HomePosts tagged 'jacqueline pearce'

Blakes 7 – Warlord

November 4, 2016November 4, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, simon masters, stephen pacey

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The Federation’s pacification drug, Pylene 50, continues to spread through the galaxy – affecting more and more planets. Avon calls together a number of interested parties in the hope that together they’ll be able to form an alliance. Success seems to hinge on the cooperation of the notorious warlord Zukan (Roy Boyd).

Although Zukan’s thirst for war and conquest is well known, he tells the others that he’s here in good faith and has the means to produce a toxin to combat the pacification drug. But matters are complicated after Zukan’s daughter, Zeeona (Bobbie Brown), is found to have stowed away on her father’s ship – especially since she and Tarrant have something of a history ….

Warlord has never been a terribly well regarded B7 story, possibly because of the interesting clothes and hairstyles. There’s no getting away from it, the delegates look if they’d be more at home at a fancy-dress party rather than a summit meeting which will decide the fate of the galaxy. Zukan and Zeeona also sport the most amazing haircuts, especially Zeeona who looks like a cut-price Toyah.

There’s also the Rick James problem. If you’re a Doctor Who fan then you’ll probably be aware of his idiosyncratic performance in the 1972 story The Mutants. Nearly a decade might have passed since that unforgettable turn, but James pretty much picks up where he left off – wooden doesn’t even begin to describe him. Mind you, given what he’s wearing it’s no surprise that it’s hard to take him seriously.

But if you can put all that to one side, there’s plenty here to catch your attention. After being touched upon earlier in the season, Pylene 50 makes a comeback – and in a very striking way. The opening sequence, set on the latest planet to fall to the pacification process, is an eerie and disturbing one. The population of Zondar, heavily drugged, are mown down by Federation troops, whilst all the time encouraging words (“You are cared for. You are loved”) can be heard over the tannoy. This has elements of the harder-edged vision of a drugged future seen in The Way Back (although rarely glimpsed afterwards).

After enduring defeat after defeat, it looks as if Avon’s luck has finally turned. But it shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that Zukan’s a dirty double-crosser, secretly in cahoots with Servalan. This is where we must bid farewell to Servalan and it has to be said that she exits with a whimper rather than a bang. It’s long been debated as to why Jacqueline Pearce didn’t appear in Blake – you’d have assumed it would have been an obvious move, especially if it was known that the series definitely wasn’t coming back. We’ll touch upon this again next time, but maybe Chris Boucher and Vere Lorrimer were eyeing a possible fifth series – that would certainly explain why Servalan’s final appearance is little more than a not-terribly-interesting cameo.

Simon Masters’ script (his only effort for the series) is well tailored for most of the other regulars. Avon and Soolin carry the action, although Soolin’s proactive presence does mean that Dayna rather fades into the background. Vila spends his time drinking and seemingly avoiding Avon. A nod back to the events of Orbit maybe, as he tries to come to terms with Avon’s actions?

Tarrant spends his time making eyes at Zeeona, although just as Zukan is obviously a wrong-‘un, so it’s clear that Tarrant and Zeeona’s love is going to be somewhat on the short-lived side. Her death is an interesting moment. After learning of her father’s treachery she attempts to undo some of the damage he’s caused, but a flesh-eating virus puts paid to her. Dayna tells Tarrant that she died because she took her glove off – was this an accident or did she, wracked with guilt about her father’s actions, decide to commit suicide? Either possibility is valid. Bobbie Brown may be saddled with a silly haircut but is still rather good as the doomed Zukan.

After a run of disasters, it seems that only one man can unify them, so next time Avon sets out to find Blake. I wonder if this will be where his luck finally changes? Hmmmm …….

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Blakes 7 – Orbit

November 3, 2016November 3, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, john savident, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, robert holmes, stephen pacey

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A renegade scientist called Egrorian (John Savident) has an offer that Avon can’t refuse – a weapon of incredible power (the Tachyon Funnel) in exchange for Orac. You possibly won’t be shocked to hear that there’s a catch though ….

After his previous story, Traitor, failed to hit the mark, Robert Holmes certainly bounced back with Orbit. Maybe one of the reasons why Traitor didn’t work that well was because it was the only one of Holmes’ four B7 scripts that didn’t team Avon and Vila up. It’s plain that Holmes saw plenty of possibilities in the Avon/Vila relationship – it’s certainly of the reasons why this one works as well as it does.

Holmes’ Doctor Who scripts tended to feature double-acts, a tradition he carries on here – apart from Avon and Vila there’s also Egrorian and Pinder (Larry Noble). Egrorian is the sort of role that’s a gift for an actor of a certain type – i.e. one who’s not afraid to go soaring over the top. John Savident was clearly that sort of actor. It’s a grotesque (in a good way) turn, totally lacking in subtlety but with the occasional hint of menace to counter the fairly flippant dialogue.

This must have been a fairly cheap show to make, with just a couple of new sets and only two guest stars. But it never feels like a bottle show or something cobbled together on the cheap because the end of season was fast approaching and the money had run out. Holmes concentrates on just four characters – Avon, Vila, Egrorian and Servalan (yes, of course she’s lurking about) – and gives them some sparkling dialogue, such as here when Egrorian lays eyes on Avon and Vila for the first time.

EGRORIAN: Surprisingly, you don’t look like the ruthless desperados of legend. But you have, of course, killed a great many people.
AVON: Only in the pursuit of liberty.
EGRORIAN: “O Liberty! O Liberty! What crimes are committed in your name!” Do you know the source?
AVON: No.
EGRORIAN: No, why should you? Natural leaders are rarely encumbered with intelligence. Greed, egotism, animal cunning, and viciousness are the important attributes. Qualities I detect in you in admirably full measure.

Larry Noble, as Egrorian’s assistant Pinder, has very little dialogue, but he still manages to catch the eye. Noble manages to suffer incredibly well and his hangdog expression immediately engenders sympathy from the audience, something which is increased after we see how badly Egrorian treats him. There’s a certain cruelty and sadism that runs through Holmes’ Doctor Who scripts which is also present here – best demonstrated after Pinder beats Egrorian at chess. Egrorian doesn’t like this and proceeds to twist Pinder’s arm. “Can you feel your extensor muscle tearing? Can you feel your humerus grating against your radius? Hmm.? Just a little more… a little more… now you’re feeling it, aren’t you?”

It’s more than a little unpleasant, but it helps to shine a light on their dysfunctional relationship. Quite how they’ve entertained themselves during the last ten years (they’ve been in exile together) is probably best left to the imagination, although Egrorian’s comment that “naughty boys must be punished” offers a world of possibilities.

Hey, here’s a surprise – Egrorian plans to double-cross Avon and the others because he’s secretly working for Servalan. Bet you didn’t see that coming. So far, so familiar, but Holmes continues to give Savident some choice dialogue and he doesn’t disappoint. Here, Egrorian outlines to Servalan his vision of a shared future. “A connubial partnership, Servalan. Why not? Alone you are formidable enough, but together we would stand like mountains.” Jacqueline Pearce also seems to relish the chance to play something a little different, as we see Servalan ever-so-slightly discomforted by the effusive and fulsome Egrorian.

The key part of the story takes place during the last few minutes. Avon and Vila are heading back to Scorpio in Egrorian’s shuttle, but there’s a problem – they’ll never make the escape velocity as the shuttle’s carrying too much weight. Frantically they jettison everything they can think of, but they still need to find another seventy kilos. Avon wonders what weighs seventy kilos, to which Orac replies that “Vila weighs seventy-three kilos, Avon.”

Paul Darrow’s facial expression after Orac delivers this bombshell is a treat. He shakes his head ever so slightly, but then seems to pull himself together and goes hunting for Vila. Darrow’s S4 Avon was not known for its subtlety, and so it proves here, as he goes into “I’m not going to kill you, I’m your friend, honest” mode. It’s not terribly convincing, so you can’t blame Vila for staying hidden.

All turns out well in the end, Avon stumbles (literally) against the problem – a microscopic fragment of a neutron star, planted by Egrorian to kill them – and is able to get rid of it. But the damage has been done. Vila might not have mentioned it to the others, but he now knows exactly how far Avon will go to protect his interests. It’s a nice dramatic moment for Michael Keating, something of a rarity this late in the series.

This may be a talky, studio-based story, but it doesn’t really get any better than Orbit, thanks to John Savident’s exuberant performance and the way that Holmes skewers the Avon/Vila relationship.

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Blakes 7 – Gold

November 2, 2016October 23, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, colin davis, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey

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Avon is contacted by an old acquaintance called Keiller (Roy Kinnear), the purser of a pleasure liner called the Space Princess. The Space Princess has a secret cargo – gold, mined from the planet Zerok. Because it’s travelling incognito there’s very little security, so stealing it should be a doddle – except for one snag.

Before the gold is put aboard the ship it’s processed in such a way that it turns black and is therefore worthless unless you have the computer code which will change it back. Keiller suggests they tamper with the processing machine on Zerok so that unprocessed gold is loaded aboard the ship instead. It seems like a foolproof plan, what could possibly go wrong?

Roy Kinnear is great fun throughout as Keiller. One of those actors who just seemed to generate goodwill from the audience, he plays rather to type as the cowardly Keiller. Kinnear gives him such a shifty and untrustworthy air right from the start that it seems obvious he’s going to double-cross Avon and the others. Or is that too obvious? Since this is a heist tale there’s a number of twists and turns, so when it’s revealed that Keiller used to work for the Federation it’s possible to wonder if this is actually the truth or just more disinformation.

Keiller’s relationship with both Avon and Soolin has some nice comic moments. He continually refers to Avon as his old friend and Soolin as my pretty one. No surprises that Avon regards him as no friend or that Soolin is unimpressed with Keiller’s attempts at flattery.

We’re told that Vila doesn’t trust Keiller and wants no part of the scheme. Michael Keating only has a handful of lines throughout the story, which is slightly strange – although the next episode is more tailored to his talents. This leaves Avon and Soolin paired together whilst the familiar combination of Tarrant and Dayna also team up yet again. All four teleport down to Zerok, Avon and Soolin travel down to the bowels of the planet with Keiller, whilst Tarrant and Dayna remain up top, keeping an eye on the guards.

The Zerok processing plant (actually a refuse disposal centre in Poole) is one of those typically industrialised Blakes 7 locations that featured regularly during the first few years of the show. It gives Soolin a chance to demonstrate just how sharp a shooter she is as she merrily mows down multiple hapless guards. The combination of Avon and Soolin is a good one – a slight pity it wasn’t seen on more occasions – his brain and her brawn (as well as the fact they both have a sardonic sense of humour) appeals.

It’s later revealed that the Space Princess is a fake cruise liner – it travels straight from Zerok to Earth whilst the passengers (all drugged up) are shown pictures of various sights which, in their chemically altered state, they believe to be real. Whilst Avon busies himself with the gold, the others pose as passengers. Stephen Pacey seems to be enjoying himself as a doped-out passenger.

Although Roy Kinnear provides the story with a veneer of comedy, underneath it’s quite a dark little tale. The bodycount is quite high (at least a dozen or so guards are killed before the gold is stolen). It’s also fair to say that the ending doesn’t really come as a great surprise – Servalan turned out to be behind the plan right from the start and turns up to taunt Avon.

SERVALAN: Congratulations, Avon. I see you worked it out.
AVON: Keiller was once on the personal security staff of the president of the Federation. That just had to be you. It wasn’t hard to work out. But it wasn’t meant to be, was it?
SERVALAN: I don’t know what you mean.
AVON: You wouldn’t leave me a clue like that. Not unless you really wanted to. You knew I wouldn’t be able to resist it. You planned everything, every move, you even knew that Keiller would disobey you, and you hoped that I would trust him because of that.
SERVALAN: Very good.
AVON: I almost did trust Keiller. When I found out it was you, I knew I was safe from him, at least. After all, he has nothing to gain from obeying you. Only in the end, it occurred to me that he might possibly imagine that you would keep your side of the bargain and pay him his reward instead of just killing him. He doesn’t know you as well as I do.

It’s the only time that Avon and Servalan have a meaningful face to face conversation during series four. Avon’s final reaction to their dismal failure is characteristic – he laughs hysterically whilst the others look on stony-faced. Another sign that Avon’s losing it? It could have been worse I guess, they all could have had a giggle, which thankfully only happened on a few closing scenes (Breakdown is probably my least favourite example of this).

Not quite the best that series four has to offer, but Kinnear is entertaining and the story is solid enough.

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Blakes 7 – Sand

November 1, 2016October 21, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey, tanith lee

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Servalan has elected to join a Federation mission dispatched to the sandy planet Virn. Together with Reeve (Stephen Yardley), Chasgo (Daniel Hill) and an unnamed assistant (played by Peter Craze), she intends to find out what happened to a research party last heard from some five years ago. They find the going treacherous after their ship crash-lands a fair distance away from the research base. Avon is intrigued to learn that the Federation, after all this time, has decided to send a ship to investigate this most inhospitable of planets. He decides that if there’s anything of value on Virn, they should have it rather than the Federation. It quickly becomes clear that the sand has a form of sentience as strange things start to happen ….

Like Tanith Lee’s previous script, Sarcophagus, Sand is something of a bottle show which delights in putting the regulars under the microscope. Most interestingly, we see a much more human Servalan than usual. The reason for her emotional state becomes clear after it’s revealed she’s come to the planet in order to find out what happened to Don Keller (Jonathan Gaunt). Keller, via a recording, is the first voice we hear.

I know a land beyond the heart of time. The sun never comes there. No moon ever shines. And man, a grain of sand, nameless and lost, blows with the dust. I apologise, HQ, but that’s what this place makes me think of. The sun never comes here. Just sand and mist. Virn, the green planet. Never rains here either. There’s something strange. Not just the way the ship was affected when we came down. Not just the way all the machinery plays up. Not just the way we’re dying. You still listening, HQ? This is Don Keller, remember me? On Virn, where we have a plague on our hands. On my hands. So when do I get something from you?

Unlike Sarcophagus, this story boasts a guest cast – although not all of them make it to the final reel. Unsurprisingly, Peter Craze’s unnamed assistant is the first to bite the dust (or sand) with Reeve following shortly after. Yardley has the most substantial guest-star role, although Investigator Reeve isn’t a terribly interesting character – he’s an alpha male who takes a shine to Servalan (her disinterest is total and cutting). It’s hard to command authority when you’re dressed in a shiny silver spacesuit, but Yardley does have some good lines and makes the most of the role.

The deaths of the ship’s crew enables the narrative to be split in two – Servalan and Tarrant remain isolated on Virn whilst Avon and the others are also trapped, but on Scorpio.

If Servalan was going to be locked up with anyone then Avon would have been the obvious choice. But I’m glad that Lee avoided the obvious, since Sand gives Stephen Pacey a long overdue chance to do a spot of acting. Throughout series three Tarrant was incredibly smackable, but this hasn’t been a problem during series four (mainly because Tarrant has been underwritten so badly that he’s hardly contributed at all). Sand enables Tarrant to step out of Avon’s shadow and Pacey doesn’t disappoint.

Here, for example, he posits a reasonable explanation for the current state of affairs. This is a rare occurrence – normally Avon would be the one with all the answers. “The trace of life on Virn was the sand. Some emanation from it affects the atmosphere, even the magnetic fields of the planet, and causes the rest of the trouble: ships crash, instruments fail, nobody can protect himself. And when the sand comes into contact with a human body it sucks out the cellular energy, sometimes fast, sometimes slowly. I imagine that depends on how much sand is in the vicinity. But that’s what Keller’s plague was.”

Tanith Lee serves both Tarrant and Servalan well, delivering up some very quotable dialogue. This is how Tarrant describes his room-mate. “I’d say you’re possibly the most unscrupulously venomous woman in the galaxy. Being shut in here with you is rather like being locked in a cage with a panther: a black cat with large golden eyes and long silver talons.” Servalan’s rejoinder is that she’s just the girl next door! Tarrant’s next line is a good one too.

Lee also takes the opportunity to fill in a few blanks, such as how Servalan escaped from the Liberator at the end of Terminal, but Servalan’s revelation that Don Keller was the only man she ever loved is the stand-out moment from this part of the story.

SERVALAN: Don Keller, he was my lover. I was eighteen.
TARRANT: He’s the reason you’re here.
SERVALAN: He left me. I grew up. Power became my lover. Power is like a drug. It is beautiful. Shining. I could destroy a planet by pressing a button. I loved him.

Do we believe her? She seems genuine, but we’ve seen before how Servalan is able to manipulate others with ease, so it’s possible that self preservation made her adopt the pose of a victim. That’s what Tarrant claims to believe at the end (although is he only saying this to appease Avon?) Whatever the truth, Jacqueline Pearce impresses here – which proves that given good material, the character can still be as compelling as she once was.

If Tarrant and Servalan are having an interesting time down on the planet, then so are Avon and co up on Scorpio. Vila is reduced to a drunken state (not the first time this has happened). Michael Keating does drunk acting very well, but it’s rather an obvious choice – although the mention of Cally strikes a nerve. “If I died it’d be a real joke. Who’d care? Who cared about Cally?” Orac’s acting very oddly too, telling everyone that he loves them!

Avon’s enjoying himself and so is Paul Darrow. Avon has a theory that the sand eliminates the weak and keeps the strong alive in order to maintain a healthy breeding stock. “Presumably the sand up here has compared Vila’s wits and stamina with mine and concluded that I am the dominant male. On the herd principle therefore, it decided that Vila was superfluous and it could kill him. You two, of course, would have been allowed to live”. Vila’s not dead of course, but Avon doesn’t seem terribly unhappy at the thought of a ménage à trois with Dayna and Soolin ….

A solution is eventually found and Tarrant returns to face a less than warm welcome. He’d allowed Servalan to escape, which is bad enough, but his intimacy with her disgusts Dayna (understandable since Servalan killed her father). This is the sort of theme that would have been an interesting one to develop, but unfortunately B7 wasn’t the sort of series for complex character arcs, so as the credits roll a big reset button is hit and the matter is never mentioned again.

Haunting and well-realised, Sand is a memorable story. Not quite as compelling as Sarcophagus maybe, but it’s still several cuts above the norm.

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Blakes 7 – Games

October 31, 2016March 28, 2017 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, bill lyons, blakes 7, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey, stratford johns

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Avon’s hot on the trail of Feldon crystals, one of the most precious minerals in the galaxy, but it’ll come as no surprise to learn that so is Servalan. Both the Scorpio crew and Servalan end up on the mining planet Mercol 2, which is run by the duplicitous Belkov (Stratford Johns). Suspiciously low production yields and a tendency for members of the survey team to die in strange and unexplained ways are two reasons why Servalan is interested in Belkov, but he attempts to broker a deal – promising to deliver up the Scorpio crew in exchange for his life.

Games is another B7 tale which boasts a heavyweight guest star – in this case Stratford Johns. Elsewhere on this blog I’ve waxed lyrical about how good Johns always is in Softly Softly: Task Force and indeed he’s such a fine actor that he even convinces as a frog with a funny hairdo in the Doctor Who story Four To Doomsday. But he’s got his work cut out here as Belkov isn’t a character of great depth.

The basic concept of the story is sound enough though. Belkov enjoys a good double or triple cross and he’s also an expert games player, so with the aid of his computer Gambit (voiced by Rosalind Bailey) he’s able to set multiple traps for the unwary. There’s a similar vibe with Belkov/Gambit as there was between Ensor/Orac, only not as well defined. Gambit seems to lack Orac’s free will and argumentative nature, but the ending suggests that Gambit was more than the logical machine she appeared to be, although this isn’t something that’s really developed.

Servalan once again does little of note. Had Jacqueline Pearce been held back for three or four significant appearances per year then I think it would have benefited the character enormously. There’s still the odd writer – such as Tanith Lee in the upcoming Sand – who are able to do something interesting with her, but that one’s pretty much the exception now rather than the rule. Having said that, Servalan’s first appearance is memorable – striking a pose whilst masked Federation troopers (who we haven’t seen very often recently) mass behind her. But it’s odd that she never meets Avon or the others, meaning that her role could have been played by any Federation officer.

Vivienne Cozens’ direction is very sure-footed – there’s some nice film work and the odd gruesome death (one of the Federation troopers is reduced to pink dust after falling down a mine-shaft).

Vila gets to be a little more proactive than usual – rescuing Tarrant, Dayna and Gerren (David Neal). Gerren’s been brought along for the ride by Avon, who’s blackmailing him into helping them (nice chap, Avon). It’s characteristic of Avon that he secretly made contact with Gerren, meaning that the others were none the wiser until he deigned to tell them what was going on. Neal’s a good actor, although he’s hamstrung with a painfully obvious fake beard. But it’s a nothing role, since Gerren doesn’t really bring any knowledge to the table that Avon didn’t already possess.

Games is a bit of a runaround but things pick up towards the end when Avon, Vila, Tarrant and Soolin play Belkov’s endgame. The prize – should they live – will be the Feldon crystals, but first they all have to win their various challenges. Conveniently, each game is suited to one of them (Soolin excels at the sharp-shooting challenge whilst Tarrant tackles a flight simulator with ease). This section of the story reveals that the episode title has something of a double-meaning as eventually Avon realises that there won’t be any crystals at the end of their quest. “There aren’t any damned crystals. There never were any damned crystals. They’re like everything else on this ship: a game.”

With no crystals and Belkov dead after Gambit initiates a self-destruct sequence, Games is a typically downbeat S4 yarn where everybody loses. It should be a better story than it actually is, but some parts feel a little perfunctory (especially the games section at the end) which is a problem. And even Stratford Johns’ freewheeling performance can’t hide the fact that the plot is fairly pedestrian (the Scorpio crew get captured, escape, get captured again, etc).

But there are compensations – the location may be a quarry, but it’s a very nice one. And there’s a number of rather impressive explosions which are certainly more substantial than the standard BBC bangs of the time. It’s this sort of visual sheen which helps to make Games an above average S4 entry.

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Blakes 7 – Assassin

October 30, 2016October 21, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, richard hurndall, rod beacham, stephen pacey

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Assassin opens with Vila crowing to the others about the following message he’s intercepted from Servalan. “Utilizer to Cancer, Utilizer to Cancer. Domo the ninth, five subjects.” This allows Avon to glower and mutter “Servalan!” in a way that only Paul Darrow can, leaving the others wonder what on earth the message can mean.

Luckily it doesn’t take them long to work it out. Domo is a planet, Cancer is an assassin who kills people for a great deal of money and the 9th must be a date. And there’s five of them … so it looks like Servalan has hired Cancer to bump them all off. Why she would want to go to all this trouble is a slight mystery, since Avon and the others haven’t exactly been striking many blows for freedom recently, but no matter.

Domo is a planet colonised by a gang of space pirates who capture unwary space travellers and sell them into slavery. Avon elects to pose as one such unfortunate, which gives us an opportunity to marvel at Paul Darrow’s ability to wring pathos and emotion out of even the most innocuous lines. Churlish folk might call this over-acting or simply bad acting, but I’ve always found there’s something compelling in Darrow’s S4 interpretation of Avon – a man constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Avon might start off by acting weak and feeble, but the goading he receives from Benos (Peter Atard) means that he can’t resist showing his true colours and so knocks a few of the pirates about for fun (I think it was the taunt about being skinny which pushed him over the edge). Vila, watching from a safe distance, is asked by Soolin if all had gone well. “Oh yes, wonderful. First they beat him to a pulp, then they dragged him off”. The unconvincing facial hair sported by the pirates is an early episode treat.

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Avon’s thrown in a cell with an old prisoner called Neebrox (Richard Hurndall). He tells Avon that Servalan is here and that she purchased a member of an entertainment troupe (a plot-point which will become important later on). As probably everybody knows, this appearance led to Hurndall being cast as the First Doctor in The Five Doctors. It’s easy to see why, with his long hair he does have more than a touch of Hartnell’s Doctor about him. Hurndall was always an actor of depth and dignity and his presence helps to lift the story no end. Alas, the same can’t really be said for Verlis (Betty Marsden), the slightly tipsy slavetrader in charge of the slave auction.

The auction part of the story is rather … well, it’s just rather. The notion of Avon being paraded in chains before Servalan no doubt pleased a section of the audience (and I’m sure led to numerous fan-fiction sequels) but the actuality is a little embarrassing. The various bidders look ridiculous, all clothed in fancy dress it seems (plus fake beards of course). Servalan wins the bid for Avon, telling him that he now needs to refer to her as mistress. That was a late-night spin-off show just waiting to happen.

We can now bid the slavers a fond farewell as Neebrox comes up trumps and he and Avon hot-foot it back to Scorpio. This leads us into the second (and better) part of the story as Cancer’s ship is tracked down and they get to grips with the galaxy’s finest assassin. Everything seems rather straightforward at first- they find a ship which contains Cancer (John Wyman) and a young woman called Piri (Caroline Holdaway). Piri might be a rather limp lettuce but she’s invaluable in helping Avon and Tarrant overpower Cancer. Tarrant’s fight with Cancer is a hoot.

After being rather anonymous during her first few stories, Soolin has more recently developed a sharp and cynical sense of humour, which Glynis Barber plays very well. Soolin quickly becomes irritated with the weepy Piri and gives her a well-deserved slap. Well done that woman! Tarrant is rather upset with this, but Soolin’s comeback line is rather good. “There are two classic ways of dealing with an hysterical woman. You didn’t really expect me to kiss her, did you?”

Tarrant isn’t well served by the script, turning into a rather gauche schoolboy whenever Piri’s around. And since Piri is really Cancer, that makes him look more than a little foolish. Yes, the mysterious assassin Cancer is a woman, who decided to masquerade as Piri whilst Servalan bought a slave (remember the earlier plot point) to pose as Cancer. It’s fair to say that Caroline Holdaway’s performance has come in for a little bit of stick over the years and it’s easy to see why. True, the hysterical Piri isn’t the easiest role to play, but Holdaway never really convinces as the ice-cold killer either.

But although her casting is a bit of a problem, the concluding half of the story, set aboard Cancer’s ship, is still strong – David Sullivan Proudfoot elects to keep the lighting low, thereby creating a nice sense of tension. Generally the direction is solid (this was his third and final B7 story following Traitor and Stardrive) although he’s a little too fond of Star Wars style screenwipes ….

Rod Beacham’s sole script for the series, Assassin is another story which signifies that after a shaky start series four was finding its feet. This was Beacham’s debut as a television script-writer (he’d previously been an actor) and he would go on to contribute to a number of series, most notably Bergerac, before his death in 2014. For a television debut, it’s a very solid effort.

On the negative side, Assassin would have worked better without Servalan, who doesn’t do a great deal (mind you, there are quite a few stories we can say that about) but thanks to a nice guest turn from Hurndall and some sharply scripted lines for Glynis Barber it’s still a good ‘un.

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Blakes 7 – Traitor

October 26, 2016September 2, 2018 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, glynis barber, jacqueline pearce, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, robert holmes, stephen pacey

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The Federation is beginning to expand agaim and Avon has decided that the planet Helotrix holds the key. The native species, the Helots, are once again Federation members after a long period of resistance and Avon is keen to find out why their resolve crumbled so quickly. Dayna and Tarrant teleport down to the surface but quickly lose contact with Scorpio. The arrival of Federation Commissioner Sleer further complicates matters ….

Traitor is the most anonymous of Robert Holmes’ four Blakes 7 scripts. Lacking the flamboyant characterisation of Gambit and Orbit or the rock-solid narrative of Killer, it’s simply there – solid enough, but a little uninspiring and never likely to be anybody’s favourite. There’s some nice dialogue, but maybe Holmes felt straightjacketed by the various story elements he was required to include (the pacification drug Pylene-50 which becomes a running theme and Commissioner Sleer, who turns out to be, shock horror, Servalan). It’s also a pity that his original title – A Land Fit For Helots – was rejected in favour of the descriptive, but dull, Traitor.

Avon’s transformation into Blake pretty much starts here – he suddenly decides to take the fight to the Federation. After spending the first two series sniping at Blake from the sidelines for exactly this sort of gung-ho approach, it’s an unexpected move, although there are several possible reasons. The boring real-life possibility is that since series three had been rather aimless, reintroducing the Federation as a tangible enemy helps to give the show a more cohesive feel.

There’s a more interesting fictional possibility though – Avon’s character is slowly being subsumed by Blake’s, meaning that he’s turning into a carbon-copy of his former colleague. To support this theory, the final episode – Blake – provides us with plenty of evidence that Avon’s obsession with Blake is colouring his actions. Can’t live with him, can’t live without him ….

There’s intrigue aplenty on Helotrix, although the downside of this is that the regulars, especially Avon and Vila, are rather sidelined. Dayna and Tarrant have more to do, but Traitor is really concerned with the various squabbling factions who are jockeying for position on the planet’s surface.

Colonel Quute (Christopher Neame) and the General (Nick Brimble) are in charge of Federation operations. They’re an odd couple, to put it mildly. It’s easy to tell that Quute is a baddy – he’s got a scar down his face and an eyepatch (two dead giveaways). The General doesn’t have any such facial embellishments, but he is caked in make-up. Both also have uniforms which sport the most amazing shoulder pads.

This may all sound fairly unpromising, but Neame and Brimble are good enough actors to be able to transcend the fact they look faintly ridiculous. They’re also aided by Holmes’ script, which isn’t content to paint them as simply another couple of faceless Federation killers. The General (he doesn’t seem to have a name) is a military bore, forever droning on about battles from the past, meaning that Quute is forced to feign politeness on a regular basis.

GENERAL: Do you remember the Fletch expedition of twenty-nine?
QUUTE: No, I don’t think I do, sir.
GENERAL: Fletch used gas, against the Wazis. Hmm. Complete massacre, bodies everywhere. Took dinner with his officers that night, suddenly the Wazis came over the wall, butchered the whole expedition. Seems the Wazis are gill breathers – they can lie dormant for days.
QUUTE: Ahh, that’s very interesting sir.

Just before this, the General mentions that the best way to deal with these rebel types is with a dose of the cold steel. It’s very hard not to think of Corporal Jones ….

Star Major Hunda (Robert Morris) leads the rebels, but frankly he’s rather dull (as are his grimy cohorts). By a staggering coincidence, Tarrant and Dayna teleport down right beside him – which means that he’s able to fill them both in on the plot. Handy that.

Forbus is a cut-price Davros. He looks a little like Peter Sellers (or possibly Lewis Fiander in the Doctor Who story Nightmare of Eden) and he’s there to explain to Dayna and Tarrant all about Pylene-50. His appearance suggests that the budget was running rather low, although there are also signs of penny pinching elsewhere. The Federation HQ features some very familiar-looking panels (if you watch far more Doctor Who and Blakes 7 than is healthy that is) as well as flashing disco lights which I assume are supposed to represent power lines. The unconvincing studio grassy knoll is at least lit quite low and covered in mist.

The return of Servalan (or Sleer as she’s now calling herself) is odd.

A few lines of dialogue confirm that the Federation is now under new management and those loyal to Servalan have been executed. This makes the idea that she’d have assumed another identity just about feasible, but it’s strange that she’s made no effort to disguise herself, meaning that everywhere she goes there’s the risk she’ll bump into someone who’ll recognise her. She was the President for goodness sake, it’s a safe bet that most people would have a fair idea what she looked like.

This happens here, as the new puppet leader Practor knew Servalan of old, which means he has to die. For some reason the story attempts to keep her presence a secret until the end, but earlier on her voice (albeit distorted) was heard, so I doubt many were shocked when she did turn up in the flesh.

Although the return of Servalan is a non-surprise and the rebels aren’t terribly interesting, thanks to Holmes’ dialogue for Quute and the General plus the location filming (I’m a sucker for a nice quarry) this isn’t too bad at all.

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Blakes 7 – Terminal

February 12, 2016February 12, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey, terry nation

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As is probably well known, Terminal was due to be B7‘s final episode, but the show was granted a last-minute reprieve by BBC bigwigs who had apparently enjoyed the series so much they asked for an announcement to be broadcast over Terminal‘s end credits stating that the series would return. Which came as something of a surprise to the cast and crew.

Having said that, it’s easy to see that Terry Nation crafted the script in such a way as to make a fourth series eminently possible. Terminal ends with Blake and Servalan apparently dead (although both make a miraculous comeback in S4) and the Liberator destroyed (which doesn’t) but everyone else is alive and kicking. But even if it’s not the final end it’s still an ominous, unsettling installment. Paul Darrow’s performance (as well as the very brief return of Gareth Thomas) are the undoubted highlights and help to paper over some of the more glaring plot holes.

The main talking point has to be Avon’s bizarre behaviour. Terminal seems to look ahead to the increasingly paranoid man who’d lead the others through a number of misadventures during series four, losing just as often as winning. If Rumours of Death started to chip away at his air of invulnerability (by revealing that he was never as close to defrauding the Federation’s banking systems as he’d previously thought) then Terminal is another nail in his coffin. His obsession to find Blake has several consequences, the most serious is that it loses them the Liberator. Enroute to their destination Zen detects unidentified matter in their path – he recommends going around it (“the consensus of computer systems favour a course deviation to avoid contact. In this environment, it is prudent to treat any unexplained phenomenon as potentially dangerous”) but Avon is adamant – there will be no course deviation.

Why? It wouldn’t have cost them a great deal of time and would have been the prudent course of action. And Avon’s always been prudent – never willing to risk either his life or that of the Liberator unnecessarily. It’s tempting to think that Servalan’s operating a similar mental suggestion on Avon that we saw Blake suffer from in Voice from the Past. That would also explain his burning desire to find Blake, which also seems very out of character – he spent two years trying to get rid of him!

There is the possibility that Avon is motivated to find Blake purely because of the get-rich plan that Blake was offering, although that doesn’t really hold water either – surely Avon has the ability to create his own get-rich plans if that’s what he wants? And the Liberator is supposed to carry untold wealth anyway.

But for all the slight niggles about his motivation, the brief meeting between Avon and Blake is still magical. It may last only a minute or so but it’s a reminder that as good as Darrow’s been during S3, he’s not had an equal – like Thomas – to measure himself against.

BLAKE: Well, you certainly took your time finding me.
AVON: There didn’t seem to be any hurry. Anyway, I always said I could manage very well without you.
BLAKE: It must have been so dull having no one to argue with.
AVON: Well, now, there were times when your simple-minded certainties might have been refreshing.
BLAKE: Careful, Avon. Your sentiment is showing.

Before teleporting down to the planet (an artificial satellite called Terminal) Avon makes it quite clear to the others exactly how he feels about them. “I don’t need any of you. I needed the Liberator to bring me here so I had no choice but to bring you along, but this is as far as you go. I don’t want you with me. I don’t want you following me. Understand this: anyone who does follow me, I’ll kill them.” Not very friendly.

The obvious irony is that he does need them and despite the way he’s treated them they won’t just abandon him. It’s all done in a typically understated way – no loud declarations of friendship and loyalty – but it’s there all the same. Later, Avon explains to Servalan that he decided to do everything on his own as he felt it could be a trap – although she wonders if it had more to do with his desire not to share Blake’s mysterious treasure with them. He smiles, but doesn’t deny it (this is a nice moment, as it offers several different motivations for Avon’s actions).

Of course it all turned out to be a dream – Blake was never on Terminal and his image was created in Avon’s mind by some clever people working for Servalan. This is yet another of her hopelessly over complicated schemes to capture the Liberator (in one way it’s a good thing this’ll be the last time she’ll have to do this).

If Servalan’s once again rather surplus to requirements, there’s two moments when she earns her money. The first is when she tells Avon that Blake’s dead. She appears to be quite emotional – was this Pearce’s choice or as scripted, I wonder? And was it meant to imply Servalan’s sorrow at the death of a worthy enemy or (even though this seems unlikely) was she emphasising with the fact that the news would have upset Avon?

No prizes for guessing that the second is “Maximum Power!” as she finally gets command of the Liberator. But by now it’s a very sick ship as the cloud of unidentified matter has caused irreparable damage . It’s more than a little odd that neither Servalan or her underlings twig that something’s wrong – the whole ship’s covered with big gloopy blotches for goodness sake!

Her apparent death is an interesting moment – I wonder if they ever intended to keep her dead when S4 was being mooted. Probably not, as she was such a powerful character, but her overuse during S3 had been a problem and a fresh adversary could have been what the series needed.

Is it wrong that I find the death of Zen to be more upsetting than the death of Gan? Zen’s final words (“I have failed you. I am sorry”) always raises a sniffle and the slow disintegration of the Liberator is also mildly upsetting.

No story is ever perfect and the links (small men in monkey suits) help to keep this proud record going. But apart from them, and a bit of a mid-episode sag, there’s not much wrong with Terminal (if you can accept Avon’s odd behaviour).

As they watch the Liberator disintegrate, Avon and the others face an uncertain future ….

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Blakes 7 – Death-Watch

February 11, 2016February 11, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, chris boucher, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey

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Anybody watching Death-Watch for the first time would probably wonder why Tarrant’s aboard the United Planets passenger liner Teal Star and why he’s wearing a very bad wig. But this isn’t Del Tarrant, it’s his older brother Deeta (who could be Del’s twin). Exactly how they can be so alike when Deeta’s several years older is anyone’s guess – but it’s the future, so things are obviously different there.

The opening moments contain quite a substantial info dump – we’re told about Blood Feuds and an outbreak of war between the Vandor Confederacy and the United Planets of Teal – but this helps to quickly set the parameters of the episode, as does Deeta’s skill with a gun. He’s First Champion of the United Planets of Teal, which makes him a valid target now that Vandor and Teal have declared war. Deeta quickly deals with one assassin (whenever you see Stuart Fell you know there’s going to be some action) and then takes out another – Karla (Katherine Iddon). Both these swift attacks help to emphasise how skilled a killer he is.

How does the Liberator crew get involved? In a slightly contrived way, but it just about works. Vila hears about the war between Teal and Vandor and he’s instantly excited (“break out the booze, girls. It’s fiesta time”). It takes Tarrant to fill in some of the blanks. Whenever Teal and Vandor declare war they both pick a champion to stand as a surrogate for their armies. These two men meet in single combat to decide which side wins and which loses. Cally’s not impressed, although Tarrant does his best to convince her. “Look, two men fight for the honor of independent planetary systems of maybe twenty million people each. It’s hardly crude.”

According to Vila this means substantial festivities on the planet where the combat ground is situated. But it shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that B7‘s budget wouldn’t run to this – so no sooner do Vila and the others teleport down then they teleport back up, with Vila complaining that everything’s closed! It’s possible that this wasn’t just budget-related though, as there are some sly satirical digs peppered throughout Chris Boucher’s script. As the Liberator crew watch the viscast on the flight deck, there’s a suitably portentous voice-over (which even mentions “space, the final frontier”). The V-O serves two purposes – it helps to explain exactly what will happen, but once it finishes we’re given a peep behind the scenes as a somewhat camp director flatters the V-O man that his speech “was your usual delicate mixture of enthusiasm and dignified cliche.”

Servalan’s about, and acting as a neutral arbiter. She doesn’t really do much though and this is definitely one story where she could have been excised without too much trouble. However she does share one classic scene with Avon – where you could cut the sexual tension with a cricket stump. Avon’s not got the most flattering costume – it’s the bulky shoulder pads which are the most distracting part – but he still manages to snarl and grab another snog from Servalan with aplomb.

Once he’s done that, he too heads back to the Liberator and settles down with the others to watch the action. Rather charmingly they’ve got a decent selection of drinks and snacks to enjoy whilst they tune in to see Tarrant’s brother fight to the death.

Although it’s fair to say that there’s nothing too original about any part of Boucher’s script, it’s interesting that some of the concepts (which would have been science fiction then) are closer to reality now. Everybody has the option to feel exactly what one of the two champions feels, via the sensor net. Deeta’s second, Max (Stewart Bevan) explains. “Both men have had microsensors implanted in the brain. These are connected to a conductive mesh which is actually etched into the bone of the skull. When this mesh gets charged up it becomes a sort of transmitter. You put it on your forehead. It’s activated through the optic nerves. Close your eyes and it feeds the signal directly into the brain, open them and it cuts out. You can see what Deeta sees and feel a lot of what he feels, physically and emotionally.” Our Virtual Reality isn’t quite there yet, but maybe one day ….

Once Deeta and Vinni (Mark Elliott) enter the killing ground, the camera often acts as their “eyes” allowing us to view the area as they would see it. In this way it anticipated generations of first-person shooter computer games. This choice of shot is used most effectively just after Vinni has fatally wounded Deeta – we see Vinni stand over the stricken Deeta and watch as he aims his gun directly at his opponent (i.e. the camera) to deliver the killing blow.

Whilst Deeta was hardly given any screentime to be developed as a rounded character, there were a few nice touches – such as the fact that he felt fear (so he wasn’t simply a mindless killer). Stephen Pacey does do a good job to portray his pain at his brother’s death, although as is the way with B7 there’s no time to reflect – unfinished business has to be attended to.

Vinni’s an android and looks to be Servalan’s handiwork, She has plenty of incentive for ensuring that Vandor and Teal go to war for real (the Federation would be handily placed to pick up the pieces and subdue the survivors). Under the rules of Blood Feud Tarrant is able to challenge Vini and it’s probably not too hard to guess what happens next.

Most memorable part of the episode must be the silver combat suits that both Deeta and Vinni wear. Remember this was 1980 not 1973, so quite why costume designer Nicholas Rocker decided to create something that Alvin Stardust could have worn is anyone’s guess. Wembley Exhibition Halls and Southhall Gasworks make an excellent venue for the Deeta/Vinni battle (and should be familiar from numerous other television shows of the time). I’d forgotten that Stewart Bevan was in this one, but then he wasn’t talking about mushrooms and didn’t have a Welsh accent, so that’s fair enough.

Death-Watch is a good opportunity for Stephen Pacey and it’s a decent sci-concept, well produced.

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Blakes 7 – Rumours of Death

February 7, 2016February 7, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, chris boucher, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey

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Rumours of Death features Blake 7‘s most effective cold opening. Avon is a prisoner of the Federation and he’s in a pretty bad way. Unshaven and in pain, he’s been a captive for five days and during that time he’s proven to be rather uncooperative. He’s visited in his cell by the Federation’s top torturer, Shrinker (John Bryans) who is determined to get the truth out of him – one way or another.

Set-wise, this opening section is simply staged. Avon’s cell is bare and we never venture any further into the Federation detention block. But the illusion that Avon isn’t the only prisoner is effectively created by the off-camera screams of another poor unfortunate. And as Shrinker brandishes a laser probe it seems likely that Avon will also be screaming soon. Director Fiona Cumming chooses to keep the camera angle in this scene quite low – with Avon seated on the bed and Shrinker standing over him it helps to create the impression of the Federation man’s dominance. A simple trick (like the off-camera screams) but nonetheless effective.

The attentive viewer wouldn’t have been fooled by Avon’s plight for too long. It now becomes clear why he mentioned Shrinker in the previous episode (he’d told the rest of the crew that Shrinker was the key to understanding why Anna Grant, the woman he loved, died). So when Shrinker appears here it’s clear that Avon’s plan is in full swing. That he was prepared to withstand days of torture (it’s never explicitly stated what happened to him, but it clearly wasn’t pleasant) in order to lure Shrinker to his cell speaks volumes. Whether for good or bad is debatable though. Avon’s always been a driven, single-minded character, but the events of this episode seem to clearly indicate his future, tragic path – the loss of the Liberator, his inability to ever trust again and the cataclysmic events on Gauda Prime.

When Tarrant and Dayna teleport into the cell and take Avon and Shrinker back to the Liberator it’s remarkable how quickly Shrinker devolves into a whimpering, pathetic character. The cliche that he was only a man who followed orders is aired, but there’s a faint sense of unreality about his total collapse. Yes, it’s reasonable to assume that such a man would be powerless when stripped of his authority, but it might have played better had he kept a faint air of defiance.

The reactions of Tarrant, Dayna and Vila are noteworthy. They surround the cowering Shrinker and goad him, causing a disgusted Cally to snap at them. That Shrinker’s a mass-murderer is unquestionable and Tarrant tells her that he’s nothing more than an animal. “Yes, and it’s contagious, isn’t it?” responds Cally. With series three of Blakes 7 having largely abandoned the freedom fighter/terrorist attacks of the first two series, this brief exchange taps into some of the more interesting character moments from previous stories like Star One. Shrinker is a monster, but if they behave like him can they claim to be any better?

Whilst this part of the plot is bubbling along nicely, we jump to Earth. Sula (Lorna Helibron) and Chesku (Peter Clay) are two high-ranking officials in the Federation (and are also married). Chesku is clearly a man with a great regard for his own oratorical skills and gives his wife a demonstration of part of a speech he plans to deliver later. “The rabble which sought to challenge the established order lacked our inspiration, our unity, our leadership. They are crushed. Earth and the Inner Planets are once again united. Gentlemen, I give you a toast. Our inspiration, our unity, our leader: President Servalan.”

Sula responds that “I’m sure Servalan will be delighted. She is, after all, a tasteless megalomaniac.” The faintly off-key nature of the episode continues after two Federation troopers turn up and, on Sula’s orders, shoot Chesku dead. Peter Clay’s death (all flailing arms as he crashes into a bush) isn’t the most impressive, but never mind. It helps to set up the events for the rest of the episode as it looks as if a palace revolution is taking place. The power-struggles within the Federation following the war with the aliens is certainly something that could have been developed more during series three. As it was, Servalan seemed to spend far too much time tussling with Avon and the others instead of attempting to secure her position.

Things get even stranger when Avon starts to question Shrinker. Avon shows him a picture of Anna Grant, but he claims he doesn’t know her. “I’ve killed hundreds and remembered them all, all of them, every last whining traitor. And there wasn’t one that died without telling me what I wanted to know. Not one.” We then flashback to scenes of Anna in bed with Avon. It’s maybe not immediately clear, but this is the same woman who now calls herself Sula. In Space Fall we were told that Avon was nearly responsible for the greatest banking fraud in Federation history, but Shrinker now tells him that he was monitored right from the start (he was under the observation of an agent called Bartolomew from Central Security). It’s another small moment which helps to emphasise that Avon’s not as infallible as he might appear.

Avon leaves Shrinker a prisoner in a cave with no escape and a gun for company. Avon promised him a way out and this is it (“It’s a better deal than you gave any of your victims”). With Shrinker’s information, he now decides to set course for Earth to confront Servalan and demand that she reveal the identity of Bartolomew. This is the weakest part of the script – that Avon would decide to return to Earth seems foolhardy enough but that he chooses to do so on the same day that Anna/Sula decides to take out Servalan is one coincidence too many.

Greenlee (Donald Douglas) and Forres (David Haig) are two career officers who are on security duty at the lavish country house that serves as Servalan’s headquarters. It seems that Chris Boucher took a leaf out of Robert Holmes’ book as Greenlee and Forres act as detached narrators for the first half of the episode – they help to fill in the blanks of what we’re seeing. Although unlike most Holmesian double-acts they don’t make it to the end as they’re both mown down by Sula’s men. The palace revolution is far from bloodless, but it’s comprehensive.

Jacqueline Pearce doesn’t have a great deal of screentime in this episode, but that’s not really a criticism. Servalan’s been something of an overexposed character (especially during series three to date) so Rumours of Death works well by keeping her as more of a background character. But her scene with Avon towards the end (she’s chained up in the cellar, helpless) is another key Avon/Servalan meeting that has no doubt launched a thousand fan-fics.

AVON: Is that it? Have you finally lost your nerve? Have you murdered your way to the wall of an underground room?

SERVALAN: It’s an old wall, Avon, it waits. I hope you don’t die before you reach it.

That Avon is prepared to set Servalan free when Sula and others are close to destroying her power forever is intriguing (it looks as if everything that Blake fought for is within their grasp). This is open to interpretation though. Is Sula keen to replace her (as suggested earlier on) or does she really support the notion of a People’s Council? If it’s the latter, then it’s ironic that Sula has been fighting for the same things that the Liberator crew did for so long.

It’ll come as no surprise that Anna = Sula = Bartolomew or that Avon kills her. So Anna was a fiction who only existed for Avon. But Sula’s dying words seem to suggest that she genuinely did love Avon. But in the hall of mirrors that’s Rumours of Death can we believe her this time?

This is clearly a great vehicle for Paul Darrow, who makes the most of the material. There’s a few niggles (for example, Servalan is taken prisoner rather too easily and if Anna Grant never existed who was the man who claimed to be her brother in the series two episode Countdown?) but overall this is a classy episode.

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Blakes 7 – Children of Auron

February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, roger parkes, stephen pacey

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Servalan’s always been insanely ruthless, but Children of Auron is extreme, even by her standards. She infects the whole population of Auron with a deadly pathogen to achieve two goals – firstly to capture the Liberator and secondly to continue her bloodline.

She explains why capturing the Liberator remains such a high priory – with the Federation in tatters she’ll be able to take control again quicker with the most powerful ship in the galaxy. Does this really make sense? The galaxy’s a big place and the Liberator, powerful though it is, is only one ship. I can’t see that it would make that much difference (and anyway, it’s not ships she needs but good men). The fact that she effectively wants to have children (although the technique on Auron is only able to create clones of herself) is even more startling. Servalan’s never shown any sort of maternal instinct, so this revelation is rather hard to take.

It was perhaps inevitable that we’d return to Cally’s home planet one day and although there isn’t a great deal of time to develop its backstory, we still learn a little. C.A. One (Ronald Leigh-Hunt) has kept Auron strictly neutral – any contact with outsiders has been discouraged, but the unfortunate result is that the pathogen is able to spread unchecked (few of his people have any sort of resistance to space viruses due to their strict isolationist policy). It’s a shame that Leigh-Hunt doesn’t essay a subtler performance, as C.A. One ends up as little more than a bluff blusterer.

Cally has an identical twin, Zelda. Given Auron’s skills in cloning this is reasonable enough (although credibility is stretched later in the series when we meet Tarrant’s identical twin – no cloning involved there). Zelda isn’t a very proactive figure and doesn’t do a great deal to further the plot (although she has an inevitable and pointless death). It’s a pity that more couldn’t have been done, as her demise does feel like a wasted opportunity. Jan Chappell is, of course, excellent as both Cally and Zelda – especially when we see Cally take on Avon. Avon is keen to head to Earth for a mission of vengeance (sowing the seeds for Rumours of Death). Even when the plight of the Aurons is known he’s still disinclined to get involved, so there’s a nice tension that exists between them (which pays off later in Sarcophagus).

If Servalan’s going to rebuild the Federation then she needs good men, but alas they seem hard to find. In Children of Auron she’s lumbered with a right pair – Deral (Rio Fanning) and Ginka (Ric Young). They spend most of the episode bickering (Ginka’s unhappy that Deral was promoted ahead of him) and generally bumbling about. Deral is unable to capture the Liberator even when only two of the crew are aboard and one of them is Vila, now back to his default setting of cowardly.

Ginka’s lack of judgement is even more striking. Avon, Cally and Tarrant are taking refuge in the replication plant – they know they’re safe there, as Servalan wouldn’t destroy her own clones. But Ginka is able to convince her that Deral switched her genetic material for his, so she gives the order to fire. As the plant is destroyed Jacqueline Pearce gives one of her finest performances in the series – Servalan clearly feels intense pain as her clones go up in flames. But Ginka obviously never stopped to think that possibly, just possibly, Servalan wouldn’t be terribly pleased when she discovered that he’d tricked her (as I said, he’s not the sharpest knife in the draw). So he’s not long for this world (and neither is Deral) which leaves Servalan with yet another staffing crises. Possibly she’s pining for the good old days with Travis.

If Auron remains a rather undeveloped world and Servalan’s schemes are barmy, that doesn’t stop Children of Auron from being a strong mid series episode. Sandwiched between City at the Edge of the World and Rumours of Death it probably slightly pales in comparison, but it’s still much stronger than the likes of Volcano and Dawn of the Gods.

Ten points docked for the final scene though, as everybody has a good laugh on the bridge of the Liberator. It’s not the first time it’s happened (the crew had a chuckle at the end of Breakdown, seemingly oblivious to the loss of life they’d just witnessed) but again it just feels so out of place. We’ve just witnessed a planet devastated, so a little show of solemnity wouldn’t have been out of place. Apart from that, this is decent stuff.

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Blakes 7 – The Harvest of Kairos

February 3, 2016February 3, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's andrew burt, BBC, ben stead, blakes 7, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, stephen pacey

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The Harvest of Kairos has a feel of a hastily rewritten S2 episode. Otherwise, how do you explain that Tarrant seems to have become Enemy Number One in Servalan’s eyes? She spends the opening few minutes musing about what he’s going to do next, whilst her cringing subordinate Dastor (Frank Gatliff) hesitatingly breaks the bad news that there’s dissent among her crew.

Some believe that she’s too afraid to attack Tarrant(!). Chief amongst the dissenters is a worker from the construction grades, Jarvik (Andrew Burt). Since he’s clearly designed to be an alpha-male, Burt’s casting is eccentric (to put it mildly). Burt, the original Joe Sugden from Emmerdale Farm, also has to battle with Ben Stead’s script and his first line to Servalan sets the tone. “Woman, you’re beautiful” he says, before grasping her for a quick snog. There’s always the possibility that Stead had his tongue in his cheek, but I’m not so sure (there’s the evidence of his subsequent B7 scripts for example). The sexual politics are skewered towards the dominance of men, with even Servalan seeming to melt under Jarvik’s winning ways (“But first, there is the question of that degrading and primitive act to which I was subjected in the control room. I should like you to do it again”).

Jarvik also attempts to humanise the very inhuman Servalan. “When was the last time you felt the warmth of the Earth’s sun on your naked back? Or lifted your face to the heavens, and laughed with the joy of being alive? How long since you wept at the death of a friend?” It’s a decent enough line and if delivered well it could have some impact (it brings to mind similar comments from Kasabi during Pressure Point) but Burt rather torpedoes it. He’s a good actor, just hopelessly miscast.

Meanwhile, onboard the Liberator Tarrant is being his usual annoying self. He intends to steal a cargo of Kairopan (a highly valuable crystal found on the planet Kairos). Kairos is a dangerous planet, so Tarrant plans to hijack the freighter after it’s left the planet.

As the Liberator comes under attack from Federation ships commanded by Jarvik (he’s been given a chance by the clearly impressed Servalan) Avon is strangely distracted. Maybe this is as scripted, or possibly Paul Darrow simply wasn’t interested that week. Avon’s absorbed with a mysterious crystal called sophron – it’s no ordinary rock, as it seems to have a capacity for reasoning that slightly exceeds Orac’s (and many other qualities as well). No surprises that we never hear of it again, so its only function is to operate as a get out of jail free card. After Jarvik’s plan to capture the Liberator succeeds, the crew are exiled to the definitely unfriendly Kairos. Escape seems impossible, until Avon’s magic rock saves the day.

It’s jarring to see Servalan in control of the Liberator (a warm up for the apocalyptic events of Terminal) and once Avon and the others have been exiled to Kairos her victory seems complete. We then lurch into the next unexpected event – Servalan is so taken with Jarvik that she’s keen to make him co-ruler, but first he has to prove himself. And how does she decide to test him? He has to take on Tarrant, man-to-man, and defeat him. Yes, okay then.

Just when you think you’ve seen everything, up pops the silliest looking giant insect …..

The Harvest of Kairos is dumb fun. It’s never less than entertaining (if you can stomach all the “ah well, he’s a man” talk) but it doesn’t fit as an early series three episode (had it come towards the end of the third series then Tarrant’s status would have been more credible). Chris Boucher seems to have taken his eye off the ball, script-editing wise, but luckily he’d also been penning a number of decent stories and the next episode will see a marked upswing in quality.

Blakes 7 – Volcano

January 31, 2016January 31, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's allan prior, BBC, blakes 7, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael gough, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey

volcano 01

Dayna and Tarrant have teleported down to the surface of Obsidian. It’s a planet that has managed to remain unaligned from the Federation and also emerged unscathed from the recent galactic war. Tarrant believes the planet would make a good base for them, but their pacifistic leader Hower (Michael Gough) isn’t interested.

Bad news, it’s an Allan Prior script. Good news, it’s not Animals. It’s not that much better though as Prior’s dialogue doesn’t exactly sparkle and few of the guest cast emerge with much credit. Michael Gough, of course, is able to instill Hower with a certain dignity but Malcolm Bullivant, playing Hower’s son Bershar, is wooden in the extreme. Frankly there’s more animation to be found in the extremely silly looking silver robot. The Graham Williams era of Doctor Who (with its slapstick air) has many critics but the alternative is something like Volcano – an episode delivered with such an air of relentless earnestness that it becomes impossible to take it seriously.

Pacifistic planets are something of a sci-fi cliche. Hower explains to Dayna how they’ve arrived at this state. “We have taught them peace from the cradle, and we have blocked, usually with a minute electric shock, every tendency towards an aggressive act. Plus of course, daily psychological propaganda. We have no war, no fights among ourselves, no lawlessness, no crime. Our people devote themselves to creation and not destruction. We are at peace here on Obsidian.”

This is all well and good, but what happens when the Federation turns up? Although we’ve been told that the Federation are in disarray they seem in fine fettle here. Led by Servalan (of course) their first act is to attempt to capture the Liberator. This rather begs the question as to how Servalan knew the Liberator would be there. And with an empire to rebuild you’d assume she’d have more pressing things on her mind than settling scores with Avon and co. Volcano is one of those series three scripts that seems a little out of place, although it would have worked during series two (when the Federation was dominant).

The Federation, led by Mori (Ben Howard) are able to take over the Liberator with embarrassing ease. This should be a dramatic highlight of the story but it’s pretty much a damp squib, even after we see Avon shot by Mori. Ben Howard, a regular in the last series of Dixon of Dock Green, is the first of Servalan’s Travis substitutes and, bless him, he’s almost bad enough to make you pine for Brian Croucher. The Battle Fleet Commander, played by Alan Bowerman, offers another amusingly rotten performance.

The Federation don’t hold the Liberator for very long and amazingly Servalan then decides to run away and fight another day.

SERVALAN: Without that ship we’ve lost a strategic advantage.
MUTOID: Madam?
SERVALAN: But, no one else has gained it. Without Blake the Liberator’s no immediate threat to our plans.
MUTOID: No, Madam President.
SERVALAN: Well the crew have no political ambitions.
MUTOID: They are merely criminals.
SERVALAN: So they’ll keep. Until the rule of law has been restored. Until my rule of law has been restored.

This doesn’t ring true – if Servalan doesn’t believe the Liberator poses a threat without Blake, why go to all that trouble to try and capture it? The capture-the-Liberator sub-plot seems to have been rather awkwardly bolted onto the episode in order to pad out the running time.

One interesting part of the script is that Servalan’s assessment of Avon and the others seems spot on. Tarrant tells Hower that they’re mercenaries and in exchange for the use of his planet he’ll offer them a percentage of their spoils. I wonder if serious thought was ever given to turning them into a gang of intergalactic criminals? This notion tends to be downplayed as we move through series three – pure sci-fi takes over – and when we reach series four there’s a return to the theme of the struggle against the Federation.

Hower’s decision to destroy his planet rather than see it colonised by the Federation should be a powerful one, but it’s another moment that doesn’t have a great deal of impact since we’ve never been given any cause to believe that Hower’s people are a real, functioning society. Unfortunately, they’re just a series of faceless extras.

Although Volcano‘s problems are many, it’s by no means unwatchable. It has its fair share of bad acting and illogical plotting, although that hardly makes it unique in the Blakes 7 universe. It’s undemanding stuff, but it’s frustrating as the series can do so much better.

volcano 02

Blakes 7 – Powerplay

January 29, 2016January 29, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1980's BBC, blakes 7, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, josette simon, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, stephen pacey, terry nation

powerplay 01

With the departure of Gareth Thomas, Blakes 7 needed a new central dynamic. It’s easy to see how the Blake/Avon relationship was recreated with Avon/Tarrant, but there’s one major difference. Tarrant, like Avon during series one and two, is presented as the questioning figure of the group – often wondering if the plan they’re embarking on is wise – but he clearly lacks Avon’s experience and so ends up as a much less forceful figure.

So whilst Blake/Avon was more of a meeting of equals, Avon/Tarrant has something of a father/son feel with poor Tarrant coming off second best more often than not. No doubt this is also a consequence of the slow rise of Avon’s megalomania – as we’ll see (especially during series four) Avon becomes increasingly disinclined to listen to anyone – with disastrous results.

Stephen Pacey, like Josette Simon, does his best with the hand he’s dealt, although Tarrant does sometimes come over as intensely annoying (Harvest of Kairos, springs to mind). But he does start off with an interesting character dynamic. He’s presented as the enemy (so it comes as a surprise when he joins the crew at the end of the episode). Tarrant is the leader of a Federation raiding party who’ve taken control of the Liberator (much to Avon’s barely concealed disgust) but in the end it turns out he wasn’t a Federation type after all, he was only pretending. Hurrah!

powerplay 02

To be honest, there’s something of a lost opportunity here. Tarrant claims that he’s a fugitive from the Federation but we’ve only got his word for it. Could he really have been a Federation officer all along? He’s certainly very convincing in the role. The possibility that Tarrant may be untrustworthy and liable to sell them out at any minute would have provided a nice spark of tension, but this angle was never explored.

But if Tarrant is faux-Federation, then his second-in-command, Section leader Klegg (Michael Sheard), is Federation through and through. With several day’s stubble and a perpetually irritated expression (like he’s just swallowed a space-fly) it’s a highly entertaining performance from Sheard – a cult film and television favourite of many, including me (he had umpteen Doctor Who‘s to his credit, along with films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones).

I wonder what Michael Keating and Jan Chappell felt when they received the first two scripts of series three? They were barely in the first episode and spend episode two languishing in the sub-plot. Both Vila and Cally seem to have landed on their feet after they’re taken to what appears to be a spotless hospital on the planet Chenga. Vila thanks the two attractive young women – Zee (Primi Townsend) and Barr (Julia Fiddler) – most effusively for rescuing him. “You get paid for helping me? That’s what the primitives meant when they said that you get a bounty. You see, they’ve got it all wrong, they just don’t understand. You look after yourselves and thanks once again. I really, really mean that.”

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Vila and Cally are being set up to take a fall. The Chengans plan to harvest them for their organs – and wouldn’t you know it, the happy news is broken to them by Servalan. If credibility was stretched to breaking point in the previous episode when she turned up on the same planet as Avon, there’s no words to explain how ridiculous it is that she just happens to bump into Vila and Cally. Small universe, isn’t it? Luckily the Liberator picks them up just before they’re sliced and diced.

Like Aftermath, this is a story that works well on a character level. Terry Nation doesn’t provide us with any major surprises, but whilst it’s not subtle stuff it does clip along at a decent rate.

powerplay 03

Blakes 7 – Star One

October 20, 2015October 20, 2015 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1970's BBC, blakes 7, brian croucher, chris boucher, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, sally knyvette

There are two key scenes in Star One – both of which take place on the Liberator during the opening minutes. The first demonstrates Avon’s wish to end his association with Blake.

AVON: We can take Star One, let’s get on with it.
JENNA: Very stirring. When did you become a believer?
AVON: Are you just going to sit there? You have led them by the nose before.
BLAKE: Excuse me, are you going to answer her question?
AVON: Show me someone who believes in anything and I will show you a fool.
BLAKE: I meant what I said on Goth, Avon. We are not going to use Star One to rule the Federation, we are going to destroy it.
AVON: I never doubted that. I never doubted your fanaticism. As far as I am concerned you can destroy whatever you like. You can stir up a thousand revolutions, you can wade in blood up to your armpits. Oh, and you can lead the rabble to victory, whatever that might mean. Just so long as there is an end to it. When Star One is gone it is finished, Blake. And I want it finished. I want it over and done with. I want to be free.
CALLY: But you are free now, Avon.
AVON: I want to be free of him.
BLAKE: I never realised. You really do hate me, don’t you?

Blake agrees that Avon will take him back to Earth after the destruction of Star One and that the Liberator will then be Avon’s. This is a pointer towards the general direction that series three will take. With Blake absent it wouldn’t have been credible for Avon to simply inherit his crusading zeal, so we see a shift towards more SF stories and less battles with the Federation (the balance changes again in series four). Paul Darrow is excellent in this scene and it easily demonstrates that he’s more than capable of carrying the series.

Even more fascinating is the following exchange between Blake and Cally.

CALLY: Are we fanatics?
BLAKE: Does it matter?
CALLY: Many, many people will die without Star One.
BLAKE: I know.
CALLY: Are you sure that what we’re going to do is justified?
BLAKE: It has to be. Don’t you see, Cally? If we stop now then all we have done is senseless killing and destruction. Without purpose, without reason. We have to win. It’s the only way I can be sure that I was right.

This is such a key moment, as it shines a very cold and clear light on Blake and his convictions. Earlier in the episode Servalan is shown examples of what happens when Star One fails – droughts, storms, terrible devastation, etc. If Blake destroys Star One then these disasters will just be the tip of the iceberg. Can any cause possibly justify this loss of life? It’s hard to agree with Blake that it does – his sole motive for continuing is because he’s gone too far down the road of freedom fighter/terrorist (delete as applicable) to stop now. It seems a monumentally poor reason for such wholesale destruction.

As we’ll see, Blake doesn’t destroy Star One. Aliens have infiltrated the complex and the Liberator finds itself allied with a fleet of Federation ships in a desperate attempt to stop a massive alien invasion. It’s possible to argue that the unexpected appearance of aliens is something of a cop-out. The Federation in series three is shown to be in disarray following the battle with the aliens and had Blake destroyed Star One there would have been a similar amount of disruption.

Star One is manned by a small number of Federation personnel, most of whom have been replaced by the shape-shifting aliens. This makes no sense – we’re told nobody ever visits, so why didn’t the aliens simply kill everybody and then take over? It’s also not clear why Star One has been failing recently – were these problems caused by the aliens or was Star One starting to run down of its own accord?

It also seems that quite a few events have been happening off-screen – when did Travis decide to ally himself with the aliens and why should he now wish to destroy all humanity? He’s always been more than a little unstable, but this sudden desire to kill everybody doesn’t really sit with what we’ve previously seen.

With Gareth Thomas’ departure it was decided that Travis’ main function in the series was over. And it’s difficult not to raise a cheer as Avon finally kills him off and sends him spinning down a very deep hole (via some very unconvincing CSO). The problems with Travis during series two weren’t all down to Brian Croucher, but there’s no doubt that Travis’ death is a mercy killing (both for himself and the audience).

We end with a cliffhanger as Avon leads the Liberator in an apparently hopeless battle against the oncoming alien fleet. There’s one final moment between Blake and Avon (“Avon, for what it is worth, I have always trusted you, from the very beginning.”) and then the credits roll.

After some wobbles in the second half of the season (Hostage, Countdown, Voice from the Past, The Keeper) Star One manages to close the second run on a high. It’s a very talky episode, with little in the way of impressive visuals or effects (the alien fleet looks to be cobbled together from whatever was lying around the Special Effects workshop for example). But the dialogue heavy nature of the story isn’t a problem as it allows all the regulars a chance to shine.

Blakes 7 – The Keeper

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1970's allan prior, BBC, blakes 7, brian croucher, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, sally knyvette

The Keeper isn’t a story that has a great deal going for it. The setting is the planet Goth and its inhabitants, led by Gola (Bruce Purchase), clearly favour a faux-medieval feel (plenty of flickering torches and over-ripe dialogue).

Purchase, who’d played the Captain in the Doctor Who story The Pirate Planet shortly before, approaches this role with a similar lack of subtlety. But whilst there was slightly more to the Captain than initially was apparent, Gola is just a blustering fool who spends his time shouting – it’s almost as if he’d taken lessons from Brian Blessed.

Blake, Vila and Jenna teleport down to find the brainprint of cyber-surgeon Lurgen. Once they have that they’ll be able to establish the location of Star One. Avon asks Blake what they’ll do once they know where Star One is.

BLAKE: Finish what we started.
AVON: Destroy it?
BLAKE: Of course. And the entire Federation with it. Does that bother you suddenly?
AVON: Star One is the automatic computer control centre for the entire Federation.
BLAKE: Get to the point, Avon.
AVON: That is the point. Through Star One we could control everything. The Federation could belong to us.
VILA: I could be president.
AVON: Ah.

Blake and the others are only on the planet’s surface for a few minutes before they’re overpowered – it’s a remarkably inept display by Blake (strategic planning has never been one of his strengths). Vila and Jenna are carried off whilst they leave Blake behind (why?). Blake urgently requests teleport, but Avon and Cally have moved out of teleport range in order to destroy Travis’ ship.

How Avon manages to identify the ship as Travis’ is never explained – surely there must be others in the galaxy that are similar? It probably won’t come as a surprise that Travis wasn’t on board – he and Servalan are both on Goth. Their on/off working relationship is now back on and Travis is in a remarkably mellow mood as he attempts to forge a more permanent alliance with Servalan.

TRAVIS: Look, Star One is the computer control centre. It controls the climate on more than two hundred worlds, communications, security, food production, it controls them all. It is the key to our very lives. Think of all that power.
SERVALAN: You can see why the Council themselves don’t know where Star One is. In the wrong hands …
TRAVIS: Yes, but in the right hands: yours and mine.
SERVALAN: Be very careful you don’t overreach yourself, Travis.

One part of the story that does work very well is Travis’ contribution to it. It seems obvious that he’ll be around for the duration, tangling with Blake and the others, but about twenty minutes in he disappears and it slowly becomes clear that he’s not coming back. He’s already found Star One’s location and not only has he betrayed Servalan but as the next episode makes clear he’s betrayed the whole human race …..

A quick mention for his personal communicator, which is the size of several house-bricks (almost like the most primitive mobile phone). Considering that Kirk and the Enterprise had pocket sized communicators a decade earlier you’d have imagined B7 could have done something similar. It’s hard to imagine him putting that into his pocket!

Whilst Blake runs around achieving very little, Jenna and Vila are making the acquaintance of Gola. Vila becomes the King’s fool, supplanting his existing one (played by Cengiz Saner) whilst Jenna immediately attracts Gola’s attention. It’s a good thing that The Keeper gives Sally Knyvette something to do, it’s a bad thing that she has to spend her time as the object of Gola’s attentions. But Knyvette does manage to mine some comic moments from this fairly unpromising material.

Elsewhere, Blake meets Rod (Shaun Curry) who is Gola’s brother and plans to challenge him for the throne. It won’t come as surprise that Rod is a bluff and hearty fellow (he’s not quite in the Purchase/Blessed camp for loudness, but he comes close).

Blake also runs into an old man locked in the dungeon (played by Arthur Hewlett) who turns out to be Gola and Rod’s father – and so is the old, disposed king. Hewlett’s performance is notable for his moaning (he may be playing for laughs or he may not, I can’t be sure). Also eschewing any subtlety is Freda Jackson as Tara, Gola’s sister. She can cackle with the best of them and when she’s not doing that she maintains a baleful watch over the unfolding events.

Eventually (thank goodness) Blake discovers the location of Star One, which means we can happily leave the planet of Goth far behind and journey onwards to the climax of series two.

Blakes 7 – Gambit

October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1970's BBC, blakes 7, brian croucher, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, robert holmes, sally knyvette

Gambit is an unusual story, certainly for the series to date. Robert Holmes’ script is laced with his usual love of wordplay and the camp quotient is set to eleven. Krantor (Aubrey Woods) and Toise (John Leeson) are an unforgettable double-act – both actors seem to delight in upstaging the other (not least with their costumes – Leeson’s headgear is especially memorable).

There’s a throwaway line that it’s Mardi Gras time at Freedom City, which explains why they’re dressed as they are – and presumably all the extras (dressed as clowns, nuns, etc) are entering into the spirit of the occasion as well. Or their costumes could have just been pulled off the shelves – this is Blakes 7, so it’s always a fair bet that money was tight.

The lack of a decent budget is probably best reflected in the main room of Freedom City’s casino, which is pretty sparsely decorated. So what funds were available seem to have been spent on a handful of new costumes (especially Servalan’s stunning red number).

Servalan, and her assistant Jarriere (Harry Jones), have travelled to Freedom City to find both Travis and cyber-surgeon Docholli (Denis Carey). It’s believed that Docholli knows the location of Star One – so Servalan is anxious to locate him before Blake does. She offers Krantor a substantial sum of money in exchange for his co-operation, but whilst they’re perfectly pleasant to each other on the surface it’s plain that neither trusts or likes the other an inch.

Servalan on Krantor. “He is a despicable animal. When the Federation finally cleans out this cesspit, I shall have that vulpine degenerate eviscerated with a small and very blunt knife.”

Krantor on Servalan. “One of these days, Toise, I am going to have Supreme Commander high-and-mighty Servalan ravaged until she does not know what month she’s in. I’ll have her screaming for death.”

This is typical Holmes, although it’s a little surprising that Krantor’s wish to ravage Servalan made it to the screen. He always delighted in putting lurid dialogue into his scripts and sometimes (especially when Terrance Dicks was script-editing his work on Doctor Who) the more extreme examples were excised. Here, it seems that Chris Boucher was happy to keep them in (unless of course he removed even worse!)

If Krantor and Toise are a great double-act, then so are Servalan and Jarriere. Harry Jones couldn’t have looked less like a Federation trooper if he tried, but maybe this is why he was cast. Jarriere is present mainly to listen admiringly to Servalan’s increasingly convoluted plans about how she intends to deal with both Docholli and Travis. Delightfully, after she’s explained herself in great detail he then admits he doesn’t understand a word of it!

The third excellent double-act in the story are Avon and Vila. Homes had already latched onto the comic possibilities of teaming them up in Killer and he wastes no time in doing so here as well. Their subplot is a little bizarre, but it fits into the odd nature of the story.

Both are aggrieved at having to remain behind on the Liberator with Vila complaining that “if it was a desert down there, so hot your eyeballs frizzled, poisonous snakes under every rock” then Blake would have sent the pair of them. Avon agrees and then decides they should teleport down and break the bank at the casino.

Why they should want to do this (the Liberator possesses untold wealth) is never made clear, plus the concept of Avon sneaking down is also bizarre – it’s difficult to imagine he cares that Blake would disapprove. Some of his dialogue (“you dummy”) seems out of character too.

Avon and Vila intend to win a fortune at the roulette table with the aid of Orac. But since Orac’s rather bulky, after a brief discussion about molecular reduction the computer obligingly reduces himself to one eighth of his normal size. You can either enjoy the comic moment or fret that the episode once again isn’t taking itself seriously.

Blake, Cally and Jenna’s search for Docholli doesn’t last very long (they find a trace of him in the first bar they come to) so they don’t really have a great deal to do. Jenna and Cally’s brief staged cat-fight is easily the highlight of their scenes. Travis skulks about, wearing a silly hat, guarding Docholli as he knows that Blake will turn up to find the surgeon (although how Travis knows about Docholli is never explained).

Thanks to Orac, Vila wins a fortune but then finds himself conned into playing speed chess with the Klute (Deep Roy). If he wins or draws he’ll earn another fortune, but it he loses it’ll cost him his life. Naturally with Orac on hand to whisper suggestions, Vila manages to earn a draw and he and Avon return to the Liberator a good deal richer.

Blake, Cally and Jenna have returned too, with information that will send them off to the planet Goth to locate a tribal chief who wears the brain-print of someone who knew the location of Star One around his neck. When Blake asks Avon and Vila if anything’s happened he’s immediately suspicious by the sight of their innocent expressions (Darrow deadpans terribly well).

If you like your Blakes 7 on the gritty side, then Gambit may not appeal but everyone else should find something to enjoy here.

Blakes 7 – Voice from the Past

October 17, 2015October 18, 2015 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1970's BBC, blakes 7, brian croucher, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, roger parkes, sally knyvette

Where to start with Voice from the Past? There’s some good ideas in Roger Parkes’ script but ultimately the story is incoherent and illogical. It does have a decent opening hook though – Blake starts acting oddly and changes course from the idyllic sounding Del Ten to a lifeless asteroid called PK One One Eight. He offers no explanation, beyond “try trusting me.” Paul Darrow has the best of the early exchanges especially when he decides that Blake is “certainly not normal, not even for Blake.”

This is somewhat ironic, since Blake’s command style has so often kept everyone in the dark whilst he formulated elaborate plans that sometimes (as in Pressure Point) end in disaster. So his behaviour here isn’t particularly out of character, though Cally picks up a faint tone oscillation which suggests somehow he’s being manipulated.

With the unstable Blake under restraint it falls to Vila to look after him. Bad move. It recalls a similar scene in Breakdown, where Gan was restrained and Cally was monitoring him. Both Gan and Blake appeared quite normal and asked to be freed, but Vila proves much more gullible than Cally was – he not only releases him but also swallows his story that Avon and Cally have been plotting against the rest of them. This whole part of the story does no favours at all for Vila, since it portrays him as an easily duped simpleton.

With Avon, Cally and Jenna locked up, Vila teleports Blake down to the surface of the asteroid. The opening shot of Blake on the asteroid’s surface is a stunning example of incredibly poor CSO – not helped by the fact that the background image seems to have been drawn by a child. Things then get stranger still when he meets the people who have summoned him.

Ven Glynd (Richard Bebb) was the arbiter at Blake’s trial, but he’s now defected from the Federation and has in his possession information which he claims will bring down both the civil administration and the space corps. Also present is a broken, bandaged figure who we’re told is Shivan, a notable resistance leader.

Sadly Robert James wasn’t able to reprise his role as Ven Glynd, so Richard Bedd stepped into the part. Whilst he’s not as compelling an actor as James, he still manages to do his best and there are the odd signs of just how wily an operator Ven Glynd is (he wants Blake to rule as a puppet leader whilst he enjoys the real power). Glynd asks Blake and the others to accompany him to the Governor’s Summit Meeting at Atlay. There, along with a powerful ally, Governor Le Grand (Freda Knorr), they will present their evidence.

One of the most obvious plot-flaws is why Ven Glynd and Le Grand should attempt to manipulate Blake by beaming messages into his mind. Why not just contact the Liberator direct? The most obvious answer is that they’re not telling the truth, but although they have agendas both are honest in what they want Blake to do – so why attempt to brainwash him, when he probably would have agreed to help anyway?

Le Grand explains to Blake what will happen and that they want him to be the new ruler of the Terran administration.

LE GRAND: For years now, the Arbiter General and I have prepared for this moment. He gathering evidence of the Administration’s infamies, while I lobbied the support of my fellow governors. However, we could not challenge and discredit the Administration until we had found an alternative leadership, capable of uniting all factions.
BLAKE: Well, you, Governor.
LE GRAND: No. He who leads must be from Earth. Someone of renowned integrity, someone who has become a legend of hope to the great mass of the oppressed. A messiah.

It all comes to nothing though, since Servalan has been pulling the strings all along. Shivan is really Travis in disguise(!) and Servalan seems to have allowed Ven Glynd and Le Grand to hatch their plot just so she can enjoy crushing their feeble attempt at rebellion in the most dramatic way. Again, this doesn’t make much sense – why not simply arrest Ven Glynd and Le Grand? Even if the evidence wasn’t particularly strong we’ve seen how the Federation can easily trump up charges, so the only possible reason for letting them live was so Servalan could enjoy their ultimate humiliation.

As for Shivan really being Travis …. words almost fail me, but it’s an undeniably enjoyable piece of very bad acting. His initial scene is notable for the appearance of two of the most familiar faces from this era of television – highly experienced walk-ons Harry Fielder and Pat Gorman (who between them racked up hundreds of television and film credits). They don’t do anything, but their presence is remarkably comforting.

Gareth Thomas struggles somewhat in this one. Blake’s sudden mood swings would be difficult for any actor to cope with, so I wouldn’t want to be too hard on him. Paul Darrow gets some great lines and makes the most of them whilst Michael Keating isn’t best served with a script that turns him into a credulous fool.

Jan Chappell and Sally Knyvette both have a little more to do in this episode. Especially Jenna, who agrees (rather reluctantly) to undergo dual therapy with Blake in order to probe the reason for his erratic behaviour. But Brian Croucher need not have taken part at all – Travis serves no useful function in the story which means that Shivan might just as well have been the man he claimed he was. Jacqueline Pearce’s role is quite small, but her scene at the end (as her image is presented in widescreen) is a memorable one.

Not an episode you could say is actually good, but it’s certainly never dull.

Blakes 7 – Hostage

October 14, 2015May 27, 2016 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1970's allan prior, BBC, blakes 7, brian croucher, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, sally knyvette

Hostage was something of a troubled production. Duncan Lamont had been cast as Ushton but he died after completing the location filming, necessitating a remount with John Aberini stepping into the part.

The episode opens brightly enough though, with the Liberator coming under attack from a mass of Federation ships. The unnamed Federation commander (played by Andrew Robertson) seems close to destroying the Liberator, but Blake and the others just manage to sneak away.

The all-out attack does contradict the likes of Project Avalon, which saw Servalan insistent that the Liberator had to be captured, not destroyed. But if her objectives have now changed it does beg the question as to why she hasn’t ordered attacks of this magnitude before, as it’s clear they stand a good chance of succeeding.

Servalan is seen to be under some pressure in this episode. It was hinted in Trial that the enquiry into the continuing inability of the Federation to catch Blake could be damaging for her and the visit of Councillor Joban (Kevin Stoney) restates this. He’s only onscreen for a few minutes but it’s a pleasure to watch Stoney at work, especially since Hostage tends to be blessed with fairly indifferent performances from the guest stars. John Aberini was a fine actor, but his part was rather limited.

There’s another lapse in continuity during the following exchange between Servalan and Joban –

JOBAN: Some members of the council are concerned. Many of our citizens now know of Blake’s activities, and those of the renegade Travis.
SERVALAN: But there have been no public spacecasts on either Travis or Blake.
JOBAN: People talk, Servalan. There’s no way of stopping them.
SERVALAN: This is a major breach of security. The punishment is total. Who are these people who have been talking? I want their names, councillor.
JOBAN: All sorts of citizens from Alphas to labour grades know of Blake’s defiance of the Federation. They talk of him as a sort of hero, many of them.
SERVALAN: What rubbish.
JOBAN: His men impede progress and more importantly order. Order, order Servalan. It is all that matters.

It seems strange that Servalan should react with surprise to the news that Blake has become something of a hero, since she’s commented on this fact several times before. Only a minor point, but it does appear that Chris Boucher’s attention was elsewhere when this script was written.

Following the attack on the Liberator, Blake is surprised to receive a message from Travis. He’s on the planet Exbar and he is holding Blake’s cousin Inga (Judy Buxton) hostage. He asks Blake to come to Exbar to talk and maybe join forces – if he doesn’t, the girl will die.

Five of the last six stories of series two feature Travis and that’s at least two too many. Hostage is one of the episodes when it would have been nice to take a break from Travis’ painfully obvious villainy (and Brian Croucher’s not at his best in this one anyway) but it wasn’t to be.

The notion that Travis might be interested in teaming up with Blake was a fascinating one which I’m sorry wasn’t developed. With them now both renegades it would have made sense – plus it would have provided the later stories with a great deal of dramatic tension. But Travis (as might be expected) wasn’t really interested in an alliance – he merely wanted to steal the Liberator.

What happened to his Muto crew from the end of the last episode is never made clear, instead he’s recruited a number of crimos (criminal psychopaths). They’re hardly the most threatening bunch – despite the odd half-hearted attempt to show how truly evil they are (slapping the unfortunate Inga, for example).

Also present on Exbar is Ushton, Blake’s uncle. It’s revealed early on that he’s working with Travis (who’s agreed not to hurt Inga if he co-operates). His betrayal of Blake is rather pointless as Blake was coming to meet Travis anyway. John Aberini does his best, but Ushton isn’t much of a part and his mild betrayal is later forgotten when he and the others battle with Travis and the crimos.

Forty four minutes into the episode, Blake, Avon and Ushton send a number of the most painfully obvious polystyrene rocks ever seen on film down a slope to frighten away Travis and the crimos. It’s a moment that never fails to amuse – not least for the crimo who runs away with his hands high in the air. The scene where they throw a crimo down a cliff (so obviously a dummy) is comedy gold as well.

Yet another odd lack of continuity occurs when Travis asks Ushton which of the three members of the Liberator crew he holds prisoner (Blake, Avon, Vila) is the weakest. Travis has been pursuing them all for some considerable time, can we really believe he didn’t know the strengths and weaknesses of all of them?

The final scene is nice though, with Jenna very huffy towards Blake. This always seems to happen whenever he meets or talks to an attractive woman, clearly her unrequited love remains unrequited.

But all in all this is a somewhat forgettable episode. The brief meeting between Servalan and Travis at the end is possibly the most significant moment. He asks if they’re still enemies and she replies that “officially, yes. Unofficially, you lead me to Blake whenever you can. If you help me get him I’ll see you officially listed as dead. There’s no one as free as a dead man.”

Although his next appearance (in Voice from the Past) shows him working closely with Servalan, which is a far cry from how matters were left here. Maybe that’s another case of slightly inconsistent script-editing.

Blakes 7 – Trial

October 12, 2015October 12, 2015 archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1970's BBC, blakes 7, brian croucher, chris boucher, gareth thomas, jacqueline pearce, jan chappell, michael keating, paul darrow, peter tuddenham, sally knyvette

Travis is facing a court-martial, charged with the murder of one thousand four hundred and seventeen unarmed civilians on the planet Serkasta. Whilst he remained useful to Servalan she was prepared to ignore his previous misdemeanors but following the events of Pressure Point she has no hesitation in throwing him to the wolves. She also plans to make sure that the verdict is the one she requires by suborning Travis’ defence counsel Major Thania (Victoria Fairbrother).

It does seem slightly strange that Servalan decided to go to all the trouble of arranging a court-martial when she could have either simply ordered one of her troopers to put a bullet in Travis’ head or (as mentioned in Weapon) sent him to the slave pits on Ursa Prime. It’s a pity that Blakes 7‘s script editor couldn’t have liaised with the writers of Weapon and Trial. Oh wait ……

But although the reason for the court-martial does feel a little spurious, Trial is compelling since it asks us to consider the morality of the Federation in general. There’s no doubt that Travis committed the crime (although he pleads not guilty, for a reason we’ll come to later) but is his action typical of a Federation officer?

In Travis’ debut episode Seek Locate Destroy, Servalan was confronted by a junior officer who registered his disapproval that Travis had been reinstated into the corps. For him, Travis was a killer and someone who disgraced the uniform of a Federation officer. In Trial, the court-martial is conduced by Samor (John Savident) a highly respected officer (Thania calls him “a rule book officer of the old school.”) Are they more typical of the average Federation officer than Travis is?

On hand to observe events are Bercol (John Bryans) and Rontane (Peter Miles). Like a space-age Waldorf and Statler they exist to provide an ironic commentary on events.

RONTANE:One almost has to admire that woman.
BERCOL: What, Thania?
RONTANE:Servalan.
BERCOL: Oh.
RONTANE: We know that she’s sending Travis to his death in order to keep his mouth shut, but she is doing it with such an impeccably honest and painstaking tribunal that her real motives can’t even be hinted at.
BERCOL: Has a date been set for the Blake inquiry?
RONTANE: Does it matter? Without Travis’ evidence the mishandling of the Blake affair becomes a matter of conjecture. The inquiry becomes a formality.

The idea that the court-martial has been convened to silence Travis before he can implicate Servalan in the inevitable enquiry that will no doubt shortly be held into the continuing inability to capture Blake is a compelling one, but as I’ve said it would have been easier to just quietly dispose of him.

Bryans and Miles are once again a great double-act in this, their second and final appearance.

Trooper Par (a slim-looking Kevin Lloyd) served with Travis for five years. He tells Thania that he could always guarantee that Travis would not “get you killed unnecessarily. He never wasted troopers.” He’s certain of Travis’ guilt though – he heard him give the order – but it’s telling that he doesn’t feel any personal responsibility (“he gave the order. We just did the shooting.”)

Given that the Nazis often featured in Terry Nation’s scripts (most famously disguised as the Daleks) it’s not a particular stretch to assume that Chris Boucher was also drawing parallels between Federation troopers and, say, SS soldiers (who would also no doubt insist they were only obeying orders).

Brian Croucher has said that he wished Trial had been his debut episode as it would have allowed him to get a much better grip on the character of Travis. He’s certainly very good throughout and is never better than the climatic scene where Travis offers his defence.

A field officer, like myself, is frequently required to make fast, unconsidered decisions. You were all field officers, you know that’s true. Time to think is a luxury battle seldom affords you. You react instinctively. Your actions, your decisions, all instinct, nothing more. But, an officer’s instincts are the product of his training. The more thorough the training, the more predictable the instinct, the better the officer. And I am a good officer. I have been in the service all my adult life. I’m totally dedicated to my duty and highly trained in how to perform it. On Serkasta I reacted as I was trained to react. I was an instrument of the service. So if I’m guilty of murder, of mass murder, then so are all of you!

It’s no surprise that Samor does not accept this. “Space Commander, we have considered your sentence at some length. Your contention that what happened on Serkasta was a direct result of your training concerned us greatly. We accept that you are trained to kill. As are we all. What we cannot accept is that this training leads inevitably to the murder of innocents. Your behavior was not that of a Federation officer, but rather that of a savage, unthinking, animal.”

Since Samor is never presented as an officer that Servalan could influence, this must be his honest opinion. If so (and if it’s also held by his brother officers) then it shows the Federation in a very different light from the unthinking murderers that Blake considers them to be. It’s therefore deeply ironic that Blake decides to attack Servalan’s headquarters (where Travis is being tried) partly to regain some confidence after the death of Gan.

His attack kills the majority of the people present at the trial (including the reasonable Samor) and allows Travis to escape. And as the credits roll, the question must be which was the greater crime? Travis’ murder of the unarmed civilians on Serkasta or Blake’s murder of the unarmed Federation personnel on Servalan’s base? Exactly how many are killed by Blake’s attack isn’t certain (although it’s presumably a lot less than Travis’ massacre) but it’s a uncomfortable possibilty that the scene was designed to show that Blake and Travis aren’t that far apart.

As for Blake himself, he also finds himself on trial in this episode – although in his case it’s a self-imposed one. He spends most of the time having an odd adventure with a creature called Zil (Clare Lewis). This would be a strange interlude in any story but it really jars here when it interrupts the drama of Travis’ trial.

Avon, of course, gets some good lines at Blake’s expense – such as this one, after Blake announces his plan to teleport down to the planet alone. “It occurs to me that if you should run into trouble, one of your followers – one of your three remaining followers – might have to risk his neck to rescue you.”

Following Gan’s death there had to be some pause for reflection, but it doesn’t last long and by the end of the episode everyone pretty much carries on as before. This might seem a bit callous or it could just be that Gan was someone who was tolerated by the others as a work-colleague might be, rather than a close friend.

Minus points for the episode ending on a shot of Avon and Blake laughing after a rather weak joke. Not only for the sub-Star Trek feeling but also because it feels a tad inappropriate after they’ve just killed so many people. A similar thing happened at the end of Breakdown though, so maybe it’s a running theme that I’ve not picked up on before.