Judith: <But I like his ability to write well-rounded guest characters>

and Marian: <The other B7 writers were equally capable of that, with the possible exception of Roger Parkes and James/Jim Follett. Even Ben Steed managed it quite well. :-)>

Oh but do admit, Holmes just did it *better*. Even a three line minor like Dr Wiler, the almost silent Klute or the OTT Croupier are memorable; his character cliches (such as Docholli, Chenie and Cevedic) are fun, and his major creations - Bellfriar, Gambrill, Tynus (so ever-so-slightly slimy), Jarriere, Krantor, Toise, Hunda and his people - are just wonderful, and tend to figure *a lot* in my 'guests so good they would make terrific regulars' musings :-)

As the person who started this, I will say that I think the series is richer for having his episodes, far richer, even though I don't think he would have been a good script editor for this particular show. But for a hypothetical spin-off about the Federation in general ...

(Of course, I'm now imagining the pseudo-documentary 'historical' viscast specials on Blake's Crusade in future centuries, complete with computer-generated Heroes (the Sims, anyone?) elderly film of Servalan's last moments on Geddon, interviews with descendants of Sarkoff and Governer Le Grande and with people from Destiny and Kaarn, and the 24th century Magnus Magnusson strolling through the romantic concrete ruins of Xenon, which has been turned over to the Historic Homes of the Galaxy ...

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