The Sweeney: Big Spender

 "I found a way of getting a lot of bread for no graft at all."

Intriguing episode, this, where it takes time for the penny to drop about what mild-mannered Wardle is up to, why this harmless little accountant is associating with the notorious Smith brothers and spending so much money, including on his prostitute girlfriend. In the end  it works out satisfyingly enough, although this episode isn't up there withe the best.

There's a lot of good stuff, though, including a satisfyingly '70s car chase- Rolls Royce vs. Ford Cortina. We get a magnificent central performance from Warren Mitchell.. in drag, at one point. Wardle is a truly tragic figure. A respectable, mild-mannered accountant straight out of that Monty Python sketch, who makesa lot of money from a parking scam, gets blackmailed... and clearly knows from the beginning that he can only ride his luck so far.

Haskins, though... as Regan says, he's "on the turn". He's been quite an understanding boss of late- why is he suddenly being so harsh? Or is his Jekyll and Hyde nature just who he is...?

Blake's 7: Star One

“Avon, for what it’s worth, I have always trusted you, from the very beginning.”

The final episode is written by Chris Boucher, which is fitting; a symbolic changing of the guard at script level which mirrors the changing of the guard aboard the Liberator in this bold, amazing and pivotal episode. Whoever said that season finales weren’t supposed to have been invented in 1979?

The first tension-filled scene, with a ship being rammed by a mysterious small vessel, looks amazing. It’s uncannily similar visually to the opening scene from Star Wars, and that’s deliberate: this is 1979. And it’s the perfect indication of the epic nature of what we’re about to see unfold over the next fifty minutes.

We get the backstory from Servalan thereafter. (And this is where I first notice the prominent Federation symbol; interesting how closely it resembles the symbol for the Federation in Star Trek, but from an entirely different perspective on what such a Federation would be like!) The attack is just one of many catastrophic events happening throughout the Federation’s outer worlds, most of which seem to involve weather control malfunctions. Ah, weather control! Such a very old-fashioned sci-fi trope, isn’t it? It belongs to a past era which believed in progress more than we do, an era of Concorde and Butskellism where the state spending money was seen as a Good Thing, chaos theory (which nixes weather control) had yet to enter popular culture and people believed that it would one day be possible for mankind to explore space. Happy days, or at least I’m told. Alas, I was born in 1977.

Er, anyway, Servalan’s underling tells her that all this can only mean problems at Star One, something which Servalan refuses to believe. She has to; not only does she not know where it is, no one knows where it is. Even the scientists living there are marooned forever, and both selected and conditioned to be the types of people who would never attempt to communicate with outside.

Er, is this wise? If Star One is so important, and disorder in the universe is always increasing (the good old Second Law of Thermodynamics, says that clever Professor Brian Cox), then surely there will be problems in store when the scientists are all dead and Star One inevitably starts to go wrong?

Blake and co know where it is, though. The co-ordinates take them to a spot a little outside the galaxy, into the dark, intergalactic board. They’re off the edge of the map. Here be monsters, inevitably.

And this where we get an incredible, pivotal scene. We’ve seen lots of arguments between Blake and Avon, but this time it’s final. Things are said which cannot be unsaid. “Show me something who believes in anything, and I’ll show you a fool”, says Avon. He doesn’t mean it, of course. By now we know that he doesn’t like tyranny any more than Blake does. It’s just that he’s horrified by Blake’s recklessness and is deliberately saying the most hurtful things he can. Beneath the exterior, Avon is a very moral man who is loyal to his friends and cares a lot. That’s why he loathes Blake’s casual attitude to other peoples’ lives.

He basically Admits, too, that all that stuff at the end of last episode about using Star One to rule the galaxy is just him lashing out at Blake and again trying to be hurtful. This would be quite as morally objectionable to Avon as it would be to Blake. No; Avon has an ultimatum for Blake: they destroy Star One, and then they’re finished. It’s over. Blake gets dropped off on Earth and the Liberator is Avon’s. He even calls Blake a fanatic to his face.

But Blake lacks the confidence to really argue back; this is the episode where he comes the closest to what he wants, and yet he’s racked with doubt, as are others; even the normally loyal Cally points out that with out Star One, many people would die. Is all this really worth it? There are some powerful ethical issues at work. Yet, the end of the scene, whatever the supposed caveats, Avon gets exactly what he wants. He, not Blake, is the Alpha Male now.

Meanwhile, Servalan speaks of chaos spreading across the Federation leadership. She has decreed the President and the Council to be incapable of dealing with the crisis. She has launched a coup and had them arrested, no doubt to be “disappeared”. The scene ends with her senior underling addressing her as “Madame President”.

Avon and his crew discover Star One to be a tiny, barely habitable world orbiting an isolated white dwarf. Avon notes that this is the nearest point to the Andromeda Galaxy. Implying that, with human technology, it would take thousands of years to travel there, he has nevertheless spotted that there are thousands of satellite generators lying beyond it; a “minefield” place there by the Federation! Does this imply a known threat from the direction of Andromeda, a threat which would most likely arrive through this exact point? Orac confirms that these minefields extend around all those parts of the Galaxy’s edge which are occupied by humans, and this implies that the Federation (and humanity) does not occupy all of the Milky Way or even necessarily very much of it.

Oh, and I’m not sure about the concepts of minefields, what with space being three-dimensional and all, but never mind. I think a bit of handwavium is justified, because this is great.

Avon, Blake and Cally teleport down, and are separated. Blake and Cally do the “take me to your leader” thing while Avon walks around being cynical. But another ship is landing, one identical to the small vessel form the opening scene. Blake, meanwhile is expected, but it soon becomes apparent that he’s been mistaken for Travis.

Events start hurtling forward apace; Blake sets his bombs, but other things are afoot. All of the scientists but one are impostors, alien beings from Andromeda sent as an advance party to destroy the minefields. Gazillions of alien ships are heading towards Star One, from Andromeda, to launch an invasion. Oh, and Travis is here, in league with the aliens in a betrayal of his own species- and it’s implied that the aliens intend on committing genocide, or something pretty damn close.

Blake is a lost figure by this point, forced to abandon all hope of fighting against the Federation because of the need for humanity to unite against this greater enemy. Even his being shot and seriously injured by Travis, which should be dramatic in itself, is almost merely a symbol of his more general impotence from this point on.

Servalan has a big decision to make, too; given the new threat, she contacts Servalan and asks for Federation military back-up. Suddenly, all previous quarrels have become a luxury which no-one can afford.

One quarrel is ended for good, though. It’s fitting, given the constant tension between Blake and Avon about whether to kill Travis, that Avon should shoot him dead so casually and irrevocably. It’s yet another moment which signifies which of the two of them is now on top.

Servalan sends a fleet, but it will take an hour to arrive; the Liberator, facing hopeless odds, is the only thing which can possibly fight them. Blake briefly tries to return, but he’s yesterday’s man; Avon insists that he buggers off back to Star One. Accepting his new lack of status, he agrees and duly sods off. It’s Avon, showing his true heroic colours, who leads the crew of the Liberator in what must surely be a hopeless last stand against the invading hordes…

What an episode!

Blake's 7: The Keeper

“Don’t you trust me?”

“No, of course not!”

Allan Prior does his best with making the dialogue sound realistic, but the first few lines of this episode consist of possibly the most blatant case of “as you know, Bob” syndrome ever. Characters keep falling over each other to explain things all of them already know for the viewer’s benefit; a surgeon called Lurgen left his brain print on the planet Goth, and this brain print is being worn around the neck of a tribal chief. It apparently contains the location of Star One and, given that this is the penultimate episode of the series, we know damn well that they’re going to find it.

This is a bit of an Avon-lite episode, but there’s plenty of the ongoing tension between him and Blake, with Avon winding Blake up by asking why they don’t just take over Star One and rule the galaxy rather than destroying it. But he and Cally are this weeks teleport operators, while Blake, Jenna and Vila get to teleport down. This may not be entirely unconnected with the fact that Sally Knyvette and Gareth Thomas are leaving soon.

As is traditional, the planet Goth bears an uncanny resemblance to the South-East of England, although I’m glad to see some more of the recent tendency to give all alien planets an interesting natural feature; in this case it’s a sulphurous atmosphere, poisonous in the long-term. This doesn’t really affect the plot, but it’s a nice touch.

The only locals we see are a tribe called “the Goths”. As this is also the name of the planet are they the only people living on this world or is their name of the tribe just a big coincidence. Whatever, they’re great. Bruce Purchase chews the scenery magnificently as Gola, the chieftain. He has a sister, a mysterious seeress, and a fool, in good mediaeval tradition. The whole look of the costumes, sets and hairstyles are all way cool, too, partly mediaeval but with a large hint of the Gauls of Asterix, complete with a drug-addled religious figure.

Unfortunately, our herpes are all captured fairly quickly because the Liberator, in typical Blake’s 7 style, has gone out of teleporter range. This has happened because Avon has spotted Travis’ ship and, in sharp contrast to Blake’s constant shilly-shallying about killing him, coldly sets out to shoot him in the back. He apparently does this, as the ship blows up.

Except Travis isn’t aboard, as we soon discover after Blake is finally teleported up to have a bit of a shouting match with Avon before buggering off back to the surface again. Travis is staying with Gola, as is Servalan, and they’re also on the trail of Star One for reasons of their own personal gain, a fact which should entirely fail to surprise us.

Blake rescues a big shouty bloke called Rod, who proceeds to speak of a brother and, er, shout a lot. Both of them head towards the chief’s tent, where Jenna is to be “pair-bonded” with Gola (isn’t she lucky!) although apparently she’s not supposed to touch him- being chief doesn’t seem all that much fun in that case! Vila, meanwhile, is expected to become the new fool. Naturally, he proves to be quite brilliant at this.

Sally Knyvette is brilliant in her scenes with Gola; her facial acting is particularly superb. You always feel that, despite appearances, she’s always in control of the situation, but the mysterious seeress is another matter. Still, Jenna eventually discovers that the seeress’ amulet is not the one they want.

Vila is thrown into a cell after an unfortunate incident with some ventriloquism, where we discover that his neighbour is a mysterious old man. I wonder if there’s anybody who’s ever seen this episode and didn’t immediately work out that he’s Gola’s father and the ousted previous chief?

Jenna continues to manipulate the rather thick Gola, to Servalan’s great annoyance, and soon discovers that his amulet isn’t the one they want either. So, it must be someone else. Cue the arrival of Rod, who we all worked out was Gola’s brother from the get go. They proceed to fight a dual with rather odd weapons, but are both killed, and Rod’s amulet isn’t the right one either.

We end in the old chief’s cell as he dies. The royal line is extinct and it seems the amulet has gone, until a verbal trigger leads the fool to start chanting the location of Star One. Time for a season finale…

Blake's 7: Gambit

“An eyepatch? Oh, how quaint!”

The fantastic Robert Homes is back. This time he gets an arc episode, and it’s typical Robert Holmes, with everyone double-crossing each other and loads of wonderful dialogue.

The setting is Freedom City, an underworld den of pleasure said to be far superior to Space City from earlier in the series, and lying just outside the Federation. We certainly get a much richer idea of what the place is like than in the earlier story, and this is thanks to both the excellent script and the wonderful realisation. It’s said that Blade Runner invented the sci-fi trope of fashions being cyclical, allowing us to present a retro future. But it’s done earlier and so very effectively here. Krantor, the wonderfully quotable old queen and big boss of the establishment, played by the wonderfully mellifluous Aubrey Woods, and John Leeson’s Toise, dress both themselves and their quarters (shared, I presume!) in Regency finery, while the establishment abounds in historical costumes of all kinds, including, at one point, a nun in the casino.

All this is fascinating; it tells us that knowledge of history has survived all these centuries into the future, as have chess, the casino and the French language. But there’s a story arc to advance, too; this space surgeon can only be the Docholli we heard of last episode, especially as he is accompanied by none other than Travis.

Blake and co have traced Docholli here and, in an almost unheard of departure from recent convention, he actually takes Jenna and Cally down to the surface with him, leaving Avon and Vila to operate the teleport, something he seems usually to consider as women’s work. But Blake and co are nowhere as interesting as what’s going on elsewhere, such as the speed chess tournament against Deep Roy’s wonderful Klute. To win or draw against him means a prize of two million credits but, as we see when Klute is later challenged by a Restoration fop(!), failure means electrocution and vaporisation. It is, as Avon says, the ultimate risk and the ultimate thrill to the true gambler. We end, not with a laughing cavalier, but with a laughing Klute. It’s the same distinct laugh that became so familiar as that of Mr Sin in Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng Chiang.

Servalan is also here, of course, and for the same reason. This being a Robert Holmes story, she has an ever-present underling called Jarriere to form the other half of this Holmesian double act and marvel at her cleverness. In a wonderful scene between Servalan and Krantor, we establish their relationship as they politely carry out their scenes against each other. Servalan makes a deal with Krantor for the delivery of both Doccholli and Travis, in the full knowledge that he will seek Docholli’s secrets first. Krantor will have no use for this knowledge, but Servalan will then have a casus belli to annex this world to Federation, and to “have that vulpine degenerate eviscerated with a small and very blunt knife”. (Interesting choice of words- shades of Nazi Germany versus Weimar Berlin?) Naturally, they’ve both bugged each other. Oh, and I simply love that mirror.

The subplot between Avon and Vila is great too, of course. I love the way they both prey on Orac’s arrogance to manipulate him into playing along, and Vila’s hopeless inability to hide his obviously improbable run of luck.

I’m a bit confused about Travis- last episode he seemed to be on the brink of being captured by the Federation, yet here no allusion is made to this, and he seems to have been following Docholli for a long time. Still, Servalan captures him this time, and rather cleverly turns him into a walking bomb, so as to kill both birds (and possibly Blake) with the one stone. I love the way Holmes seems to gently mock the character’s pomposity here.

Docoholli is being pursued by Cevedic, a character played by an actor instantly recognisable as one Bill Filer to us Doctor Who fans. But the inevitable barmaid-with-a-heart-of-gold hatches an escape plan for him. It’s a good plan, and almost works, but on this story everything is overheard. Bill Filer catches up with him, only to be killed by Travis. Also turning up are Blake, Jenna and Cally, who have remarkably little to do this episode. The bomb doesn’t go off for some reason, and Docholli admits to Blake that, although he can’t tell Blake where Star One is, he knows a man who can. That’ll be the same as the end of last episode then.

Oh, and Blake once again fails to kill Travis, which the script is by now openly mocking him for; “If you’re man enough, kill me now”, goads Travis. Blake isn’t man enough, although Jenna is, it seems. Travis lives to fight another day.

Meanwhile, Vila is rumbled, and drugged into playing speed chess against Klute. With Orac’s help, though, he wins, and he and Avon are rich. They arrive just in time to convince the others they’ve never been away. This script is so good it can even get away with such a clichéd sitcom ending.

Blake's 7: Voice from the Past

“It doesn’t make for the most reliable of leaders, does it?”

I’d never heard of writer Roger Parkes before, until glancing at IMDb just now, but there’s something a little off about this story. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that the tone of this political intrigue is a little off, and that the revelation that there are idealists in high positions rather undermines the Federation’s credentials as a Big Faceless Invincible Totalitarian Thing.

The crew of the Liberator begin, rather sensibly in the light of both how knackered they were last episode and what happened last time they over-tired themselves, by heading for a bit of a rest. But it’s not long before Blake, behaving even more oddly than usual, orders Zen to head towards an obscure asteroid instead, and haughtily refuses to explain this to anyone. I don’t think this attitude can be entirely blamed on external influences and, as we’ll see, the episode ends by pointedly not absolving him.

The crew (with a lot of guidance from Avon, clearly the alpha male in Blake’s absence) soon discover that Blake is being controlled in some way related to the brainwashing he received after his trial some years ago. Things go a bit mad for a while, but eventually Blake is restrained and the Liberator resumes course for the Planet of the Health Farms.

Except that Vila is a bit of a gullible muppet- which is, I’d say, just a little out of character. Nevertheless, Blake manages to convince him to lock everyone else up and resume their course towards the obscure asteroid.

Blake teleports down to the surface, in a short scene which is quite the most cringe-inducing yet; Blake is clearly stood just a foot or so in front of some god-awful matte painting. It’s the sort of sci-fi exterior set you’d expect to see at an infant school assembly, not from the BBC. Arse-clenchingly embarrassing stuff.

Mercifully, though, Blake eventually finds some indoor sets, rather safer ground for the production. There are also a load of people, apparently rebels, led by a chap called Ven Glynd, a former senior Federation politico who seems to have defected. Unfortunately there’s also an utterly absurd bandaged figure with silly false eyes, who is apparently the legendary Shivan, a revolutionary hero who has been presumed dead.

Blake is quickly persuaded- rather too quickly persuaded according to Avon, who is invariably right about these things- that the group have a foolproof plan to legally expose various pieces of Federation skulduggery, including Servalan’s dodgy dealing with Orac at the end of last season and the killing of Blake’s defence barrister. Blake seems to swallow this, simply because of the mention of an apparently “sane” Federation ambassador called Le Grand. And yet, if the Federation can indeed be successfully challenged through its own legal system, and with the help of apparently decent and reasonable Federation apparatchiks, does this not undermine the sense we’ve always been given that the Federation is an extremely nasty, arbitrary, 1984-via-Brezhnev, totalitarian police state? The revelations we later discover in no way make up for the fact that our image of the Federation as an uber-scary and powerful entity has been badly damaged by the fact that this sort of thing is even considered plausible by the characters we know.

Still, Avon’s having none of this and Orac backs him up; Blake is still being mind-controlled. We begin to receive hints that he’s intended as a figurehead in a “triumvirate between himself, Le Grand and Ven Glynd, with Ven Glynd clearly seeing himself as the Octavian.

Le Grand’s ship lands on the planet Atlay, where the conference is due to be held, in a magnificent piece of model work from the one and only Mat Irvine. But it’s a trap; the arena is empty apart from a load of Federation troops and Servalan on a screen; Le Grand’s treachery has been known all along, and she lets out a few tears at the end of her dream. Then the shooting starts. Meanwhile, on the Liberator, it’s revealed that the bandaged figure was Travis all the time. He seems to be losing more and more dignity with each appearance.

The melee ends with everyone (except the redshirts from the asteroid, who all die) back aboard the Liberator, and Travis about to be arrested by Federation troops. Blake has forgotten all of these events, and immediately abandons all thought of his crew’s much-deserved rest in favour of renewed action against the Federation; they need to find this Docholli. Once again he’s pushing his crew hard, and the consequences will no doubt be tragic; if they are, then

Blake's 7: Countdown

“That thing is ticking away the lives of everyone on this planet.”

Terry Nation’s back, and to celebrate this we get the most appropriate episode title possible. This entire episode is the most Terry Nation thing ever, what with both the countdown and the quest to an inhospitable location. And yet, this is another good ‘un.

It’s another exciting start, with a rebel raid on a Federation base on the planet Albion. There are some rather unconvincing cave sets, but otherwise this is fast-paced, engaging stuff, climaxing in the Federation leader starting the timer on an ominous-looking device, a device which will kill everyone on the planet. It’s the ultimate in scorched Earth tactics.

Coincidentally, the Liberator is already heading for Albion, as Blake wants to talk to a senior Federation officer, Space Major Provine. There are rumours that this Provine fellow knows where Federation Central Control is and, as we’ve established, once Blake’s obsessed with something he sees it through to the end.

Albion was “colonised in the last century of the old calendar”- nice bit of world-building there- and it’s been under Federation control for yonks. It’s cold and inhospitable at the poles and, as surely as the proverbial revolver in Act One always gets fired in Act Three, we know this is going to be relevant.

Following recent precedence, it’s the men who go down while the women just, er, man the teleporters. The Liberator is not exactly an equal opportunities ship.

Blake and co discover a rocker clearly meant to function as an escape raft, and again we know this going to become relevant, especially as Provine is on the loose. But soon they make contact with the rebels, a friendly lot, and Avon gets a good look at the bomb. It’s not good news; the actual device is somewhere else, and it could be anywhere on the planet. Worse, the rebels have hired a mercenary by the name of Del Grant- the excellent Tom Chadbon- an old acquaintance of Avon’s who has sworn to kill him. Oh, and Provine is loose, disguised, and armed.

Apparently the bomb will kill only people, leaving all infrastructure intact and, rather interestingly, is seemingly guaranteed to leave no trace of radiation after a day. Er, I’m no scientist, but I suspect this to be rather dodgy science. Still, it’s very Terry Nation.

The first meeting between Avon and Grant is, as expected, most interesting. Our first impressions of the reasons for the feud don’t exactly make Avon look good; apparently he abandons his girlfriend Anna, Grant’s sister, to suffer a week of torture at the hands of the Federation, a week during which she refuses to betray him and eventually dies. But there’s little time for this; Orac has found the bomb and, inevitably, it’s right under one of the polar ice caps. Equally inevitably, it’s Avon and Grant who end up going to defuse it- for impeccable plot reasons, of course. Also inevitable is some stock footage of some tundra. Still, all this inevitability doesn’t make the whole thing any less dramatic. This episode is a textbook example of how even the most hoary of old clichés can make good drama if written well.

The tension as they defuse the bomb is unbearable; if the bomb, the ticking clock and the threat of the ice falling on their heads weren’t bad enough, there’s also the tension between them. Avon reveals that he was genuinely unable to help Anna as he was genuinely unconscious, and never gave up on her until he knew she was dead. Grant doesn’t believe him but, I think, we viewers do. We’ve seen the vast gulf between his surface defensive cynicism, a cover for deep pain and vulnerability, and his actual behaviour, which is generally honourable, loyal and, yes, heroic, and laudably modest with it. This is a decent, good man who doesn’t want to admit to any emotional attachments, either to people or things, because in the end they hurt too much is this harsh universe.

While the two of them talk it through, Blake wins a shoot out with Provine, and hears his dying words. Apparently Federation Central Control is known as “Star One”. Provine can’t say where it is, but he knows a man who can; a cyber-surgeon called Docholli…

Avon and Grant show how heroic they both are by removing their bracelets, forcing them to keep trying until the end, risking their lives. But it’s Avon who proves the most resourceful and honourable, stopping the countdown with just a second to spare. With this, he earns Grant’s respect, and the two eventually part with a handshake.

We end with Avon rebuffing Blake’s attempts to bond with him over Anna. The two of them are not friends, and while Blake seems to respect Avon I don’t think the reverse is true. And it’s clear that Avon is in fact capable of feelings we might not expect him to be capable of from his surface demeanour. But there’s an awful lot going on beneath the surface part of the iceberg.

Blake's 7: Hostage

“Personally, I like the edges a little blurred.”

Here’s another script by Allan Prior, and rather surprisingly the first “arc” episode to be written by someone other than Chris Boucher or Terry Nation. We start with an extended sequence with the Liberator being in a spot of considerable bother from an extremely large number of pursuit ships. They escape only narrowly, with both the ship’s and crew’s energy levels being drained. Once again we’re made very aware of the extreme stress and danger of their fugitive existence. The last time they were under this much pressure, a member of the crew died. The stakes are high. Things can’t just continue like this. Right now, the life expectancy for Blake and his crew looks rather short.

It’s a novelty to see a different Space Commander doing the things we’re used to seeing from Travis, but the result is the same, only over a much shorter time-scale; Servalan simply orders Space Commander Redshirt to place himself under arrest for failure. No doubt we’ll never hear of him again.

Things are shaken up with a message to Blake from Travis, who is holding Blake’s cousin hostage. He claims that, with both of them being fugitives, it’s an alliance. It is, of course, a blatant trap. It seems that Inga and her father Ushton, Blake’s uncle, live on the former penal colony world of Exbar. It’s nice to get a slightly more imaginative description of the surface conditions than usual, with the thin envelope of atmosphere and air running out at high altitudes meaning, as we see later, that gas masks are used. I like this sort if thing. Yes, by necessity all planets have to look like the South of England, but this kind of thing helps to counteract that and give an impression that we are indeed on another planet.

Servalan has also received a similar message, from a mysterious source later revealed to be Avon in the latest consequence of his rival with Blake. She also receives a very interesting visitor: the senior politician Joban, played by the utterly splendid Kevin Stoney. Their sparring conversation is an absolute joy, and it’s becoming clear that from this point onwards Servalan is under pressure to get results, or bad things may happen.

Blake teleports down and is warmly greeted by his uncle, played by the ubiquitous John Abineri although we know, of course, that Ushton has to be doing Travis’ bidding. More surprisingly, Avon, having scorned the whole enterprise as a typically stupid risk by Blake, and angrily told Blake that he shouldn’t expect anyone else to risk their own lives over his actions, suddenly and unexpectedly teleports down. He says only that he “feels responsible”, and it’s only later that we discover why: it was he who sent the message to Servalan.

It’s not long before Avon insists on bringing Vila down too, but they are all eventually captured by Travis and his “crimoes” (why do we keep getting silly words like this in Blake’s 7?). Travis interrogates Vila as to how to use the teleport bracelet, revealing how he missed his vocation as a travelling preacher (“The word! The word! The word!”). A Crimo teleports aboard the Liberator, gloats to Jenna and Cally about how intelligent and sadistic he is, and is promptly duffed up good and proper by both of them, being teleported into space for good measure.

Inga escapes, meaning Ushton no longer has to do Travis’ bidding, and the tide is soon turned. Yet again Travis is defeated, yet again Blake refuses to kill him for the usual flimsy reasons, and once again Avon clearly disapproves. Blake’s foolishness here is soon proves as, far from arresting him, Servalan strikes a deal; if Travis successfully leads her to Blake, she’ll have him officially listed as dead. This is quite daring of Servalan, especially after she deliberately ignored a message from Joban a little earlier. Could it be that she is now skating on some rather thin ice.

Another excellent episode, this, both on its own terms and in where it leaves the characters. What a shame that it has to end with an incestuous kiss between Blake and his own first cousin.

Blake's 7: Killer

“Yes, but then we're absentminded scientists, you see. In fact, we've forgotten your name already.”

Ooh, it’s a script by the great Robert Holmes! Seeing his name come up had me quite excited, I can tell you. What we get here is a seemingly effortless piece of storytelling, with the pacing, characterisation and plotting all just masterful.

We start the story in media res, with Avon and Vila teleporting down to the planet Phosphoron to embark on a mission of some kind. Phosphoron, like all planets we’ve seen so far, bears an uncanny resemblance to Hertfordshire or Surrey, and is home to a small Federation base. All of this is established with the kind of narrative efficiency and avoidance of blatant exposition that we don’t always get from Terry Nation, bless his cotton socks.

There’s another factor, though; a Wanderer class vessel spotted by the Liberator. This ship is six to seven centuries old and “infraluminal”; incapable of faster-than-light travel. Its position is a mystery; it should take much more than seven centuries to get to this part of the galaxy, and Cally detects a “malignant” presence.

This vessel has been spotted on Phosphoron, and preparations are being made to bring it to the surface for study. Meanwhile, Avon and Vila manage to break into the complex, which looks very similar to the many contemporary 1970s industrial locations we’ve seen on Blake’s 7 up to this point.

Robert Homes gives us his trademark well-rounded, worldly wise characters, with both Tynus and Dr Bellfriar having rather more depth than we would normally expect from characters of this type. We’re told that Avon plans to exploit his powers of blackmail over Tynus to force him to help them break a new Federation code which will allow them to listen in to all Federation communications. A plan is hatched, but it will take ten hours…

Orac has some information on the missing craft; the only Wanderer craft not accounted for disappeared in the area of 61 Cygni, the “darkling zone”, the only region of space near to earth which remains uncharted, and from whence no traveller returns. That’s nowhere near as alarming as the events on the surface; there’s been an invasion of Michelin men.

Oh, and Blake, motivated by nothing other than curiosity, teleports down and is immediately spotted and caught. Yes, Dr Bellfriar turns out to be friendly, but this doesn’t alter the fact that Blake is an utter plonker.

A body is found aboard the ship, and an autopsy is carried out, but the pathologist- nicely imbued with personality by both the script and Morris Barry in spite of such a minor role- is suddenly killed as the corpse comes to life, breaks his neck and promptly carks it again. Unfortunately, this lets loose a plague throughout the facility, which will mean that all of the guest characters, uniquely, die in this story.

Blake has theories; the virus is airborne, and not even those ridiculous masks with the dark shades and bubble wrap over the mouth are going to save and of the many redshirts. He quotes an historical instance of Lord Jeffery Amherst deliberately planning to use blankets infected with smallpox against, er “redskins” in North America during the Seven Years’ War. It seems that pre-space flight history is still remembered more than seven centuries in the future.

This is a deliberate attempt, it seems, by a hidden civilisation in the Cygnus 61 era to ethnically cleanse the galaxy of humans. Dr Bellfield’s concluding monologue seems to confirm that the virus will only affect those who have been exposed to deep space, in an attempt to confine humans to one planet. He is unable to finish the chemical formula for the antidote, however, and we have a very downbeat ending as Blake launches a plague warning to alert anyone approaching the planet.

Absolutely brilliant.

Blake's 7: Trial

“Resist the host, or your oneness will be absorbed.”

An excellent episode, this. I’m relieved that the events of last episode have been dealt with. On reflection I’ve become even more strongly convinced of Blake’s culpability for Gan’s death; we had foreshadowing in Horizon as Blake continued to push his tired crew, and the title “Pressure Point” is an obvious follow-on from that, as well as probably referring to Blake’s state of mind.

Chris Boucher is handling the scripting here; probably the wise course for such a character-based episode, with two contrasting “trials” which reach opposite conclusions but then meet at the end. Certainly, Travis’ fate is fascinatingly Machiavellian; being hung out to dry by Servalan for atrocities he committed three years previously on Zircaster. ( Incidentally, these episodes remind me of Magic Bullet’s Kaldor City audios a lot, and not just for the presence of Peter Miles, here reprising his role as Rontane from last series. Kaston Iago, played by Paul Darrow, is said to have killed “the butcher of Zircaster. This may, or not, imply who he is.)

Travis’s court martial is narrated, interestingly, through two pairs of characters; the two guards (one played by Kevin Lloyd, later to play Tosh on The Bill) give us the perspective of the poor bloody infantry (they even have regional accents), while Rontane and Bercol comment for us on the significance of this trial in the context of Servalan’s machinations; if Travis can be quickly executed, he will be unable to testify as to her recent incompetence in the pursuit of Blake. Naturally, she’s watching the trial through a secret camera and, naturally, Travis’ defence counsel, Thania, is an underling of hers.

Blake’s trial, though, is self-imposed. He needs time to think, and Gan’s death has hit him hard. He is beginning to question the wisdom of his continuous tilting at windmills and to realise the liability he has become to others. And yet, the signs are there that this will not last. He is notably reckless in his failure to gather much information about the world on which he is to plan his brief (or not) exile, and in pig-headedly refusing to carry a gun. His message to his crew is quite extraordinary; on the one hand he is risking abandonment and possible death, and on the other hand the whole situation is so staggeringly passive-aggressive. Avon is right to scorn him for self-pity. And while Avon (who earlier refers to Blake’s “three remaining followers”, a figure which seems to exclude himself) may vocally suggest abandoning him, his behaviour suggests otherwise. The detector shield he is building, to protect the Liberator from the long-range scanners of Federation ships, is not only a markedly more constructive achievement than anything Blake has had as leader, but also a sign of his continuing long-term commitment.

Blake is not alone, though. Apparently there’s a woman in a rubber suit somewhere nearby, and she seems to be taunting him with a water pistol. Eventually this ridiculous figure reveals herself to be Zil, and somewhat cryptically explains to Blake what is more usefully summarised by Orac on the Liberator: this world is a single, Gaia-style, living organism, which immediately makes me think of that recent Adam Curtis documentary, which seemed to assert that the late 1970s was when such ideas started to permeate the general consciousness. The planet is having one of its regular “purges” of parasite. Tragically, Zil, who is rather nice, dies shortly after Blake realises she was protecting him because she thought he was a newborn child.

It is Avon’s cleverness, significantly, that leads to Blake’s rescue. But Travis is already in trouble. His trial is conducted in the same way as Blake’s in The Way Back, with evidence being analysed, apparently objectively, within seconds by a computer after the evidence is submitted. But Travis manages to seize a chance to possibly change things by delivering his own closing speech, insisting that his actions are only the result of his training. This is to no avail, though; he is still sentenced to death.

Blake, predictably, is full of renewed purpose; it seems he will never see the error of his ways. This cannot end well. He proposes a quick attack on Servalan’s HQ using Avon’s detector shield to slip away again, although what value beyond a gesture that this has is, to say the least, unclear.

The predictable result is, of course, that Travis escapes in the confusion, with a pursuit ship and three “blanked” Mutoids. Travis is pursuing Blake, and Servalan is pursuing Travis…

Blake's 7: Pressure Point

“Sooner or later, I will have my chance.”

Blimey! It’s Terry Nation again. And it’s a cracker of an episode. Yet again it seems he’s a much better writer when his batteries have been recharged. Then again, of course, it’s fitting that such a pivotal episode in the series arc should be written by the series creator.

We begin with a couple of rebels, dressed rather like terrorists used to dress in the 1970s, skulking about by the Federation’s main computer system, Control. Initially I winced at the thatched cottage, but it seems Control is on Earth. In the South-East of England, it seems. Where else?

Watching them are Travis, Servalan in a rather fetching hat, and a couple of Mutoids. (Are all Mutoids women? I don’t think we’ve seen a male one yet.) Sadly, with Terry doing the scripting, their relationship is rather more one-note than it was last time. They’ve been expecting this scouting party, which seems to belong to Kasabi, a rebel leader played by Jane Sherwin off of Doctor Who and the War Games.

Blake, meanwhile, plans to strike at Control, the most heavily protected site in the Federation, and deliver a crippling blow to the Federation. It seems to be an utterly insane risk, and to mark a new stage in Blake’s recklessness. He’s even misled the crew about why they’ve been heading towards the Solar System. As we shall see, these tendencies are going to escalate, with awful consequences. This may be the episode where Blake crosses the line and starts to be genuinely in heed of psychiatric help.

Interestingly, only Cally is with Blake at the start, with everyone else needing a fair amount of persuading. Blake has apparently been secretly planning this for a year, and has already made contact with Kasabi. (Interestingly, we get some more information about the series backstory here; the Federation started its “expansion and conquest” about two hundred years previously.)

Avon’s reaction is absolutely fascinating. He makes no secret of his disdain for the scheme, deliberately keeps Blake in suspense, but nevertheless agrees to take part in what he derides as almost a suicide mission. But there’s a lot of meaning in his “I am surprised you ever doubted it.” Yet again it’s clear that his cynical exterior hides a loyalty to his friends and a sympathy with Blake’s aims, if not his reckless methods. He’d make the better freedom fighter of the two. Yes, he may claim that his motive is to get Blake leading a rebellion on Earth, leaving him in command of the Liberator. But I don’t believe him.

Servalan, unfortunately, takes Kasabi prisoner, and a trap is set for Blake. He and Gan teleport down and head for the rendezvous spot. Interestingly, this is the crypt of a church which has been left in ruins since “the Federation had them all destroyed at the beginning of the New Calendar.

In the crypt they find an injured young woman, Veron. The rather lovely Veron is Kasabi’s daughter, the only survivor of a Federation ambush during which she claims her mother was killed. She is, of course, doing the Federation’s bidding. At this point has to do a lot of convincing to get Gan to continue- he very reasonably assumes that this means things haven’t gone to plan and it will be too risky to continue. He’s right, and this will of course resonate later.

Just as damningly, Blake refuses to admit what has happened when he communicates with the Liberator, is spite of two direct questions from Avon. He has now essentially put both Avon and Vila in great danger on false pretences. He’s fully responsible for anything bad that befalls his comrades from now on.
The trap springs shut. Veron disappears, as do their teleport bracelets. Fortunately, Gan is ultimately able to force the door. From this point on we essentially have an obstacle course, and scenes rather uncannily similar to Terry Nation’s own Doctor Who story of a few years earlier, Death to the Daleks. We get a bit of foreshadowing on the monkey swing sequence, as Gan very nearly doesn’t make it…

At last they reach the centre of Control- and there’s nothing there. There hasn’t been for thirty years. This is all a massive red herring, and Blake is absolutely stunned. All that risk has been for nothing. It seems that Servalan and Travis have them, until Jenna arrives. It seems she’s handled the situation rather more rationally than Blake. Then again, at the moment that wouldn’t be difficult.

The episode climaxes with Gan dying during their escape. It makes sense to kill him at this point; as his pervert tendencies seem to have been dropped this season (where could they have taken that, though?), the character is suddenly too bland to keep around, which is no reflection on David Jackson. But this marks a turning point; Blake is entirely responsible for his friend’s death. He’s become a dangerous liability.

Blake's 7: Horizon

“Oh Hell. I’m tired of running, Jenna.”

Blimey. For the first time, we get a writer who has neither written nor script edited an episode of Blake’s 7, nor do I know of him from Doctor Who. Allan Prior: who he? He’s rather good, whoever he is.

It seems Cally is now an expert in medical matters. Either that, or the fact that she’s a woman apparently means she’s good at nurturing and stuff. But the message is clear; the entire crew is knackered, dangerously knackered for a bunch of people who live in such constant danger. So what does Blake do? Yep; go chasing a nearby Federation freighter because he’s “curious”. This is one of many recent examples of a subtle but growing trend; instances of Blake showing that he is in fact a dangerous, reckless fanatic who is a danger to his crew, who would be better off with Avon who, in spite of his outward cynicism, is a sensible chap, has their best interests at heart and is not so apolitical as he pretends.

The freighter is going to Horizon, an isolated world on the very edge of this spiral arm. Blake follows, pushing his crew hard; Jenna makes it very clear that she’s tired. They make it through a magnetic barrier- another example of how Blake’s recklessness could have got them all killed- and eventually Blake and Jenna teleport down, but not before Avon overhears Blake admitting to her that he’s taking her, as the best pilot, as insurance to stop Avon running off without him.

Being knackered, they are both promptly spotted and hit by darts from a blowpipe, meaning that Gan and Vila have to go after them.

Blake and Jenna are interrogated by the Federation’s Commissar, a nasty little totalitarian who sees resistance as a “malfunction of the genes”, suffered by “one in 100,000” which is usually “detected in infancy”. Suddenly we’re back to the overtones of Brezhnev-style medicalisation of dissent as seen back in The Way Back, and we’re reminded just how awful the Federation is.

Alongside the Commissar is a young, hesitant man called Ro, nominally in charge of this planet. He’s played by Darien Angadi, who had a rather memorable part in I, Clavdivs. There’s a tension between him and the Federation, but as a young and weak ruler, he allows himself to resist, collaborating with what he tries to pretend are not his colonial overlords. As with the European colonies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Federation are interested in Horizon for its mineral resources, in this case Monopasium 239, a rare element(?) which can send ships “into new galaxies” (Is this new? Is humanity just about on the verge of leaving the Milky Way for the first time?). This is done by slave labour, and generally by the most repressive practices possible. 1979 is surprisingly late for a colonial allegory like this one, but Ro reminds me of one of those Indian princes who went to public school and Oxbridge.

Blake has an interesting conversation with Ro, in which he sows all sorts of doubts into his mind; it seems he saw a friend of Ro’s die on the way to Cygnus Alpha. This isn’t allowed to go on for long, though; soon they’re both dispatched to the mines, where there’s an interesting scene where Blake organises the rationing of food fairly. There they meet Selma, Ro’s consort, who has been dispatched to the mind for vaguely “seditious” remarks. This is pretty appalling, in fact so much so that it’s a bit of a misstep on part of the script. For Ro to treat the woman he supposedly loves like this makes it hard for us to sympathise with him at all.

With four of the crew missing, Cally goes down to find them, and promptly disappears. Now there’s just Avon. Will he flee, safe aboard the Liberator, or will he rescue his friends? There’s a degree of tension, but regular viewers know by now that he’s far more loyal and reliable than he superficially seems.

Meanwhile, Cally reveals to Ro that the Federation had his father killed, and he discovers the Federation had been considering having him killed. Worst of all, he has to watch while Selma is tortured. The climax is fitting, as Avon’s highly efficient rescue mission coincides with Ro, in traditional dress, killing the Commissar with his blowpipe.

Blake's 7: Weapon

“And the other mistake I made was not getting an advance on my fee…”

So, after fourteen straight scripts by Terry Nation we get at least two in a row from Chris Boucher. Can he possibly beat the record of his illustrious predecessor? We shall have to wait and see.

After some stock rocket footage, we see two fugitives scrabbling about in a quarry. One of them, Coser, is dressed rather oddly and played by John Bennett, and the other, Rashel is a slave, freed by him after his escape. She starts out very much in this role, but it’s nice how she becomes gradually more assertive as the story continues.

We then get a rather dreamlike sequence in which Travis apparently kills Blake. Except… it’s not Travis. Yes, I know that the character is subtly different, rather emasculated, and scripted far more for comic effect than we’ve seen before, but Brian Croucher is rubbish, isn’t he? It’ll be interesting to see whether my opinion shifts over time, but right now he seems rather one-dimensional, shouty and camp, far from the genuine menace exuded by Stephen Grief.

That was just a clone, of course; the real Blake is aboard the Liberator where he’s arguing, as he often does these days, over a particularly suicidal plan of his, or rather Cally’s (she has fanatical tendencies too, of course), to attack the Federation’s Weapons Developmental Base, an absurdly high profile target.

The relationship between Servalan and Travis is evolving in interesting ways, beyond being much shoutier; it’s clear that Travis has lost all of his menace and is basically her gimp. I suspect she keeps him around at least partly because she enjoys her power over him. This script certainly brings out the best in Jacqueline Pearce, who is fantastic here. We get some exposition, too; the “clonemasters” apparently have a monopoly on cloning, and the whole subject of cloning is generally treated as something exotic, which is not quite so much the case in these post-Dolly the Sheep days.

Orac informs Blake that his plan just isn’t a goer, as security around the Weapons Development Base is currently sky high; a bloke called Coser has escaped, with a brilliant new weapon he’s invented, called “IMIPAK”. It’s all exposition at the moment, aboard the Liberator as well as on the Clonemasters’ planet. We even learn that Blake is 34, just like me.

It’s not long before the plot gets going, though, as we see Coser and Rashel take refuge in a building. Interestingly, for the second Chris Boucher script in a row we have a heavy emphasis on social class, with Rashel being a slave and Coser being the sort of “B grade” technician who isn’t supposed to be clever enough to invent something like IMIPAK. It seems the Federation operates quite a rigid caste system.

We’re introduced to Carnell, played by the excellent Scott Fredericks, a psychostrategist or “puppeteer”, a kind of uber-smug version of Hari Seldon from Isaac Asimov’s splendid Foundation novels. He’s also, of course, one of the main characters in Magic Bullet’s excellent Kaldor City audios. And yes, I know I keep going on about them! He’s great here; flirting outrageously with Servalan and showing what a massive genius he is by casually thrashing the best chess computers of his time. He really must be a genius, considering Garry Kasparov’s –performances against a computer which would presumably be far less advanced. But he lets slip that he may have made a mistake- he assumes Coser is alone. And when he later charms an underling to let him see a report, he remarks that this has “saved his life”.

We switch to an industrial location, so often seen in Blake’s 7, for the denouement. The clone tricks Coser into handing over IMIPAK to Servalan, and it seems that it consists of a gun, with which you can shoot someone to “mark” them, and then press a button to blow them up. Coser makes it sound all good and everything, what with the power one would hold over someone who’s been marked, but why not cut the crap and just shoot them? We get a rather ridiculous scene in which Blake, Avon and Gan, having teleported down, all stand still long enough to be “marked” by Travis. Why doesn’t he just shoot them?

Servalan gives them all a chance to run, for plausible and rather clever reasons; after she blows them up it will be assumed that they have IMIPAK, whereas in fact Servalan does. I love the way she has her own agenda, rather than just acting on behalf of the Federation. She’s a deliciously ambitious woman.

Fittingly, it’s Rashel who saves the day, in a pleasingly assertive manner, and ends up alone on a planet of her own with a clone of Blake as her own sexual plaything. Fittingly, this episode sees her evolve from the lowest origins possible to being the most important person in this episode. And Carnell gets away before Servalan can kill him, but not before recording a message to Servalan telling her that she’s “undoubtedly the sexiest officer I have ever known”. She can’t resist a smile.

Not quite up to last week’s standards, but this is another good ‘un.

Blake's 7: Shadow

"Where are all the good guys?"

"Could be looking at them."

"What a depressing thought..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blake's 7: Redemption

“It felt personal. It always feels personal when someone tries to kill me.”

A new series, then. There’s not much difference to start with, what with the same theme titles and the prospect of a fourteenth episode in a row written by Terry Nation. But then we see Blake, Cally and Jenna- is it me, or do all of them have much bushier hair? And why is Blake dressed like a seventeenth century farm labourer?

Vila and Avon may not have noticeably bushier hair, but they are on film for some reason. But enough of fashion matters; we have some footage of the end of the last season to replay, although fortunately the recap is less clumsy than this time, and doesn’t feel the need to hold the viewer’s hand quite so firmly as we’re once again confronted with the horrifying concept of having to remember a couple of the main points from previous episodes.

Avon strings Blake for a bit before deigning to reveal his rather clever thoughts; he’s identified the starfield in the footage of the Liberator blowing up, and it’s the other side of the galaxy. All they need to do is avoid ever going there and they’ll be fine. This piece of cleverness is, of course, a blow for him in the ongoing contest between Blake and Avon for the role of alpha male. This seems to be ratcheted up a lot in this episode, as signalled early on by Avon: “Perhaps, in future, they won’t rely on you to provide all the answers.”

Suddenly the ship is attacked by two mysterious hostile vessels of unknown origin. The Liberator is pretty much helpless, and yet they recover from an almighty arse-whupping to discover they’re all alive and well, but without weapons, without Zen and heading somewhere at huge speed. Avon (he’s on fire today) suspects that they were deliberately weakened rather than killed, and the ship is being taken somewhere very specific.

We cut to a couple of rather cold young ladies inside a swanky space station. The décor inside the space station stands on the cusp of a new era; it shows some of the ineffable hallmarks of the 1980s BBC sci-fi set, as opposed to the 1970s BBC sci-fi set we’ve been used to. Dullness is beginning to be replaced with Light Entertainment spangliness. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend develops. Or not.

On board the Liberator it’s becoming clear that the ship is under the control of some outside force, while Blake and Avon continue their rather un-macho power struggle. Even Avon’s bravely saving Blake’s life (interesting that he never acts as cynically as he talks) is quickly used by Avon to verbally bitch-slap Blake.

Meanwhile, the earlier scenes of Cally doing some engineering work, with screwdrivers and everything, is rather undermined by the sight of Jenna handing out the tea. These late ‘70s gender roles, eh? It’s women’s lib gone mad.

Finally, some mysterious unseen baddies teleport aboard and capture the whole crew, one by one. We finally learn that these people are, as we’ve suspected, the people who built the Liberator. And, just when he’s needed, Orac is busy…

The aliens are rather unpleasant, rude and not afraid to dish out a little light torture at the slightest provocation. They’re escorted off the ship to some cells to await their imminent execution, while Blake is interrogated by “the System”, the all-powerful supercomputer that rules the three inhabited planets in this system. Avon, meanwhile, immediately begins to plan escape. He realises that, as Jenna points out, they apparently have no chance whatsoever, but he prefers to be defiant and die a good death. That’s interesting- behind the cold and sardonic exterior (a mask?), there is some passion.

Blake, in travelling to his interrogation, observes that this is a rather nasty, slavery-practising, totalitarian dictatorship of the most repressive kind imaginable, and we’ve already established that Blake is not particularly enthusiastic about such things. But, as he is interrogated, the System’s, er, systems start to go wrong, and it’s not long before sporadic mini-revolutions break out. How very appropriate to be watching this in 2011, with the Arab Spring still happening.

There’s an interesting glimpse into an old-fashioned world view of computers here, I think; this is still (just!) in an age before computers were seen as cool consumer goods and when they were still seen as potentially threatening to the freedom of the individual. It seems strangely modern in the light on contemporary talk about “The Singularity” and the excellent if typically and wonderfully all-over-the-place Adam Curtis documentary (All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace) from earlier this month.

The quickest revolution in all of history is carried out, er, quickly, in spite of the fact that there seem to be about three rebels. One of them dies saving Blake, of course, but collateral damage is by now an essential part of his lifestyle.

Avon’s still on fire, though- he spots that they’re in the exact part of space where the Liberator is doomed to blow up. The crew have all escaped, but it seems their fate is certain- until they see that they’re being pursued by a ship of the exact same design. Orac has been plotting all this time to make that ship explode, and explode it does, just as in the prediction. That was rather clever plotting. We end with a bit more Blake / Avon friction…

That was really rather good. Terry Nation can write quite well when he’s had a bit of time off.

Blake's 7: Orac

“I don’t intend to sit around and wait to die.”

What a very odd beginning. Terry Nation was clearly terrified that his radical decision to introduce a bit of continuity between consecutive episodes was a wild and dangerous risk, and the viewer needs to have the concept explained in words of one syllable. Hence the arse-clenchingly contrived recap, in which for some reason Blake goes to the trouble of editing together some clips and providing a voiceover, purely so that he can tell Avon something he already knows. It’s quite a contrast from watching recent episodes of Doctor Who written by Steven Moffat, I can tell you.

That’s not the only hangover from the previous episode, either. Avon, Jenna, Gan and Vila are all coming down with radiation sickness, meaning we finally get to see one of Terry Nation’s favourite things: anti-radiation drugs! As Avon puts it, “In a couple of weeks, we’ll all recover.” Er, quite.

Anyway, the Liberator’s off to Aristo to give the cells to Ensor, who has a dicky metal ticker, and hope that he’ll give them some anti-radiation drugs in return. Ensor, meanwhile, is feeding his fish and watering his plants in a room which could only possibly have existed in 1978 and no other year. He discovers a Federation ship has landed, containing two passengers and, of course, we immediately guess who they are. It seems that Servalan and Travis have to travel through the passageways under the city where monsters called “Phibians” lurk. This episode is the most Terry Nation thing ever.

Zen explains that Aristo hasn’t got much in the way of landmass, and that while it has old ruined cities on it, amphibians have only just evolved and started to colonise the landmasses. Er, how does that work then?

We essentially get two parallel quest narratives here: Blake and Cally on the surface; and Servalan and Travis underground amongst the nasty monsters. I’m sure I could come up with all sorts of ways this is symbolic of the contrasting natures of the two pairs, and all sorts of tropes surrounding quests, but I’m too busy laughing at the rubber monster. Sorry. Still, it’s interesting watching the shifting power dynamics between Servalan and Travis. Servalan does panic and need to be rescued by Travis (she is a female character in a story by Terry Nation, after all), but is quick to assert her authority over him as soon as the danger is over.

Blake and Cally find Ensor and tell him the sad news, sensibly omitting all the hijacking stuff. For reasons of plot convenience it now becomes necessary to take Ensor, along with Orac, up to the Liberator. Orac is this fantastic machine with the ability to connect to other computers without a direct connection. Which makes it, er, a slightly crapper version of the Internet. How very futuristic.

Travis and Servalan arrive at this dramatic moment, just in time to put a bit of excitement into the last few minutes before Avon saves the day at the very last possible moment. While all this is going on, Ensor quietly dies of not-having-any-more-to-contribute-to-the-plot syndrome.

So, Blake & co now have Orac, a second smartarse computer voiced by Peter Tuddenham to add to their collection. For some reason Orac can mathematically “predict” the future, and it seems the Liberator will explode very soon….

Well, I rather enjoyed that first series, in spite of the last few episodes showing some signs of repetitive writing. A solid set of characters and a premise that works. Roll on Series Two…

Blake's 7: Deliverance

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

The first few minutes actually look very impressive. There’s a small spaceship flying through the void, and we can actually see its two occupants through the front window. We then cut to a wheeled space station, on board which is, er, a BBC Micro. But never mind that, because the camera then draws back to reveal Servalan, who is watching the ship. For some reason it’s important.

This little ship is heading for an unknown destination, but meanwhile is passing a “primitive” planet called Cephlon. You immediately realise that this is the only reason this would have been mentioned was if the ship was about to crash and, surely enough, it does.

The crew of the Liberator, by an amazing coincidence, are watching all this too. They watch two lifeboats ejecting from the ship and resolve to teleport down and find them. It’s dangerous down there, with comedy Stone Age stereotypes posing a grave threat to everyone’s dignity.

The landing party is led, not by Blake, but by Avon, along with Jenna, Gan and Vila. And it’s interesting that, notwithstanding the mild personality clashes we’ve seen with pretty much everyone, no one questions that Avon is the de facto deputy to Blake. He’s competent, intelligent and pragmatic.

One of the two men is dead, but the other, played by some bloke off Eastenders, is alive. It’s time for them all to return to the Liberator, and we get a quick glance of Cally, next to the teleporter, listening to some groovy sounds in her rather cool shades in a way which is so quintessentially late Seventies.

At this point we’re re-acquainted with what’s becoming one of the standard tropes of Blake’s 7: the female crew member not returning with everyone else when teleporting back to the ship. Blake is clearly very worried about Jenna in a way which implies he has feelings for her which are almost certainly not reciprocated. Meanwhile, we discover that the dead man, Terry Nation style, was a “Space Surgeon”. Ha!

The survivor starts bibbling about energy cells, his dying father and the need to get to Aristo, a planet which makes me think of that Blackadder episode set during the French Revolution. The Federation was to pay 100 credits for something called “Orac”, says the survivor, in a hilarious display of overacting. He then produces a gun and hijacks the ship. They are to head to Aristo immediately, to cure his sick father, leaving the rest of the crew on Cephlon. Ah yes, another standard trope of Blake’s 7: the Liberator forced to go out of teleporter range when members of the crew are still on the planet.

There’s a great scene between Servalan and Travis which consists basically of Servalan showing how ruthless and badass she is, and making it clear to Travis that he’s her bitch. She explains that “Orac” is the creation of a scientist called Ensor, father of that bloke off Eastenders. A deal was made; 100 million credits for Orac, but also an agreement to send a surgeon, Maryatt, to cure Ensor. But Servalan has made some slight amendments to this. As soon as she knows where Aristo is, she blows the ship up and resolves to go there herself and seize Orac, without paying the 100 credits. Even nastier is that she intends to have Maryatt posted as a deserter, meaning that his family will be sold into slavery on one of the frontier worlds. Now that’s ruthless.

Meanwhile, Avon and co are having a spot of bother with some cavemen caricatures and a door. But as soon as they’re inside they meet Meegat, who is pretty, smiley and very friendly indeed, especially with “Lord” Avon. Being Avon, though, he insists on remaining a bit of a miserable git on general principles.

Interestingly, is seems Meegat (and presumable some unseen other people) have a prophecy about all this that turns out to be right, so prophecy works; it’s possible to predict the future. It’s a shame more isn’t made of this. But the prophecy comes to pass: a stock footage rocket is launched, meaning cells sufficient to re-spawn an entire race will reach their destination in just five short centuries’ time. Whoopee. If Avon’s leadership credentials weren’t already established, he successfully leads a rescue of Jenna, leaving you with the distinct impression that he’s make a much better leader than Blake, and would be a lot more loyal than he pretends to be. He’s intelligent, level-headed and heroic in spite of himself. What more do you want?

There’s another interesting Gan moment as they re-enter Meegat’s cave thingy. “You know, Vila,” he says, “For a minute out there I was actually quite beginning to enjoy myself.” Again we have this mix of thuggery and low self-esteem.

By now, Ensor’s son has died and the Liberator is back. They still have the energy cells, so it’s off to Aristo, Ensor and Orac…

Blake's 7: Bounty

“Civilisation has always depended on courtesy rather than truth.”

I shouldn’t really make too much of the alien planet looking just like the South-East of England on a gloomy and wet Autumn day- I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing- but this really takes the biscuit. And to see a fully functioning car from the early twentieth century on what’s supposed to be another planet, many centuries in the future- I’m sorry; that’s just not remotely plausible.

Still, this is a perfectly fine episode, although a little by-the-numbers. By now there’s definitely an element of marking time until the season finale. That’s what happens when you get one writer to do the whole series, I suppose.

Blake and Cally are skulking about, trying to break into the comfortable prison where former President Sarkoff is being held, alongside a young woman called Tyce. Tyce is played by a lady who I thought was Connie Booth until I saw the credits, and Sarkoff is played, very well, by T.P. McKenna. He’s been in exile for seven years, and appears to be a rather tragic, noble but embittered figure. The thing is, the character is superficially interesting, and has some very good lines, but is a bit of a cliché, only saved by McKenna’s performance. The sheer stubborn self-indulgence of the man, given what we’re told about his past and what ultimately happens, doesn’t seem realistic. He seems to be motivated more by the requirements of the plot than anything else.

I almost groaned at the prospect of the Liberator having to go out of teleport range after a ship approaches them, no doubt to return and teleport our heroes back on board only in the nick of time. This has happened too many times recently.

There’s more interestingness surrounding Gan here though; he offers to teleport aboard the ship which seems to be in distress. If it turns out the ship is hostile, he will communicate back to the Liberator and ask Vila to destroy it, with himself aboard. The script emphasises that he really does mean it. It’s strongly implies that he has a death wish, or at least very low self-esteem.

Sarkoff’s first conversation with Blake is fascinating, as he reacts to what he supposes to be his imminent assassination with studied courtesy, indulging his ego by intending to die as the perfect gentleman. It seems he was president of Lindor, a world outside the Federation, for five years. Resisting calls for annexation by the Federation, he stood for re-election, lost, and promptly flounced off to the custody of the Federation, of which he disapproves. Er, why?

Blake insists that Lindor is on the brink of civil war, with the Federation poised to intervene under the guise of “peace-keeping”, annexing the planet by stealth. The election lost by Sarkoff was rigged. Sarkoff struggles to accept all this, choosing to believe what the Federation tells him. He seems awfully naïve and self-indulgent here- hardly the impressive figure we’re being asked to accept.

Blake doesn’t come up smelling of roses either. His vandalising of Sarkoff’s no doubt priceless antiques makes him look like a thug and a bully as well as a fanatic, but then this isn’t the first time he’s shown that he can be all of these things.

This episode gave me one big surprise, I must admit: I never expected to see a car being started with a handle in Blake’s 7. Of course, this sequence, rather less unpredictably, sees all four of Blake, Cally, Sarkoff and Tyce teleported up to the Liberator. We then get a few minutes of excitement, as the ship has been captured by some old smuggler mates of Jenna’s, wanting to claim the reward money from the Federation for turning the fugitives in. For some reason, it seems, the Federation isn’t particularly likely to arrest them, although they’re obviously criminals.

Sarkoff gets a somewhat chance to be decisive, shooting dead the leader of the smugglers, Tarvin, before he gets a chance to shoot Tyce. For some reason it’s only now that we learn she’s his daughter. And for some reason this suddenly turns him into the Sarkoff of old, before he started wallowing in self-pity.

For an episode which resolves around the character and motivations of Sarkoff, this doesn’t really work. McKenna plays him well enough, but unfortunately the character seems to behave as he does purely for the convenience of the plot. Not one of the best episodes.

Blake's 7: Breakdown

“I’m finished. Staying with you requires a degree of stupidity of which I no longer feel capable.”

These obviously painted starscapes that we keep seeing at the beginnings of most episodes are starting to feel normal by now, but they really date the programme for me. I’m also starting to realise just how brown Blake’s 7 looks.

Gan’s the centre of attention this episode, even though David Jackson spends most of it just lying down and doing nothing. It’s also another interesting opportunity to look at the theories put forth in Liberation, that Gan was a sex offender. Certainly, his sudden violence against Jenna at the start would be consistent with this, but he’s just as violent towards everyone else.

Clearly something’s wrong with his limiter, and the scenes in the sickbay are so tense that for some reason they’re on film. Everyone knows that Gan is in serious trouble, something has gone badly wrong with his limiter, and that he urgently needs a neurosurgeon. Blake states at this point that “The limiter is supposed to cut in when stress drives him to the point where he might kill”, which doesn’t sound too consistent with the sex offender theory.

It seems the nearest neurosurgeon is to be found at a space laboratory called XK-72, which had been noted by Avon as a possible bolthole if life aboard the Liberator was to become too dangerous. (Like it isn’t as dangerous as it could possibly be anyway…). Apparently this laboratory specialises in weaponry and that old Terry Nation favourite, “space medicine.” There’s just one problem; Zen insists that the quickest route crosses a “prohibited space zone”. He won’t say what the danger is, but he refuses to fly through it and flies off into a sulk until the end of the episode. It becomes clear that something out there is affecting the Liberator…

In the sickbay there’s an interesting scene in which Gan calmly persuades Cally to release hi, and promptly goes on a rampage. This manipulative behaviour is most interesting; Kayn later refers to Gan as a “psychopath”. He hasn’t been seen behaving like this before- it this part of his personality, like the violence, normally inhibited by his limiter?

The ship is heading into a “gravitational vortex”, which would presumably be a black hole. Can it really be plausible that this wouldn’t be known about? It seems to lie in-between fairly important and well-used areas of space, after all. At least someone would have noticed all the ships which mysteriously disappeared.

Blake eventually decides the best thing to do it to head, at full speed, right for the centre. Er, ok. I’m sure this is scientifically rigorous. Anyway, for some reason they manage to survive. I think perhaps we should not think too hard about this. After all, Terry Nation clearly didn’t.

More interesting is what looks like a complete breakdown in relations between Blake and Avon (one of the reasons for the title?) as Avon, dismayed by Blake’s increasing recklessness, says that he can no longer stay. There’s a real frostiness between the two of them for the rest of the episode.

The Liberator finally reaches XK-72, which appears to have a population of just three. We have the officious but decent Farren, the brilliant but obnoxious Professor Kayn, played rather brilliantly by Julian Glover, and Kayn’s underling. Kayn agrees to perform the operation, mainly to annoy Farren, but seems to have a worryingly high regard for the Federation. It’s not long before he realises who Blake and co actually are, and promptly tips off the nearest Federation base.

Avon, meanwhile, looks as though he’s going to stay behind on XK-72; he spills the beans to Farren, and offers him the secret of teleportation in return for being allowed to stay. It looks as though it’s going to happen…

Kayn really is a bit of a git. He deliberately delays the start of his operation on Gan so the Federation have time to get there. News of this reaches XK-72, but it looks as though Avon is still going to stay; he’s been guaranteed that the Federation won’t be told. He just needs to return and collect a few things…

The crew of the Liberator end up forcing Kayn to perform his operation at gunpoint, with Blake threatening to destroy his hands if he refuses to co-operate. We finish with the now-traditional altercation with Federation pursuit ships. XK-72 ends up destroyed by a bolt from one of the pursuit ships, yet more collateral damage from Blake’s actions. Avon won’t be going anywhere. But surely something has now changed between him and Blake? It’ll be interesting to see whether this is followed up.

I had to raise an eyebrow at the line where Blake takes over the navigational duties with the words “I’ll handle this, Jenna- you can help Gan.” The Liberator is not exactly a feminist paradise, then. We finish with a Hanna Barbera cartoon-style forced laugh, with Gan safely back to his usual lobotomised self.

Blake's 7: Project Avalon

“Hope is very dangerous…”

We start with what looks like some stock footage of heavy snow until we see a mutoid walking through it, accompanies by a cowled figure. We cut to the studio and this cowled figure is, of course, Travis. He has another big plan to get Blake. Good for him. He seems to hang around with fit young mutoid ladies a lot, though. Does he have some kind of thing for them?

We cut between Travis and Blake & co on the Liberator, and between them they give us all the exposition we need. Terry Nation seems to be doing this sort of thing a lot lately. Travis intends to use Avalon, a previously unmentioned resistance figure, as bait to lure Blake into his latest trap. He’s captured her, and summarily murdered everyone else in her resistance group, in typical Federation fashion.

Travis’ less-than-spectacular success rate has not gone unnoticed so far; Servalan has come to check up on him, and she’s made it clear that he’s for it if he doesn’t shape up soon. Two recent assassination attempts don’t seem to have put her in a forgiving mood. Fortunately, Travis’ latest plan is apparently a good ‘un, so nothing can possibly go wrong. It seems to involve a virus, shown by means of some very weird visual effects, which is used to kill an unfortunate prisoner as an experiment. How nice.

Meanwhile, Blake, Jenna and a typically reluctant Vila are trying to break into the Federation facility where Avalon is being held without being seen by one of those hilarious-looking “Security” robots. Unfortunately the Liberator is being chased by some Federation pursuit ships, and will duly be out of teleport range until the very last second before they would otherwise get killed, as per usual. It’s early days, but this is already looking like an established trope of the series.

Our heroes break into the building, and force a guard to pretend they’re his prisoner so as not to arouse suspicion. It’s about time that hoary old Terry Nation favourite finally turned up in Blake’s 7. Before long, though, it all goes horribly wrong and a guard sets off an alarm. I think we may have established a second trope for this series.

The team manage to rescue Avalon, in spite of the fact that Jenna seems to be spending an awful lot of her time playing Operation Wolf. The Liberator arrives, in the exact circumstances we expected, and that’s it. Avalon is rescued and everything is fine. Although, once again, Gan’s attentiveness towards Avalon, who just so happens to be female, could perhaps come across as creepy and once again hinting at the possible sexual nature of his crimes. Still, at least he’s not the one who says, a few minutes later, “Get something to tie her up with.”

It’s all a trap, though: this “Avalon” is in fact a robot, programmed to kill them all with that nasty little virus and then deliver the Liberator back to Travis. Fortunately, Blake is able to turn the tables, and humiliates Travis in front of his boss. (This is the first time Blake and Servalan have met- it’s actually quite exciting!) That’ll be another established trope for the series, then; Blake going back to somewhere he’s just escaped from to finish the job. Meanwhile, Travis has now been relieved of command by Servalan. That’ll improve his mood no end…

That was all enjoyable enough, but there are a few worrying signs that Terry Nation is starting to repeat himself and resort to his own tricks. Time for someone else to write an episode, methinks.