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Point of No Return - Blake's 7 audio
'Point of No Return' is a pre-series story about Travis. I don't feel this one stood up to a second listening as well as 'Eye of the Machine' did, although I was quite impressed on the first pass.
The basic difficulty in reviewing this CD is that the plot revolves around whether Carl Varon is innocent or guilty of the charges against him, and I really don't to give that away, yet the way Travis deals with that issue is central to the story.
Carl Varon is a leader of the Radical Party, more extreme in their views than Roj Blake's Freedom Party. There are extremists in the Radical who believe in terrorist methods to overthrow the government and the key question is whether Varon is one of them, or whether he has been skillfully framed. Varon has specifically asked for Stefan Travis to be his defence at the trial, on the grounds that although part of a system Varon sees as corrupt, Travis is idealistic enough to consider the possibility of his innocence, rather than condemning him outright on the evidence of some suspect tapes.
The good part of the writing is that the listener can see factors that suggest both innocence and guilt, although a big annoyance was that a key recording with a piece of distorted text had it so distorted that I couldn't work out what was actually being said - which was frustrating as it was apparantly related to a terrorist plot.
The terrorist plot is important as it is intended to raise questions of what it is ethically acceptable to do to get information from a terrorist in order to save lives. However, (and this is where I feel the story falls down), the bar at which a character might be expected to feel guilt over his actions has been set at the wrong level. Or maybe I'm wrong... Perhaps each listener has to decide that one for themselves.
Before you listen to it, ask yourself which of the following is true:
Would you feel deep regret for your actions if you tortured a man:
To discover if he was innocent or guilty?
To find out what he knows, if you're convinced he's guilty?
To find out if there's a bomb when you know he has terrorist connections and there's an event they want to disrupt?
To find the location of a bomb when you have good reason to believe there is one, even if you're not sure if he was involved in planting it?
To find the location of a bomb when you have good reason to believe there is one and that your prisoner knows where it is?
To fnd out who else was involved after a bomb has gone off and you know your prisoner was involved?
For any reason under any circumstances.
Craig Kelly was very convincing as Travis - I hear mental shades of both Stephen Greiff and Brian Croucher when I listen to him. It's just the script that I feel reaches a trifle too far for idealism and thus ultimately fails to convince. (If Travis had been portrayed as more naive, I'd have gone for it, but he's written as intelligent and perfectly willing to be cynical - I just don't quite buy the very end of the drama.) I'd rate it three out of five, wheres Eye of the Machine is worth four or five out of five.
The basic difficulty in reviewing this CD is that the plot revolves around whether Carl Varon is innocent or guilty of the charges against him, and I really don't to give that away, yet the way Travis deals with that issue is central to the story.
Carl Varon is a leader of the Radical Party, more extreme in their views than Roj Blake's Freedom Party. There are extremists in the Radical who believe in terrorist methods to overthrow the government and the key question is whether Varon is one of them, or whether he has been skillfully framed. Varon has specifically asked for Stefan Travis to be his defence at the trial, on the grounds that although part of a system Varon sees as corrupt, Travis is idealistic enough to consider the possibility of his innocence, rather than condemning him outright on the evidence of some suspect tapes.
The good part of the writing is that the listener can see factors that suggest both innocence and guilt, although a big annoyance was that a key recording with a piece of distorted text had it so distorted that I couldn't work out what was actually being said - which was frustrating as it was apparantly related to a terrorist plot.
The terrorist plot is important as it is intended to raise questions of what it is ethically acceptable to do to get information from a terrorist in order to save lives. However, (and this is where I feel the story falls down), the bar at which a character might be expected to feel guilt over his actions has been set at the wrong level. Or maybe I'm wrong... Perhaps each listener has to decide that one for themselves.
Before you listen to it, ask yourself which of the following is true:
Would you feel deep regret for your actions if you tortured a man:
To discover if he was innocent or guilty?
To find out what he knows, if you're convinced he's guilty?
To find out if there's a bomb when you know he has terrorist connections and there's an event they want to disrupt?
To find the location of a bomb when you have good reason to believe there is one, even if you're not sure if he was involved in planting it?
To find the location of a bomb when you have good reason to believe there is one and that your prisoner knows where it is?
To fnd out who else was involved after a bomb has gone off and you know your prisoner was involved?
For any reason under any circumstances.
Craig Kelly was very convincing as Travis - I hear mental shades of both Stephen Greiff and Brian Croucher when I listen to him. It's just the script that I feel reaches a trifle too far for idealism and thus ultimately fails to convince. (If Travis had been portrayed as more naive, I'd have gone for it, but he's written as intelligent and perfectly willing to be cynical - I just don't quite buy the very end of the drama.) I'd rate it three out of five, wheres Eye of the Machine is worth four or five out of five.
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PS Is that Queer as Folk's Craig Kelly?
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