Chris Boucher and Vila

[vilakins]

I know a lot of people revere Chris Boucher, but I don't. He's a good writer but I never thought much of Boucher because of his arrogance. I then had my impression confirmed in The Cult of Blake's 7 when he blamed everything on others and trotted out a nasty comment about Gareth Thomas. I already knew he was the one responsible for writing Jenna and Cally's roles down because he thought Sally and Jan were pushy in asking for more, but I hadn't realised what he'd done to Vila.

However when I was watching Redemption this week and puzzling over why Vila was so out of character, I realised that it was due to the writer.

All through season 1--and Redemption--Terry Nation depicted Vila as a clever, witty, and capable thief who is actually very brave despite his protests of cowardice. Then we get to Shadow and suddenly he's a useless idiot with a drink problem. Even if Boucher took Avon's insults as fact rather than opinion, that still doesn't explain where the drinking suddenly came from.

So Vila is useless and stupid in Shadow, what about other episodes; is there a pattern? I only looked at Boucher and Nation episodes because most of the other writers followed Boucher's lead though Robert Holmes wrote an adult and intelligent Vila who could talk to Avon as an equal, espeically in Killer.

Redemption by Terry Nation - Vila breaks out of his cell and releases the others. Go, Vila!

Shadow by Chris Boucher - Vila behaves stupidly and almost suicidally and gets blind drunk in a very dangerous place. Nothing he does is useful. Sadly, to many people, this is the Vila they despise (and so would I if that was all we had ever got).

Weapon by Chris Boucher - Vila is stupid, annoying, and does sod all.

Pressure Point by Terry Nation - yay, our Vila is back! He isn't keen on going on the mission, but when he does, he's clever, witty, and invaluable, and his comments aren't stupid. Why the hell do people think Terry Nation is a bad writer? He created a wonderful universe and crew, and my favourite character.

Trial by Chris Boucher - back to a Vila who is so stupid, he's the unwitting (and witless) butt of the joke in the tinkly bit at the end. His only function is to ask dumb questions and simplify what Avon says so that the very young viewer might know what's going on.

Countdown by Terry Nation - oh, look, Vila gets to open a safe! He's useful! Funny, that. And guess what--he doesn't have a drink. I bet Boucher added the two bits where he's stupid.

Star One by Chris Boucher - once again Vila is so stupid, people have to tell him to shut up. However this is better than the average Boucher ep: Vila actually gets to put up the radiation flare shield and clear the neutron blasters for firing. And he gets a lot more lines than usual. Not too bad for Boucher.

Aftermath by Terry Nation - no Vila. [is sad]

Powerplay by Terry Nation - Vila is taken in (in more ways than one) by pretty girls, but his little act to Lom and Mall is funny. And Cally is glad to see him; I don't think anyone is ever glad to see Vila in any Boucher episode that isn't City.

City at the Edge of the World by Chris Boucher - the one that Michael Keating demanded because he said his daughter thought Vila was stupid. Given her age at the time (around 3 or 5?) I think it was Keating's own opinion. This is a great ep in which Vila is clever, resourceful, and brave. It's Nation's Vila back again. Pity Boucher couldn't keep it up.

Rumours of Death by Chris Boucher - Vila stuffs up the teleport and gives Avon a drink. Sigh.

Death-Watch by Chris Boucher - Vila suggests the crew takes a break, and this time is allowed to go to the party but there isn't one. Boucher seems to see Vila as an overgrown boy with few adult characteristics.

Terminal by Terry Nation - Vila is back! He is not just intelligent and sensible, he actually takes charge when the automatic repair systems can't handle the eating of the Liberator. He also saves Orac which was a mistake, but he does so cleverly.

Season 4 has no Terry Nation scripts. Suffice it to say that there are only two episodes in which we see Vila do anything useful or clever: Games by Bill Lyons, and Gold by Colin Davis. (An honourable mention goes to Headhunter because Vila opens a lock.) By this time Boucher's view of Vila as an immature, useless drunkard with no skills has truly taken hold.

What the hell did he have against Vila?

Comments

[bramblyhedge.livejournal.com]

As a kid, Vila was always one of my favourite characters.* Heck, he'd probably have been my most favourite character if it hadn't been for Zen and Orac (yeah, I liked the computers best. I was also madly in love with K9 over in Doctor Who - as I say, I was a kid. LOL)
- I liked him a lot because he was often frightened for his life (entirely understandable) and never tried to hide it. He'd be like "this plan is terrible, we're all going to die". AND, more importantly, he kept working together with the others even though he was afraid.
- Being able to pick locks seemed such a cool ability.
- Yeah, the drinking. As a kid that did rather bother me, although I have to admit I enjoyed the others making fun of his booze habit. Their group dynamics were just so messed up.^^
- I didn't much pay attention to who wrote each episode, though Terry Nation could do no wrong because he also did Doctor Who. I did go nuts over seeing that Tanith Lee had written an episode, cos I loved her books since I was 9 years old (& she's still one of my favourite authors).

*(other notable childhood reactions: Avon made me yell and throw things at the screen at him although that was kind of fun, Servalan was scary in a love-to-hate kind of way, Dayna was super-pretty like MUCH prettier than any of the other female characters, it was really sad when Gan died, and, oh, of course the ending was just brilliant. Though I still to this day am not sure if Avon died or not. Eeeeeevil and brilliant ending. *g*)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I hate the ending. I'd also rather Avon died than be the sole survivor because I dislike S4 Avon intensely though I do try to be fair to him in my stories and give him reasons.

About all I could remember from when I was a kid was hating Avon with a passion, and loving Vila and also Cally whom I mourned. I was quite surprised to find that I rather liked Avon in S1 and S2 and wondered if I'd remembered wrongly. Nope: along came S4.

[kerravonsen]

What the hell did he have against Vila?

I don't know. 'Tis a puzzlement.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I should probably preface this by saying that I really, really like Vila. The thing is, I don't see Vila's descent into alcoholism and depression and general helplessness as all that implausible. (Although I agree that Boucher's characterization of him is inconsistent with Nation's, resulting in a weird back-and-forth and a lot of sudden shifts. Just as a matter of good writing, the change in Vila's personality should have happened gradually.)

Vila never wanted to be a hero; he's afraid of pain and death, and generally he likes a quiet easy life. Instead, he winds up in the middle of a guerrilla war that he can't leave because he's not safe anywhere. People keep forcing him to do horribly dangerous things. And then his friends start dying. If I were in that situation, I know I'd drink.

I do agree absolutely that Vila isn't stupid and shouldn't be written as though he were. On the other hand, given that he deliberately hides his intelligence, saying stupid things is not entirely out of character for him. But I do hate it when he's written as behaving in stupid ways. I was re-watching "Rescue" the other night, and the bit where he knows the others are in danger but just keeps drinking infurated me. At least he does manage to save the day in that one, eventually.

In some ways, I find Vila's slow degradation as a person to be in keeping with the general trend of B7. Avon goes through the same thing, only more so. And in both cases, I think the writers often didn't handle it very well, but I don't find it innately out of character.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

But the point is, it wasn't that slow. We get a sudden shift in 'Shadow' to a stupid useless drunkard whom I can almost believe Tarrant wanting to space. If it hadn't been for Boucher, we'd have more of the clever thief. And I don't think Vila's a coward; no one who acts despite being afraid is. He'd rather let someone else do it, sure, but if there's no choice, he'll act.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

B7: PIONEER of "rocks fall, everybody dies" in television.

It's an interesting question, though, when canon can be considered OOC, especially since until S4 Blakes7 had a lot fewer writers than the average show.

I think Michael Keating made people like Vila a lot more than they would given the same scripts and a different actor--just as I think in Firefly, people like Jayne a lot more than they should because Adam Baldwin does an excellent job.

[bramblyhedge.livejournal.com]

The funny thing with Jayne was (um, I think this was from an interview on the DVD box set) that Joss Whedon intended him to be the token "big gruff not-very-likable guy". But with Adam Baldwin in the role, Jayne's actually very likable. *lol*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Michael Keating made people like Vila a lot more than they would given the same scripts and a different actor

Oh, I agree; delivery counts for a hell of a lot. Still, not even MK can make me like Vila in 'Shadow'. I can see people starting with S2 taking a strong and permanent dislike to him.

[nautile26.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. Interesting to see it set out this way. It's surprising really that Vila endeared himself to so many fans. Says a lot for MK's portrayal of the character I think. I always adored him. *hugs Vila*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I still do, but I find nothing to like in 'Shadow' which is why it jars so much. It's a sudden and unexplained change, and Boucher as script editor eventually gets to enforce it on almost all the other writers, esp after Nation left at the end of S3 when the series was meant to end. :-(

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Gosh, when you put it like that, it does look quite compelling. Very interesting.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I think so many love Vila anyway because of Michael Keating's performance and Terry Nation's writing of him. I could believe a slow descent into drunkenness and depression, but not this abrupt and inexplicable change.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting analysis. I'm not sure that even Alan Stevens has ever pointed that out, and Alan has dissected the series in immense depth.

I haven't written fanfic for ages, but when I did, I normally used to set it in the second half of the second series (because I cannot write Gan for toffee), and I normally used to centre-stage Avon and Vila. I absolutely adore writing snappy dialogue between those two. I've never seen Vila as stupid (after all, no stupid person could keep up for two minutes in a battle of words with Avon), but I have tended to write him as the sort of person who can be a bit impulsive and therefore do things he ends up regretting. However, he then has to use his intelligence to deal with the consequences, and I think that's entirely in keeping with canon.

As another commenter said, the drink problem is believable in the long term, but not as something that is suddenly pulled out of a hat. All the characters are under a great deal of long-term stress, and they cope with it in different ways. Avon gradually descends into psychosis (yes, I hated him in the fourth series too, but that was actually because I liked him so much in the earlier series, and I couldn't bear to watch what was happening to him; it was almost like watching a friend go mad). It would have made sense for Vila's drink problem to have started at about the same time Avon began to go off the rails, especially given the fact that, after Blake left, Vila probably was about the nearest thing Avon had to a friend. They sniped at each other constantly, but they needed each other's reassurance, even if Avon would sooner have died than admitted it.

As for Mr Boucher, ask Alan about him some time. He's actually worked with him. I won't be so presumptuous as to speak on Alan's behalf, but it makes interesting listening.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that even Alan Stevens has ever pointed that out, and Alan has dissected the series in immense depth.

Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore like Vila about as much as Chris Boucher does, so I'm not surprised.

ask Alan about him some time

Hmm. Alan Stevens and I would just end up arguing to say the least. He doesn't like Michael Keating's portrayal of Vila and barely even mentions Vila in 'Liberation'. In fact the opinions in that book are so strange that I can only think they wanted to be controversial or original. Gan is not a woman-hating psychopaths; psychos don't see others as people, just tools or playthings, yet Gan is one of the more moral members of the crew and is wiling to die for them in 'Bounty' and does so in 'Pressure Point." As for Ben Steed being a feminist, that is utter crap.

It's useful as a reference book (spelling of names, cast lists etc) though. :-)

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

That was very interesting indeed. Thanks for that.
Didn't stop me loving him and thinking him very talented. I felt he was brave within his boundaries, which was than (and probably still is now) easier for me to understand than characters who seem to plough on regardless of the consequences. He was gentle and kind, but didn't let that curb his tongue for comic effect. I do love a man who can make me laugh.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I love him too. It just makes me angry that his character was needlessly diminished. At least Terry Nation kept writing him as he was meant to be.

[glittermouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's very interesting, and irritating. Delta bad hand indeed. I have to admit I don't dislike Vila in Shadow, and I think I would find it hard to dislike Vila at all, but I did find it odd that he was so different. I often wondered if I'd missed something.

Michael Keating does a great job with Vila, whatever script he's handed; I agree with the comments on Jayne Cobb mentioned above. I suspect a lesser actor may have had more trouble with the various Vila-personalities drawn for him in each script.

But it's a damn shame he was changed so much depending on who wrote him.

This is often a problem when you have different people writing for the characters without being a full writing team. It reminds me of today's problems with Dr Who. I find Stephen Moffatt, Paul Cornell and Mark Gatiss usually create fine scripts and give their characters decent dialogue and plot. They seem real. In the cases of Chris Chibnall and Russell T Davies, however, the characters change. (To be fair, they do change in Gatiss's scripts, but only to become darker, IMHO. Not necessarily a bad thing.)

Poor old Vila. He's reading through a book of the scripts now, shaking his head and having a nice cool soma while arguing with Avon over who had to wear the silliest outfits...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

There are people who dislike Vila and even one who said recently on a mailing list that he ought to have been spaced early on. I can see why she might feel that way if she didn't start with season 1. I cheered Cally with her 'necklace made of your teeth' comment.

I find that most of my favourite new Who eps are by Steven Moffat. I dislike RTD's writing; it's self-indulgent and Rose Tyler (note the initials) remains a Mary Sue despite the awesomeness of Martha. Of course B7 has its hated writers like Ben Steed, but fans seem to love Boucher, probably because he wrote good Avon and Blake.

Vila thinks Avon wins despite the Crossing Guard outfit. :-)

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Typo Alert!!!

Did you really want to put the writer of Shadow in your list as Terry Nation?


I agree with all that's been said.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Of course not. Fixed! :-P

[the-summoning-d.livejournal.com]

Bleah to Chris Boucher. We demand the return of the Vila we know and love!

As a kid, watching B7 for the first time, I dimly remember wondering what on earth was happening to Vila over time. Of course at that age I didn't make the connection with who was writing each episode: I just knew that the clever, sarcastic thief I'd fallen for in Ep1 was turning into useless baggage. This displeased me greatly.

Mind you, he does have the odd moment in series four - he saves the others in Rescue, stands up to Tarrant and Dayna in Powerplay, and knocks Arlen out in Blake. (Plus the ones you mentioned - loved him in Gold)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Of course at that age I didn't make the connection with who was writing each episode

I didn't till I watched 'Shadow' this week and suddenly suspected there was a pattern to the handling of Vila's character.

I just knew that the clever, sarcastic thief I'd fallen for in Ep1 was turning into useless baggage. This displeased me greatly.

You are not alone. I dislike a lot of S3 and S4 for doing that to him, but I hadn't realised till now that it was such an abrupt change and all due to Boucher who was also script editor for the series and could therefore push his view. I heard they considered killing Vila off (I bet that was Boucher) but decided on Gan Maybe they realised how popular Vila was, despite the harm Boucher did to his character.

He does have his moments; if Boucher's view had completely prevailed, Vila wouldn't be my favourite and B7 would just be another series I liked but with a depressing ending.

[labingi.livejournal.com]

Very interesting analysis, and a good example of "too many cooks" in the script writing, something B7 suffered from a lot on many levels. All I can say is that in my own writing endeavors (original stories), I want to keep the same team doing the same creative tasks for the same story (presumably with me writing) so that a level of coherence is easier to maintain. And hopefully, it will be coherence without characters written as stupid. Poor Vila.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I don't know why Terry Nation didn't object to what Boucher did to his character.

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

If I might suggest a solution to the problem of Vila's inconsistent character? (This in no way negates your point about the terrible blow Chris Boucher deals to many of the characters with his writing of them)

I have no specific examples to hand, but I believe that with the life they lead on the Liberator Vila would receive more than his fair share of injuries (in relation to the general populace rather than just the crew). Given what we know of the Federation and his Delta background, it's also plausible imo that he would have received less medical attention for any injuries prior to his arrest.

Many addicts self-medicate to cope with injuries. And once 'medicated' behaviours and attitudes change. I can say this with absolute certainty because I come from a family that self-medicates with alarming frequency.

It might account for Vila's extreme behavioural changes (the drinking leading to the change in attitude not the other way round), if he had old untreated injuries and was just attempting to keep going the only way he knew how. It would also account for his eventual descent into permanent drunkenness, if he gained further injuries during their activities, and found that whenever he stopped drinking the pain just came back.

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

The minute I posted that, I had a strong sense of deja-vu, so I apologise if I've made this point in the past and forgotten about it.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I do love Vila, but thinking over my own stories (he is by far my favourite POV character, but I admit I'm often using him to look at Blake and Avon) I've done both the clever or at least perceptive, self-interested thief and the ohgodyouidiot!!! (so okay, the latter was my my babyAvon story and pure silliness anyway:)

I do see him as first and foremost self-centred (in his unabashed and yes, endearing way) but also extremely impulsive, which is how, when he slips the loose but definite leash Blake has him on, stupidity like Shadow and Holmes's Gambit (where he shared it with Avon) happen... of course, come S3 & 4, Tarrant and Avon don't have anything like the light touch Blake had on that leash, which is one reason why things get harsher and uglier.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can see that to a certain extent, but it's still very obvious (if one isn't playing the game) that Vila is at least clever and useful in Nation's eps but neither in Boucher's unless it's 'City' with MK requested as Vila not being stupid. Vila truly is a spare part in his eps and I can understand why someone who had not seen the earlier seasons might ask why they didn't space him (as someone in fact did in one of the mailing lists).

D'oH!

[mossymermaid.livejournal.com]

You know, for the longest time I was wondering why my favourite thief seemed to have developed a personality disorder.

One episode he was the terrific, charming and clever survivor I knew him to be, and the next a stupid drunkard. I couldn't figure it out - thankyou for posting this considered analysis.

This clears a lot of things up - I'll bear this article in mind, next time I re-watch the series.I could understand Vila becoming angrier with his shoddy treatment from the alphas on the crew after Blake (revolutionary) left, and drowning that anger with booze. Direct confrontation wasn't his style.

Re: D'oH!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm both glad and angry that I found the reason behind his abrupt changes in personality. That you for your comment! :-)

[kathyh]

A bit late with a comment but I just wanted to say that this is fascinating and something I'd never noticed before. I tend to give Boucher a pass with Vila because he wrote "City" but obviously I shouldn't have done. While I can see a certain logic to the characterisation horrors of Season 4 (though I dislike it intensely) I much prefer Terry Nation's original conception of Vila to Boucher's caricature version. Perhaps he took Vila's own words at face value and didn't look any deeper.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think that's exactly what Boucher (and some fans too) did. He did write 'City' as a favour to MK and I like it very much, but Nation wrote Vila (and the others) as complex and fascinating characters which Boucher, in the case of Avon and Vila, reduced to 2-dimensional caricatures in S4--which I loathe in general as well. There are a few bright spots but I really wish they'd stopped with Nation's 'Terminal'.