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Meanwhile in Blake's 7
I decided to skip forward to 3x08 for Avon's tragic dead backstory girlfriend angst. (I don't see any reason not to flip back and forth between seasons; I basically know the broad strokes of almost everything that happens, it's the specific details I don't recall, and a lot of individual episodes that I haven't seen, including, I'm pretty sure, this one.)
Anyway, boy was that a good decision.
Especially since it's NOT dead girlfriend angst, it's "alive and running a resistance cell and actually betrayed him" angst AND THEN HE HAS TO KILL HER. (My borderline faceblindness came in handy here, since I had no idea that the flashback girlfriend and the councillor's wife/woman running the coup were actually the same person until the reveal.)
Also: Servalan beaten up and chained to a wall.
Quality angst all around, I approve.
I especially approve since this episode started out with Avon's master plan involving getting himself tortured for several days, so he spends the whole episode in a state of incipient physical and mental collapse to the point where the other characters clearly expect him to either pass out or get himself killed at any moment. Leading up to that glorious moment when he's planning on what amounts to a suicide mission and everyone shows up to go with him:
Avon: I'm going down alone.
Tarrant: Not this time.
Avon: This has nothing to do with any of you.
Tarrant: That's true.
Dayna: On the other hand, you are something to do with us.
Cally: We've talked about it and discovered we care what happens to you.
Dayna: We're as surprised about it as you are!
FEELINGS.
And then he takes off the teleport bracelet with every intention of committing suicide-by-Servalan and really only fails at it because Servalan overplays her hand and also his friends won't give up on him.
SO THAT EPISODE HAPPENED.
I went ahead and watched on through 3x09 out of curiosity whether there was any emotional fallout from that, as there sometimes is - which, no - but it was a Tanith-Lee-penned episode focused on Cally and Avon, so that was entirely worth watching. I think what's really getting to me about the crew vibe at this point is how much they've gelled together as a group, and particularly Avon's little touches of care and concern for everyone else: checking on Cally when she hasn't come out of her quarters in a while; the little physical exchange between him and Cally at the end of that scene; catching Dayna's elbow and helping her sit down after she was attacked by fake Cally. He's still very Avon about it (sneaking around, not telling them things) but he does try to look out for them! And as per the previous episode, it's mutual.
And then at the end of this one his plan hinges on fake Cally not being able to kill him because she's drawing from real Cally, and Cally wouldn't. It's a really fascinating mix of manipulative/analytical (because he is, of course) and genuinely trusting her not to hurt him.
Now back to season one and the early "first seeds of trust" vibe.
If I'm going to keep posting about this show, I probably need an Avon icon. Anyone seen any around?
Anyway, boy was that a good decision.
Especially since it's NOT dead girlfriend angst, it's "alive and running a resistance cell and actually betrayed him" angst AND THEN HE HAS TO KILL HER. (My borderline faceblindness came in handy here, since I had no idea that the flashback girlfriend and the councillor's wife/woman running the coup were actually the same person until the reveal.)
Also: Servalan beaten up and chained to a wall.
Quality angst all around, I approve.
I especially approve since this episode started out with Avon's master plan involving getting himself tortured for several days, so he spends the whole episode in a state of incipient physical and mental collapse to the point where the other characters clearly expect him to either pass out or get himself killed at any moment. Leading up to that glorious moment when he's planning on what amounts to a suicide mission and everyone shows up to go with him:
Avon: I'm going down alone.
Tarrant: Not this time.
Avon: This has nothing to do with any of you.
Tarrant: That's true.
Dayna: On the other hand, you are something to do with us.
Cally: We've talked about it and discovered we care what happens to you.
Dayna: We're as surprised about it as you are!
FEELINGS.
And then he takes off the teleport bracelet with every intention of committing suicide-by-Servalan and really only fails at it because Servalan overplays her hand and also his friends won't give up on him.
SO THAT EPISODE HAPPENED.
I went ahead and watched on through 3x09 out of curiosity whether there was any emotional fallout from that, as there sometimes is - which, no - but it was a Tanith-Lee-penned episode focused on Cally and Avon, so that was entirely worth watching. I think what's really getting to me about the crew vibe at this point is how much they've gelled together as a group, and particularly Avon's little touches of care and concern for everyone else: checking on Cally when she hasn't come out of her quarters in a while; the little physical exchange between him and Cally at the end of that scene; catching Dayna's elbow and helping her sit down after she was attacked by fake Cally. He's still very Avon about it (sneaking around, not telling them things) but he does try to look out for them! And as per the previous episode, it's mutual.
And then at the end of this one his plan hinges on fake Cally not being able to kill him because she's drawing from real Cally, and Cally wouldn't. It's a really fascinating mix of manipulative/analytical (because he is, of course) and genuinely trusting her not to hurt him.
Now back to season one and the early "first seeds of trust" vibe.
If I'm going to keep posting about this show, I probably need an Avon icon. Anyone seen any around?
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Yay!
(This one of Renfield from the 1977 BBC Count Dracula is another.)
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Also, yes, two very good episodes, even for a Vila fan like me! Because, yes, Avon is also of interest! Also interesting is that Vila (in Rumours of Death) apparently set up the stuff in the cave (I think, it's been a while, but he's certainly involved in it). The cave they leave Shrinker in. This from a man who says he's claustrophobic and doesn't like the dark or the cold. Hmm, either he's not as scared of these things as he likes to people to think (he used the claustrophobia one to get out of something in S1 E2), or he really, really wants to help Avon!
Or I've got it a bit wrong due to memory fail!
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https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallymn/pseuds/Sally%20M
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That's an awesome episode, and I was stunned by one development after another. They didn't link episodes a lot or follow up on the emotional ramifications of things from one episode to the next as we'd hope for nowadays, but that's what fanfic is for, right? Unfortunately, I think most B7 fanfic is in print zines. I wrote a story in one of those once. (It's humorous, or meant to be. I haven't read it in decades, and it's probably pretty lousy.)
I did not want to like Avon because he is really Not Nice Men At All, but I liked him in spite of myself until I gave up resisting. I loved Cally and was sorry we didn't have her for the full four seasons.
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Overall I remain disappointed that the way writers handled Cally's telepathy/alienness with little to no consistency, but when they used it, it was fun.