vilakins | Chris Boucher and Vila

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Chris Boucher and Vila

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?

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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*)

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.

What the hell did he have against Vila?

I don't know. 'Tis a puzzlement.

What can I say, I've always been partial to the "rocks fall EVERYONE DIES" sort of ending. For instance, Macbeth's my favourite Shakespeare play. *g*

...but maybe Avon did die...ARGH...
*cue the last frustrated 20 years of wondering about that*

With you on the S4 Avon hate (I still have to admit, I do enjoy the hatred. I used to draw cartoon caricatures of them as dogs - um, again, I was a kid LOL - and while the others were all tall well-shaped canines, Avon was always a small grumpy terrier >:E). Although, at least his excessive leather and studs were amusing. XD
Yeah, he was a pretty neat character at first but it was not great to see what he developed into.^^

Thanks for the posting about Vila. I never realized that about how they depicted him. Looking back at my own fics, unfortunately they do reflect the later depiction of Vila; though I am changing that in the Perceptions series.

As for Avon, I've always loved his character. I think I always saw him as the man that both Blake and Cally knew he was, a man who was mainly misunderstood by the others; someone who was extremely honest in the way he lived, regardless of how others saw him and constantly saved the lives of the others, even though they never appreciated it; a man who was capable of such great love and loyalty that he would not give up Tynus when he was caught and whose love for Anna caused him to risk his life for her brother and to submit himself to be tortured so that he could avenge her death. As for S4...were the writers on something when they wrote that season? What a mess they made of all the characters...

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.

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.

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*

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*

Someone who agrees with me about Avon! :-D And you could give dog!Avon a studded leather collar. :-)

I totally agree about S4. I would feel quite differently about Avon if B7 had ended at 'Terminal' where it was meant to.

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.

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.

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. :-(

Yes. I think if it had ended at Terminal, we would feel alot better about both Avon and Vila.

It would have been nice to leave it at the relationship we see which had developed between them by the time of Terminal when Vila said to Avon "Look, you don't have to give reasons. You don't even have to explain. Whatever it is, we'll back you up" and Avon trying his best to keep the others safe by setting up several levels of security and telling them to abandon him at the first sign of trouble.

Then they had to go ruin it with the drunkeness etc. for Vila and the vile Orbit episode.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. :-)

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.

I used to spend a lot of time talking to Alan on the phone, but I must confess I haven't done so for ages. (We haven't fallen out or anything; it's just that Alan keeps strange hours, and it got to the point where I was afraid to ring in case I woke him up. As Fiona once told me, he does get eight hours' sleep every day, but it isn't usually at the same time as anyone else.)

Well, I say talking to him. Most of the time it was listening to him. I like Alan, but he never shuts up. I don't recall him ever saying very much about Vila; I seem to remember we mainly discussed Avon, Blake, Servalan and Travis. Oh, yes, and there were the interminable games of telephone chess, played in order that Alan could improve his game for the purpose of writing one particular episode of Kaldor City. The amazing thing was that he didn't improve it at all. Alan's still terrible at chess. I, however, managed to improve my own game from almost equally terrible to halfway respectable... though I dare say it's terrible again now, since I haven't played for years. :-)

I've never been quite sure about his Gan theory either, but we do strongly (though perfectly amiably) disagree about Avon. Alan thinks of him as rotten to the core from the start. I don't agree at all. I think Avon started out as a man under pressure, not a good man in the way that Blake is, but certainly a man with his own moral code and doing his best to stick to it even in difficult circumstances, even if he wouldn't admit it. I am also convinced that Avon had problems with depression, which is something I've said to Alan but he's not really taken on board.

If you want to argue with Alan, please sell tickets. I'll buy one. :-)

I doubt it's a game I'd win!

I do think S4 Avon was rotten almost to the core. but I agree with you about earlier Avon. I'm not sure if S4 Avon's depressed, but he's certainly extremely stressed. To me, Vila has more symptoms of depression: defeatism (quite understandable), drinking, lack of self esteem, and perking up ~~when he gets a decent script~~ the situation changes or he has the power to act and affect things (as in 'Games' when he does his one-man rescue).

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...

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.

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Chris Boucher and Vila

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