How do people feel about Big Finish? [...snip...]
I have to say that I am torn - their Tarrant backstory will not be mine. I don't know why I feel like this, as I don't have the same problem with fan fiction. Do other people feel this way?

The problem is that when the writer isn't particularly a fan, or fully immersed in the B7 universe, the characters and overall 'feel' can get changed to fit the tale, not the other way around.

How our murderer got Dortmunn on top of the lockers is beyond me.

I'm not sure you could have a stowaway on a spaceship. Not only would the life support systems need a lot of margin - which would be expensive - and/or the technology would include sensors that can detect life forms, and/or the security systems would detect anyone moving about.

Alan DAvies and Fiona Moore have the gas as SONA vapour.

If Avon, as a mathematician, hadn't been the first to look at the bloody clue, the whole thing would have been resolved immediately.

mathematicians enjoyed making rude words from numbers on upside-down calculators as much as normal people. You'd have thought Avon would have known that.

How our murderer got Dortmunn on top of the lockers is beyond me.

Yeah, I was trying to make a similar comment but my Internet won’t let me. Anyway, it’s really strange that Avon comments the dragging Dortmunn to the launch bay is too hard - but apparently getting him up on the top of a locker is quite easy. LOL

I wouldn't buy Tarrant stuff just because it's Tarrant. But if you want the voice above all, why not?

Oops, I forgot the rewatch.



I am with you all the way, Anne. I hate to say it, but I find it frustrating in a way that doesn't arise with other fan fiction. I think partly because there's a sense that it could be really so much better with just a little more effort. They don't seem to grasp some of the things that really make B7, and they just don't realise or don't care.

The Liberator is not the near-invulnerable ship of the series. I really hate the treatment of this fantastic vessel. If only the System had built her from Plot Impervium rather than Herculanium.

The misunderstanding that the B7 analogy is more akin to the RAF than the RN. Space Command, flight deck, etc.

The repeated defaulting to Star Trek terminology. One of the unique things about B7 is that it has its own special lingo - time distort, not warp; detectors are the norm over sensors and scanners; force wall more often than force field, etc. Giving it the right verbals is part of setting the scene. 'Bridge', 'photon torpedo', 'warp', 'pulse drive' should all be actively avoided, in the same way you'd never call a laser sword a light sabre.

The use of current day parlance also moves it away from the feel of the show. I particularly hate all the 'OMG!"'s in it. There was nothing like that in B7 ever, obviously due to the era it was made in, but it was entirely fitting for a group of people who exist in a time when religion is banned and do not even know what a church is (Pressure Point).

The writer who said Chris Boucher gave him a tip to always write Avon with two motives, a selfish one and a selfless one, to give him that sense of ambiguity. No, really? You had to be told that? I think I'd be embarrassed to admit it. It's like the Sevenfold Crown writer thinking Vila had an addiction to eating...

Various comments from the producers that the cast know the characters so well that they just let them get on with it, when the truth is the opposite. Just look at Judith Proctor's thoughts written at the time of Paul Darrow's passing ("I don't think he ever understood Avon"), and similar comments made throughout the years on various fan platforms (e.g. Linda Terrell in the last issue of Neutal Arbiter (published as an issue of the Revel Times)).

Not convincing Steven Pacey to use his Tarrant voice. (To be fair, perhaps they tried...)

Poor treatment of Blake. I was surprised when I read my first B7 fanfic from the UK. It was all so utterly grim. There's a real creepy-crawly feeling of futility in some of these.

Character names, place names, etc, that don't have the same 'feel' as names we heard in the series. Hyper Cola, I'm looking at you, too.

Making Vila stupid. Vila knows the difference between fingers and thumbs. Not only that, he's the one everyone shares their jokes with, so he's heard all those riddles, puzzles, and brain teasers before.

The overuse of "What is it now?" as Orac's default opening remark. They need to think of something else.

And, the stiffest cheddar, they never asked me to write any! Chiz chiz chiz!