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: 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.

Blake's 7: Duel

“Not only is he primitive, he is pompous as well.”

It’s an odd start, with two bizarre-looking women, one of whom is played by Isla Blair, telling each other things that the other would undoubtedly know, but without leaving the viewer much the wiser. I presume that their longing to “be at peace” is essentially a death wish. Nice.

Anyway, Travis is busily chasing Blake in his pursuit ship, where he’s surrounded by some rather yummy goth girls. Except these ladies are mutoids, meaning they subsist via little green tubes full of blood. Urgh. The Liberator is running low on fuel, and needs to remain in orbit around the nearest habitable planet, for the period of time required by the plot, so that it can “recharge”. Recharge with what, exactly? Also, Travis claims to have pursued Blake “into this galaxy”. So the Federation spans multiple galaxies? Or does Terry Nation just not know the difference between a galaxy and a star system? I suspect the latter myself.

Blake, Jenna and Gan nip down to the planet to kill a bit of time, and find a world suspiciously similar to Skaro in Terry Nation’s first ever Dalek story for Doctor Who. Not only is the sight before them “Almost like the effects of a fusion bomb”, but there are stone (petrified?) statues. Suddenly, Gan sees two women, who quickly disappear before anyone else sees them. Interestingly, at this point he says “I hope my limiter hasn’t malfunctioned.” Why would he say that? Killing wasn’t an issue here, but women were. This seems consistent with the idea of his crimes having been sexual in nature.

Blake spots the Federation support ships, and they all teleport back on board. The Liberator is out of power, Travis has them surrounded, they have to ration their power, and they’re basically screwed. So Blake decides to ram Travis. What else?

Then time slows down, and the two alien women teleport Blake and Travis down to the surface. They spin a tale of a thousand year war, a “planet made barren by radiation”, and make it very clear that, like, war is bad, m’kay? They question Blake and Travis, and it’s interesting that Travis says that Blake is “An enemy of the Federation, tried and convicted.” Why not mention the child abuse charges? Surely it would be in his interests to do so?

Annoyingly, the two alien women conclude only that the two positions are irreconcilable; they don’t give a monkeys about the relative merits of both cases. I may have my doubts about Blake’s unrealistic pessimism, but I don’t like the Neville Chamberlain-style mindless pacifism being espoused here. This is very different to the message Nation seemed to be imparting in the aforementioned The Daleks.

Anyway, there’s to be a gladiator-style duel, complete with gladiator-style swords, which is supposed to, er, show that the aliens are more civilised. Right. And we get Jenna and that rather nice-looking mutoid goth lady teleported down, too. This dual takes place in a forested region of the planet which looks suspiciously like the South-East of England.

Interestingly, it seems Mutoids have no memory of their previous lives, and Travis’ sadistic attempts to tease his companion about her previous life are to no avail. Are Mutoids ex-criminals then, who are altered, have their memories wiped, and are made to serve as military slaves? And Travis clearly has a history with this Keyeira, as she was. Is he responsible for her condition?

Meanwhile, aboard the Liberator, Avon says something very interesting: “I have never understood why it should be necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care. Or, indeed, why it should be necessary to prove it at all.” He may be a bit of a cold fish, and somewhat self-centred and cynical, but it’s interesting how he seems to imply that he does in fact care.

There’s a climactic fight scene in which, yet again, Blake refuses to kill Travis for some rather flimsy reasons. He seems to be making a habit of this. He’s returned to the Liberator where, interestingly, Gan makes a rather laddish comment about Sinofar, the younger of the two women. More evidence?

The mutoid, meanwhile, faces a bleak future of court martial and execution, yet continues to follow orders. Creepy.

I’m in two minds about this one. I really, really don’t like the central concept or message, but there’s some excellent characterisation, and the stuff about the mutoids was fascinating. And, of course, Douglas Camfield directs it beautifully.

Blake's 7: Seek-Locate-Destroy

“I’ve come to blow something up. What do you think might be suitable?”

Now that’s more like it. An incredibly action-packed episode full of menace, tantalising bits of backstory, intriguing bits of world-building and not one but two great baddies.

We begin on the planet Centero, which oddly seems to be a gas giant. On the surface (for there is one, gas giant or no) is a 1970s industrial complex patrolled by a hilarious toy robot which half reminds me of the robot from Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment and half reminds me of one of those obscure Kenner Star Wars toys, a robot that didn’t seem to appear in the film.

Into this surreal situation teleports Blake, soon joined by Vila. As well as showcasing his skill with locks, Vila also takes the time to remind us that Terry Nation is writing his words: the scene where he distracts the Federation guards is suspiciously similar to a scene in Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks.

Blake is looking for the Federation cipher room, so he can build a kind of Enigma machine. He’s soon joined by Cally, Gan and Avon and a tense hostage situation develops while our heroes try to remove said Enigma machine, which has apparently been screwed down very well indeed. Top marks to the Federation’s collective DIY skills there.

The mission, after some tension and some time bombs (very Terry Nation, that) is accomplished, but Cally is left behind. Of course, we then get one of those faintly implausible scenes, inevitable in these situations in all TV drama, in which it takes everyone a good few minutes to realise that she’s missing.

Elsewhere, on a circular space station, extreme coolness is happening. Not only does the splendid Jacqueline Pearce make her really rather excellent debut as the wonderful Supreme Commander Servalan, but we also get the bizarre combination of Peter Miles and Peter Glaze as Administration politicians, visiting on behalf of the President. This scene actually gives us a fair bit of new information on how the Federation operates. The outer planets are run by “controllers” whose loyalty to the Federation can be “delicately balanced”. The powers that be are nervous that Blake is starting to become a legend; real pressure is now being brought to bear that he be caught, and quickly.

The introduction of Travis is masterfully handled; before we meet him we get a lot of talk about him, and how notoriously cruel and ruthless he is. This really serves to build him up. Not only do we get the scene with the two political flunkies, but one of Servalan’s underlings expresses concern. There’s a subtext here that I didn’t catch before; Travis later refers to Servalan’s “decorative staff men”, and I rather suspect that, when Servalan refers to her underling as a “friend”, this is a euphemism for certain perks of her position. This is all a bit Catherine the Great or, to be more topical, a bit Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The point is, Servalan is powerful, clever, ambitious, dangerous, and takes what she wants. And her willingness to use a monster like Travis underlines her utter ruthlessness in pursuit of her aims.

Travis, incidentally, would perhaps be more menacing if not for the very Terry Nation title of “Space Commander”. I take it there are also Space Chiropodists and Space Accountants. Still, his arrival (to ominous chords) is effective, and Stephen Grief both looks and acts the part. Travis promises to be a great and very nasty baddie.

Meanwhile, on the Liberator, Avon has finally got the Space Enigma Machine working. Our heroes are recording everything on to “micro tape”- how very futuristic. Fortuitously, this causes them to overhear a conversation stating that Travis is off to Centero to investigate. This is a bit of a blow to Blake, who thought he killed him.

Travis shows himself to be a highly intelligent and effective investigator, and also something of a workaholic. He takes time out to provide some exposition for us as well, though, coincidentally at exactly the same time as Blake. After Blake almost killed him, he turned himself into the Bionic Man and started hanging around with “Mutoids”, whatever they are. It seems they met when Travis foiled a plot be Blake to attack a “political rehabilitation centre”, where dissidents are sent for “indoctrination treatment.” This sort of thing reminds us just how nasty and totalitarian the Federation is.

Blake’s memories from before his treatment seem to be returning. He is certainly now able to bear a huge grudge against Travis for killing large numbers of his friends before his own capture. He has more things to hold against him, too; Cally has been caught and it’s very heavily implied that she is tortured.

Travis shows himself to be very clever indeed, not only realising that Blake has the Enigma machine, but also realising the potential opportunity to use disinformation to set a trap for his nemesis. Cally, of course, is the bait. But, in a neat reversal, Blake was already there and waiting, the same trick Travis earlier pulled against him. Conveniently, though, Blake doesn’t kill Travis on the grounds that “You don’t matter enough to kill.”

This changes quite a lot. Rather than being up against a powerful but faceless enemy, Blake has now acquired a rather cool arch-nemesis with whom there’s clearly going to be quite a due. And there’s an even bigger and cooler big bad lurking in the background…