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Some more Blake's 7 thoughts (just because the BBC's graphic designers couldn't manage it, it doesn't mean that I need to forego an apostrophe).
It's very apparent from the early episodes of series D that the production team thought that Jan Chappell would be returning to Blake's 7 as Cally for at least the first few episodes. Glynis Barber has very little to do except be decorative and Soolin is treated as a disposable asset by the script as much as she is by Dorian. During 'Power' the viewer is encouraged to believe that one of the Seska will be Cally's successor, and in some ways there is an argument for this; living on Xenon, Avon and co. would have to spend a lot of their time negotiating with their neighbours, particularly as they seem to have inherited Dorian's business interests, if not his scientific ones, and drama could arise from that. Soolin begins to come into her own roundabout 'Headhunter' where she rebuffs a proposition from a megalomaniac Orac; she is paired more and more with Avon and they display complementary kinds of coldness. She suddenly deploys some personal information in 'Blake', with devastating consequences; if there had been a series E, I hope we would have seen her much more, preferably sharing more of the limelight alongside Avon.
Oh, and it was decided fairly decisively at Death-Watch that Tarrant did Soolin's hair.
Series D for much of its run seems indecisive; Servalan returns but her position is incredible (Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, in their book Liberation, with justification, compare her new role as a police commissioner to the Shah of Iran taking a job as Ayatollah Khomeini's bodyguard) and she has very little contact with our heroes. It's sometimes argued that the series is written to show Avon and co. living on the margins, and there is some ground for this, but most of the time this just doesn;t come across. The characterisation of all the regulars, except Avon, suffers. Too much happens at too fast a pace, for little reward.
I'm still really tired after the weekend, and hope I will get up in time for German tomorrow - I've done little practice but will do some now.
It's very apparent from the early episodes of series D that the production team thought that Jan Chappell would be returning to Blake's 7 as Cally for at least the first few episodes. Glynis Barber has very little to do except be decorative and Soolin is treated as a disposable asset by the script as much as she is by Dorian. During 'Power' the viewer is encouraged to believe that one of the Seska will be Cally's successor, and in some ways there is an argument for this; living on Xenon, Avon and co. would have to spend a lot of their time negotiating with their neighbours, particularly as they seem to have inherited Dorian's business interests, if not his scientific ones, and drama could arise from that. Soolin begins to come into her own roundabout 'Headhunter' where she rebuffs a proposition from a megalomaniac Orac; she is paired more and more with Avon and they display complementary kinds of coldness. She suddenly deploys some personal information in 'Blake', with devastating consequences; if there had been a series E, I hope we would have seen her much more, preferably sharing more of the limelight alongside Avon.
Oh, and it was decided fairly decisively at Death-Watch that Tarrant did Soolin's hair.
Series D for much of its run seems indecisive; Servalan returns but her position is incredible (Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, in their book Liberation, with justification, compare her new role as a police commissioner to the Shah of Iran taking a job as Ayatollah Khomeini's bodyguard) and she has very little contact with our heroes. It's sometimes argued that the series is written to show Avon and co. living on the margins, and there is some ground for this, but most of the time this just doesn;t come across. The characterisation of all the regulars, except Avon, suffers. Too much happens at too fast a pace, for little reward.
I'm still really tired after the weekend, and hope I will get up in time for German tomorrow - I've done little practice but will do some now.