Murray Head (muzza@omen.net.au)
Sun, 04 Jan 1998 02:02:49 +0800
Good day to you all,
I've just been watching one of my favourite episodes in season one, "A Night
In". There's one small comment that is rather momentous, but goes
unremarked: it has to do with Spike's dad.
Throughout the five series of Press Gang, Spike's comments about his father
are dominated by embarrassment at his manner - Lynda says in "Love and War"
that from Spike's description, she expected Mr Thomson to be "big-stubbled
and belching". However, in the same episode, I felt we got to see that
maybe Spike's dad was misjudged by Spike - we see him in a photo (looking
highly presentable) and we see that he is interested (and we assume, proud)
of Spike's work on the Junior Gazette. Later, we are told that Spike's
mother, Katherine Hill, left his dad in order to further her career - it is
implied (by Katherine herself) that the "fault" was entirely her own.
Yet, much earlier in the show's history, in "A Night In", Spike revealed
that his dad "thinks that apologising is something your wife does if you hit
her enough". This comment goes unremarked from that moment onwards, with the
possible exception of an influence in Spike's understanding that Cindy
Watkins probably still loved her father in "Something terrible".
Does anyone have any ideas/comments about his area of Spikes life? Was the
comment in "A Night In" forgotten/"removed from history" by Steven Moffat in
later episodes, or does the whole plotstream still hold together? A
revelation like domestic violence just seems an odd thing to never again be
mentioned, when Spike's relationship with his dad was certainly a part of
Press Gang's interplays.
Murray
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* Murray Head - muzza@omen.net.au *
*Also at: muzza@tartarus.uwa.edu.au(Uni of Western Australia) *
* mhead@anhb.uwa.edu.au (Dept of Anatomy and Human Biology) *
*>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.omen.net.au/~muzza/ <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< *
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