Blake's 7: Blake

“Stand still! Have you betrayed us? Have you betrayed me?”

So, it’s Chris Boucher who gets to write the last episode, not Terry Nation after all. I suppose Terry really was properly in America by this point.

Isn’t this exciting? Even the very first thing that happens- the Scorpio leaving Xenon for the last time as our heroes blow up their now compromised base- reminds us that this is it; from this point onwards there is no reset button and anything can happen.

Of course, this being the final episode, it has the luxury of being largely about the series’ own mythology in a way which the series up to now has rather wisely resisted. But this is entirely appropriate, of course, and it fits in nicely with the series’ running themes and threads. The increasing sense of desperation that has run through Season Four reaches a head for; our heroes’ ambitious plan has failed, they are now homeless vagrants in a tatty old ship, and one last desperate throw of the dice is needed. Avon’s words about needing a new figurehead may sound as cynical as always, but there’s a real sense that in resorting to Blake he’s clutching at straws. For one thing, this represents a real loss of faith; for all Avon’s talk of “idealists” needing “direction” from the likes of himself, he is essentially admitting that he has failed as leader and that it’s time to reassert the hierarchy against which he once rebelled.

Blake himself is a shocking site; not only is he physically scarred, with his sight seemingly lost in one eye, but we see him in the least glamorous surroundings we could possibly have imagined. Worse, he’s revealed to be a bounty hunter: has he abandoned all his principles for the most amoral lifestyle possible? There’s one hint that this may not be true: he freely admits his name to Arlen, his captive, and there seems to be no consequences to her later revealing this information to Blake’s Federation employer. At first this seems to be a hole in the plot but, as we later discover, it hints that all may not be as it seems.

Orac has traced Blake to Gauda Prime, which we now learn is Soolin’s home planet. At last, in the final episode of the series, she acquires a hinterland and an identity! The planet has officially been declared lawless, purely so the mining companies can evict farmers from their lucrative land, but now wish to reverse this now that money is being made! This is a great concept, reminiscent of Westerns and nicely pointing forward to the series I’m going to move on to after Blake’s 7! (Hint: it’s American, 21^st century, sci-fi, and the most appropriate follow-up series possible!)

In order to have the Federation re-impose law, such authorities as exist are hiring bounty hunters to assassinate all known troublemakers so that any future laws stand some chance of being enforced. Sadly, this comes too late for Soolin’s entire family, but at least she got her revenge in while she still could.

Anything can happen during this episode, though, and when the Scorpio is shot down we’re made very aware that this could be the end for the ship ands at least some of the crew, although of course the minutes left to be filled do rather hint at some survivors. This means we get a nice bit of misdirection: Tarrant is unable to teleport away with the others and it really seems that he’s about to die. In the end, he doesn’t, but that’s it for Scorpio. And Slave’s final words are even a bit poignant.

Tarrant is soon accosted, and apparently rescued by Blake, and taken in a flyer back to base, being told along the way that Jenna is dead (ensuring of course that, by the end of the episode, there are no survivors at all from the crews of the Liberator and Scorpio!). Dayna, Soolin and Vila are meanwhile making a right mess of things until Avon comes and sorts then out. Still, Avon has Orac, he has a plan, and he has a flier. All he needs to do is follow the other nearby flier back to base. Simple as. What could possibly go wrong?

Blake gets Tarrant back to base, and immediately seems to sell him out to the Federation. Tarrant runs away, but Blake seems unconcerned. He explains to his accomplice Deva (David Collings) that Tarrant will lead them to two bigger prizes: Avon and Orac. The dialogue is cleverly ambiguous here, but seems on the surface to imply that Blake is a traitor. It’; all a bit ominous; what if Avon and co should burst in at an awkward moment?

Oh, look. They have. Oh dear. And all mere seconds after Blake, talking to Deva, makes it clear that this is all part of elaborate plan to recruit capable people against the Federation.

Paul Darrow has never been better; the anguish in his voice as he asks whether Blake has betrayed him is haunting, as is the look in Gareth Thomas’s eyes as the dying Blake, shot three times by Avon, stares at him in disbelief.

It’s all gone horribly wrong; from this point there’s no hope for anyone. I’d heard that Avon’s fate, at least, was a bit ambiguous, but that isn’t the impression that I get. Fittingly, they all meet their ends at the hands of faceless minions of the system. As in 1984. Totalitarianism wins.

That was an amazing programme. Yes, there was the odd bad episode, many elements have dated, there could be a certain campness, and story arcs were less distinct than in modern television, but Blake’s 7 is generally well-written, well-acted and is at times a fascinating little meditation on totalitarianism.

Right. Torchwood tomorrow, and of course I’ll carry on with Doctor Who until the current season ends. I’ll be a bit less prolific over the next couple of weeks (real life intrudes, alas), so there might be the odd film review for a bit before I properly start reviewing the next programme…

Blake's 7: Warlord

“I see my bad dreams in other people’s eyes.”

Oh my word. Not long now at all, and this episode hints heavily that the end is nigh. Servalan knows where they all live, for one thing.

I’m always going on about new writers, so I won’t start with that here! It’s a most interesting beginning, though: a council of bizarrely dressed people. It’s clear that Avon’s strategy of recruiting allies is coming to a head, and successfully. And his opening speech makes it clear that the Federation’s use of the Pylene-50 drug is accelerating. Indeed, we see some disturbing scenes which are as reminiscent of Brave New World as they are of 1984.

The most interesting (and powerful) of these new allies is Zukan. He and his stowaway daughter Zeeona, it seems, hail from the Planet of Great Hair. These are very interesting scenes, though, and not just for the squabbling. Or, indeed, for the presence of Rick James, the worst actor ever to appear in Doctor Who. We learn that, although our heroes have the antitoxin to the drug, they have no means of mass-producing it on their own: stalemate.

We also learn, as if we didn’t know, that Tarrant is an utter twonk. Yes, it’s nice that he and Zeeona have a thing for each other and yes, Zukan is being a bit of a controlling tyrant figure to his daughter. But Tarrant is being utterly stupid in jeopardising such an important conference, in which the lives of billions are at stake, by gratuitously pissing off the most powerful delegate. Admittedly, the fact that said delegate turns out to be in the pay of Servalan doesn’t help that argument. But still…

Soolin bonds with Zeeona (who is rather attractive!), and actually lets slip a bit of hinterland; her dad got killed when she was eight and she later get her revenge. A bit slim for a backstory, yes, but at least it’s something. In the nick of time, too, considering how close to the end we are…

Of course, Zukan finds out about his daughter, but the upshot is that she ends up back on Xenon, her father ostensibly flies home, and Avon and a rather prattish Soolin head after him to check out all this industrial equipment he’s apparently got. Unfortunately, he’s done a deal with Servalan, interestingly foreshadowed a little earlier in an eloquent little speech about darkness and light. There’s a fascinating depth to Zukan, the warlord of the title, in both writing and performance.

The episode hinges on two parallel betrayals and two bombs. The first, left to Zukan by Servalan and his “reward”, leaves him helpless in his ship (a nice bit of early CGI here!), awaiting death unless he is rescued. And the bomb at our heroes’ base (paralleling the start of the season, and something for which there can be no reset button!), leaves Tarrant, Dayna, Vila and Zeeona facing eventual death by either virus or decapitation. This leads out to a very interesting falling-out between Tarrant and Vila, digging up all the darker elements of their somewhat unhappy relationship.

It’s left to Avon and Soolin to discover Zukan’s betrayal and get captured, but fortunately Soolin redeems her earlier foolishness by rescuing Avon in a rather clever way. Soon we end up with a complex three-way communication of everyone’s problems, which are neatly solved by Avon cleverly working out what to do and getting Tarrant to do as he says. That’s one to Avon, methinks.

That done, Zukan is fittingly blown up along with his ship. Everyone seems to be fine otherwise, though, as they are all teleported up to Scorpio. Zeeona volunteers to go down and check the virus has gone, and it’s honourable of her to take the risk after what her father has done. Still, it seems she’ll be ok, although that lingering kiss she gives to Tarrant gives us a hint that she may not be. The ending is powerful, leaving us in no doubt that she has committed suicide out of shame.

Blake's 7: Orbit

“Natural leaders are rarely encumbered with intelligence.”

At last a writer I know, and it’s the great Robert Homes again, at last! This episode is great. These two statements may well be connected…!

Yet again we get a notoriously clever scientist whom Avon wants to contact in case his cleverness might be useful- the standard Season Four plot, basically. But, this being Robert Holmes, we get a much more entertaining scientist. In fact, Egrogian must be the campest scientist ever, in all senses of the word. John Savident chews the scenery magnificently, and is the best thing in this.

His interaction with Pinder is great, too; in fact, it’s pretty much a textbook example of what we Doctor Who fans call a “Holmesian double act”; the “smart” one, with a rich fruity vocabulary and great quotable dialogue, and the put-upon underling. But it’s very, very dark here. For a start, there are hints of past sexual abuse. And the revelation that Pinder is only twenty-eight, but was aged fifty years in a freak accident, which was entirely Egrogian’s fault, is a wonderfully dark, twisted, Holmesian touch. Even the wart and hairstyle work perfectly for this gloriously grotesque villain.

It’s a dramatic moment when Avon and Vila are offered the tachyon nuke, capable of blowing up stars. Obviously, no one can have this much power. We know from the start that this uber-weapon cannot possibly be allowed to survive the episode. Especially as Egrogian proceeds to go on a bit of a rant about revenge and destroying stuff.

Avon is more or less his old self here; clever, level-headed and showing no sign of his self-destructive streak which has been showing itself occasionally of late. He sensibly agrees Egrogian’s proposed swap of the uber-weapon for Orac but, as we’ll see, has a rather cunning little contingency plan, double-crossing the double-crossing. I would have said how clever it was of him to infer the involvement of Servalan, but I won’t; Servalan is in every bloody episode these days. She’s very, very Thatcher here, so far more evil than usual.

Probably the creepiest moment is where our ultra-camp mad scientist expresses a bit of a thing for Vila (“One could become very fond of that young man…”), who would no doubt be abused in the same way as Pinder.

That’s not the only indignity Vila is made to suffer, of course. Both Holmes’ script and Darrow’s performance make it clear that, faced with death as the alternative, Avon is quite willing to throw Vila off the ship so he can achieve escape velocity. I’m still unsure whether this is a regression on the character’s part (the Avon we see in this episode is not quite the reckless Avon of Season Four), but the circumstances give him little choice, perhaps.

The twist ending is great, though; a little dwarf star, foreshadowed earlier, being the thing that’s pulling the shuttle down. I suspect that it’s not entirely realistic for Avon to push it around, but never mind! This episode is such enormous fun I can forgive anything. Top stuff.

Blake's 7: Gold

“I’ve got a criminal record.”

“Hasn’t everybody.”

I seem to start every single Blake’s 7 review these days by saying that I don’t know who the writer is and, er, I’m going to do it again now. So, Colin Davis: who he? Well, I dunno.  Even my good friend Wikipedia can’t help me with this one.

This is a fairly middling episode, really; a simple bank heist with a fairly ho-hum twist at the end. It starts well, though; I always like to see episodes of Blake’s 7 start as Star Wars films do, with cool-looking ships floating through space.

We’re soon introduced to Keiller, an old friend of Avon, played by a suitably shifty Roy Kinnear. Aside from outlining as much of the details of the heist as the unravelling of the plot requires us to know at this point, we’re clearly shown that Keiller is not to be trusted. He has an interesting line to Avon, too: “On the grapevine, my friend, you’re getting to be big news.” Avon’s reaction suggests this is unwelcome news. He isn’t Blake; he recognises that notoriety will not do any good for his chances of survival.

With the necessary exposition over with, the scene switches to the initial phase of the heist with admirable speed. Our heroes have to do something there to ensure they can convert the “black gold” into proper gold again once the job is done. As this is a drama and dramas need conflict, things don’t go well, and we spend quite a few minutes wondering whether Avon and Soolin are dead. Soolin, incidentally, is starting to acquire some character traits. Only some, mind you, but we’re beginning to establish that she’s efficient, no-nonsense, slow to trust people, self-reliant and fearless. This might all add up to a fairly generic character type, and she still has no hinterland whatsoever, but you have to start somewhere.

We now begin to get some answers from Keiller; he’s being employed by persons unknown, but we all immediately guessed it would be Servalan, right? I like the concept of the entire space cruise being a sham to cover up the delivery of gold to the Federation on Earth, mind. Even better is Avon’s explanation of how it is possible to dupe the passengers (“I imagine they have chemical help.”

I’m very conscious with Blake’s 7 that the teleport can create quite a problem for the sense of threat: how can the characters be in danger if they can be immediately teleported out. Davis finds a neat and very cheeky solution; teleporting the gold would immediately destroy its value. Hah!

The heist itself is quite clever and well-executed, but once again Avon and co find themselves in some very murky moral areas. Not only do they shoot an awful lot of security guards throughout the episode, but Keiller murders an unarmed doctor in cold blood. They’re all accessories to that, I’m afraid. It hardly makes our “heroes” look heroic. But then, I think that’s the point. They are criminals. Yes, they’re politically opposed to the totalitarian rule of the Federation, but they’re not nice people and they never have been.

It’s eventually revealed that Servalan has planned it all- of course- and Keiller gets his comeuppance. But, in a final twist, recent financial developments mean that their money is worthless, while Servalan is in possession of loads of gold (“We risked our lives to make Servalan rich”). Everyone seems to be pretty scathing of Avon; will there be consequences? And once again there are signs that he’s not quite right in the head any more, laughing hysterically at his own misfortune…

Blake's 7: Sand

“Perhaps I like watching old films?”

Oh my. This is the best episode ever. Yes, the central conceit is a bit of an off-the-shelf sci-fi concept, but who cares? Poetic dialogue; fascinating character stuff; fourth wall-shattering critiques of how rubbish this series has mostly been, smuggled into the dialogue- this episode has it all. I rather admired the last episode by Tanith Lee while feeling it went somewhat over my head. But this is an episode to love without reserve. Prepare for much gushing.

The opening moments show us an atmospheric panorama of the planet Virn, over which we hear some rather poetic dialogue which echoes Shelley or Coleridge. This is a statement of intent; we’re getting more than an ordinary Blake’s 7 script here. And the sudden reveal that all this happened five years ago, and Keller’s last message is being watched by Servalan also introduces us to all the lovely metatextual fun that we’re going to be having.

The parallel opening scenes, sharing exposition duties between Servalan, Reeve and underling on the one hand and Avon and co on the other, is nicely done. And the sudden crashing of Servalan’s shuttle is both unexpected and a powerful demonstration of the threat posed by this eerie, silent planet. Virn, almost uniquely in this series, looks nothing like the South-East of England. It may not look quite real, perhaps- it’s more like a stage set than anything one might see at the cinema- but realism doesn’t matter. The look of the planet just works, and drenches the episode in atmosphere.

The initial dynamics between Servalan and Reeve is fascinating; marooned and helpless, the dynamics of the group are in flux, and Servalan’s position as top dog is under threat. This is emphasised even more once their underling has been attacked and killed, apparently by the sand.

There’s a great scene with Reeve revealing that he knows that “Sleer” is in fact Servalan, and this leads to a situation with Servalan, Reeve and Tarrant all wandering independently around pillars with a gun as though they’re in a shoot-‘em-up! Of course, Reeve ends up dead- such is the fate of all who discover who Servalan really is- and the fascinating scenes between Tarrant and Servalan begin. The chemistry between the two is apparent from the start. Jacqueline Pearce is fantastic here.

Aboard the Scorpio, Avon has pretty much worked out that the planet is a single living organism, and that the thunder is caused by Scorpio “irritating” the atmosphere. All things electronic are going a bit funny, too; it’s rather arresting to hear Orac saying “I love you”!

After a bit of flirting, Servalan and Tarrant arrive at Keller’s crashed ship, and begin to work out what’s going in while continuing to flirt and, eventually, connect with each other.

On the Scorpio, though, there’s some extraordinary character stuff going on. Soolin’s throwaway reference to Lee’s previous script isn’t very significant at face value, as she dismisses the theory at once, but hints that the rules are not as they usually are. And Vila, the drunken court jester, is allowed to say some very true things. “Who cared about Cally?” he moans, implicitly criticising the scripts in the earlier part of the season for their unforgivable failure to mourn her passing in any way.

Both Tarrant and Avon work out the truth; the planet is alive, and the sand carnivorous. It seeks to kill the humans it does not need, and domesticate the rest. This, of course, means as many fertile females as it can get, plus a solitary “bull” to service them! I’m not sure this is good genetics, but as a dramatic plot device it certainly works. If nothing, it gives us Josette Simon’s wonderful delivery of the line “Well, how could we refuse, Avon? You are the dominant male, aren’t you?”

It’s interesting that it should be the less than cerebral Tarrant, not the usually self-assured Servalan, that should work this out. Servalan is unusually vulnerable here; it seems that Don Keller was her lover when she was eighteen, but he left her. Since then she has devoted herself to power, and “Power is like a drug. It’s beautiful!” It says a lot that she should tell all this to Tarrant. Oh, and then there’s that kiss. Although we’re left in no doubt that she’s dangerous, and will have no compunction about killing Tarrant when the time comes.

It’s obvious what Tarrant has been up to once he’s back aboard the Scorpio. Dayna is disgusted- nice touch- and Avon, I believe, is jealous!

Blake's 7: Games

“Your survival is becoming more miraculous by the moment…”

Well, here’s another episode, and here’s another writer who’s unknown to me. Bill Lyons gives us a good, witty script though.

We get some exposition to start with; Avon and his crew are planning to rob an Unobtainium mine run by the Federation; simple enough. Except that this particular Unobtainium is magic, and produces huge amounts of energy at very little cost. It’s notable that, although this story ends with a load of it destroyed, the Federation are still mining another eight planets of the stuff. The subtext continues to be that the Federation are increasingly becoming quite worryingly powerful.

Isn’t Stratford Johns great? Belkov (naturally, the chess player has a Russian-sounding name) is such a fun character- a bit like Vila, but cooler and with more style. I love the booby traps / obstacle course protecting his ship, but the coolness of the character basically comes from Johns’ performance. I love his calm, scheming acceptance of the situation when he’s arrested by Servalan; his refusal to accept the situation and his insistence on bargaining with “Sleer” even seems to gain her grudging admiration. Also, the sheer bare-faced cheek he shows in playing our heroes and Servalan against each other is a joy to behold.

It’s interesting, incidentally, that chess has survived unaltered so far into the future as, although chess computers are apparently some way behind Deep Thought. It’s amusing that this world of interstellar travel and all sorts of marvels should be so far behind our own in this respect, but never mind! At least Gambit seems to have feelings, something beyond our ken, as we see at the end.

This is an episode which seems to return us to traditional Blake’s 7 values in many ways: Avon seems to be motivated essentially by greed, which seems a little inconsistent with his behaviour of late; the landing party is out of teleport range for much of the episode; and Avon even gets to practice his thieving skills, not once but three times. None of these things really seem to belong in this season, but it’s nice to see them all the same.

This is a nice, light-hearted episode, and rather leads me to expect much grimness in the near future. There is one horrific moment, though; we last see Gerren (always doomed to be a redshirt) quivering with fear as Servalan puts her gun in his mouth. It’s hard not to see this as symbolising another kind of violation, although the literal meaning is dark enough. The actor does a great job of portraying real, paralysing terror.

Back to lighter matters, though… isn’t the ‘80s amusement arcade near the end of the episode a fantastic piece of nostalgia? Soolin even acquires a rare couple of personality traits; she’s a crack shot and confident at taking risks to prove it. And Tarrant, of course, is a flight sim fan.

The twists at the end- no unobtainium on the ship, and the ultimate goal being death by black hole- is interesting, I suppose, but it loses something for not paying off anything established earlier. It fails to match the last episode in that respect. And the characterisations of the regulars don’t quite seem to fit in with their more recent development, however vague this development admittedly is. This is very much a standalone episode, then; light, fluffy and entertaining without really advancing the arcs or the characters. But there’s nothing wrong with that every now and then; this is our third good episode of the season. It may not end up such a bad season after all...

Blake's 7: Assassin

“All right then; he’s not infallible. It’s just that up to now he’s never failed.”

At last, this rather piss-poor season has produced a second decent episode. I’ve no idea who this Rod Beacham chap is, but he’s really come up trumps with this rather clever little script. All the characters are well-served, the story is gripping, there’s a nice little twist and the pacing is well fast.

The first scene, for all that it’s basically exposition (the team learn about Servalan hiring an assassin to get them and decide to pre-empt her, blah blah blah) is both funny and interesting character-wise, as for once we get to see Avon being scared, however much he may try to hide it. In fact, he spends most of this episode being rather more sensible than he has been of late.

Interesting name for the assassin- Cancer- although I’ve concluded that it’s probably not worth going subtext-hunting here. This episode is all about the action, anyway, as we fast-forward to Avon and Vila having teleported down to the surface of Gomo, one of those ubiquitous quarry worlds, without bothering with any pointless scene beforehand establishing that they’re going to do so. It’s not the last time that this will happen during this episode, and it’s the most refreshing example of the refreshing economy of storytelling that’s on display here.

Avon succeeds in his rather barmy plan of being captured as a slave (What’s with this element of masochistic craziness in Avon’s plans? He did something similar in Rumours of Death. Actually, I take back what I said about him acting sensibly here.), although his losing the bracelet is going to be a bit of a bother.

I fear that for once I’m going to break my golden rule and discuss another programme here, as it’s blindingly obvious that this episode is the reason that Richard Hurndall (Nebrox) gets cast as the First Doctor two years later in The Five Doctors. You can see why. The resemblance is uncanny, far more so, in fact, than it would be when he actually came to play the role.

This isn’t the only delightful piece of casting, either. At the slave auction scene (Servalan’s there, naturally) we get a wonderful little cameo from the legendary Betty Marsden of Round the Horne fame. She gets an interesting little speech, incidentally, which implies (well, says out loud, really) that there are such people as “nouveaux riches” and “nobles” at this point in the future. Also hilarious is her excuse for why so few extras are needed to play the punters at the auction!

There’s a wonderfully kinky little moment as Servalan buys Avon as a slave, but it’s time for the plot to move on, so Avon duly gets rescued. We now move to Cancer’s seemingly marooned ship, the main setting for this episode. Cancer is overpowered, seemingly quite easily, much to the apparent relief of the too-girly-to-be-true Piri. You’ll forgive me for revealing the plot twist at this early stage (I guessed at the 29 minutes and 45 seconds mark), but her awfully stereotyped personality actually turns out to be a very clever postmodern trick- I love that.

Incidentally, the bridge of Cancer’s ship is straight out of an ‘80s music video, with the bearded “Cancer” looking just like General Zod. But the real Cancer, once we finally get to see her as she is, looks utterly fab in a way that transcends the decades, with great hair. Oh, and the fight scenes on the bridge are shot really excitingly, with lots of fast cutting. It’s really, really weird to see direction like this in 1981. I’m really impressed with David Sullivan Proudfoot’s work here. His surname is pretty cool too.

The plot really is very, very clever. “Piri” manages to quite easily manipulate everyone, deliberately alienating Soolin (who comes a little closer to having a personality than she has before, if only because she slaps Piri, and seems to work out that she’s a baddie) and getting Avon and Tarrant to fight over her. Her plan actually seems pretty likely to succeed, too; I suspect that Vila, Dayna and the smitten Tarrant, aboard the Scorpio, would prove rather easy to manipulate.

I like the animatronic spider, too. But the ending is satisfying, giving us a nice little verbal exchange between Servalan and Avon before things are resolved. And it seems the episode ends with Servalan thinking they’re all dead?

That was good. Very good. More like this please.

Blake's 7: Headhunter

“I was a perfect gentleman towards her!”

“That’s what bothered us.”

Oh dear. Another rubbish episode. That’ll be five out of six for the season so far. Not good. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise; Roger Parkes wrote Children of Auron, after all…

For the second episode in a row, our heroes are desperately flailing around trying to recruit an eminent scientist in the hope he’ll be of some vague use. Vila and Tarrant are sent to collect this chap, Muller, while Avon uses his limitless charm to entertain his girlfriend, played by a disturbingly young Lynda Bellingham. But Muller calls Scorpio to say that someone’s on to him and he needs to be teleported up immediately.

There are clues that something’s up as soon as Vila and Tarrant teleport down. For a start, Muller is dressed quite absurdly, and his voice sounds a bit robotic which, as we will soon learn, a dead giveaway. Tarrant decides at the last minute to bring along a mysterious black box. Lucky he did, in the light of what happens.

Muller goes completely off his rocker once he finds the box is aboard, and sets about tussling with Tarrant in a highly unconvincing way. Plot convenience demands at this point that Vila is able to knock him out, possibly killing him, by a simple blow on the back, in spite of the superhuman strength he is later revealed to have.

Vila and Tarrant set off back to base with their black box and seemingly dead passenger, but things soon start to go wrong. Firstly Slave starts to become notably less obsequious, and then the destination of the ship is altered (Why? We never discover any reason for this to happen!). Finally, life support is withdrawn, meaning that Vila and Tarrant will gradually find their environment getting more and more airless and cold. Back at base, Orac suspects something is up, and suggests quarantine. Avon agrees. But ultimately, when it’s clear that the choice is to rescue them or let them die, Avon angrily refuses to abandon them. In fact, Paul Darrow’s decision to play both this scene and the episode’s final moments with real, passionate anger is pretty much the only interesting thing about this episode.

Orac starts acting a bit odd to Soolin (we still know sod all about her), though. Apparently all human life in the galaxy is doomed. Isn’t that nice? It seems he wants to be switched off until the “intruder” is destroyed. I suppose, in a halfway-decent episode, this would be in some way ominous.

We soon discover that not only is Muller alive but he’s happily walking around the premises (so when did he teleport down then?), and is in such a bad mood that he manages to rather unconvincingly kill his own girlfriend. He also seems to have superhuman strength, the power to control all electronic stuff, and the power to turn guns to stone for some reason.

The big revelation of the episode is very silly indeed; “Muller” is in fact a headless robot who has killed Muller so he can graft his head on to his robot body and pose as his creator, so he can make his way to Xenon, join forces with Orac, and enslave Orac. Oh, and the black box contains the robot’s head, which contains its metal superego, which is supposed to stop its metal id going out of control. Is this the silliest Blake’s 7 episode ever?

Our heroes manage to defeat their metal foe with the use of a dam and a bridge, and we get a very silly moment where Avon struggles to re-attach the head. With the threat over, Avon proposes to use the robot as a weapon, but Tarrant and Dayna proceed to blow it up behind its back. He throws a right wobbly here, which leads Orac- traditionally the voice of reason who speaks wisdom- to lambast his arrogance and hint that, perhaps, he may no longer be entirely sane or reliable…

Blake's 7: Animals

“Why do I get all the dirty jobs?”

“Typecasting…?”

Another not-very-good episode, this, meaning the hit rate for Season Four has been fairly poor so far. It’s good to see a Dayna-focused episode, but Josette Simon’s performance is oddly stagey here.

Dayna teleports down to the planet Bucol Two to trace an old teacher of hers, Justin, although it soon becomes clear that their relationship had been rather more intimate than that. The planet’s surface, of course, looks like Hertfordshire as per tradition. Dayna soon encounters some men monster suits; horned, bearded, rice krispie-faced creatures which would probably have looked quite passable in 1981. It’s interesting comparing the unconvincing monsters in Blake’s 7 episodes which are new to me to similar monsters in Doctor Who at the same time; I suspect I tend to give old Doctor Who episodes a bit of a free pass because I’ve seen them so many times!

Dayna finally meets up with the odd but friendly Justin, but finds she’s unable to communicate with Scorpio. This is because Tarrant has had an unfortunate run-in with three Federation pursuit ships- once again, and ominously, noticeably faster and more dangerous than the last time- and has to return to base for repairs. Vila, naturally, has to do all the dirty work. I’m reminded of that sketch about social class from The Frost Report.

Justin, it seems, is performing dodgy genetic experiments on animals, and making a series of unconvincing excuses to Dayna. He clearly has feelings for her, but there’s an awkwardness which doesn’t seem to fit well with the idea that they were once lovers. Dayna gives him a clear description of what she and her friends are actually trying to do, something which has been lacking of late. They’re fighting the Federation, or intending to, and they’re looking for allies, equipment, experts, anything; it all sounds rather desperate. You get a real sense that they’re very much on the back foot, hiding away on their little base postponing the inevitable as the Federation grows ever stronger. The future does not look bright.

Servalan (or, as she’s still calling herself, Sleer) has spotted Scorpio after Tarrant’s unfortunate encounter. She doesn’t recognise it as Avon’s ship, but she certainly sees something odd about a planet hopper which can travel at time distort twelve. Intrigued also by the mysterious experiments said to be carried out there, she heads for Bucol Two.

She soon gets a major info-dump as to the nature of Justin’s experiments from “the man Arras”, played by Kevin Stoney, who’s oddly wasted in such a small and characterless role. He makes the foolish mistake of hinting that he’s aware of “Sleer” really being Servalan (“a non-person”), something which ends up drastically shortening his life expectancy. It seems we have the old Servalan back; from before the Intergalactic War and the presidency. It’s good to see her back where she’s best.

Meanwhile, back on Xenon, Avon has worked out that the Federation are likely to have spotted the speed at which the Scorpio was travelling, and are likely to investigate and capture Dayna. If that happens, the Federation will find their base and they’ll be finished. There’s no time to spare; they have to cut corners and get to Bucol Two. It’s here, I think, a few episodes into the season, that we’re suddenly made aware that Avon and co are in a fairly unenviable and increasingly desperate position. The Federation were weak for a while, but Avon failed to take advantage of this, and now they’re back and seem a bigger threat than ever. This situation places into sharp relief the contrast between Avon and Blake. Blake may have been a fanatic, but at least he got things done. Avon has just let things slide aimlessly. For all his tactical nous, he seems to have no long-term strategy or, indeed, goals. And it’s possible, I suppose, to look at his entire life- including his criminal career- as that of someone who’s intelligent and talented but with no real drive or ambition. And this seems likely to prove very costly. It’s a side of Avon’s character I hadn’t noticed before.          

Servalan captures Dayna easily enough and is soon interrogating her, and it’s surprising to see no reference to Dayna’s sworn vendetta against her. Has this been dropped? The interrogation is extremely totalitarian and sinister, as Dayna is brainwashed, through aversion therapy, to hate Justin and to betray him, Fortunately, and puzzlingly, she isn’t asked about where her friends are hiding.

The ending is sad, yes, but fails somewhat through the lack of conviction in Josette Simon’s performance. The aversion therapy isn’t quite reversed; she’s hypnotised into being in love with Justin. And yes, I know she said under interrogation that she loved him, but there are many kinds and degrees of love; this seems to be pretty much a full-on magic love potion. She is, of course, devastated by Justin’s death in the final; melee, but an increasingly cold and disturbed Avon (is he in denial of both his issues over Anna Grant and the direness of their situation?) is stony-faced and cold.

Blake's 7: Stardrive

“There are times when even the most cynical must trust in luck.”

Another episode from Jim Follett, then. It’s a perfectly decent piece of entertainment, if a little ho-hum, and interestingly it’s a definite sign of a more ‘80s sci-fi aesthetic, with the Space Rats looking very much like something out of Warhammer 40K.

We begin with a very revealing scene showing us just how reckless- almost to the point of a death wish- Avon has become since the events of Rumours of Death. He plans to take Scorpio dangerously close to an asteroid, and “ride” it to the location of some much-needed unobtainium without being spotted by the Federation. Everyone else makes it clear just how insane they think it is.

The result is catastrophic; the Scorpio crashes and sustains serious damage which endangers all their lives. Avon loses an awful lot of face here; he’d been unchallenged as alpha male for a while to this point but this sort of humiliation can’t help him.

Interestingly, it’s Vila who comes up with the idea which saves them all, allowing Vila and Tarrant to repair the hull with a limited force wall protecting them from the vacuum. It’s fascinating that he has to pretend to be drunk and pass of the idea as someone else’s, too. This is a great example of the disconnect between Vila’s “high intelligence” (as we were told in Sarcophagus) and his sometimes literal status as court jester.

Three Federation pursuit ships suddenly appear while Scorpio is a sitting duck, but somehow they all seem to spontaneously explode. Avon has the whole crew watching slowed-down footage, in shifts, for hours, to find out why. Ultimately, Soolin (we still know nothing about her!) spots a small ship at the bottom of the screen. And Vila recognises the helmet; they’re Space Rats.

Apparently the Federation has banned all use of small ships (the equivalent of motorbikes?) for leisure travel, so the only people who use such vehicles are criminal gangs. The Space Rats are violent, joyriding thugs, according to Vila, and the nearest lot are on the planet Caspar. They seem to have access to a very new kind of advanced “photonic” space drive, however, something that a Dr. Plaxton was working on before the Federation collapsed. (Of course, the Federation is now very much on the rise again, and we see signs of this every episode. I note that Orac comments on the Federation’s ship programme being ahead of schedule).

Vila and Dayna teleport down for a spot of reconnaissance. The planet turns out to look, predictably, exactly like a quarry. But Vila and Dayna have been spotted. Avon, meanwhile, is well aware that they’re both going to be captured, and is willing to sacrifice them as a diversion. The Scorpio needs that stardrive.

The Space Rats, at first glance, look fantastic, with really, really great hair and great patterns on their face from either tattoos or make-up. This is, I’m fairly sure, the first ever appearance of any punk-derived fashions on any BBC sci-fi drama. Unfortunately, our inevitable niggling doubts about how they can possibly wear helmets with hair like that lead us to notice that their “Mohicans” are in fact crude wig / hat things. Bah!

We discover that Dr Plaxton (none other than the great Barbara Shelley!) and her underling are working for the Space Rats for some reason, developing an ever better stardrive prototype. Unfortunately, we get a rather annoying couple of lines implying that Space Rats don’t ever bathe. This is an insult commonly applied to youth culture of all kinds, and a rather nasty and unfair one. It used to drive me up the wall in my Grunge / thrash metal teens and twenties. I also notice that all of them except Atlan, their leader, are portrayed as thick and inarticulate. Not that I’m bitter at all. Of course, such over-sensitivity to this script’s patronisingly old-fashioned attitude to youth culture now marks me out as an old fart who can remember when such things existed.

Oh, and how come there’s a planet which seems to be occupied entirely by young people who belong to this youth culture? Why are there no older Space Rats? Where are there parents? How does all this work economically? I think we should be told.

Dayna reports back that they’ve found the little “choppers” and where the stardrive must be kept, but Avon is rather evasive when she asked that Vila and she be teleported back aboard. We then cut to Avon, Tarrant and Soolin; they’re on the surface too! He’s deliberately allowed them to walk into a trap as a diversion. This episode seems more and more to really be about Avon and his increasingly reckless behaviour. It’s a good job the Space Rats are a bit rubbish and not particularly scary, really.

Our heroes don’t have too much trouble, after a perfunctory chase scene, in escaping with both the stardrive and Dr. Plaxton. Unfortunately, they are immediately targeted by three Federation pursuit ships. Fortunately, Dr Plaxton offers to get the stardrive working so they can escape, and works very hard to get it ready. This is where we find out just how ruthless and dangerous Avon has become; just to give them a few more seconds, he sacrifices her life. It works, and the Scorpio breaks clear.

“What about Dr. Plaxton?”, Avon is asked. “Who?”, he replies. This episode may be notable for giving the Scorpio a super-duper hyperdrive, but it seems to be a bit of a tipping point in Avon’s continuing psychological breakdown.

Blake's 7: Traitor

“Maybe we should start running now…”

Hooray for Robert Holmes! Nuanced characterisation, themes, complex narratives- how I’ve missed these things!

There are a bewildering amount of Federation officers to keep track of, mind. Just to get things straight in my heads; the chap with the eyepatch is Quute; above him is a general whom we may as well call “The General; there’s the mysterious Leitz; and the sadistic Sleer, unseen until the end. Right…

We begin with Quute sending a curiously tame captured rebel back to his mates, who are apparently led by a Star Major Hunda. The man has had a tracer placed on him so the rebel base can be blown up, but fortunately (for Hunda and co), he is blown up before reaching them. In a typical Holmesian touch, Quute and his underling blow him up while playing chess, which is not only very, very cool but pre-empts the episode’s themes.

Meanwhile, on board the Scorpio, Orac announces that yet another world has been re-integrated into the Federation’s interstellar computer network: Helotrix, home to the Helots (nice classical reference there). This clearly shocks Avon and co; the Federation is expanding with shocking speed. This scene seems to be pivotal; too late, our heroes discover how they have horribly underestimated the Federation, and that their failure to capitalise on its recent weakness may well come back to bite them. Avon insists they go to Helotrix to find the secret behind the Federation’s success.

We then have a fascinating little meal between Quute and his commanding officer. It seems to be quite a luxurious meal, complete with (real?) white wine. And the conversation- death from afar vs. close fighting with cold steel- starts a theme which is developed throughout the episode. Some exposition is cleverly mixed up here; the Helots, like other recently conquered people, have been “adapted” courtesy of a drug which renders them docile. There’s a debate about whether or not this makes them good soldiers which, again, foreshadows later events.

Back aboard the Scorpio, Dayna’s ethnicity gets mentioned for the second episode in a row, and it’s explained that Helotrix is one of the earliest settled planets, and one of the first to declare independence from the Federation. Interestingly, Soolin implies she disputes the contention that humans all originate from Earth, which seems to imply that at least some degree of historical knowledge has been lost. Then again, I suppose it’s no worse than the barmy conspiracy theories that infest the Internet today.

This comment is the only spark of personality that Soolin displays, incidentally. Three episodes in she seems to have no personality and no hinterland whatsoever. I still have no idea who she is.

A comment from Vila confirms that he Scorpio is a much, much more rubbish ship than the Liberator was, and that they have no chance whatsoever of outrunning Federation pursuit ships. Orac may be designing faster engines (or delegating the task of doing so!), but we get the sense that the days of our heroes occupying a state-of-the-art ship are long gone.

It’s Dayna and Tarrant who teleport down to discover the Federation’s apparent new secret weapon. On the surface, the new governor arrives, and we get some exposition. It seems that Servalan (who seems to have changed her title to “supreme empress”!) is no longer in charge, and presumed dead, after a coup took place against her. Still, her body is missing, and that tells us everything, including that she escaped from the Liberator.

This planet has a unique and impressive quality; foggy, marshy and oppressive, it doesn’t look at all like the South East of England. It looks as though it may well have been filmed in some truly exotic climes, such as East Anglia, perhaps. Dayna and Tarrant, hiding in the fog, have the good fortune to bump into Hunda, there on a mission of his own, who’s exactly the chap they need. He tells them what they need to know about the Federation’s mind-altering drug.

Meanwhile, the new governor is murdered by persons unknown, and Leitz turns out to be a secret rebel agent, telling Hunda of away to get into the Federation HQ through the “old monorail” (how prescient of Holmes to guess that they would become passé!), while Dayna and Tarrant are told where the drug is manufactured, which is conveniently nearby.

All is not as it seems, however; Leitz is a double agent who has lured them all into a trap. The scene in which he reveals this is a typically assured piece of writing by Holmes, as he uses the fact that he was leaking secrets to the Federation’s enemies as his alibi for the governor’s murder!

Dayna and Tarrant meet Forbus, a bloke in a wheelchair who has been forced to manufacture the MacGuffin Drug (Did he mention homeopathy as though it were a plausibly scientific process? Grr!) under duress, by Leitz and the equally sadistic Sleer. Fortunately, he has an antidote! This immediately alerts our heroes that they’re walking into a trap set by Leitz, and they set off to warn their fellow rebels.

The Scorpio is spotted, but Avon prefers to hide behind the clouds rather than bugger off. There was a time when he wouldn’t have done that; he seems a lot more impulsive these days and, dare I say it, shows some indications of a death wish. Is this the result of the devastating revelations surrounding Anna Grant? It’ll be interesting to see if this theory continues to hold water.

Dayna and Tarrant manage to warn Hunda and suggest changes to the plan of attack, which goes ahead successfully. In the mêlée, however, they spot none other than Servalan! It turns out that the previously unseen Sleer is in fact Servalan under an assumed name. Leitz is her accomplice and, it seems, her lover, but at the slightest hint of blackmail she naturally bumps him off.

Tarrant and Dayna return to the Scorpio and reveal to Avon that Servalan is alive. He’s not best pleased…

Blake's 7: Power

“You can have war between races, war between cultures, war between planets. But once you have war between the sexes, you eventually run out of people…”

Oh dear. That’s two rubbish episodes in a row. Straight after last episode’s pointless rip-off of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ben Steed goes and bloody gives us a “battle of the sexes episode”.

It doesn’t start well, either. You remember how I praised the new title sequence last episode? Well, this time I’ve noticed there’s no apostrophe any more in “Blake’s 7”. Grr.

Anyway, we’re still on Xenon, and Vila still has to open that door from last episode if our heroes are to have any hope of reaching Scorpio or, indeed, food. Avon, foraging, is swiftly caught by a couple of the sort of crossbow-wielding savages who have long since become one of the drearier Blake’s 7 clichés. It’s clear that Avon has fallen afoul of “hostiles” so Tarrant and Dayna go looking for him. Tarrant continues to be a total arse; knowing perfectly well that there are “hostiles” about, he loudly shouts Avon’s name!

Vila meets a rather attractive-looking Pella, one of the “Seska”, who has mysteriously got herself into the complex, and she kindly tells Vila that the door is programmed to detonate a nuclear device after forty-eight hours without Dorian’s voiceprint! Avon has less pleasant company; the tribe he’s forced to interact with are the “Hommiks”, led by Gunsar, who’s a bit thick. Using his typically adroit diplomatic skills, Avon manages to talk himself into a fight to the death with Gunsar. I like the way he chooses a glove as his weapon and manages, technically, to win before being unfairly hit from behind, but we’ve seen this sort of thing so often before.

Pella, and two of her Friends, realise they’re going to need Avon, now that Dorian is dead, to reach Scorpio, and accordingly they set out to rescue him. They don’t do very well; two of them are caught, and Pella soon joins Avon in his cell. Things still don’t look all that bad elsewhere, but the bomb goes off in not much more than three hours, and Orac, git that he is, is talking in riddles.

We learn things, though. Avon and Pella escape, and Pella escapes with Avon to prevent an operation of some kind being performed on her friend. She’s shocked to see the operation performed by a long-lost friend and Seska, Nina, who is deliberately staying with the tribe, because she wants to be a woman.

We get a bit of context for this as Vila, Dayna, and Tarrant look at some old recordings. It seems that twenty years ago a war concluded between the Seska (who are all women, apparently) and the Hommiks. It’s at this point that the horrible truth dawns on us; this is that horrible, horrible cliché of a war between the sexes.

Now that we have the context, it becomes more than a little eyebrow-raising to see Avon overwhelming Pella with his male strength and forcibly kissing her! He’s making a bit of a habit of this sort of thing.

Avon finds the central computer room, operated by Gunsar’s adviser, Cato, without the knowledge of his rather thick boss. It seems that, after the war ended twenty years earlier, technology had to start again from the very beginning. This room, which powers the light and heat, is run secretly. We’re about to hear more, but Pella kills him by means of Avon’s trigger finger. She’s telekinetic, and goes on to further demonstrate this by knocking Avon out with a levitating object.

The episode is beyond hope now; even Dayna’s challenge to Gunsar can’t liven things up. We end with our heroes and the Seska stood by the door to Scorpio, trying to agree terms. There were never any more Seska than the ones we see; there are only two left, and Pella is about to shoot the other! She deactivates the bomb, but she has a clever plan; threatening Dayna with a gun, she heads to Scorpio to take off by herself. Avon, however, has been cleverer (isn’t he always?), and has conspired with Orac to get the teleport working. After he’s teleported aboard and dealt with her, our heroes have a new ship. But Soolin is still around…

That was utter crap. I hope this season comes up with a good episode soon; it’s been rubbish so far.

Blake's 7: Rescue

“Beneath that cold exterior beats a heart of pure stone.”

Well, it had to happen eventually; a bad script from Chris Boucher. He’s usually so full of ideas, but not here. I preferred Oscar Wilde’s version as if it needed saying. What’s the point of “homaging” something if you’ve got nothing to say about it? Also, the early 1980s BBC conception of the future being dull, functional corridors is hardly something to satisfy an aesthete.

Still… a brand shiny new season, then, with some genuinely fantastic new titles which remind me very much of an old Acorn Electron game called Starship Command. We’re following directly on from the end of last season, as Dayna and Avon watch Gerald the Gorilla head into the ship Servalan has so kindly left for them. The ship immediately blows up; it was a booby trap.

Avon immediately realises that, if Servalan booby-trapped the ship, she will have booby-trapped her headquarters to go off simultaneously, too. No wonder her terms seemed so suspiciously reasonable last episode.

We see Vila dragging an unconscious Tarrant outside just before there’s a second, huge, explosion. Cally is killed by this explosion. Jan Chappell doesn’t even appear in this episode, and we only hear her voice for two last, telepathic, lines. Her last word is “Blake”.

It’s a shame that the focus then moves elsewhere and Cally’s death is pretty much downplayed for the rest of the episode. Even Gan got more of a send-off.

Having found what’s left of Orac, our team rather foolishly split up, inevitably getting into trouble. Dayna and Vila are rescued from their Sarlacc-like predicament by some bloke called Dorian, who seems to have a bizarre S&M relationship with his ship’s computer. Our heroes are less than grateful, though; as soon as Avon arrives he pulls a gun on him and the lot of them hijack his ship, just in the nick of time as we get played loads of stock footage of earthquakes, volcanoes and stuff.

For all we know at this point, Dorian is what he appears to be; an innocent salvage chap. And this makes it seem very clear that Avon and co are committing a particularly nasty and very serious crime here: stealing someone’s spaceship by means of armed hijacking. Yes, our heroes have always been criminals, but there’s always been something of a romanticised Robin Hood quality to their crime, and this diminishes them as protagonists. Yes, I know Dorian turns out to be a baddie (he bloody well had to after this), but that doesn’t justify the hijacking.

There’s an interesting Dayna moment as she passes a connoisseur’s judgement on the adjustable weapons they find aboard. And this scene immediately tells us that this ship is going to replace the Liberator (it even has a partly-formed teleport bay), or otherwise it wouldn’t be here.

The ship, we learn, is called Scorpio, and they’re headed to a planet called Xenon. As soon as they arrive, though, they discover that the only person around, aside from Dorian, is a rather gorgeous lady called Soolin, who remains enigmatic for pretty much the whole episode. It seems, initially, that she and Dorian are a couple. It also seems that they were expected, and they receive an oddly hospitable reception for a bunch of hijackers. They even get a glass of wine each (one glass too many; that’s for Cally), which is apparently supposed to be quite good, which is odd as it appears to be rosé. Still, we learned in Moloch that “real” wine is supposed to be rare, so perhaps beggars can’t be choosers.

There follows an odd, underground scene between an inexplicably aged Dorian and some horrible creature in the underground darkness, which immediately tells us something isn’t right. I’m sure that there are plenty of viewers far more eagle-eyed from myself who immediately guessed which novel was being ripped off at this point.

The party splits up again, with unpleasant circumstances all round, especially for Dayna. Only Vila, sensibly deciding to get sloshed, is not in trouble. Avon gets the exposition; Dorian has been on the planet for two centuries (has the wine really lasted that long without being drunk?) but hasn’t aged a day, and is able to indulge all sort of unspecified vices, which would no doubt, if we could see them, be both shockingly depraved and far too expensive for the Blake’s 7 budget. Oh, and his first victim was a male “partner”. That figures; it’s inevitable that he would turn out to be gay because, like, so was Oscar Wilde and stuff (actually, both Dorian and Wilde seem to have been bisexual, but let’s not get sidetracked).

Anyway, Vila saves the day (hooray for getting sloshed!), and Soolin quickly nips upstairs…

Blake's 7: Terminal

“Incidentally, you should always be careful about getting a second hand spacecraft. They can be very unreliable.”

Ooh, Terry Nation’s back for the season finale! Surely he would have been in California for about a year now? We are indeed privileged!

Avon’s gone all mysterious; he’s taking the ship to some mysterious location for some kind of “rendezvous”, and he goes all mardy whenever anyone else tries to go on to the flight deck. Everyone else has got the message and is leaving him alone. Dayna and Cally are playing space chess, if you believe the dialogue, or Space Monopoly, if you believe the props department.

Tarrant, of course, has a go at confronting Avon, but it’s no use; Avon is at this point indisputably top dog. He’s changed course, and he won’t say where or why. Even more strangely, he receives a message and then sets off to a new location. It’s just like a galactic treasure hunt. And Avon’s in a hurry; he’s not even prepared to avoid a possibly dangerous cloud of fluid, and proves this by pulling a gun on Tarrant. Still, what harm can a bit of fluid on the hull do?

Eventually they arrive at their destination. Terminal is an artificial galaxy, long thought destroyed, created 411 years ago in an orbit near Mars. It has now been moved right across the galaxy for reasons which remain unexplained. Whatever its origins, however, it just so happens to look like- yes, you guessed it- the South-East of England.

Avon teleports down, leaving the others with strict instructions not to follow. If he misses just one of his hourly call-backs, they are to leave on a pre-programmed course, and a pre-recorded message explaining his actions will be played on arrival. That’s it. Avon gives no further explanation before teleporting down. Naturally, Tarrant and Cally make plans to follow.

Avon is being watched by two sinister-looking mulleted Aryan types, as the treasure hunt continues. Eventually, Avon finds an entrance to some kind of underground base. Meanwhile, aboard the Liberator, the liquid is gradually penetrating the ship’s hull.     

The two mulleted strangers attempt to follow Avon, but are suddenly attacked and killed by Gerald from Not the Nine O’ Clock News. What else?

Exploring this strange underground location, Avon discovers evidence that none other than Blake himself is being held somewhere close by, and is receiving treatment for some very serious injuries. At this point, though, Avon is caught, and knocked out.

On board the Liberator, things are getting serious as the strange alien enzymes threaten to overwhelm the ship. Interesting, though, that it’s Vila who takes charge of the situation, ordering Zen to cease repairs in the hope that focusing on diagnosing the problem might save them all.

Cally and Tarrant reach the door, where they are attacked. Fortunately, Gerald and his flange of silly gorilla costumes are mysteriously much less formidable that they were against those two redshirts earlier, and are quickly disposed of.

Avon wakes up to find himself lying on a table, but somehow at liberty to wander about. Soon he finds a bearded Blake, lying on a table. It’s a shock to see Blake again; the banter between the two of them is the same as ever. Blake has discovered an exciting but vague supply of unobtainium nearby, but is unable to leave his life support and survive. Avon is rendered unconscious again suspiciously soon after this.

The following scene is fascinating; something is done to Avon, and he’s put back exactly where he was before. A lot of effort is expended to ensure he has no idea he’s been moved. This is a pleasingly metatextual scene; the comment that “We must keep the continuity right” must be a constant refrain in any television drama.     

It is, of course, an elaborate trap set by Servalan; what else could it have been? Avon is wonderfully unsurprised, and the conversation between them has just the right amount of flirting to keep this very interesting relationship simmering nicely.

Servalan is oddly lenient in her demands; a season ago she would have been much more ruthless. In return for the Liberator, she’s prepared to grant Avon his liberty, along with that of his comrades; Blake; and a ship. What we know, and Servalan doesn’t, is that the Liberator is dying. Zen’s last words are quite moving, and it’s interesting that it should be Vila who is most affected.

Servalan hasn’t quite kept her side of the bargain; “Blake” was an illusion, carefully engineered by the continuity artist and their mates, and the ship they are to have will require a bit of work. Servalan claims that Blake died a year ago and she saw him cremated. Of course, we only have her word for this.

Annoyingly, Servalan spouts some absolute crap about the flanges of Geralds being what man is said to evolve into. What utter arsecack!!! That isn’t how natural selection works. Sorry, bit of a bugbear of mine.

It’s a pyrrhic victory for Servalan, of course. She has the Liberator, but as soon as she orders it moved (“Maximum power!”), it starts to blow up. Servalan is last seen running into the teleporter…

Blake's 7: Death-Watch

“Space. The final frontier, as it was once called…”

Chris Boucher is back, and this is a bloody good ‘un. These two facts may well be connected.

The opening scene, with spaceship models floating through the ether as we hear voices communicating electronically, echoes Boucher’s own Star One. But then we move to a fascinating scene. Aboard a luxury starliner is one Deeta Tarrant, played by none other than Steven Pacey. This man is clearly a massive celebrity in these parts, a fact that becomes very clear indeed when an attempt is made to assassinate him. It seems he’s some sort of “warrior”.

The Liberator, meanwhile, has escaped from Servalan’s fleet just like that. There was a time when a fleet of Federation pursuit ships would have presented at least some sort of threat, but those days are apparently gone. Instead, the crew amuses itself with current events. Apparently Orac has discovered that the United Planets of Teal and the Vanlor Confederacy are at war. Almost as good as the Internet is old Orac…

Tarrant is keen to head straight to the “combat grounds” although it’s interesting, in the light of this season’s personal interactions, that he looks for Avon’s permission first. Apparently, a war between these two powers is resolved by the simple method of each side appointing a champion to fight in a dual to the death, provided over by a neutral computer. Cally may find it barbaric (and, to be fair, the way it appears to be pushed as entertainment is certainly that), but it certainly cuts down on the casualties of war.

The crew of the Liberator then settle down to watch a bit of telly. We then get a wonderfully metatextual set of scenes as our television characters watch the television, and we get to see a presenter doing a piece to camera, and then talking to his extremely camp producer afterwards. A lot seems to have changed in the future, but television hasn’t, it seems.

It seems both champions have “seconds”; Deeta’s is Max (Stuart Bevan), a local diplomat. There are three arbiters for the process, it seems- one for each side, and a neutral arbiter, in this case none other than Servalan. The weapons, in an amusing nod to the Western, are “ancient” pistols. We meet Deeta’s opponent, the supremely confident Vinni, and through Max we get to see rather effectively just how nervous Deeta is.

A planned excursion by our heroes to the planet’s surface is cut short by the fact that there’s sod all going on, but not before Avon has a most interesting chat with Servalan, protected by the fact that all violence among visitors is forbidden during the duel. Avon threatens Servalan, ascertains she’s hiding something, and then kisses her(!) before leaving. Interesting relationship we have there. Also interesting to wonder how Dayna would react if she knew, especially given Vila’s later faux pas, which makes it clear that she still very much has it in for Servalan.

Tarrant is unable to speak to his brother before the fight, but has an interesting chat with Max, discovering that the absence of apparent festivities is because everyone is using a disc to tap into one of the contestants’ feelings as “catharsis”, and in no way as entertainment. Showing some initiative for once, he grabs one of each.

The duel begins, and the environment, naturally, is uncannily similar to the sort of thing that might be considered a cheap location. Deeta shows himself to be chivalrous, passing up an easy shot from behind in order to accept a challenge to a straight-up, Western style, quick draw challenge. He loses, and the camera goes into slow motion as he is killed. Tarrant and Dayna have respectively been monitoring both opponents. Tarrant is devastated, but Dayna notices something wrong with Vinni. He seems to have no instinct, just superhuman reflexes. It’s clear he’s an android, put there by Servalan to get caught and invalidate the contest. This will lead to a full-scale, traditional war, which can only end with Servalan stepping in to “restore order”, eventually annexing both entities. She’s a clever one, that Servalan. Even cleverer, the android won’t even be aware it isn’t human. It’s just like Blade Runner, two years early. Clever, clever Avon for working all this out.

There’s a solution, though; as the dead man’s brother, Tarrant has the right to challenge the android to a rematch, and Avon sets a trap. Tarrant cheats, shooting Vinni, and the evidence is conveniently vaporised away. We end with Avon and Tarrant explaining a version of this to Max; a version which, naturally, implicates Servalan. If Max makes an objection, the contest will be void, and a new contest can start. This time, of course, Teal will insist on full prior medical examinations, and a new neutral arbiter will be appointed. It’s time for Avon and Tarrant to make a sharp exit, though; Tarrant is now legally Teal’s First Champion…

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?