Blake's 7 02x11 Gambit

[clocketpatch]

I... what did I just watch?!?!

WHUT. No, really, whut. There is an elderly lady in a burlesque outfit talking about chess in a bad French accent. I'm fairly certain I just saw the guy who plays all of the Ompa Lumpas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there's another man with the most insane wig-hat-idek I have ever seen, and SERVALAN IS WEARING RED.



…!?!?

Space Vegas + Versailles

WELCOME TO FREEDOM CITY EVERYONE!

I really want Servalan's red dress. It's gorgeous. I'd never be able to pull it off, ever, and it looks very uncomfortable and impractical, but still... I have dress envy.

The characters in story are questioning the ridiculous wig. Brb, dying.

Meanwhile, on board the Liberator…

Avon and Vila are scheming and playing tricks on Orac. I am actually in tears from how much I am laughing. Avon gives Vila, "a warm feeling, right in the money belt." Trying to rip off a major casino (in space) with the help of a sarcastic super computer in mini mode and a two hour deadline… gah, no way THIS can POSSIBLY go wrong.

Oh, and did I mention that the Casino is decorated with Christmas tinsel? That's how you know it's festive and full of bling. :D

I don't really know what my feelings are towards down-on-his-luck neck beard!Travis. He's come a long way from his immaculate sex shop leather suit, that's for sure… I do like his new hat.

Lol, whut, is this random guy playing Live Chess? Against Deep Roy?(And it IS Deep Roy, I just looked it up. This could not get more cracky if it TRIED)

(And yes, LIVE CHESS! Just like in A Good Man Goes to War. I… My words… the background music… the retro digital chess board… all of it… WHAT AM I WATCHING RIGHT NOW?!?)

Vila and Avon are the most hilarious thing ever. I just want to watch them attempt dismally stupid hoaxes all day.

Ah, and now Vila has been drugged and coerced into playing Live Chess. And Avon is encouraging this.

Comedy Vila and Avon is the best thing ever. I want more of this.

AND SCENE!

Since I'm getting near the end of the season I feel like the next two episode are probably going to be really depressing and full of people randomly dying and awful cliff-hangers and all of that... which I will watch with anticipation and enjoyment, but I really enjoyed this crack. It was just so much crack. :D

ETA: I just watched the finale, and yup. Check. Check. Double check on the cliff-hanger. But I loved this bit of dialogue:

Vila: "Avon, this is stupid!"
Avon: "And since when has that ever stopped us?"

Ahhh!! Time to mainline series 3 me thinks.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

And I was just thinking that I so had to link you to aralias's marvellous Vila-and-Avon fic, but she beat me to it. You should read it. It's still my favourite B7 she's done so far. (I'm a heretic who only ships Blake/Avon in a sort of probably non-romantic, I-don't-even-know-what-this-is way).

You should definitely also now read Vila's Emails for series two, though!! :-D

From hereon, the show is completely rubbish. (According to some people. I dispute that, but see what you think. ;-D)

Also, this is the point where I warn you about Ben Steed: Ben Steed is nearly upon you! I don't know whether it's better to know or not know, but I think better to know. Basically, there is a writer who did 2 S3 episodes and 1 S4 (and that is ALL! This is a thing to be grateful for) who is not really the worst B7 writer, but... he's incredibly misogynist. So much so that some people can even enjoy some of them as a parody. It is worth being warned for, so when you see his name in the credits, you know what you're getting. There are compensations, except possibly not really in Power.

Anyway, ♥ Also, the guy in the outrageous wig is John Leeson and this is the second time you've seen him in B7, if you hadn't already worked that out. Gambit is indeed pure crack and also, as you will already have noticed, Robert Holmes loves writing Avon and Vila.

Next-up - the Space War! (You will like the Space War, I promise. All five minutes of it. ;-D)

[aralias.livejournal.com]

and unexpected mike yates!

also - i dispute that there is no compensation in power - i think power has the worst stuff that ben steed does, but it's also got some stuff that i genuinely like. unlike moloch, which is just made of bad.

From hereon, the show is completely rubbish.

like lost_spook, i also disagree with this. but until now it has been consistently excellent really (apart from voice from the past, but i actually quite liked it on rewatch, um, probably five... about a week ago), and now it becomes so that some episodes are actually not good. but plenty of them are! there's two more bob holmes, three more terry, aaaaand... (quick mental count) six more chris boucher (i think). plus, series 4 has some more cracking theft plots.

also... i am sure i will write more gen at some point...

[thisbluespirit]

I think it's only 5 more Chris Boucher (4 in S2, 3 in S3 and 2 in S4. Sadly).

See, now I find Moloch the most enjoyable of the three (for a certain value of enjoyable, given its writer). Kairos has the most obvious crack, which helps a little, and Power has a tiny nice bit at the end and just about nothing else except generating a sort of horrified fascination in me. Anyway, this is not at all the sort of thing we should be discussing here. You have already made Mike Yates significantly less unexpected for Clocket.

;-p

[aralias.livejournal.com]

you're right, of course. i just like talking about blake...

also, i accidentally counted death watch twice. that'll be it.

[thisbluespirit]

you're right, of course. i just like talking about blake...

Do you? You hide it well. ;-D ♥

Counting Death Watch twice is perfectly understandable. :loL:

[clocketpatch]

Hmmm... I am two episodes away from Kairos now according to the handy-dandy episode order thingy I made after realizing that my source wasn't listing them in order at all (and lucky I did, because I nearly watched the final finale after only two stories O.o), and having heard so much about Bed Steed I am now morbidly curious and thinking to myself, "Anything with Avon and Vila in it can't be *that* bad"

Except, I know that I'm wrong about this and I'm probably going to be face!palming a lot in two episodes aren't I?

I think I'm going to be a non-shipping heretic as well. For several reasons, but mostly because I think the pair of them are just too damaged to even realize that's an option. Especially Blake. (I can't ship him with Jenna either; I know that she's supposed to be the love interest, but... just not getting anything there. Nadda. Zilch.)

I'm vaguely starting to Avon/Dayna, but again... I doubt it will actually work out. (I was killing myself laughing during Aftermath because the Avon/Dayna and Avon/Servalan meme prompts were practically writing themselves.)

[thisbluespirit]

(I was killing myself laughing during Aftermath because the Avon/Dayna and Avon/Servalan meme prompts were practically writing themselves.

From this point on, the cracky fanfic is completely all there on the screen. I wrote an Avon/Servalan fic for Yuletide and the realisation slowly dawned on me that there was literally nothing I could do with them that would be more cracky than things that actually happened. And, er, it's not limited to those two. Wait till you get to Ultraworld... ;-D

And you were talking about Avon/Dayna and that sounds weird to me now (because I think Avon actually does get how young she is in more ways than one) but I remember I kind of did at that point too. (Avon/Everyone never fails!)

Ben Steed is... Well, I am resolved never to look him up on IMVD because I hope these were the only things he ever wrote before they took his typewriter away, but I fear that can't be true. Anyway, you can indeed make your own mind shortly. (Rest assured there is at least some extreme crack at a couple of points in the episode. It helps.)

Anyway, I can now use my Dayna icon without being at all spoilery! :-)

[clocketpatch]

Well, I already knew she'd been showing up from your intro post. You're right about her being young, and now that I think about it, Avon only made come hither eyes at her right when they first met... and given that he'd just fallen out of a spaceship and was semi-conscious at the time I think that can be forgiven.


I think I can Avon/Everyone in a casual way, but he's got so many shields up that I cannot imagine him (at this point in the series anyway) willingly opening up to any kind of healthy serious relationship. I can see dysfunction in spades, but.. yeah...

(which all makes me want to smuch snuggle him more for some reason. Damn you Avon!)

[thisbluespirit]

I think I can Avon/Everyone in a casual way, but he's got so many shields up that I cannot imagine him (at this point in the series anyway) willingly opening up to any kind of healthy serious relationship. I can see dysfunction in spades, but.. yeah...

*nods* I only have one even slightly serious ship in B7, mostly I'm intrigued by the idea of random, possibly just one-off pairings and the way everybody interacts in general. I think the universe is kind of against them, really. (The one ship I can probably mention by now, which is Dayna/Tarrant.)