Incidentally, the final episode of the series aired on this day in 1981
Blake's 7 on Blu-ray!
- Thread starter Turbo
- Start date
Also, remember, that it was Margret Thatcher's England at the point in time these episodes were coming out. I'm pretty sure that had an influence on the writing.
Probably a good thing for the BBC the internet didn’t exist back then.
Petition to decanonise the final episode and remake the entire season would’ve been online within the hour!
Finished episode 5, "Web". I feel spent. Totally spent.
Here some (spent) notes...
I'm so dumbfounded by this episode on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin.
First of all the plot: it's a low-key space horror that seems to have come out of Space: 1999 or Doctor Who. The problem is in the previous episodes the series has been presented to us as a heroic fight of some rebels against tyranny, not a kind of anthology with different types of stories. This episode and a part of the plot of the previous one seem completely out of place to me. I want to see tyranny being fought, not bizarre adventures with the new aliens of the week. I would understand if we were at the twentieth episode of the ninth season and therefore the ideas were starting to run out, but I don't think that's the case here.
Also, the screenwriter seems to me to have a black belt in padding. Literally half the episode (more!) is spent on the Liberator's journey to the planet, where the story really takes place. I can't understand. There is no editor, supervisor, showrunner, ANYONE who realizes that this is stuff that shouldn't even come out of a beginner's screenwriting course? Does anyone have a behind the scenes look at what happened in the production of the series? Also because it seems like an expensive episode to produce (with costumes and scenes shot on location).
Gentlemen, at this point I continue the series only because:
I assure you that I am putting all the good will possible into it: "It was a different time" "You can't judge with modern eyes" etc. But other series of the time managed to have a pacing that was perfectly acceptable by modern standards. See for example Space 1999.
Now I cleanse the palate with an episode of Silo. I hope to recharge enough to then tackle B7 again. See you soon!
Here some (spent) notes...
- Jenna has a new dress! With weird "things" on the shoulders. I'm not sure I like it.
- She's on duty shift. Which makes sense, considering someone will have to sleep. I don't know if you can organize sensible shifts with only 6 people though. Is there a day/night cycle on the Liberator? Does one go to sleep when one feels like it?
- The first cabin on board that we see! And Blake sleeps fully dressed! (just his shirt unbuttoned on his indomitable chest). And he's sleeping on something that looks like an analyst's couch, which is incredibly uncomfortable to sleep on! I guess it was chosen because it looks very futuristic....
- The spaceship is obviously out of control, technobabble blah blah blah.
- Cally, obviously under some alien influence sabotaged the ship, then hits poor Vila who wanted a comment on his outfit. Now, I'd like to make a small comment on the stunts and fights we've seen so far. They're bad. Really bad. There's never been a single punch that looked convincing. 1960s Kirk-Fu looks like a martial arts documentary by comparison. Considering there's no story reason for Cally to hit Vila, I don't understand why they did it at all.
- Now we see our Avon in a new outfit! And I have to say I dig it!
- Avon can't seem to resist Cally's charms and reveals some important technical information.
- Our heroes realize that Cally is under an alien influence, she is violent, so they treat her in the only way recognized by 70's medical science in the case of uncontrollable and "hysterical" women: by slapping her.
Jesus. - The Liberator finally arrives at its destination and is caught in some cosmic web. Blake descends to the planet. I check the time: 28th minute of an episode duration of 49 minutes. Introducing the other screenwriter of the series:
- Cool! The first alien-aliens! (The Decima)! I have to say they look convincing even by modern standards.
- Here Blake finds the Lost, who were exiled from Auronar in ancient times. And they speak perfect English (or whatever language is supposed to be spoken in the series). Are there universal translators? Is it some kind of lingua franca spoken by all the species in the universe? Do the Lost speak it thanks to their telepathic abilities? Who knows! Definitely not the writer of the episode.
- And here we come back to the nature of the aliens in Blake's universe. The Lost clearly states that they are trying to make "humans" immortal. Maybe the aliens simply call themselves "humans." Okay. Then Blake says "Experiments like that have been banned for centuries." and he is told "Which is why we had to establish our laboratory on an uninhabited planet." So why would the aliens respect a ban by humans? Or is it a universal ban? Or what?
- Here comes a truly WTF moment in the series and where I realize that the characters in the Blake-7 universe are not only not very intelligent, but borderline stupid. Blake orders Avon to prepare some super-batteries and bring them down, but never tells him that the planet is dangerous. And there is no reason why he doesn't. If this is the level of the indomitable leader of the rebellion, the latter is doomed.
- Blake and the Lost find Avon and take him back to their base. The Decima somehow take advantage of this to sneak in too. How? I have no idea. The only thing is that the door was left open. Did I mention that in the Blake-7 universe stupidity is a universal plague? Maybe instead of thinking about rebellion and freedom they should fight to raise the level of public education.
- Here Blake and Avon have an interesting discussion about the ethics of allowing the Decima to be exterminated in order to save themselves. Very nice. Too bad that just in the last episode THEY CONDEMNED A RACE TO EXTINCTION WITHOUT BLINKING AN EYE!
- The Decima enter the lab, kill the Lost, and start destroying it. And destroying it. And destroying it. My God, this is a ENDLESS scene. As I watched it, I was thinking, "They're destroying maybe half the show's budget in props." It's a ridiculously long scene.
- Our heroes destroy the cosmic web and the Liberator heads off to its next adventure.
I'm so dumbfounded by this episode on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin.
First of all the plot: it's a low-key space horror that seems to have come out of Space: 1999 or Doctor Who. The problem is in the previous episodes the series has been presented to us as a heroic fight of some rebels against tyranny, not a kind of anthology with different types of stories. This episode and a part of the plot of the previous one seem completely out of place to me. I want to see tyranny being fought, not bizarre adventures with the new aliens of the week. I would understand if we were at the twentieth episode of the ninth season and therefore the ideas were starting to run out, but I don't think that's the case here.
Also, the screenwriter seems to me to have a black belt in padding. Literally half the episode (more!) is spent on the Liberator's journey to the planet, where the story really takes place. I can't understand. There is no editor, supervisor, showrunner, ANYONE who realizes that this is stuff that shouldn't even come out of a beginner's screenwriting course? Does anyone have a behind the scenes look at what happened in the production of the series? Also because it seems like an expensive episode to produce (with costumes and scenes shot on location).
Gentlemen, at this point I continue the series only because:
- I paid money
- You assured me that it will improve
I assure you that I am putting all the good will possible into it: "It was a different time" "You can't judge with modern eyes" etc. But other series of the time managed to have a pacing that was perfectly acceptable by modern standards. See for example Space 1999.
Now I cleanse the palate with an episode of Silo. I hope to recharge enough to then tackle B7 again. See you soon!
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I don't like the shoulder things, but she looks pretty nice in it otherwise.
To be fair, the scenes on video were recorded more or less as live, like a stage play, so the stunts are essentially stage stunts. The sequences shot on film, employing stunt doubles, are often better. B7's primary stunt coordinator was Stuart Fell, who worked as a stuntman on Doctor Who for quite a while.
The B7 wiki erroneously claims the Decima costumes are modified Zygon costumes from Doctor Who, but they're actually quite different.
Then there's the part where he decides to hide the power cells from the Lost, but he "hides" them directly under where he's standing, and then caves the moment the Lost get threatening, instead of asserting his bargaining power.
Oh, hell, yes. The bad guys aren't defeated by anything the heroes do; they're defeated by leaving the door wide open even though they've been under siege by the Decima for half the episode.
B7 wasn't a modern serialized show where the entire storyline is about one plot. It's an episodic series that uses it overall premise as a backdrop for stories-of-the-week. It's got more continuity and serialized elements than most American episodic dramas of the era, aside from the nighttime soap operas, but it's still mostly episodic, and there will be a mix of stories that advance the rebellion/political stuff and more standalone SF stories. And at least one of the best episodes of the season (and Terry Nation's favorite of the season) will be in the latter category.
The Web isn't a good episode.
The pacing doesn't improve a whole lot. It's inline with the pacing of a lot of other British shows at the time. However, the better stories do seem to go faster.
Something @Skipper should try to remember is that Blake's 7 was replacing a series called Softly Softly Task Force, which was a contemporary police procedural; yet the BBC only gave the producers of Blake's 7 the same budget as the show they were replacing.
A contemporary police procedural doesn't require an expensive budget because make-up, clothing and locations are fairly easy to come by.
A science fiction show set approximately 700+ years in the future is going to be expensive because of the make-up, clothing and special effects are going to have to convey a futuristic setting.
In my behind the scenes book the producers of Blake's 7 joked that the BBC gave them a budget of 25 pounds per episode and they blew the entire first series budget on creating the special effects for the first and second episodes; which is a bit of an exaggeration, but tells you what limited amount of resources they had to work with.
A contemporary police procedural doesn't require an expensive budget because make-up, clothing and locations are fairly easy to come by.
A science fiction show set approximately 700+ years in the future is going to be expensive because of the make-up, clothing and special effects are going to have to convey a futuristic setting.
In my behind the scenes book the producers of Blake's 7 joked that the BBC gave them a budget of 25 pounds per episode and they blew the entire first series budget on creating the special effects for the first and second episodes; which is a bit of an exaggeration, but tells you what limited amount of resources they had to work with.
I assure you that I have absolutely no problem with the production value. In fact, they are better than I thought. Also, the new FX are nice.
But after an episode like "Web" I feel discouraged. It could have had the best state-of-the-art special effects and costumes that would have put modern Star Wars productions to shame and it would still have been a bad episode.
Also, I wish they'd stop spouting vague scenc-y terms to make people understand "This is SCIENCE FICTION!!!": they're irritating. I know it's not the only series of the time guilty of this, but sometimes it's too much. Sometimes it seems insulting to the viewer: "Hey, I'm sure that those who watch this series know nothing about science, let's use other random words! Spacials! Anti-Orbit! Standard 5!"
I really enjoyed the first 3 episodes, when the focus was on our heroes' fight against the evil Federation. But when there are more "sci-fi" stories, like in Web or the part of the last episode, I just wish they would end it soon and go back to what I consider more interesting.
I've probably been spoiled by decades of good TV science fiction, but it seems to me that the author relied too much on what he considered an incredibly original idea ("Travelers in suspended animation on a spaceship! What a concept!") without thinking of telling an interesting story.
And. Then. The incredible. Padding. There is absolutely no budgetary reason to justify it. It's clear that in "Web" there was only enough story for a twenty minute episode and they didn't know how to fill the other 30.
Anyway, it seems to me that I'm now over the worst, I'm very curious to see what the future holds for me!
Me too. Oddly enough, I have no recollection of it being around Christmas time. But I very much remember the shock of THAT ending.Now you're making me feel old because I watched that live
What gets me is how often the show perpetuates the old lazy sci-fi habit of having characters in space shows append the word "Space" in front of various things or places, as if people who routinely live and work in space need to remind themselves that they're in space.
Still, the show does have some nice, distinctive terminology of its own. "Zen, raise the force wall and clear the neutron blasters for firing! Battle computers on line! Ahead standard by seven!"
It helps to keep in mind that the focus is often less on plot than on character. A lot of the time, the plots are just frameworks for allowing the characters to exhibit their personalities, engage in debates or banter, etc. For instance, "Time Squad" was mainly about introducing Cally, letting Jenna show her chops as an action heroine, establishing Gan's limiter, and showing how enigmatic and erratic Zen could be.
After all, we've been talking about how stagey the show is, which was both a function of the BBC's usual approach to drama and of the show's tiny budget. And theater is mainly about dialogue and character interaction. People don't love B7 for the plots or action, they love it for the characters and their interpersonal tension and snarky banter.
Because that writer did 13 episodes in a row without a break. (Actually 14, counting the Series B premiere.)
December does ring a bell, but I thought maybe a couple of weeks earlier.
The ending (and no spoilers for the first watchers) was definitely a shocker
Edit to add - just out of curiosity, thought I'd look on wiki and there is a game available. I have the actual computer required (Oric 48k, but not a minidisk drive for it -Maybe check one of the emulators).
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Edit to add - just out of curiosity, thought I'd look on wiki and there is a game available. I have the actual computer required (Oric 48k, but not a minidisk drive for it -Maybe check one of the emulators).
Interesting. For a computer called "Oric?" Missed it by that much.
Hmm...
Sounds like the game tells the story of "The Way Back" in more detail than "The Way Back" did. There was nothing in the episode about nightmares or working 10 years to pay for his family's relocation.
Question. Are the Big Finish audios (the ones with the original surviving cast) any good? Just spotted allusions to them on the B7 Fandom wiki today and had a good look at TV Tropes, but there's not THAT much to help judge.
The existence of the Kaldor City audios bringing together at least one or two B7 characters and the Doctor Who universe (as Nation always wanted to do in Star One) is also interesting for the upcoming (for Skipper) Mission to Destiny - not a "fight the Federation" ep but they are mentioned (and possibly behind the problems faced by the titular colony?)... I always thought this was a rewritten script for the Doctor and companions showing up where not expected and solving a murder mystery... albeit I don't think the Doctor would have dealt with the murderer QUITE the same way Avon does... or uttered THAT line.
The existence of the Kaldor City audios bringing together at least one or two B7 characters and the Doctor Who universe (as Nation always wanted to do in Star One) is also interesting for the upcoming (for Skipper) Mission to Destiny - not a "fight the Federation" ep but they are mentioned (and possibly behind the problems faced by the titular colony?)... I always thought this was a rewritten script for the Doctor and companions showing up where not expected and solving a murder mystery... albeit I don't think the Doctor would have dealt with the murderer QUITE the same way Avon does... or uttered THAT line.
I doubt it, since Nation only ever did two non-Dalek stories for Doctor Who ("The Keys of Marinus" and "The Android Invasion"), so I don't seem him writing a drawing-room mystery plot for that particular show. After all, there were numerous other shows he wrote for, including The Saint, The Avengers, Survivors, and others.
Besides, Nation knew he needed to fill a whole season of B7 with episodes of various different genres and subject matters, and it stands to reason that he would've thrown drawing-room mystery into the mix.
Now, Robert Holmes's first episode in Series B definitely feels like an unused Who story, or at least it feels like Holmes hadn't shaken off his Doctor-writing habits. But we'll get to that.
Some notes on the sixth episode
- Gosh this robot is adorable.
- Vila is hilarious!
- Uh, how to bypass the gate security checks almost makes sense! What's happening here?!?
- Villa and Blake take out two guards with a well-placed blow to the head. Don't they have helmets??? I'm puzzled.
- They arrive, plant bombs, steal a gizmo, EXPLOSIONS!!!! And all in the first 10 minutes! Compared to the previous episode this seems like the love child of John Wick and Fast And Furious!
- Blake is a big-time order-giver. And everyone obeys him. He's basically the de facto leader.
- ...They don't notice Cally is missing until it's too late..? Uh ok...
- A woman in a powerful role! And she has the vibes of an evil Mon Mothma! I love her already!
- Uh, in the first episode they didn't want to kill Blake so he wouldn't become a martyr, and now it's open season? What's changed..?
- Powerplay between Servalan and Travis? Loving it!
- Uh, this scene between Servalan and Rai is quite creepy. She's touching him in a very inappropriate way! Where's HR when you need it???
- Rai explains to Serlvan that Even Evil Has Standards! Travis is simply unworthy of the uniform!
- Travis arrives, and he's already a villain I'll love to hate!
- Travis studies some photos of Blake that are, um, particular? Look, I don't judge, but maybe it's better if you close the door when you do these things..?
- A good recap of the story between Travis and Blake. Sometimes these things can be tedious, but I have to say they did a good job here!
- Poor Cally being interrogated! Being dragged by her legs down the corridor...? Ok, I understand they're mean but this scene is slightly ridiculous!
- The bad guys have been watching the Liberator for at least an hour and they're only now warning Travis? And he's not mad that he wasn't warned sooner? I'm confused.
- Travis says the Liberator is too far away to use the transporter. Uh, how does he know what the range of it is?
- Ok, I'm a little confused. Blake got there before they took Cally to the interrogation room, but how did he know which one it was? Can someone explain to me what exactly happened?
Servalan would likely be reported to HR for abuse of power dynamics these days but we still have a double standard when it comes to female bosses and male subordinates. It's implied in the episode (Travis' comment about her "decorative staff men") that Servalan often takes lovers from her staff, as much as a means of control/manipulation as any personal satisfaction (we'll later get her views on whether sex is better than power).
