Drat! sent this as a private email by mistake

-----Original Message----- From: Leia Fee [mailto:leiafee@totalise.co.uk] Sent: 19 October 2001 12:39 To: Sally Manton Subject: Orbit

Watched this episode again the other night. It's still one of my favourites (after City on the Edge of the World). I could natter about it endlessly but the things that went through my mind this time were...

Why did Avon take Vila with him of all people. If he suspected Egrorian would try some foul play and wanted someone else to keep an eye on him then almost *anyone* would have been a better choice than Vila. He's not exactly the most alert of the crew.

Interesting parallels between the way Avon and Egrorian treat their 'assistants'. Avon doesn't treat Vila as brutally as Egrorian does Pinder but he certainly has shoved him about enough times, and is frequently insulting and unkind to him verbally. Both Avon and Egrorian were willing to abandon their companions to get themselves safely off Malodar. Vila seems sympathetic to Pinder and Egrorian apparently likes Vila. Pinder overhears Egrorian and Servalan planning to leave him behind as Vila overhears Avon and Orac discussing how to lose 70 kilos.

The scenes where's Avon is looking for Vila still make me jumpy when I watch them. I love the look on Avon's face and the little shake of his head before he does make up his mind to go after Vila. And that calm quiet voice when he's calling to Vila I find much nastier than any Avon snarl.

I wish we could have seen Vila's reaction the other side of that door, it's clear he realised almost immediately how Avon would react and legged it to find a hiding place but I wonder if he paused for a moment too wondering if Avon would really try to kill him.

I also find it interesting that Vila remains hiding even when Avon genuinely is telling the truth, that he's found the cause of the extra weight. Not that Vila's hasn't got ample reason to be paranoid by this point! A friend who was watching it with me who hadn't seen B7 before said that was really sad...that Vila was too scared to come out even then.

Leia