Jules Jones

Day 29: Your song/fan mix for the showQuite a few of the guest characters, but the one at the top of my mind because I've watched Gambit twice in the last month is of course Jarriere. Here he is, with no fear of Servalan, who clearly likes him and trusts him as much as she trusts anyone. What's his backstory? What happened to him after Gambit? 

Bercol and Rontane, of course. I'm sure they could find something interesting to say about Madam President's regime. :-) It's now occurred to me that it would be fun to see them interact with Avon. Irresistible snideness meets immovable snarkiness. 

 Day 27: Favourite scene

This should be fairly obvious from my replies for earlier days - the opening and closing flight deck scenes in Star One. The opening is a discussion by most of the crew about whether they should be taking on the danger of trying to get to Star One, followed by Avon losing his temper and being genuinely and very publicly angry about being trapped in Blake's wake, and then Blake facing what it's going to cost to take down the Federation. The closing is Avon supporting Blake in the decision to stand and fight against a far greater threat than the Federation, knowing that it may cost all of them their lives. And that declaration of trust... it's not entirely true, there have been occasions when Blake has removed temptation from Avon's path and Avon knows that, but it's given honestly.

 Day 23: Favourite cliffhanger

Depending on how you define cliffhanger, every series ended in one. Terminal was supposed to be the final episode, but it can be seen as a cliffhanger, and certainly became one when it was announced over the closing credits that Blake's 7 would be back next year, apparently to the great surprise of all involved. Blake was written to allow the series to go out with a bang if it wasn't renewed, or to be a cliffhanger allowing them to bring back any actor who wanted to if the series was renewed. It's somewhat ironic that having specified that his character was to have an ending that meant he absolutely couldn't come back, Gareth Thomas later said that if he'd been allowed to play that version of Blake, the battered grim version he is by then, he'd have considered doing more episodes.

Of them all, my favourite is Star One. It works as a cliffhanger; it would have worked as a final episode. And it would not mean anything without the episodes before it building up a picture of this universe and the people in it, and why it matters so much that Blake abandons his political fight and Servalan acts immediately on a call for help from her enemy.

 Day 21: Favourite fanon/headcanon

Canon is canon. Anything else is AU. While I understand the concepts of fanon and headcanon (those are two different things, at least to me) it's not really something I do with regard to B7, beyond "yes, Avon did like the rest of them, even if he didn't like it". (Word Of God was that Avon's behaviour was deliberately written to be ambiguous - there was almost always potentially both a decent reason and a selfish reason for him doing something to/for other people.)

Day 19: Favourite Scorpio momentDay 20: Favourite outfits


Going with the alternative question from vilakins for 19, and doing 20 at the same time.
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 Day 17: Two characters you wanted to get together that never did

To a first approximation, "nobody". This was not something I was particularly interested in when I first saw the series, at least not strongly enough to remember 45 years later. Possibly Avon and Cally, since the friendship with a hint of more was canonical.

In spite of the hundreds of thousands of words of fanfic I have since written, my answer for actual canon hasn't really changed. It would not be the show it was if you had any of the main characters pairing up - no matter which pairing you had, it would throw off the dynamics of the group. This is actually lampshaded in Voice From the Past, when a remote-controlled Blake convinces Vila that the others are plotting against Blake by telling him that Avon and Cally have paired up on the sly. Avon and Servalan might have a Masochism Tango thing going on in series C and D, but it only works because they both know it would never work and don't actually do anything about it.

This might be (almost) the last one I do for the original list of questions, because most of the remaining ones are either "how am I supposed to choose amongst so many" or "does not compute". (It doesn't help that much of C and D I haven't watched for years, only selected episodes.) vilakins apparently has a similar problem and is thinking of coming up with some new ones, so I may follow along with those.

 Day 15: Character who didn’t get enough screen time

A day late again, for the same reason - Eurovision semi finals. Anyway...

Gan, of course. With that many main characters and only 50 minutes per episode, something had to give, and that something was Gan. His primary role is as muscle, and he's not as smart/obnoxious as the others so presumably less interesting to write - although he's perfectly capable of giving as good as he gets from Avon. "For a clever man you're not very bright". :-> In some ways he serves the same function as the Doctor's companion, being the one who tends to ground the others when they get a bit too carried away with whatever shiny thing has caught their attention/obsession/ego. Also the one who's frequently lectured at for "as you know, Bob" purposes. Even Avon manages to forget his own ego long enough to genuinely enjoy teaching Gan about some of the ship systems, minus the usual snark once he has a genuinely interested student. (And I do find that scene very believable.)

Some people see him as a violent thug only restrained by the limiter. But what he claims to have been sentenced for doesn't match that. Obviously, the word there is "claims", but it's all too plausible in the what we see of the Federation. He enjoys fighting the primitives in Deliverance, but doesn't give the impression that he'd kill them without the limiter inhibiting him. It reads much more as enjoying a wrestling match, one that he's only engaged in as self-defence. The truly chilling scene is on the London, when he points out to the guard that they only need the hand. (Seriously, who came up with that idea of security in a barracks cell with a bunch of potentially dangerous people who really don't want to be there?) With that he doesn't need to be actually capable of carrying through the threat, whether emotionally or through the limiter's control; he just needs to convince the guard that he is. And very convincing he is.

 Day 13: Favourite guest character

So many to choose from in series 1 and 2, fewer but not non-existent in series 3 and 4. I'm going to go with the first choice as vilakins and for the same reason. Bellfriar and Gambrill from Killer are well-developed characters, who show that there are still decent people in the Federation. They're so well written and played that it hurts to see their fate.

 Day 11: Best SFX / most woeful use of SFX

Best SFX: the Liberator. I love that ship. It is stunningly beautiful, especially that shot where it seems to be simply hanging in space.  It was a genuinely alien concept, wonderfully brought to life. The team working on the new SFX that are an option on the Blu-ray did her proud with the new model work.

Most woeful use of SFX: There are a number of candidates. :-) Since we've been talking about Harvest of Kairos a lot, let's give an award to Brian the Spider for managing to not be the most awful thing about the episode. Unfortunately, the Liberator makes it into this category as well, at least in its "unconvincing cardboard cutout" incarnation. One of the nice things about the new SFX is that having built a new hero model, they also had the budget to film a lot more shots of the model than the original SFX team did.