Blake's 7: Aftermath

“You were with Blake?”

“Yes, but it hardly seems to matter now, if it ever did.”

Ooh, brand new opening titles! Not very good, are they? I’m surprised to see this episode is written by Terry Nation; hadn’t he gone to America by now?

The opening scenes, with lots of spaceships shooting at each other, look great, and epic, and very, very Star Wars-y, as per last episode. Blake’s 7 is still very much in epic mode, right to the end of this episode, at least, but things are a bit calmer, and there’s a lot of reflection on what the new status quo is going to be.

We’re told in just one line of dialogue that Jenna has “gone with Blake”, and it’s clear that both of them have suddenly left the series. Everything’s in flux, though; the Liberator is very badly damaged and the remaining crew- Cally, Vila and Avon have to get on the lifeboats. This being Terry Nation, there’s a countdown, and they make it only at the last second. But that’s the last we see of Cally or Vila- this episode is all Avon.

The planet below is not safe, though. We get a quick scene where two Federation redshirts (one of them played by Richard Franklin) get to spout some brief exposition, to the effect that the Federation has won the war and destroyed all the aliens, but only at the cost of 80% of the Federation fleet being destroyed. Having fulfilled this brief function, these two characters are no longer needed, and are duly killed by the planet’s resident mediaeval warriors, who really do look rather cool.

Avon, too, comes a cropper in this way, until he’s saved by Dayna, a rather cute young lady with a bow and arrow. During his descent he was clearly not expecting things to turn out well, but soon he’s being looked after by a gorgeous girl with an obvious sense of fun, who tells him he’s beautiful and slowly kisses him out of “curiosity!” It’ll be interesting to see, as the series goes on, whether the two of them come across as a couple or not.

It seems that Dayna and her father are from Earth, the only people from “civilised” territory to be living on this planet. Having stopped off to collect Orac, Dayna takes Avon to her home, under the sea. But, as we see, Servalan is also marooned on this planet, alone and unable to communicate to her underlings. She unexpectedly pulls a gun on an unsurprised Avon, only or Dayna to turn all this into a Mexican standoff, which soon gains an extra layer of complication as the natives attack. Forced to co-operate, Servalan cheerfully admits that her gun isn’t loaded anyway.

They’re taken to Dayna’s rather stylish home, where Avon meets her father, Hal Mellaney, with his afro and cool shades. Mellaney is some kind of rebel, exiled from the Federation, and he’s somewhat awed to find that Avon was with Blake. Servalan, meanwhile, pumps Dayna for information in an extremely sinister fashion. Is it me, or is Jacqueline Pearce basing her performance more on the equally sinister Margaret Thatcher than she used to?

Mellaney further reveals that Dayna, in spite of her penchant for old-fashioned bows and arrows, is something of a genius when is comes to weapons engineering. He reveals that, after being caught running weapons to some rebels, he lost his sight after being tortured by the Federation, and needs a special device to give him partial vision. His position as an exile may no longer be necessary, though; the Federation’s military has been decimated, and it is falling apart. As Avon says, it seems as though Blake has won both of his wars.

We briefly meet his adopted daughter, Lauren, and Avon hears from Zen, via Orac. Jenna is on a hospital ship being taken away from the series, Cally and Vila are missing, and an unknown ship is trying to dock at the Liberator.  Servalan, of course, overhears all this, and we get a simply awesome and erotically charged scene between her and Avon. Servalan starts by articulating her deep misunderstanding of Avon’s personality, assuming that the surface cynicism, rather than being the defence mechanism of a passionate and principled man, is who he is. She’s making an obvious miscalculation in assuming that he will ever agree, now that Star One has been destroyed, to make use of Orac and the Liberator to restore the Federation and share power with her. As Avon wisely notes, “I’d be dead in a week.” But still, before he refuses we get that kiss! There’s real sexual chemistry between them, although they’re always going to be enemies. There’s something rather exciting about that!

Hal mentions to Avon that he’d like Dayna to leave (the implication is with Avon) to see the universe. This has something of the last wish about it- we know at this point that he won’t survive the episode. And, sure enough, he catches Servalan sneaking into the room to steal Orac. Servalan taunts him quite nastily before killing him. This episode demonstrates more clearly than ever before that she really is a textbook psychopath.                                      

Dayna is devastated, and she and Avon set off to find Servalan. And, just to make her day even worse, her sister Lauren has been crucified by the natives. Suddenly she has nothing but Avon. She promises Servalan to her face that she’s going to kill her.

There are further stand-offs between the two of them Servalan and the natives. We end with Servalan about to shoot the two of them, but they are both rather fortuitously teleported aboard the Liberator as Avon has pre-programmed. All is not well, though; there’s a stranger aboard. He declares the ship to be Federation property and threatens them both with summary execution…