Breakdown (110)

[vilakins]

Poor Gan. This was meant to be his episode and he mostly gets to gurn and grunt. I have the script of the episode they originally intended to show in which an alien took Gan's form so that there were two rampaging about on the Liberator until ours realised where his loyalties lay, and though it gave David Jackson more to do, it doesn't have the complexity of the XK-72 parts of this one.

Gan: all-round nice guy
Yep, this looks bad for Gan and good for all those who believe him to be a woman-hating psychopath who had a limiter installed for excellent reason. He looks downright evil at times, especially when he's cunningly tricking the far too fair-minded Cally into letting him go. However I don't subscribe to this view because:

• Avon says, "It's not my field, but if I am right, then the limiter is feeding scrambled impulses into his brain." And you know Avon is always right. ;-)
  
• The limiter is what it says: a limiter. I doubt very much that the Federation is able to create a little gizmo that gives people affection, loyalty, empathy, altruism, and kindness when they had none at all before. And psychopaths don't.
  
• Things Gan does that psychopaths can't do: he's protective of someone weaker (Vila); he heals Jenna's broken arm, he's twice prepared to sacrifice himself for his friends (the second time successfully), he's morally outraged at the thought of using shadow and the Terra Nostra, and he's gregarious (when he has radiation sickness, he drags himself out to be with others).

So as far as I'm concerned, the Federation either used him as a guinea pig, or punished him by sending him to Cygnus Alpha without the ability to defend himself properly, and when the thing went on the fritz, it discharged into the part of the brain it was designed to suppress.

The owls are not what they seem
I do like that the XK-72 people are not the way they appear at first sight.
Farren seems to be a rigid bureaucrat, but he's willing to bend the rules for Avon.
Kayn says damn Farren's petty rules, he is going across to the ship to give his help--but then refuses to because he supports the Federation as a force for order in the galaxy; after all, they make the space cruisers run on time. He does not act to save Gan until his hands are threatened, but when he uses his surgeon's hands to kill Farren, that gets to him when letting Gan die wouldn't have.
Renor the flirt turns out to have a very strong conscience that makes him stand up to the surgeon he admires and say what he thinks of him. I'm sorry he was killed.

Our heroes
Vila's another that doesn't start as he means to go on. He's not happy about going through the Big Red Swirly Thing in Space and puts up a barrage of objections (I think on the general principle that you never know your luck: someone could listen) but as soon as Jenna says that Gan is dying, it's "All right. Well, let's get on with it." Then when he realises that Kayn and Renor are taking too long, he doesn't ask someone else to do anything, but takes a gun, hides it behind his back, then threatens Kayn with it.
Avon once again affects not to care and even makes a fairly good attempt at escaping to a bolt hole, but on his return backs Vila up. Vila says he would kill Kayn, and Avon says he will if Vila can't, but would either of them actually do it incold blood? I don’t think so.
Avon and Vila in the teleport discussing Kayn and why Vila stays with Blake is a nice scene: for all their bickering, they seem to be more at ease with each other than either is with anyone else.
Blake is the one who makes the threat that Kayn believes--and fears. And I think he'd do it.
Cally does not come out of this episode well. Believing Gan when he'd already been very violent and out of control is stupid, and when she reports to Blake afterwards, she's almost wringing her hands in misery. She has a better showing in the next episode, so the tough guerrilla is still there, but conspicuously absent here.

Big Red Swirly Thing in Space
OK, here's my explanation: it's fast-rotating dark matter which gives off light in the red part of the visible spectrum due to collisions with space dust. Going through the very middle (which is empty due to centripetal force) was therefore the right decision: the gravitational pull would be cancelled out at the centre. However the Liberator has volume and therefore those parts of it further away from the centre would be attracted by strong tidal forces as if it were near a neutron star. I'm not sure how they survived that, but hey.

A bad end
It seems gratuitously cruel to blow up the whole space station with a stray plasma bolt, but B7 is at the darker end of so-called family shows. Much, much worse is the painfully lame 'tinkly bit' (as I call them after the music that usually accompanies them) at the end. It's not the worst, but it's up there with them. Cringe.

Really, it's the XK-72 characters that make this episode: it's very good in parts.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I do like that the XK-72 people are not the way they appear at first sight.

Me too. I think a lot of this ep is about people not being either what they seem or what they think they are.

I do think Avon could kill Kayn. But it's Blake who makes the one threat that actually scares Kayn. Clever. Otherwise though, I don't much like Blake in this ep. After stressing that anyone could leave if and when they chose, he is positively nasty to Avon for wanting to. And his claim to Cally - that he's staying neutral so that Avon can make up his mind - is a lie; he is being fairly unfriendly, to the point where if Avon stays, he is making a big admission that he needs to. For whatever reason... Nor is he at all grateful at the end, when Avon has returned and helped save the day. His "good to see you back" to Gan is deliberately exclusive. I don't think he's ever nastier to Avon than this except in Horizon, and at least there he had a headache...

Avon, like Vila, is less self-interested than he claims here; he is the one who tells them about his planned bolt-hole, to save Gan.

I adore Renor, and for that matter Farren, who's an honourable man (though he does eye up Avon something shocking). I like this ep a lot; it's a big improvement on the one just before it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of this ep is about people not being either what they seem or what they think they are.

Yes: Avon being unselfish, Vila being tough and gun-toting and being very direct to Kayn.

Blake is normally quite skilled at handling people but he was gob-smackingly rude to Cally in 'Bounty' too when he says to her that she ought to know what failure feels like. Way to talk to the skilled fighter who has just saved your skin several times.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

hafren said: Farren, who's an honourable man (though he does eye up Avon something shocking) Well, why shouldn't he?

Speaking of which: http://executrix.livejournal.com/391415.html

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

he is being fairly unfriendly, to the point where if Avon stays, he is making a big admission that he needs to

*nods* I don't think Blake does this consciously, but yes, he's trying to maneuver Avon into some kind of admission. But I also think he was hurt, badly, when Avon said he was leaving, and the last thing he's willing to do is reveal that. Blake and Avon play a constant game of chicken, emotionally: "I won't swerve/give in/admit that I care about you," "Well, then, I won't either," and it shows particularly clearly in this episode.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I doubt very much that the Federation is able to create a little gizmo that gives people affection, loyalty, empathy, altruism, and kindness when they had none at all before.

Even if they could (and they weren't much cop at teleportation, now were they?) I can't see them actually doing it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And why bother with a prisoner they were exiling? No, a quick and dirty inhibitor which would stop him defending himself effectively would be all they'd go for. And besides, if it were that easy, Blake would have a sweetness and light implant.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

vilakins asked: and why bother with a prisoner they were exiling?
To tell the truth, I don't see why they bothered to not-shoot him on Earth and save the trouble, except to the extent that they just thought experimenting on people was fun.

One of the many things I wish the series had given us was more pre-TWB background, but in a sense Blake's epoch as a model citizen between his first arrest and TWB *was* a--failed--sweetness and light implant.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I suppose in the first place they wanted to experiment with the limiter-- though it can't be new tech; Kayn recognised it--and use convicts to break in a wild planet like the great southern land to the west of me. Gan wouldn't necessarily be killed; maybe he'd end up as a human ox ploughing fields.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

It is odd that Gan's big episode doesn't give him more to do. But David Jackson isn't really much of an actor, so perhaps it's just as well.

Cally really does come off looking like an idiot in this episode, especially since Gan's "harmless" voice is about as convincing as Avon's in "Orbit."

I'm dismayed to learn that there are people who think of Gan as a woman-hating psychopath. I saw that theory discussed in the book Liberation but thought it was just one of the book's peculiar interpretations--I should have guessed it was a fan theory first. As you say, the totality of how Gan is portrayed just doesn't back it up.

One persistent theme of the episode is people behaving in ways that contradict either their self-understanding or our understanding of them. Gan attacks his friends; Avon is both selfless and loyal (he could've warned the Liberator about the threat without actually coming back); Vila, who hates guns and violence, threatens Kayn and Renor with a gun; Farren breaks the rules; and Kayn, the man who desires order above all else, doesn't merely kill Farren, he savagely beats him to death with his own surgeon's hands. In Gan's case, there's a simple explanation, but everybody else turns out, for better or worse, to be more complicated than we ever expected.

I've been thinking about Blake's treatment of Avon, which is much harsher than usual. Normally he just lets Avon's insults roll off him, but in this episode, he fights back and even makes unprovoked attacks--"Now you're just being modest" and "Use your charm." I think he is angry that Avon wants to leave, whatever he tells Cally. Angry, and very hurt, and so he responds by getting his back up, refusing not only to ask Avon to stay but even to be nice to him. It's one more round in his and Avon's game of, "Well, if you don't care, then I don't care." But I do see the last scene between Blake and Avon as a kind of unspoken reconciliation--"You know what to do" is a way of saying "welcome back" without actually saying it. It's not as warm as the way Blake treats the rest of the crew, but that's because Blake's relationship with Avon has always been more fraught and intense, more important, than his relationship with any of the others. Blake treats the others like followers, but Avon like an equal.

Having said that, I really do love the ease and friendliness of Blake's interactions with the others in this episode--with Jenna especially. And, although the last scene has some cringeworthy moments (and the tone of the whole thing is a bit off, coming right after the destruction of XK-72), the banter between Gan and Vila is really sweet.

Randomly: I was amused the right after the little "love at first sight" exchange between Renor and Jenna, the scene cuts to Farren and Avon. Farren is ever so smitten, and Avon is ever so making use of the fact.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I never bought the serial-killer-of-women argument (not least because Jenna and Cally never seem uncomfortable with him). OTOH, "nothing in his life so became him as the leaving of it," and I never found him vastly virtuous or at all interesting--it's a sign of how hard B7 fans have to look to find a nice person in canon that the non-demonizers tend to canonize Gan instead.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think Gan is a Nice Guy--meaning, as you said, not vastly virtuous or interesting. He'd be lovely to have around if you were sick, because he'd bring you chicken soup and hot drinks, read you stories, and do everything in his power to minimize your suffering (note his tenderness to the girl in "Pressure Point"). But for conversation, anybody else on the Liberator would be better.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but Cally also brings chicken soup and hot drinks, and Vila would if it got him inside your cabin, although he'd be more likely to tell than read you stories.

Anyway, it would be remiss on Blake's part to maximize the interaction between serial killer!Gan and the female crewmembers. OK, Blake might feel that he owed it to Gan to get him off Cygnus Alpha, but he could drop him off at the next stop. (Of course, Blake's approach to correctional theory might have been warped by his family sending him to jail for vacation.)

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

But Cally would also make sure to tell you that if you ate more vegetables and meditated to relieve stress, you wouldn't have got sick in the first place. Vila, I think, would bring you soup but wouldn't stay because he doesn't want to catch your virus.

it would be remiss on Blake's part to maximize the interaction between serial killer!Gan and the female crewmembers

This is assuming that Blake knows, of course. It would be just like Blake to make a moral point of not finding out what Gan had done, if Gan didn't volunteer the information.

"Gan the serial killer" is an interpretation I could buy in a fic, actually, if the fic were written well. I just don't buy it as canonical, or even as implied in canon.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

David Jackson described his character as 'a gentle giant' and I think that's how he appeared in the BBC publicity too, where he was described as a rebel from Zephron.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Gan is the only one who gives Blake a real moral argument over Shadow for longer than a moment. Admittedly it's the wrong argument, because the really good reason not to get involved is not just that it's morally wrong but that, as Vila later says, Blake is out of his depth trying to doublecross the mob. But it does show Gan's moral scruples.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[nods] That was one of my arguments against him being a psychopath. Interesting point that Vila was right; I suppose his bad behaviour elsewhere in 'Shadow' detracts from that.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Liberation has some other odd views. OK, Vila is one of my favourites, but plenty of others who don't like him much admit that Michael Keating's acting is the most natural of the regulars, yet the authors thoroughly slate him when they're not ignoring him. Yes, his lines could be delivered to portray him as a low slimeball, but I think what MK brought to the character of a career criminal saves Vila from being a stereotype.

One persistent theme of the episode is people behaving in ways that contradict either their self-understanding or our understanding of them.

Yes, absolutely! It more than makes up for the Gan On The Rampage scenes.

I like Blake and Jenna's exchanges at the beginning of Bounty too.

OK, I'm going to have to look at those scenes again!

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I particularly like Liberation's insistence that Blake reminds Avon of his brother. Not only is there no evidence for it whatsoever, but it strikes me as mealy-mouthed. Given that the book is unauthorized, they ought to call sexual tension by its right name and not resort to "in conclusion, cousins brothers."

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yes, that theory is bizarre. I have Carnell raise it in a WIP and Avon shoots it down. I think the authors wanted to justify another book on B7 by advancing strange theories. I have it not for its views (they not only think Ben Steed isn't a sexist but they say he is slyly undermining sexism--I mean WTF?) but the facts like who played whom in the supporting roles, and how to spell characters' names. It's quite useful that way.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

slyly undermining sexism

Oh, god, the discussion of Power. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt. I mean, I'm all in favor of a bold interpretation, but not a blatantly wrongheaded and nonsensical one.

As you say, though, the book does include lots of useful facts. I really need to get my own copy and return executrix's.

The Scarlet Pimp

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Replying to vilakins: ZOMG! He's a double agent of the Femintern, allowing himself to be reviled when actually he's just making sexism look stupid.

replying to kindkit: well, you've got a lot more use for it than I have.