| NAME:
|
Vila
Restal |
| BORN:
|
Earth |
| RANK
/ POSITION: |
Delta
Grade / Weapon Systems |
| STATUS:
|
Outlaw |
| FIRST
APPEARANCE: |
The
Way Back - He steals Blake's
watch. |
| QUIRKS:
|
Pretending
he's drunk to avoid work. Has a high I.Q. but plays the fool. |
| INTERESTS:
|
Picking
locks - and boasting about it. Adrenaline and Soma. Gambling.
Women. |
| CRIMES:
|
Professional
Thief. |
Vila is one of my favourite characters in Blake’s 7, because
although the others often slag him off, they know he’s really
quite resourceful, and when the chips are down that’s what counts.
In Time Squad we first see he is talent for opening locks, a talent
which is often called on throughout the series. Vila comes across
as a bit of a coward, but like Avon,
he has a strong instinct for self preservation.
In Orac,
when Vila shuts himself in his cabin, in the hope that not seeing
the others will make him forget that he’s ill, Avon
remarks “Vila does show signs of intelligence now and then”.
Interestingly, later on when Avon decides
to go down and rescue Blake, he takes
Vila rather than Gan.
Undoubtedly,
Vila’s finest moment is in the third series in City at the Edge
of the World, where he not only opens the door, but gets the girl
as well! After Tarrant has bullied
Vila to go down, the other all stick up for Vila, even Cally,
who had got very annoyed with Vila in Shadow when he’d disobeyed
orders to stay on the Liberator and teleported across to the space
station. In Power Play Cally seems to have empathy with Vila - she
cries out when he feels pain, even though they are far apart at that
time.
At the
end of the third series, Servalan
captures the Liberator, leaving the crew stranded on the planet. However,
Vila manages to bluff a Federation trooper into letting him take Orac.
I don’t think Avon could have
managed that!
Vila’s
relationship with Orac is a curious one. On the face of it, Orac seems
to show the same contempt for Vila as the rest of the crew, but in
the third season episode Ultraworld, Orac seems intrigued with Vila’s
jokes and Limericks and uses them to distract the computer which controls
Ultraworld.
In the
final series, after the episode Orbit, Vila can no longer trust Avon.
Up till that point there had, I think, been a certain amount of mutual
respect between them, but clearly Avon
now regards Vila as expendable, whilst Vila knows he can no longer
trust Avon. Ultimately of course, Avon
gets them all killed, ironic when one remembers that before Blake’s
departure, Avon was not slow in voicing
his expectation that Blake’s
foolhardiness would result in that.
Richard Putley
Michael Keating's Entry in the Internet Movie Database
Crimes Against The Federation
"I am Vila Restal"
