Fiona wrote:

Furthermore, given that the Guardians outnumbered him and that they have no scruples in killing (and they don't show signs of a struggle at all), if he attacked them, why is he still alive? Perhaps he didn't attack them, and it was something else setting his limiter off.

So what you're saying is that Gan is using the guardians to terrorise Jenna? But she didn't seem very terrorised, does she?

In "Breakdown," Gan attacks Jenna, and is restrained; he attacks Blake too, but that's after Blake tries to pull him off. Later on, he tricks Cally into releasing him, and attacks her. In "Duel," only Gan sees Giroc and Sinofar, and they only appear to people who are intending to kill (*having* killed would not seem to be a qualification, since the others don't, and Blake and Travis see them only when they engage in a fight to the death);

Jenna is on the surface of the planet, and Gan is with her-- so you're saying he wants to kill her and that's why he sees the women?

when he

does, he says "I hope my limiter hasn't malfunctioned." In "Project Avalon," we see Gan washing down a pill with water, after Avalon's appeared on the ship, and fairly shortly before he attacks her.

That's right-- he goes for her throat with both hands, doesn't he? But the android looks like a woman, so how is it he can do that?

In

"Time Squad," his limiter begins to kick in, not when the Guardians are released, but when he's left alone on the ship with Jenna. Interesting... could it be that the limiter isn't intended to prevent him from attacking people per se, but attacking women?

People on their own, OK, but in Breakdown he attacks Avon. Doesn't fit.

It's also interesting that he says, in "Time Squad," that he needs to be with people. In Project Avalon, he only attacks when Jenna says "Gan, that's not Avalon"; in "Deliverance" and "Cygnus Alpha," he is also told to attack. In "Redemption" he does not get a direct order, but still he is with a group who are attacking the guards.

In "Time Squad," Jenna gives Gan a gun and tells him to deal with the guardians, and he takes it, but doesn't do it. Isn't that a bit against the grain?

"Time Squad" could, interestingly, be like the Mellanby discontinuities in "Aftermath" writ large. Gan acts very much out of character in it-- but this is a bit of an odd thing, as not only would Terry Nation presumably have a reasonable grip on his own characters (and he seems fine with the others), but it's early enough on in the series that one wouldn't expect the bits of backstory-contradiction etc. that one finds later.

It's safe to say that the Mellanby story *is* pointed up by the discrepancies between Mellanby's own story and Dayna's version as wrung out of her by Servalan, and also the hypocrisy over the guns. But here, I don't know. See below.

Interestingly, in "Survivors," Terry Nation includes a regular character who rapes and murders a woman... and who gets away with it, due to somebody else being blamed. One thing Nation does do a lot is reuse ideas.

I don't know about that, though, Fiona. I remember "Survivors," and IIRc, the tramp acted pretty lascivious before that, and then it built to a climax with the murder, and then it built up again when he was found out and then he dies a couple of episodes later. So there's hints along the way, a climax and a resolution. You don't get that with Gan in B7-- what you're saying is you get the flagging, but no resolution.

Jenny

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