as a macho psychopath, in fact he has on several occasions totally denied that the character was a psychopath. But he's also not some fluffy sensitive new age male either.

No we don't. As the viewer, I have the perfect right to read into any episode anything I see, or indeed anything I want/choose to, as long as I can back it up with evidence.

How can you back something up with "evidence", if by your own admission, you are just reading something you choose to see into the episode, an episode that you agree is sexist?

<You are saying that she is in control and almost assured,yet subservient!>

She's comfortable - he's most definitely *not*. She's falling at his feet and calling him Lord - but *he's* the one doing what *she* wants, remember. Everything is being done *in accordance with her plan*. (Avon says that his arrival is a 'poor reward' - Gan flat out tells her that they're just men. Meegat is not listening, and why should she?)

What you are saying hear is that it's okay for a woman to comform to a sexual stereotype, as long as it gets the man to do what she wants.

<This again is your interpretation, but however you interpret it, the fact remains that Avon goes along with it.>

Of course. After all -

1. They're on a radiotive, lethally dangerous world,

she's only helped them because she thinks he's/they're her 'gods'. If I was in his shoes, I wouldn't risk too much disillusionment in case I lost that help.

This is true, but by that implication it means the Avon is just using her.

3. As said above, once they do have the story

straight, Gan does try to disillusion her. She doesn't hear what she doesn't want to. And you could say that to destroy the illusion she's given her life to - when they're going to be out *of* that life in a number of years

• is sheer cruelty.

So Gan's cruel then is he? This is a situation the author has set up. We should be looking at the implications of the scenario and not how various characters react to it.

3. Yes, it's flattering. But remember Blake's last

line (and Blake knows his Avon very well). "I don't like the responsibility either."

This is a reference to Avon's position as leader in this episode, which is a different matter. This story thread, which I do not have a problem with, is not what I am debating here. What I am concerned with is the way Meegat is treated in the story and all that sub Freudian crap.

Avon may have

found the worshipping flattering (who wouldn't - and be honest, you lot!!) but the whole thing made him unconfortable as well (he's rather taken aback by someone who thinks he's even more wonderful than (he* does!!)

But as I've already stated, I believe this was just an attempt by the script editor to undermine the misogyny.

<And how exactly did you figure that, considering that he didn't write in any suggestion at all that she was supposed to go up with it?>

I *said* he screwed it up. Our Heroes don't do things like that <g>

1/ I think Terry Nation should know his own series. 2/What do you mean "our Heroes don't do things like that." The mortality rate following the Liberator is pritty phenominal. As for people left behind to a terrible fate ,it has happened before,look at every other single prisoner who came to Cygnus Alpha on the London, for example.

<Again, I don't follow. It would be equally fair to infer (and make a bit more sense, given that nobody seems to have any problems with it) that she was left behind without a second thought.>

That *doesn't* make any sense to me, because it's totally unlike them all. There's no more evidence of your interpretation than mine, and it makes far more sense given the characters involved.

See my reply above.

<Since there is no evidence for that, it sounds again more like you're trying to make the story sound less disturbing for yourself.>

Did you miss the <g>? That one was a *joke* (Blake and Gan would have insisted on *having* her out on the flight deck - Vila too, but for his own invidious reasons).

Joke or not, the fact that you say it means that the thought had crossed your mind, and therefore the audiences. You have a story that is saying that it's totally acceptable for a man to have a woman grovelling at his feet, with or without the rocket pretext.

My own opinion is - as said - she and the others didn't want to leave.

But this is only an opinion, there is no on screen evidence to back it up.

The episode is silly in a lot of ways, but I still like it for Avon's decidedly un-godlike embarrassment, Vilakins' teasing and Gan's noble refraining from teasing. It's a character-junkie episode.

But what it is saying about the characters isn't particlarly plesant and the subliminal message the episode is giving out is very dark indeed.

Wendy

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