Oh no

[selenak]

What sad news to to wake up to: Gareth Thomas is dead.

It's not "just" the "Blake from Blake's 7" part. I remember watervole taking me to watch him in Barrie's Dear Brutus, and then later to the pub to meet him. He had such a warm rl presence. (A very big contrast, btw, to the last on screen character I saw him play a few years later, the old serial killer in Torchwood's first season.) I'm usually highly inhibited and embarassed when I meet actors, preferring to watch them from a distance as they do their jobs, but he was really good at putting all of us at ease.

Speaking of jobs: he was great as Blake, and I think the later two seasons of B7 proved that something many fans claim they want, ditching the hero and putting the fan favorite in the center of the show, results in a lesser, not a better story. (Not least for the fan favorite, btw.) But for me the best performance of his that I've watched was in the mini Morgan's Boy, which watervole gave to me on video, and where he was heartbreaking as the taciturn Welsh farmer.

2016 continues to take away.

Comments

[andraste]

Sad news indeed. I've always heard that he was lovely and nice to fans :(. He did some great work for Big Finish, too, as both Blake and various Doctor Who characters.

As always, I agree about B7 - it's just not the same when Avon doesn't have Blake to butt heads with. (I am still irrationally convinced that The Harvest of Kairos would somehow have been less terrible if Blake were there. At least Avon could have snarked at him instead of being inexplicably obsessed with a rock all episode?)

[selenak]

Steed probably would have let Blake be obsessed with the rock instead, which isn't much of an improvement, but would have provided opportunity for said snark.