“But first there is the question of that degrading and primitive act to which I was subjected in the control room.
I should like you to do it again.”
Another new writer, then: Ben Steed. IMDb tells me very little about him, but he’s come up with one of the finest scripts I’ve ever seen on Blake’s 7. We begin in media res as the Liberator faces attack from four Federation pursuit ships while Avon and Vila are on the planet below. In previous episodes this sort of scenario has formed a central part of the plot; here, it’s a mere curtain-opener.
Servalan (still on that space wheel thing even though she’s now president), while supervising the attack, is told by this week’s underling, Dastor, that a construction worker called Jarvik has mocked her constant failure to capture the Liberator. Interestingly, this is conveyed by the phrase “They say you’re afraid of Tarrant”. This is interesting; as per last episode, it’s interesting to speculate on whether or not Avon is still in effective control of “his” ship. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, of course; one again, Tarrant doesn’t order Avon about as he does the others, and Avon does at one point explicitly comment on Tarrant’s famed skills as a space commander. It’s possible that Avon is simply delegating combat to the most skilled member of his crew, but it doesn’t feel that way, especially as Avon spends the entire episode being somewhat detached, obsessing over some rock he’s found.
We meet the construction worker, Jarvik, as Servalan demands an explanation. All she gets is a “Woman, you’re beautiful,” and an unexpected and unsought kiss! This, and the quote at the top there, are… interesting. Is the script, as opposed to the character, being misogynistic here? This isn’t just kinkiness, which would be fine; it’s non-consensual. And Servalan’s reaction might be thought to send out worrying messages that all women “want” it. I suppose the power relations between the two of them, with Servalan being an absolute dictator who is implicitly always in control, are a satisfactory mitigating factor as far as the character of Servalan is concerned; I can believe her reaction. But the subtext is still worrying.
Anyway… Jarvik gets to look clever by making snide comments as Servalan’s attack inevitably fails. And he correctly predicts that Tarrant will take the Liberator to Kairos, for its harvest. (At this point, deciding where to take the Liberator, Tarrant seems to be blatantly acting as leader. Yes, he takes a vote, and yes, Avon declines to comment when asked, but he’s taking charge.) The planet is hostile to human life for some reason, except during “harvest week”, where the fantastically valuable Kairodan crystal can be found; under Avon and/or Tarrant, the crew of the Liberator seem to be, up to a point at least, thieves interested in personal wealth. With Blake and the Federation gone, so has any clear political aim.
Our two newbies are developing in opposite ways here; Tarrant is competent, warm, and less annoying, while Dayna is showing fewer and fewer personality traits.
It seems Jarvik once knew Tarrant, and was in fact once his superior officer before being downgraded to construction worker for crimes which are, interestingly, unspecified. He’s very much the no-nonsense alpha male type, intelligent but appreciative of the textures and pleasures of life, and very much against computers; this seems to be a running theme this series. Servalan is intrigued by him, both cerebrally and sexually, temporarily promotes him to acting major, and gives him three modern pursuit ships to see if she can capture the Liberator.
Servalan gets to show how deliciously evil she is by ordering the harvest ship on Kairos to abandon the labourers to certain death so she can fit more Kairodan on to the ship. There’s a great scene as a guard gloats at their inevitable deaths, until he realises he’s being abandoned too!
Servalan observes and commentates, despairingly, as Jarvik carries out his cunning plans. That it is, until Jarvik tells her to “Lie there and keep quiet until I tell you otherwise!” Tarrant and co teleport to the cargo hold where the Kairodan is being held, where they are ambushed. In a brilliant scene, Avon then rouses himself briefly from his study of the rock to casually rescue them all, stating, devastatingly, that “They were an obvious possibility, Tarrant!” But, of course, this is a ruse; the real trap is in the crates, a sort of Trojan Kairodan. Servalan is on the point of arresting Jarvik for failure when the capture of the Liberator is reported.
Servalan demands that the ship register her voice pattern on pain of killing the crew one by one. Tarrant naturally refuses, but Avon is very clever indeed. Forcing Servalan to order Zen to drop them off on the nearest planet, he seems to have outsmarted her, until it turns out that the nearest planet is Kairos, and the harvest is over.
Jarvik rejects command of the Liberator and, although television convention dictates that we next see them fully clothed in bed, quite obviously proceeds to have some rather good sex with Servalan. For motives which are by now almost entirely sexual, though, Servalan persuades him to teleport to Kairos and grab all of the former crew’s teleport bracelets, “If you’re to me man enough for me.” Jarvik agrees, and insists on going alone, cos he’s well ‘ard.
On the surface we see an archaic landing module- lucky, that, as it turns out- and the secret of the planet: some extremely large grubs have hatched. Passing over the awkward fact that they look rather less convincing than the pantomime horse off Rentaghost, we learn that they eat Kairodan, and will kill anyone who’s touched it. There is fighting and macho posturing aplenty as Jarvik arrives, and he returns from his mission with all of the bracelets plus Dayna as an added bonus. Servalan orders the local area of the surface to be bombarded, and our heroes are in very big trouble.
Appropriately, it’s Avon who saves the day, with the rock. Its means of self-preservation is to convince any attacker that it’s a slightly bigger and better version of itself. Zen is convinced that this tiny little capsule is, in fact, a massive and far superior ship, in spite of the scanner image showing that it blatantly isn’t. Jarvik isn’t fooled, but Servalan is, and she calls off the attack. Jarvik’s accidental death by friendly fire is a little contrived, but this doesn’t really detract from an outstanding episode.
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