vilakins | The Web (105)

And now that we have our complete crew, the series begins to get into its stride.

Possession (but sadly not self)
It's only Cally's second episode and already she's possessed. On the plus side, she shows her guerrilla skills, successfully setting bombs and knocking Vila out cold. She was very annoyed when Blake wouldn't let her teleport down with him. I like to think she went to the shooting range she set up in a spare hold.
Jenna's still impressively competent and no-nonsense... until it's time for her to be possessed. That expression just makes me snigger, and how does Saymon's voice come from her female vocal chords? OK, I admit that bit's a little creepy.
Hmm, that's two females possessed in one ep. I wonder if that was one reason Blake decided they could operate the teleport for the obviously less susceptible guys. [rolls eyes] Jenna I can understand being left on board as she's the pilot, but Blake should have used his best fighter more often. I wonder if any of her targets in the shooting range have curly-haired silhouettes.

Avon
Avon seems somewhat disarmed by Cally's request to know more about his work, and, I suspect, rather interested in return. Until he finds out he was flirting with a pickle past its use-by date.
Hee; we see the first of Avon's clumsiness when he almost trips going round a corner. I like it. Geniuses need flaws like that.
And yes, there's the scene where he saves Blake's life 'automatically'. Yet he later tells Gan that he could make a fortune with the Liberator tech if it wasn't for Blake, and implies that the time will come when Blake won’t be making the decisions. He also starts off in this ep by refusing to jump to Blake's orders because he's working on something, though I see that more as a geek reaction when confronted by interruptions from less intelligent management.

Vila
Vila shows a surprising interest in the neutron blasters for someone who doesn't like guns. I now imagine him playing arcade games down the pub.
He also obviously knows how to calculate courses away from gravity wells and do atmosphere and gravity checks--and Blake trusts him to do it. Blake does not seem at all fooled by Vila's previous harmless and useless act--and Vila knows it. Did Vila learn these skills quickly, or has he some prior experience? In 'Rescue' he knows a lot about Wanderer class ships, and we know he's been off-world at least once before to a penal colony.

Blake
Still the idealist who sets the Decimas free, but he also stands and watches while they dismember Geela and Novara and play football with their heads. Did this sour him a little on the common rabble and contribute to his decision to take out Star One, I wonder?

Clothes
Blake is having a rest in his cabin in what appears, in the higher resolution of a DVD, to be a green knitted cardy opened to reveal a lot of chest. He doesn't bother to button it up till he's on the flight deck, and Jenna barely (no pun intended) gives him a glance. The jerkin improves it no end.
Jenna's outfit is much smarter than that of the previous ep--dark colours suit her--but what's with the padded petals again?
Cally's wearing petals too, attached to what seem to be very staticky green polyester pyjamas. Perhaps floral motifs were in that season in the System.
Vila's in his new patchwork jacket which earns a prompt and rather harsh judgement from Saymon via Cally. ;-)
Avon's in what I call the Sailorboy. It's a lot better than the Housepainter from last week but still very dorky. Did he choose the most robotic-looking outfit?
I like Gan's layers. They suit him.

Quarters
Liberator cabins have leather loungers. Both Blake and Gan seem to be using them for resting rather than sleeping because they're fully dressed, and Gan has some very futuristic looking lighting by his. I know there are beds in 'Powerplay', but maybe the Altas didn't use them and it took the crew a while to lay in some decent Terran furniture. Having to sleep on loungers without the comfort of sheets, blankets, and one's nightwear of choice might account for some of the short tempers.

Apart from the execrable SFX (really, they should have lost the pickle and gone for a pulsating brain, bwahahaha--oh wait, that was season 3) this is a good episode. The characters are all well defined by now, though the real snark is yet to come.

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An episode I dearly love, despite the awful SFX. Re what you say about the Decimas kicking heads around the complex, I think it isn't so much Blake who recalls that in the run-up to Star One as Avon, who clearly knows what the freed "rabble" are liable to do with freedom first. He's proved right later too, in RoD where not only do the Earth rebels dish their own cause by spending too much time kicking corpses, but Shrinker's phrase itself, "kicking the corpses" is clearly a reference back to The Web. There are some nice moments where Boucher references Nation and that's one of the best.

I love the difference in Blake's and Avon's reaction to the triumphant Decimas' revenge. Avon is clearly revolted and alienated; Blake, I suspect, doesn't actually like it much but excuses it in his own mind because these are the underdogs.

Blake's behaviour on the planet really is thunderously silly; why bring Avon down at all, let alone in a danger zone, when he could just pop back up and fetch the things himself? As it is, he gives them a hold over him; it's interesting that they go for threatening Avon rather than him. Also interesting that Avon, having just had an order from a clearly irritable man with a gun, doesn't obey at once but looks to Blake for confirmation. In words, throughout this ep, he is snippy and aggressive to Blake; in actions and body language he couldn't be more different. (Of course my personal explanation for this is that when they end up on the floor after the bomb, he has an earth-shattering revelation of his own feelings about Blake, which annoys him terribly - hence the later harping on getting away from him!)

and despite the Decimas being so poorly realised physically, the moment when Blake realises they are capable of grief and not that unlike him is rather moving.

I used to work in the kitchen of my college dorm, so when I saw the thing the crystals plug into, I said, "That's a tray rack with the slots for the silverware holders on top! YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!"

I think it's funny that Avon really has no reaction to being zapped with electrodes, he seems to think that it's all in a day's work chez Blake.

I'm sure that's so, witness the exasperated look that accompanies his "What do you want to do?" when Blake has just done his hurt puppy face at the thought of abandoning the Rights For Decimas cause.

I think it isn't so much Blake who recalls that in the run-up to Star One as Avon, who clearly knows what the freed "rabble" are liable to do with freedom first.

I think Avon already knew--he has so little liking for people in general--but I wondered if it made it easier for Blake to plan the deaths of possibly millions if he thought they weren't much better than the Decimas: capable of grief for their own but great hatred (whether justified or not) for others.

I'm sure the device Avon is working on when Cally wants to know about his work is a photocopier without most of the workings.

And he might be used to electric shocks in his work as a tech. He never has one of those wrist-band thingies on.

I've just watched this for the first time and - well. Um. Let's just say I was REALLY glad Wolfgang wasn't around to point and mock. Even I thought it was a distinct low point. I don't mind the crappy effects, and I thought the creepy voice coming out of Jenna and that silver woman was rather good, and

hafren has pointed out some of the things that can be salvaged from the wreckage, but boy was it dull - the total lack of dramatic tension, the really very unimpressive orgy of destruction at the end (which reminded me of nothing so much as a food fight at a Boat Club dinner), and my personal favourite Low Point - for all Blake's ostentatious agonising about saving the Decimas, Avon turns out to be completely correct when he says that if it's a choice between the creatures and them, then there's no argument. When it's a choice between him and Blake getting killed or handing over the power cells, Blake doesn't hesitate for a second - it's as if the dilemma has ceased to exist. I suppose Avon being all morally self-righteous at the end is in character insofar as Avon looks down on everybody, but it rather surprised me that he was surprised. Personally, I thought the Decimas had a point, and that if anyone was entitled to a spot of corpse-kicking, it was them.

And how stupid can Blake be to tell Avon to teleport down without thinking that perhaps a compound full of outraged Decimas wasn't the best landing point?

It's only beginning to get into its stride with all the crew present and the Planet of the Week. I suspect the slashers are fond of this one for Blake and Avon on the floor with their hands close enough to clasp (though they don't). ;-) Honestly, there are far worse episodes--'Animals' and anything by Ben Steed for a start--but I admit I wouldn't have bothered watching this one again normally. The next one's a very good one though!

Yeah, that was rather stupid. I suppose Blake wanted to acquire the power cell out of sight of Geela and Novara than bargain, but it would have been much more sensible for him to teleport up and get it, hide it somewhere, then try to make a deal with them.

azdak said: And how stupid can Blake be to tell Avon to teleport down without thinking that perhaps a compound full of outraged Decimas wasn't the best landing point?

My bargepole, let me show you it.

I suspect the slashers are fond of this one for Blake and Avon on the floor with their hands close enough to clasp (though they don't).

Yes, that doesn't do anything for me, so I don't count it as a particular plus :-)

I'm distressed to learn that there are worse episodes, although I supose the way to look at it is gratitude that there are lots of BETTER episodes still to come. What's the next one? I might watch it tonight (before Wolfgang's gets back from his week away).

I didn't really have a problem with Blake not teleporting up to get the energy cells himself, because all that would have done was slow the story down still further - G and N have them by the short and curlies as long as they're stuck in the web, so Avon's not really any better off on the ship than he is on the planet. I just think Blake might have told him to teleport into the house thingy rather than the compound!

What's the next one?

Seek-Locate-Destroy. An excellent ep except for their inability to count to five. ;-) It has wit, politics, and great characterisation.

I just think Blake might have told him to teleport into the house thingy rather than the compound!

Great, I haven't seen that one yet! I'll watch it tonight.

Ooh, that's a big bargepole! I must tell my friends! They don't have - oops, sorry.

I'll be interested in what you think of it! It's the ep in which we meet Servalan and Travis. I shall post about it next week. :-)

The Web (105)

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