No real juxtaposition between Malone and Roxton? Kind of makes you wonder why the producers see a need to keep them around. I think one or the other (or both) could be bumped off and parts of their characters shuttled off to other characters. Challenger certainly could make a good deep-woods safari hunter (which would make Roxton a duplicate and expendable) and as for Ned, what does he contribute again? Oh yeah - a longing to return to England to win the hand of a fair maiden. Not much contribution to the safari there.

In Sir Doyle's book, Malone's role was essentially to be a scribe - to record the events of the safari. In the written medium, his role is critical to the telling of the story. But in the tv show, Ned serves no real purpose. I am glad to see that the writers have stopped portraying Malone as a coward. If Ned is to survive in the jungle, he's going to have to become more like Roxton. But then, I just mentioned that Roxton was expendable :)

I suppose the real purpose for Malone and Roxton is to provide two more guns for the fight scenes, or for those times when the band is separated from each other.

And the Star Trek tie-in for today:

Challenger = Kirk (rough and tumble leader)
Summerlee = Spock (balances it out with science and logic)
Roxton = Sulu (keen mind ever ready for adventure)
Malone = Chekov (hopelessly falls in love and always in danger)
Kruz = Lt. Riley (sometimes good, sometimes bad)
Veronica = compilation of all of the babes Kirk encountered. ("two hundred quatloos on the newcomer!")

I'm waiting for the day the adventurers encounter a doomsday machine and have to shove Malone down its opening in order to escape a la Star Trek's Commodore Decker :)

Enjoy!