Blake's 7: Shadow

"Where are all the good guys?"

"Could be looking at them."

"What a depressing thought..."

What’s this? Written by Chris Boucher? You mean there are writers in this world who aren’t Terry Nation? Blimey. Actually, this episode feels so extraordinary different from everything that’s gone before simply because of the change of writer. It helps that Chris Boucher is so damn good, too. This is one of the best episodes yet.

So, another space station, and a bloke called Largo. This is close enough to “Iago” to immediately tell us what sort of character he is; duplicitous and not very nice. He’s a sort of cross between said Shakespearean baddie, Mother Superior off of Trainspotting and Tony Soprano, being a middle-ranking flunky in the “Terra Nostra”. Of course, any similarity to any legitimate business organisations of Italian extraction is entirely coincidental.

Largo is having some fun humiliating two of his customers before he hands over some “Shadow”, a highly addictive gobstopper-like substance. I’m fairly sure you could get it in my village’s local sweet shop when I were a nipper. But one of these two siblings pulls a gun on him, the pair of them nick loads of stuff, and off they go.

Meanwhile, aboard the Liberator, everyone is speaking lines not written by Terry Nation, and it’s an odd yet refreshing experience. All the lines sound right (Boucher has been script editor all this time, after all), but the characters now have a bit more room to breathe. They’re orbiting “Space City, a “Satellite of Sin” controlled by the Terra Nostra, whose help Blake wants to enlist in his quest against the Federation- a sign, if there hadn’t been enough already, of how his monomaniacal obsession has skewed his moral compass. He dismisses the considerable ethical problems with a curt “Earth is all I’m interested in”; this time last season his political opposition to the Federation was far less narrowly defined than this.

Interesting that Gan should be the main one to object. Firstly because he’s always been the most loyal to Blake; he’s never before questioned his decisions and has strongly defended him to Avon. And yet here he’s on Avon’s side, an interesting development in the heightening power struggle between them. And secondly it seems to indicate a definite change in Gan’s character from the hints of extreme sexual dodginess we seemed to be getting last season. Has all this been dropped? Suddenly Gan seems to be going all moral.

Meanwhile, the desperate siblings have lost their other brother to an overdose, and found themselves captured by Largo’s underling. Our, ahem, “heroes”, meanwhile, are off to see Largo themselves, to cut a deal. Apart from Cally, that is, and Vila. Some interesting dialogue here: Blake is a privileged “Alpha Grade”, while Vila is a “Delta Service Grade” peasant.

Vila isn’t on the Liberator for long; he soon enlists the help of Orac to get himself inside the City. Meanwhile, Blake, Jenna Gan and Avon are being rather less successful with their own negotiations, which end with them all being marched into a cell at gunpoint.

Things look a bit grim, but we get a bit of light relief here; the conversation between Cally and Vila only drop vague hints as to what Vila is doing, but there’s almost certainly at least one lady present. Unfortunately, Blake and co aren’t having anywhere near as nice a time.

There’s a nice moment for Cally here as she quickly susses out from Blake’s subtle hints that his suggestion to bring loads of money over is under duress, and proceeds to go all badass and arse-whuppy. I rather like this badass Cally. It’s almost a shame that her moment of triumph is rather rudely pre-empted by Blake and co just escaping by themselves without so much as a by-your-leave. Some people just have no manners.

Blake still plans to go after the Terra Nostra, though; this time he plans to well and truly shove a stick into said hornet’s nest and again, Gan objects most strongly. It’s interesting watching Avon here; it’s strongly implied that he’s already worked out what’s going to be revealed at the end, but is deliberately allowing Blake to try and fail. He plans to go to Zondar, where Shadow is in some way grown, in spite of the plant being extinct.

Meanwhile, Cally finds Orac and ends up in a strange yet cheap-looking dream world, uncannily similar to that seen in the excellent Doctor Who story, Kinda. And it turns out that the Terra Nostra are able to trace the Liberator through the Shadow in the possession of one of their guests. This is no good to Largo, though; he’s just been assassinated and smoothly replaced by his subordinate. That sort of thing is so very Chris Boucher, and reminds me of the wonderfully backstabbing world of Magic Bullet’s splendid Kaldor City audio dramas, based on Boucher’s concepts from Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who.

Blake, Jenna and Avon teleport down to Zondar, where they find some “moon discs” from which Zondar is derived. And suddenly (and, as it turns out, conveniently), Cally wakes up, panics, runs, teleports to the surface and collapses next to a load of moon discs, nicely in position for the climax.

Anyway, Orac has gone bad, is trying to crash the Liberator, and kills Druggy Girl, although that last bit is ok; she’s no longer useful to the plot. It seems that Orac has been possessed by an extra-dimensional entity for some reason, but that Cally, with help from the sentient moon discs, is able to overpower it, which is nice.

The big reveal is rather clever, although Avon probably guessed some time ago; the Terra Nostra is run by the Federation, who thus control both sides of the law…

Doctor Who: The Sun Makers

Part One

“Probably too many economists in the government…”

Right from the start it’s very clear indeed that we can’t expect anything at all from the sets and costumes, which are quite as awful as they were in The Invisible Enemy. Fortunately, it’s also clear from the start that the scripts and performances are going to be first class. And we get bombarded with some great concepts- dull modernist tower block this may be, but it’s on a mysteriously oxygenated and moderately temperatured Pluto where wood is a distant fable.

It’s also a world where people are drones working for a mysterious company, worked and taxed until their pips squeak and finally put to death on an appointed “deathday”- perhaps the most fully evoked dystopia yet seen in Doctor Who. Cordo and Gatherer Hade are both well written and well acted characters, perfectly shaped to be interesting whilst given us a load of necessary exposition at the start.

Cordo’s recently euthanized father worked hard as a sweeper of walkways for forty years, but he and his son between them can only just afford a painless death for him (Cordo wasn’t present at the death- no doubt he couldn’t afford that), and now Hade reveals that taxes have recently risen to a level Cordo cannot afford, and it is of course the citizen’s responsibility to be familiar with the tax rates. Cordo, already working double shifts, will now have to work during his remaining three hours’ sleep time to work towards his debt, which with compound interest at 50% he will never repay. This is very dark stuff, and that’s precisely why the humour is so important to sweeten the pill.

With K9 poised to beat the Doctor at chess, the TARDISeers materialise on Pluto, once said to be the outermost body in the Solar system until “Cassius” was discovered. This has all become very dated over the last few years!

K9 stays in the TARDIS for now (“Pluto’s no place for a…”) while the Doctor and Leela immediately prevent Cordo from throwing himself off the building, receiving some exposition in return.

Richard Leech is brilliant as the collector, the style of his performance being perfect for the character. Some of his lines would be just too dark if delivered too seriously- the line about how surviving for three years in the “correction centre” is almost unheard of makes it clear just how horrifyingly totalitarian this regime is.

Interestingly for a story where tax collectors are the bad guys (“Perhaps everyone runs from the taxman”) this doesn’t necessarily come across as a right wing satire- in fact it’s rather typical of Holmes in that, although deeply political, it doesn’t tell us a lot about what his politics were, although at least we’re left in no doubt that he’s no authoritarian. Besides, tax rates in the UK in 1977 were really rather high…

More good stuff- six suns, “the Inner Retinue”, a load of rebels includingVila- an excellent start.

Part Two

“I have the honour to remain, sir, your obedient servant. Etc. Etc.”

I love the friendliness of the Doctor’s cellmate, whose crime was curiosity, casually chatting about the horrors in store for the Doctor and himself- the sort of scene that only Holmes could write. PCM is another 1984-esque idea- an ingredient in the air to spread anxiety and keep the population docile. In fact, for all the surface focus on tax and economics- and there’ll be a lot more of that kind of thing- this is really Doctor Who Does 1984, more concerned with the nature of extreme tyranny than taxation per se. Cordo is quite clearly a Winston Smith figure and the Company is very Big Brother- there are loads of cameras everywhere for a start.

There’s a great scene between the Doctor and Gatherer Hyde, a P45 corridor (!) and we get to see Henry Woolf’s splendidly slimy Collector. Another great episode.

Part Three

“His Excellency has invoiced your execution.”

Another quietly shocking moment, as the Collector notes with incredulity that the captured Leela hasn’t been “numbered” as all “work units” are at birth. But this is where things turn around- I love the scene where the Doctor quickly manoeuvres himself from imminent torture victim to leader of a revolution, and it’s wonderful to see the glee with which everyone responds once persuaded that resistance is not useless after all. For the first time the company is questioned- what’s it for? Who gets all the profit?

I love the collector’s summary of the Doctor, from the company files, as having “a long history of violence and economic subversion.” But it’s not all wit and satire- there’s a real feeling of danger this episode as Leela faces execution by steaming, and this cliffhanger is one of the very best.

Part Four

“The work units are absolutely forbidden to see the light of the sun- it’s far too good for them!”

This whole episode is a joy, aside from a moment of disquiet towards the end. The Collector’s increasingly severe threats to the populace (“Grinding oppression of the masses is the only policy that pays dividends!”), the rebels’ increasing confidence and giddy happiness as they experience life without TCM, Marn joining the revolution to save her skin- very realistic, that!- the Gatherer being thrown off the building. This is Holmes’s swansong as a perm anent fixture of the series, and he really goes out on a high. A magnificent script. And, naturally, the Doctor buggers off immediately as soon as the fun bit finishes!

There’s one disquieting bit, though- I suspect nothing was meant by it, but it probably would have been a good idea not to make the villain a “Usurian”- ie a moneylender- of a different ethnic group to everyone else, as that could be interpreted in unfortunate ways!

Aside from that last point, a brilliant script, and fantastic performances all round. I very nearly gave it a 5/5 but the sets are so appalling I’m going to have to take away a point. 4/5, but a very high one.