Musings on the First Season of B7
Sep. 12th, 2006 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fangrrl_squeesThis is written under the influence of a head cold, so it's probably a bit more scatterbrained than usual...
I'd always been a bit dismissive of the first season of B7. The costumes were painfully 1970s (and let's not even mention Paul Darrow's hair) and the effects were at their cheesiest. You know your budget's tight when you can only present two-dee animations for the spaceship sequences. But, if I'm going to re-acquaint myself with a fandom, then I should go whole hog- that's my feeling. I acquired the first season (legitimately!) and I'm making a focused effort to watch all of it - rather than just cherrypicking my way through the fourth season, as I've been doing over the past few days.
In some ways, it's just as cheesy as I remembered (I swear, it sounds like a wurlitzer was being used for incidental music at one point) but in others, I'm being pleasantly surprised...
The dynamic between the Liberator crew is tighter than I remembered, and quite entertaining. I'd always been very meh about Blake in particular but I think I'm starting to like him a bit more than I did. Then again, it would be hard for me to like him less... He's still the goodie-two-shoes I recall from childhood/early adolesence, but it seems that I forgot that he had a shred or two of charisma, too. Goodness me, Paul Darrow didn't always chew on the scenery? I'm stunned. Oh, sure, it's still a single-note performance, and very contrived, but it's positively restrained compared to the later seasons - and there's a sense that a lot of his sneering is just a put-on, not genuine misanthropy. Vila hasn't devolved into being a Toby-Belch-ish comedy sidekick (hooray) and it seems that the writer(s) are still trying to have the entire ensemble involved - rather than featuring some characters at the expense of others. I know that won't last long, alas.
The stories are, well, they're pretty typical Terry Nation-ish stuff - monothematic plots and a desperate attempt to render everything futuristic by prefixing it with "space-" or scattering bits of lucite here and there. But they hold together well enough and any plot holes present are not much bigger than your average housecat - unlike some of the truck-sized holes one routinely runs across in Doctor Who.
Production-wise, I'm a little confused by some decisions. Film and video are being used almost indiscriminately. Usually, the rule was (in those days of the Beeb) - film for exteriors and video for interiors. But I'm getting the distinct impression of film for a lot of the interior shots (I'm watching Mission to Destiny at the moment) and the video's of varying quality, to boot. There's any number of potential reasons for this, none of which I'm likely to ever learn. It's not a major beef, just a bit distracting as the image goes from startlingly clear to rather fuzzy within the same scene.
Ahh, pre-MTV editing. Sometimes, it can get stultifyingly dull, but at other times, it's rather nice to watch a story unfold at a (relatively) leisurely place. No hard edits every quarter of a second, driven by some sort of crazed 200/4 time soundtrack. As I'm sure the crustier amongst us would point out that, good lord, the story had to hold everything together - the producer's couldn't count on overwhelming the viewer with, er, anything else...
It's a sad comment that a contemporary casting director wouldn't touch anyone in the lead cast - not because of their acting skills (or lack thereof) but that they're simply not pretty enough for lead roles, not by today's standards. One of the advantages the Beeb had back in the day - they weren't as slavishly devoted to ratings as a channel dependent on advertising revenue - and so the Demon Demographer didn't have nearly the sway it does now. You know what I mean about Demon Demographics "We have to have a multi-racial cast! And they've got all be hawt! And one of them has to be physically disabled - but still hawt!" - it reached its zenith with those godawful after school specials my contempories and I endured in the 1980s...
I'd always been a bit dismissive of the first season of B7. The costumes were painfully 1970s (and let's not even mention Paul Darrow's hair) and the effects were at their cheesiest. You know your budget's tight when you can only present two-dee animations for the spaceship sequences. But, if I'm going to re-acquaint myself with a fandom, then I should go whole hog- that's my feeling. I acquired the first season (legitimately!) and I'm making a focused effort to watch all of it - rather than just cherrypicking my way through the fourth season, as I've been doing over the past few days.
In some ways, it's just as cheesy as I remembered (I swear, it sounds like a wurlitzer was being used for incidental music at one point) but in others, I'm being pleasantly surprised...
The dynamic between the Liberator crew is tighter than I remembered, and quite entertaining. I'd always been very meh about Blake in particular but I think I'm starting to like him a bit more than I did. Then again, it would be hard for me to like him less... He's still the goodie-two-shoes I recall from childhood/early adolesence, but it seems that I forgot that he had a shred or two of charisma, too. Goodness me, Paul Darrow didn't always chew on the scenery? I'm stunned. Oh, sure, it's still a single-note performance, and very contrived, but it's positively restrained compared to the later seasons - and there's a sense that a lot of his sneering is just a put-on, not genuine misanthropy. Vila hasn't devolved into being a Toby-Belch-ish comedy sidekick (hooray) and it seems that the writer(s) are still trying to have the entire ensemble involved - rather than featuring some characters at the expense of others. I know that won't last long, alas.
The stories are, well, they're pretty typical Terry Nation-ish stuff - monothematic plots and a desperate attempt to render everything futuristic by prefixing it with "space-" or scattering bits of lucite here and there. But they hold together well enough and any plot holes present are not much bigger than your average housecat - unlike some of the truck-sized holes one routinely runs across in Doctor Who.
Production-wise, I'm a little confused by some decisions. Film and video are being used almost indiscriminately. Usually, the rule was (in those days of the Beeb) - film for exteriors and video for interiors. But I'm getting the distinct impression of film for a lot of the interior shots (I'm watching Mission to Destiny at the moment) and the video's of varying quality, to boot. There's any number of potential reasons for this, none of which I'm likely to ever learn. It's not a major beef, just a bit distracting as the image goes from startlingly clear to rather fuzzy within the same scene.
Ahh, pre-MTV editing. Sometimes, it can get stultifyingly dull, but at other times, it's rather nice to watch a story unfold at a (relatively) leisurely place. No hard edits every quarter of a second, driven by some sort of crazed 200/4 time soundtrack. As I'm sure the crustier amongst us would point out that, good lord, the story had to hold everything together - the producer's couldn't count on overwhelming the viewer with, er, anything else...
It's a sad comment that a contemporary casting director wouldn't touch anyone in the lead cast - not because of their acting skills (or lack thereof) but that they're simply not pretty enough for lead roles, not by today's standards. One of the advantages the Beeb had back in the day - they weren't as slavishly devoted to ratings as a channel dependent on advertising revenue - and so the Demon Demographer didn't have nearly the sway it does now. You know what I mean about Demon Demographics "We have to have a multi-racial cast! And they've got all be hawt! And one of them has to be physically disabled - but still hawt!" - it reached its zenith with those godawful after school specials my contempories and I endured in the 1980s...
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 08:53 pm (UTC)Thanks for that painfull reminder of a supressed childhood memory!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-13 04:27 am (UTC)On the commentary tracks on some of the dvds, the actors keep saying, "Yes, well, we know it's slow, but..." To which I say YAY! Hooray for character and story!
alinewrites and I had a discussion a while back about just how hot we thought S4 Avon was, and how that would never happen today because PD would've had a nose job and been botoxed into complete paralysis. Also that all the actors would've been cast as ten years younger, even in S1.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-13 04:58 am (UTC)Indeed! I get annoyed at myself when I fidget at pre-MTV editing. I have to remind myself that the artificial urgency created by fast-cuts does not necessarily improve a story.
(mind you, it's not to say that some of those six or seven part classic DWs couldn't have benefitted from a *little* trim here or there... but I digress)
. Also that all the actors would've been cast as ten years younger, even in S1.
No kidding! I looked at Ms. Pearce and sighed at the realization that modern directors would want someone even thinner, and with bust implants.
And PD needing a nose job? Perish the thought!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-13 09:57 am (UTC)Well, there is a big difference between slower paced editing that allows a story to be told, and when the beeb added padding to get more screen time. To a certain extent, they did this with B7, but it doesn't appear obtrusive in the hour-long format. Some of the DW eps just seem to go on forever. I can think of one - can't recall the name, but it's one with Three and Jo Grant - they're on this crappy colony planet and this mining cartel wants to take over, and the Master is there, and there are aliens with the ultimate weapon etc. And it just goes back and forth - Jo gets caught by the miners. Jo gets caught by the Master. The Doctor and Jo get caught by the aliens. The Doctor and the Master get caught by the aliens. The miners take over. The colonists take over. The miners take over again. The writer in me was screaming that the real core of this story could've been told in three episodes!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-13 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 05:24 pm (UTC)