Reception
The character has been positively received by fans and critics alike. Ben Rawson-Jones describes the character as "Blake's 7 fans’… beloved Cally." In a review of her debut, John Bensalhia writes, "One of the most popular regulars, Cally is well portrayed by Jan Chappell right from the word go. Initially, she's seen as a tough-as-nails freedom fighter, hostile to Blake, and ready to commit suicide after the deaths of her fellow companions. Already at this story, we're given some clue as to how Cally interacts with her future friends - she looks up to Blake as the leader, Vila's clearly taken with her, but Cally is more interested in Avon, who, amazingly, seems to return the interest, given his distrust of other people. It's a shame that Cally's part would be watered down in future stories - especially in Season Two, where she's mostly stuck glum-faced behind the teleport controls - but here at least, she gets a strong debut."
In a more scholarly analysis, Camille Bacon-Smith writes, "In the Blake's 7 character Cally, who can never experience the telepathic presence of another because her people are dead and the humans cannot communicate on her level, the loneliness of many women who feel that they give understanding but receive nothing back to nurture their sense of belonging finds representation." Bacon-Smith identifies further a contrast between Mr. Spock and Cally, noting how unlike Spock, "the telepathic alien Cally on Blake's 7 could send thoughts but could not receive them from any other sending telepath. Separated from her own people, Cally could communicate with others at the level of the mind, but she could never receive communication in return. Whereas for Spock telepathy diminished the solitude of the alien, for Cally telepathy only made her alien solitude more acute. Bacon-Smith goes on to argue that while "Mr. Spock represents the positive value of an understanding merged with the other, Cally represents the tragedy when comprehension of the totality of the other is forever denied."
Read more about this topic: Cally (Blake's 7)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)