Opinion  of the Month

This is a discussion a few of us have been having  about the character of Greg Preston. It began with us  discussing his actions during Law and Order, but has  since expanded to become a more general discussion about  the man - and his motives!

It was a bit difficult to make the discussion sound  coherent, so I've had to do some editing - I hope the  participants don't feel I've misquoted them!

Greg  Preston: The Man and His Motives

Gladys

I think it was the character of Greg Preston that  first caught my attention in Survivors. Abby's yuppie persona  in the first episode irritated me so greatly, I fast  forwarded the tape through much of it. Then Greg walked  into his house and spoke to his dead wife saying he  though she would have stayed alive just to spite him. Ah,  I thought, now there's an insufficiently ingratiating  grump who believes in speaking his mind. A man after my  own heart, (since speaking plainly frequently lands me in  barnyard substances).

There were things about Greg's personality that were  far more explicit in Terry Nation's novel - looking back  on it, I can see that they tried to get elements of that  across in Ian MCulloch's performance, but the things that  really fleshed out Greg's personality and explained some  of his behavior were left out of the tv scripts.

In the novel, it's brought out that Greg had tried  hard to "play the game", getting awards in  school and Uni, striving for a good job, making a  "good" marriage. He was by nature a responsible  person who was beginning to wonder about the constraints  and ties that society had put on his life, becoming  increasingly disillusioned with the "glittering  prizes". Had the plague not come along, he would  have become increasingly stressed out, possibly  depressed, alcoholic, substance abuser or something like  that. Definitely on prozac before 40!

After the plague, he found himself free to remake his  life however he wished - and one thing he seemed sure  about was not getting tied down again - hence the  reluctance to committ to Abby's group at first. Despite  that, his basic sense of responsibility remained. I  always felt his attitude towards Jenny was not initially  a grand passion, but more an acceptance of  responsibility, and an affection which deepened over  time.

There was another incident in the book that supports  the view of Greg as a fundamentally  "responsible" person. He leaves the community  for a short trip but doesn't return when expected. Jenny  is sure he's balking at committment of many kinds while  the truth is he found a large number of unburied bodies  where he was going and took the time to hunt up a backhoe  to use to bury them. Which you can read either as a  compassionate or a purely practical act.

Phil

In the episode Law and Order, Greg's excuse for  sparing Price from being executed seems inconsistent (the  community couldn't afford to lose any more people) . Had  his reason been that there had been too much death  already, or that he didn't want to go through executing  another person, I'd have found it more believable than  just saying that Price was too useful.

Greig

As you say, Greg's arguments for sparing Price don't  make sense. They could also be seen to show a rather dark  side to his personality. He makes remarks about how  Barney should be "put down like a sick animal".  Along with his sparing of Price - a lazy, deceitful,  murderer with the excuse that he is too usefuel - Greg's  attitude to the disabled seems none too healthy! Surely  if the community needed all able-bodied people, it should  never have been an option that Barney would be executed.  If it was right that Barney was executed, Price should  have been executed too!

Gladys

Without disputing that there is a dark side to Greg's  character (as there is to all of us), I don't think it  relates to the handicapped, vis a vis Barney being more  expendable than Tom Price. In Spoils of War it's  Price who wants to take all Vic Thatcher's supplies at  the quarry. Just taking the goodies doesn't seem to have  occurred to either Paul or Greg, and it's Greg who asks  Vic if he wants to join the group. When Vic says he  wouldn't be much use, it's Greg who says he's certainly  done alright for himself at the quarry. Later, in Revenge,  it's Greg and Paul who risk a trip to town for, among  other things, a proper wheelchair for Vic.

Frankly, I just accepted the non-killing of Tom Price  at face value because the reasoning seemed perfectly  logical to me. There's a point in most communes,  particularly rural agricultural ones, where there's a lot  of sheer physical work needed. We've given up our garden  because it required to much time and effort here, so the  amount of physical labor in a place like the Grange,  where the garden is for sustenance, rather than  supplementary veggies, must be staggaring.

The other reason for not killing Price came to be  later - a very smart sort of executive decision on Abby's  part. With survival still so marginal, could the  community have dealt with the emotional blow of knowing  they had made a mistake? To me it seems a reasonable  decision not to reveal the truth about Price at once.  Based strictly on the canon, we know the rest of the  community eventually finds out: in A Friend in Need,  Jenny makes reference to the fact that executing Barney  was a mistake. She does this quite publicly, so you can  assume its no surprise to Arthur Russell, the only one  left from the Grange besides Jenny, Greg and the kids  (And Daisy, the cow with the sore tits).

Hah, maybe I've been watching too many X-Files,  but the decision to let Price lived and keep the truth  secret reminds me of all the crapola the U.S.government  has kept from us in the name of national security over  the years. And only told us if forced to, because they  thought it would be better if we didn't know...At least  at the Grange, the truth eventually came out!

If you want to get into Greg's dark side, how about  "Long Live the King"? Of course, it's arguable  infinitely whether what resulted was Greg's ideas, or  Agnes'.My vote goes to Agnes, but that whole discussion  will have to wait for another time!

Greig

I suppose your point about Vic is fair enough - I'd  forgotton about that - but I would question whether Greg  sees Vic's physical handicap in the same way as Barney's  mental handicap. Greg probably can empathasize with Vic -  and it's likely he feels a responsibility towards him, as  it was Greg who saved him, set his legs and left him to  die (albeit accidentally). Whereas with Barney, he can't  relate to his condition, and Barney's difficulty in  understanding things probably strikes at the same chord  as Greg's fustration over the lack of "common  sense" and "practicality" shown by the  rest of the group! Barney is the embodiment of Greg's  fustration! It is now obvious that Greg's execution of  Barney was an unconscious act of murder!

I like your conspiracy theory idea about why they  didn't kill Price - the best explanation so far!

Phil

The Future Hour probably confuses Greg's  character even more, as he reverts to type in trying to  get rid of the newcomers "for the sake of  survival", even though Norman would almost certainly  be killed, but when given the chance of solving the  problem once and for all by killing Huxley in the dawn  raid, he insists that there is to be no shooting. In  reality there were only two possible final outcomes to  the problem - Laura returning to Huxley, or Huxley's  death.

Maybe Greg feels the responsibility of command demands  tough words from him, but hopes that the others make a  softer decision whose consequences he can't then be held  responsible for.

The episode does show Abby's naivety though - although  she makes the 'right' decisions, she'd rather not think  of the consequences and it is up to Greg to deal with the  problems and realities that are the result of those  decisions.

Greig

I think your comments about Abby apply equally well to  Greg. They seem, in effect, to be the traditional male  and female version of the same character. As you say,  Greg pretends he's the practical, "for the sake of  survival" guy, yet as is shown in his reluctance to  kill Huxley, he naively tries to achieve a soft solution.  He sums up the traditional male role: acting tough and  hiding his emotions. Abby on the other hand lets the  world know how she is feeling and the problems with  different courses of action, but when it comes down to  it, she is the one who makes the often brutal decisions  (eg. deciding to execute Barney).

Phil

I take your point about the two playing out the  traditional male / female roles, in fact that was  extended in the last episode with all of the women  sharing Abby's disbelief that Huxley would resort to  violence to save his pride, whereas the men all agreed  with Greg.

Greig

It was a shame that Carolyn Seymour was fired, and I  know it caused some scandal over whether it was because  the writers/producers didn't want a woman as head of the  community. Exit Abby, enter Charles...

Gladys

I was particularly fascinated by Greg's relationship  with Charles. It was emotionally wrenching at times to  watch the White Cross community go through many of the  problems/issues I saw in communes in the 60's. Greg and  Charles were archetypes of the two main threads/strains  of communical life: the practical engineer vs. the  artistic dreamer. The fact that the two actors were such  physical opposites highlighted this and was totally  brilliant casting (I hope it wasn't just an accident!).  Ironically, for any commune to be successful, you had to  find a balance between the head and the heart - you lose  big time if you don't have both.