The crew interactions during Season 4 were largely limited to Avon using the other four crew members as a unit; with Orac and/or Slave on teleport duty everyone got to go on trips off the ship more often than not. While different pairings would go off to do this or that for a few minutes there was never really much time for the dynamics of any particular couple of crew members to be explored, with the deciding factor often seeming to be that all the actors had about the same amount to do. Robert Holmes however had already shown a considerable affinity for the pairing of Avon and Vila in his two Season 2 scripts and returned to them here; the result feels like a reunion, which is odd when you think about it.
Robert Holmes didn't actually contribute anything to the third season (his script "Sweetly Dreaming... Slowly Dying", which doesn't sound like a very B7 title but then cancelled scripts always sound weird, was abandoned as unworkable) but did contribute two to Season 4. "Traitor" was the first and has the task of retouching with the Federation while also getting the crew back on track as revolutionaries while also bringing Servalan back into the mix; the result is another story with a lot of work to do.
Despite it only being four episodes since his debut script (well, to be fair "Killer" was meant to run second, getting bumped back when no-one could stop laughing at the costumes) Robert Holmes' second script is pretty damn confident, basically having the front to subvert the big "Search for Star One" plot to the background behind a comedy thread for Avon and Vila. Of course, as Doctor Who script editor Bob had effectively given Chris Boucher his big break, so it's perhaps not surprising he's given such a free range here.
The second season of B7 saw three new writers added to the scripting team, all being TV veterans. Following on from Allan Prior came Robert Holmes, whose pedigree was much more suited to the show. Holmes had written for numerous telefantasy series and made a fair case for being Doctor Who's greatest writer; after several years contributing stories he was the script editor for the show's pomp Tom Baker era. At this point in his career he was actively trying to distance himself from Who, having finally managed to leave the script editor post in 1977. He would provide two scripts for Season 2 and both would show a certain freshness and zeal, easily making him the best new addition to the writing team for the year - and possibly outright of those who came after Terry Nation and Chris Boucher, only Tanith Lee and Simon Masters coming close.
