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 Finally, life support is withdrawn, meaning that Vila and Tarrant will gradually find their environment getting more and more airless and cold.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: 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…

Doctor Who: Terminus

Part One

“Don’t patronise me, Turlough.”

I’m approaching this with an open mind, although I’m well aware of its reputation. I’ve only seen it once before, in the late ‘90s, and I can remember very little. The only bias I have going into this is that I was hugely impressed with Steve Gallagher’s Warrior’s Gate. Still, there’s the awkward fact that I’m watching this in the full knowledge that it’s not popular and whatever I end up thinking I’ll suspect myself of either conforming to received opinion or setting myself in rebellion against it. I don’t win either way- much better to enter a story completely blind! Anyway, here goes…

We open with more development of the Turlough / Black Guardian angle as Turlough sabotages the TARDIS. Mark Strickson is excellent in playing this rather shifty, cowardly, self-centred yet redeemable character in a way I haven’t appreciated before. Tegan is getting suspicious of this newcomer, and incidentally is still wearing the same outfit. I assume she gets to change them once a season? Still, it’s shaping up to be an interesting relationship.

Meanwhile, we get to see Nyssa’s room again. And also Turlough’s room, which used to be Adric’s room, and still has all his old stuff in it- a nice touch, reminding us that Turlough doesn’t share the painful memory the other TARDISeers have to deal with, and is still yet an outsider.

As a result of Turlough’s sabotage things start going wrong with the ship, leading to yet another “I’ll explain later” from the Doctor. And then the Ship merges with somewhere else- a nice different way of arriving somewhere with the TARDIS exterior not being seen at all throughout the story. It’s very effective seeing the four TARSISeers gradually disappearing into the mysterious vessel.

And then of course we end with loads of lepers appearing, one of whom is apparently Kathy Burke…

Part Two

“We’re all going to die!”

The computer operated by the Doctor in this episode looks uncannily like the sort of thing that would have been released as a board game and advertised on kids’ TV at the time. Now that the Marathon is reaching a time I can actually remember I’m getting all these random outbreaks of nostalgia triggered by the most bizarre things.

Things are still good so far, with an interesting backstory of plague and corporate greed, and the odd coincidence of Terminus being at the exact centre of the universe. Not to mention Kali and Olvir being officially the most ‘80s people ever. I mean- that hair!

Peter Benson as Bor is instantly recognisable as Henry Tudor to those, like me, who have seen the first episode of The Black Adder far more times than is healthy. And there are other characters in similarly great looking armour with names like Eirak, Valgard and Sigurd, known as the Vanir. Hmm. I’ll take this as an indication that Norse myths are being referenced here but I’ve no idea which ones. The Garm’s a giant, too, so the giants are superseded by the gods, or “Vanir”, but that’s both very tenuous and not relevant to this episode.

Nyssa gets infected, and promptly strips off into her underwear. And at the same time she acquires some unsightly buboes and lesions. Yep, that’s how you get the dads watching, I’m sure they’re all leprosy fetishists…

Part Three

“You’re weird, Turlough.”

At this point it starts to feel a bit slow and plodding, presumably the problem people have with it, but I can’t quite put my finger on why it feels so. We’re getting plenty of plot revelations, the characters are well written and played, there are some good concepts and it’s even well designed. But still, there’s something a little unengaging about it all for some reason.

The Vanir power struggle subplot begins, to be paid off next episode, Tegan and Turlough have a conversation about the ethics of killing, mandated by the story arc- they’ve both been sidelined a bit- and we get the big revelation; Terminus’s first engine blowing up started the Big Bang and the second one’s about to blow, taking the universe with it! I’m not sure I buy this- surely the civilisation that built this ship also built many more, each with the potential to do the same, so by the law of averages the universe should have ended by now? Still, in the context of the story, it works. Oh, and it’s technically all Turlough’s fault if it does.

Part Four

“You represent a pure investment of my time and energy!”

It’s quite unexpected to see that the Garm does actually cure Nyssa. Not only that, he can talk, too, and also save the universe by pushing a lever. He’s a giant (Norse mythology!) as are the Vanir (Norse mythology!) and presumably the same species as the ship’s dead pilot.

The cure may have worked on Nyssa, but it’s crude, unfocused and as likely to kill as to cure. Nyssa, on the other hand, would be able to turn it into a much better cure, much as she would be able to synthesise unlimited supplies of hydromel to free the Vanir from their dependence on the Company, just as the Garm has been freed by the Doctor.

“It’ll be good to see the TARDIS again.” says the Doctor. “And Tegan.” Adds Nyssa, “Well…” says the Doctor!!! It isn’t even the first time he’s said something like this- he doesn’t even like Tegan, and is only putting up with her to avoid an unpleasant scene. Blimey!

Nyssa stays behind where she’s needed, in a fitting and unexpectedly emotional departure.

I can’t put my finger on anything that was actually wrong with this, but it seemed somehow unengaging for large stretches. There’s a lot about it that’s good though, and its bad reputation hardly sees fair. I give it a solid 3/5.