Talk:Blake's 7/2006

From Fan History Wiki

Uhhh...whoa there. I've got some serious problems with the kerfluffle entry. And as I was one of the people getting hammered, I should know.

That whole thing started when Darrow and Michael Keating got involved in a Creation convention tour. If memory serves--and I'll admit that I'm spotty on this--they came in when the original Doctor Who guests bailed. The tour was a semi-success, and it gave Darrow the idea of doing something similar--but this time he and Keating would be the "owners" so to speak. Fans in various cities would run the individual tour locations, but the profits would all go to Darrow and Keating.

If BNFs were contacted--and they were--it was because most of them had some degree of experience with running conventions and knew what needed to be done to get this thing up and running. That being said, it quickly became apparent that Darrow and the group of people he'd lined up to oversee the undertaking had no idea of the complexities involved. There was also the objection that, having worked non-profit conventions for the love of it, the idea of working these conventions solely to line Darrow's pockets was a less than altruistic goal, especially when this would in essence be a full time job for no pay.

Incidentally, having worked several Doctor Who and B7 conventions in the past, I can state in no uncertain terms that none of the BNFS ever had objections to paying actors for their appearances. They did get paid for coming over for conventions and upon their arrival they were given a number of perks, including an unlimited bar tab (which a number of guests used to great excess).

And yes, I was approached. When the group couldn't answer my concerns with any sort of intelligent detail, I declined.

The BNFs, for lack of a better term, started contacting one another and comparing notes. When things didn't add up, several of them made their concerns public and were instantly excoriated by the "true believers". Darrow made several pronouncements expressing his displeasure with those who would not back his venture (comparing himself at one point to Jesus) and went so far as to interfere with one guest's visit to an "unapproved" convention by calling British customs and implying that she was trying to put one over on them.

Darrow didn't go after anyone about the slash material because he couldn't. He had no legal grounds. Simple as that.

At any rate, things got ugly for awhile, the "grand tour" idea fell apart, friendships broke up, and eventually it all kind of faded away in the general sense.

But whoever typed up that entry got a lot of facts wrong. I was there. I haven't forgotten the things that were said to me and my friends, nor have I forgotten who said them.

Jeff Morris jeffreysmorris@aol.com

I was in the audience at the convention where Paul Darrow's representative read his statement on the matter, in which he managed to compare himself, in one sentence, to Jesus, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The general fanspec at the time was that he'd gone round the twist. Contrary to what the kerfluffle article states, he had very little support in the fandom as a whole; it got to a point where the few 'true believers' who worshipped him were referred to widely as 'Meegats'. (After a character in an episode of the show who worshipped Darrow's character blindly in a very silly fashion.) He made it clear he found ANY slash of any kind personally offensive; he had it written into his contracts for several conventions that slash material be banned from both the dealer's room and the art show. He was far from tolerant, and made several public statements in which his disgust was made clear. He also wrote a very very bad B7 novel, titled 'Avon: A Terrible Aspect'. It is universally agreed, even by those who otherwise like his work, that it's just plain awful. He may be a talented actor, but he is not a writer.

Gytha Ogg

If you want to edit the article, please do. I don't know how to make it more accurate as my information comes from some one on LiveJournal, Katherine Langley and a convention booklet I have regarding the situation which I was having a hard time understanding the context of. So given that, my article is as good as the sources... and I strongly suspect they were not, in this instance, on the same side of the fence as you were. Please feel more than free to edit in corrections. Because yeah, it was written based on what I was told by others. --Partly_Bouncy 18:56, 2 August 2006 (CDT)