Blake's 7: Moloch

“The Liberator? That’s Blake’s ship.”

“He liked to think so…”

So, Ben Steed has another script after his excellent Harvest of Kairos. This isn’t as good, but it’s still a quality script. Mercifully, after last episode, the characters are well-handled and there’s some movement of the season arc.

The ship has been following Servalan for twenty-seven days, just to find out what he’s doing. This shows us, firstly, that Avon is still very much top dog at this point and, secondly, that although he doesn’t have the political commitment of Blake he’s certainly driven by curiosity. And yet, recently, there’s the sense that he’s aimlessly allowing Servalan to become a bigger threat over time. It’s notable that his only motivation for following Servalan’s ship to the mysterious hidden planet is sheer curiosity. He’s still much more sensible than Tarrant, though. He’s a much diminished figure, it seems, after recent events. His plan to teleport down through a barrier which repels all electromagnetic waves is typically reckless and stupid.

The Liberator makes it through, just avoids crashing, and ends up outside the barrier again. We see just enough of the planet to see that the surface in close-up consists of a couple of obvious drawings. Meanwhile, two women, Chesil and Poola (the only natives we ever in fact see) are on monitoring duty, and choose to erase all records of the incident, in the hop that the intruding ship may offer them help.

Avon asks Zen for a printout (how very quaint!), for information on the planet. Meanwhile, Poola, having been caught erasing evidence of the Liberator’s arrival, is punished by being “given to the men” for a purpose which is quite clear. Even more horrible is the fact that she isn’t seen again.

Servalan at last arrives, but something isn’t right. The two officers in charge, Lector (appropriately close to “lecher”) and Grose, are of oddly junior rank. They also have strangely easy access to such apparently rare things as “real wine, from grapes” (which Servalan doesn’t appreciate, the philistine), and “coffee too, from beans”. Never mind the blatant tyranny; I wouldn’t want to live in a future without wine in it. That’s true dystopia.

Servalan’s less than subtle digs at her hosts’ gluttony, lust and sadism are followed by some probing questions about mysterious accidents that seem to have befallen their senior officers, and the glaring absence of the massive fleet which is the reason for her being here. She declares that they are both under court martial. But their obvious lack of concern already makes it clear that all is not as it seems.

Orac reveals that the hidden planet is called Sardos, and its small population have predicted their own evolutionary future. Er, how? Evolution isn’t predestined! It’s merely the survival of those random mutations best suited to the many and unforeseeable circumstances faced by a species. Never mind; somehow they’ve done this, and seek to gain control, of their own evolution. This is clearly going to be relevant later on.

Orac also reveals a nearby transport ship which will offer a way of arriving on the planet unseen. Tarrant bullies Vila into teleporting down with him, just as he did earlier in the season; is this pointing towards his eventual comeuppance, I wonder? Typically, Tarrant arrives all right while Vila is soon caught. Less usually, he is instantly invited to join in the party!

The fun doesn’t last long; Tarrant soon prises Vila from his new friend Doran, pulling a gun on him; that’s some comeuppance coming! It seems this ship was full of escapees from a penal planet, and that they’re nothing to do with Servalan who, it is increasingly clear, is not in charge. Avon and Dayna (increasingly the two who are at the top of the pile on the Liberator), teleport down to find their missing comrades. Meanwhile, Vila discovers that Doran is perhaps not such a nice guy, after all (“My problem was always women.” “You like them?” “No…”.). He reminds me of Gan, circa Series One.

Servalan is told that the planet is run by a massive computer which is able to replicate any item it has scanned, transmuting rock into gold, or teleport bracelets, or indeed dead mice. This is controlled by something called Moloch, and is part of a criminal enterprise planned by Lector and Grose. The escaped criminals are to be the crew of their pilot ship, and Moloch declares of Servalan that they should “Give her to your men!”

Fittingly, Servalan is “given” to Vila, who is not exactly going to rape her. The two of them promptly escape, and make a rather amusing double act. Meanwhile, Avon and Dayna find the replicator machine, where clever old Avon starts to work things out. We know he’s gaining quite a lot of knowledge because he bites into an apple in a rather clumsy little Biblical metaphor.

Servalan ends up escaping, while Vila meets up with Doran and Poola. Avon’s theorising is briefly interrupted by a little light torture from our two erstwhile pirate captains, but he swiftly points out to them that Moloch isn’t telling them everything; who’s in charge? Tarrant, Vila and co soon promptly rescue them (with the rather nastily misogynistic Doran getting a suitably meaningless death), but they are soon under the control of the computer, itself controlled (as clever Avon expected) by Moloch, a living projection of the natives’ evolutionary future. Er, ok. Anyway, he’s a Muppet.

It turns out the whole thing was a trap, arranged for the Muppet to get his paws on the Liberator. His plan works perfectly, and he promptly teleports over and immediately dies, having made the elementary mistake of failing to realise the separation from his life support system would kill him. Pillock. Avon, meanwhile, rather cleverly replicates them all a load more teleport bracelets.

We end on what seems to be a cliffhanger, though; the Liberator is surrounded by Servalan’s pursuit ships, and is poised to run. How will they get out of this one? After all, it’s not as though they’ve got out of this sort of situation many times before, is it?