Mano a Mano duel, courtesy of godlike superbeings.

[ciphergoth]

I watched an episode of Blake's 7 the other day which seemed to have a very familiar plot. Godlike superbeings pluck two major characters - most usually the main character and their main opponent - out of their spaceships to force them into a mano a mano duel, in which they are armed with more primitive weapons than their familiar blasters. The fight is to be to the death, but the hero, having evaded the villain's trickery and gained the upper hand, refuses to kill the villain at the end; this turns out to win the approval of the godlike superbeings, who let them both go.

I feel sure that this exact plot has been replicated many times by cheap TV SF, but we could between us think of only one other example, an episode of Star Trek. Does anyone know of any others?

For that matter, could someone arrange for some godlike superbeings to pay us a visit?

Comments

[mangros.livejournal.com]

B7's 'Duel' appears to be a lift of Trek's 'Arena'. I'm sure that the idea had been around before Trek; most probably in a short story or something.

Buck Rogers has a go at this too, with 'Time of the Hawk': the first episode of the sinister second season. Which was lacking in space casino/disco/futuristic bars, but gained some geniuinely scary serious stories. Interesting to note that Gil Gerard was partly responsible for this change - he was sick of his character's flip attitude and wisecracks.

Back to the point. Rogers crosses paths with a humanoid bird who hates the human race due to Earth's colonists wiping his tribe out years ago. He is wanted for random attacks on Earth ships.
They get down to fisticuffs, and the event is overseen by a strange wizard type. As the series' number one champion I am embarrassed to admit that I haven't watched this one for ages, and so can't elaborate. Anyway, Rogers has 'Hawk' at his mercy, but refuses to kill him. Hawk is captured and tried, and after Rogers intervenes, becomes a regular character.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I remember that. That was a fantastic episode. Hawk was probably the best character in the show ever.

[selectnone.livejournal.com]

But where did Hawk get his birdy space-ship from? That's what I want to know.