Blake's 7 on Blu-ray!

[Christopher]

I think it was very definitely a case of centring it around Avon, although his relationship with Keiller doesn't have that much to do with things. I'm not sure if there were production reasons and whether Keating's heavy involvement in Games and Orbit had anything to do with it.

I thought it might be because Keiller was too similar to Vila, but that just underlines the problem of conceiving the story the way they did to begin with. If the guest star overlaps with the regular, why should it be the regular who gives way in favor of the guest star, instead of the other way around? Unless somebody really wanted to build an episode around Roy Kinnear.

And actually I kinda like that Vila is the reticent one. As the only natural criminal amongst them it's quite telling that he smells a rat (I mean Vila always smells a rat, but still!)

Yeah, but it still feels wrong that the big heist episode of the season isn't a showcase for the master thief. He got "City at the Edge of the World" as a focus last season, but that was a solo adventure where the crew didn't get to see how awesome he was in his element. This would've been a great chance for Vila to take the lead and guide the others through his world.

It is very weird that they call them animals, I agree. Perhaps the best word they could come up with once they decided, for some reason, to only have single word episode titles in Series D.

Which is why I hate it when series insist on using only single-word titles. It's arbitrarily limiting and makes the titles boring and hard to tell apart.

Hmm... Series A is the only one where single-word titles are in the minority. It has 5, B has 9, C has 7-8 depending on how you count "Death-Watch." So I'd suspect that single-word titles were Chris Boucher's preference, except he wrote the episode with the longest title, "City at the Edge of the World."

The timeline is a tad squiffy as well, Justin's project started six years before the Andromedans invaded, yet the galactic war gets mentioned as a driving force behind the project yet, as far as we can determine, the war lasted hours, at most days.

I dunno, I get the impression that it lasted longer than that, given how far it spread across the galaxy. It lasted long enough to devastate the Federation military, but long enough that they were able to outlast the Andromedans by attrition, and long enough that Servalan had time to decide the war was nearly won and travel to the front to make an appearance. Previous episodes had established that it took a significant amount of time for the Liberator, the fastest ship in the known galaxy, to reach the edge of the galaxy, so it should realistically have taken weeks for the battle to spread back to Federation space. (Although realism is out the window when the tiny life capsules from the Liberator were able to drift to two or three different star systems by "Powerplay.")

There really isn't anything in "Aftermath" to establish how much time has passed since the end of "Star One." The opening scenes imply that the Liberator is abandoned just after Star One is destroyed, but it's a montage sequence, so we could interpret it to be compressing a more extended series of events, like a "Previously" recap, except it's a recap of the stuff between seasons that we didn't see.

Granted, the returning characters are wearing the same outfits in "Aftermath" that they wore in "Star One," implying only a short time has passed, but then, "Space Fall" had the characters in the same clothes and haircuts after supposedly spending four months on the prison transport, and they usually did stick with consistent outfits for multiple episodes, so that isn't definitive. (It would be out of character for Servalan to wear the same outfit more than once, but war demands sacrifices, I guess.)

 

[Christopher]

And just my opinion obviously, but I think there's an argument that Games>> Sand>> Gold>> Orbit is perhaps the most consistent run of good episodes in the series.

Having just seen "Orbit," I can't agree. Aside from those tense few minutes in the shuttle, it's an obnoxious, campy mess.

I feel "Games" is the other way around -- mostly a strong episode, but its climax is incoherent.

 

[Starkers]

Well like I said, that's just my opinion. Other views are available

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I do agree that there is some unseen time between episodes/seasons.
At the end of 'Terminal', Servalan says that Blake died "more than a year ago from his injuries". Even though we know Sevalan is lying about Blake, "More than a year" (to me) can mean anywhere from thirteen to eighteen months - which means at least that long has passed since 'Aftermath,' 'Powerplay,' and 'Volcano'; which is the last time Avon and the others were looking for Blake (that we know of).
And we know that Avon and the crew spend at least a month following Servalan in 'Moloch'.
I'm tempted to say that the third series is at least 18 months or longer.​

 

[Christopher]

It kind of bugged me that they never explained why the crew didn't recover Jenna after "Powerplay." Zen relayed a message from her saying "No need to rescue me," but it was in the sense of "I'm safe for the moment, so prioritize rescuing the others first." But then they just forgot about her. I know Big Finish eventually filled in that gap, but it was awkward for the show to leave that gap in the first place.

It's easier to explain why they didn't look for Blake -- why would Avon want to now that he'd achieved his goal of possessing the Liberator? Anyone who'd really been committed to Blake's cause could've left the ship if they'd wanted. (Which, come to think of it, would've probably included Jenna, so maybe that's why she didn't come back -- still, they didn't say so.)

And yes, there are plenty of gaps between episodes. "Project Avalon" has Travis referencing his last two encounters with the Liberator in a way that doesn't reconcile with his two previous episodes (he said he'd been held back by orders to keep the ship intact, which doesn't track with either "Seek-Locate-Destroy" or "Duel"), and Servalan referenced escaping two assassination attempts, which could've conceivably happened in parallel with previous episodes but implies a certain passage of time.

 

[diankra]

I thought it might be because Keiller was too similar to Vila, but that just underlines the problem of conceiving the story the way they did to begin with. If the guest star overlaps with the regular, why should it be the regular who gives way in favor of the guest star, instead of the other way around? Unless somebody really wanted to build an episode around Roy Kinnear.




Yeah, but it still feels wrong that the big heist episode of the season isn't a showcase for the master thief. He got "City at the Edge of the World" as a focus last season, but that was a solo adventure where the crew didn't get to see how awesome he was in his element. This would've been a great chance for Vila to take the lead and guide the others through his world.




Which is why I hate it when series insist on using only single-word titles. It's arbitrarily limiting and makes the titles boring and hard to tell apart.

Hmm... Series A is the only one where single-word titles are in the minority. It has 5, B has 9, C has 7-8 depending on how you count "Death-Watch." So I'd suspect that single-word titles were Chris Boucher's preference, except he wrote the episode with the longest title, "City at the Edge of the World."





I dunno, I get the impression that it lasted longer than that, given how far it spread across the galaxy. It lasted long enough to devastate the Federation military, but long enough that they were able to outlast the Andromedans by attrition, and long enough that Servalan had time to decide the war was nearly won and travel to the front to make an appearance. Previous episodes had established that it took a significant amount of time for the Liberator, the fastest ship in the known galaxy, to reach the edge of the galaxy, so it should realistically have taken weeks for the battle to spread back to Federation space. (Although realism is out the window when the tiny life capsules from the Liberator were able to drift to two or three different star systems by "Powerplay.")

There really isn't anything in "Aftermath" to establish how much time has passed since the end of "Star One." The opening scenes imply that the Liberator is abandoned just after Star One is destroyed, but it's a montage sequence, so we could interpret it to be compressing a more extended series of events, like a "Previously" recap, except it's a recap of the stuff between seasons that we didn't see.

Granted, the returning characters are wearing the same outfits in "Aftermath" that they wore in "Star One," implying only a short time has passed, but then, "Space Fall" had the characters in the same clothes and haircuts after supposedly spending four months on the prison transport, and they usually did stick with consistent outfits for multiple episodes, so that isn't definitive. (It would be out of character for Servalan to wear the same outfit more than once, but war demands sacrifices, I guess.)

Possibly, while the initial war was short, there were Andromedan survivors across Human territory for ages. Though there is no sign of that in season three.
As for looking for Blake, I think that there's a line in season three (Volcano?) about how they could could get old chasing rumours about Blake. But not going after him definitely suited Avon in controlling the ship.

 

[diankra]

I do agree that there is some unseen time between episodes/seasons.
At the end of 'Terminal', Servalan says that Blake died "more than a year ago from his injuries". Even though we know Sevalan is lying about Blake, "More than a year" (to me) can mean anywhere from thirteen to eighteen months - which means at least that long has passed since 'Aftermath,' 'Powerplay,' and 'Volcano'; which is the last time Avon and the others were looking for Blake (that we know of).
And we know that Avon and the crew spend at least a month following Servalan in 'Moloch'.
I'm tempted to say that the third series is at least 18 months or longer.​

Yep, season three is more than a year, otherwise Servalan's lie wouldn't be credible.
The interesting thing is the 'five years ago' in Sand. When Servalan mentions the highest authority does she mean Supreme Commander or President?

 

[diankra]

Thank you
It is really telling if Moloch was better than a Robert Holmes script



Thing is I think Gold would have worked better if it and Orbit had swapped places. Firstly you wouldn't have had two heist episodes in close proximity Games >> Sand >> Gold, but secondly Vila's reticence would have made a bit more sense after Orbit (you'll understand why once you see Orbit!)

Actually my one real issue with Orbit is that it comes so late in the season,

Spoiler

it would have been nice to see more of a new Vila/Avon dynamic.

I guess what you see is what you get with Tarrant. He doesn't dissemble



I think the difficulty is that it's hard to imagine Soolin loving anyone that much, but also she doesn't strike me as an animal lover, which is one of many issues with using Dayna. It's so clearly written with Cally in mind.

Of course if you were making the show today it's eminently possible that Justin's old flame could have been Tarrant...


There's a version of that that could work, but not on a 1980s budget and not with 1980s special effects technology. (had he been watching Galactica 1980 by chance?)

Just possibly Cally's alien nature might have been quoted as a weak explanation for how simple aversion therapy worked so well. For Dayna to abandon a long-standing loyalty due to electric shocks... wouldn't it be standard Federation torture procedure with captured rebels?

 

[Starkers]

Just possibly Cally's alien nature might have been quoted as a weak explanation for how simple aversion therapy worked so well. For Dayna to abandon a long-standing loyalty due to electric shocks... wouldn't it be standard Federation torture procedure with captured rebels?

It's even worse than Dayna hating Justin because of the aversion therapy, it's that it seems to remove her enmity towards the woman who murdered her father into the bargain which is the real dealbreaker.

It is a weak explanation but you could argue that discovering what Justin's been up to has already weakened Dayna's romanticised view of Justin, created cracks in her armour that Servalan could exploit, but the idea that she'd stop hating Servalan is a much harder sell!

 

[Christopher]

The interesting thing is the 'five years ago' in Sand. When Servalan mentions the highest authority does she mean Supreme Commander or President?

She doesn't seem to be talking about herself. She just says "I don't think those tapes ever reached the highest authority at the time they were sent." It was apparently a scientific expedition rather than a military one, so the report wouldn't have gone to the Supreme Commander in any case, except at second hand after it was received by the civilian government. So if it never got to the highest civilian authority, she wouldn't have found out about it either.

Then again, the show itself has an unfortunate tendency this season to assume that everything revolves around Servalan. There have been two episodes, "Assassin" and "Orbit," when just hearing that some mystery figure was a woman was enough to convince Avon that it was Servalan, as if she were the only female adversary they could conceivably have.


I saw "Warlord" last night. A high point of the season, with strong and impressive guest stars, once I looked past the pink wigs. The irony revealed here is that Avon, when he applies himself to it, is a better revolutionary and coalition-builder than Blake ever was. Who knew he had a diplomatic side? It's also a strong showcase for Soolin, who's finally turning out to be an impressive character. If only they'd had more time to develop her.

Incidentally,

Spoiler: Warlord

since the toxin is spread through the ventilation system by the neutron bombarder, and Avon clears it out by reversing the direction of the air circulation, that almost qualifies as solving a problem by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow!

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I think by this point Avon and the others have conditioned themselves to think that every female adversary is Servalan - I mean Avon wasn't that surprised to see her in Aftermath or that she survived the destruction of the Liberator, so why should he be surprised to see her.

One other point of note - Paul and Glynis knew where the explosive charges were set, but weren't told when the director would be setting them off, or that some of them would be bigger than anticipated, so the looks on their faces when they go off is genuine.

 

[Starkers]

Reading through the Series B production diary this seemed to be a common issue!

 

[Christopher]

I think by this point Avon and the others have conditioned themselves to think that every female adversary is Servalan - I mean Avon wasn't that surprised to see her in Aftermath or that she survivedthe destructionof the Liberator, so why should he be surprised to see her.

But I think there was an underlying assumption on the writers' parts that a woman in a position of power would be exceptional if not unique. There were a few other prominent women in the Federation in earlier seasons, but this season "Commissioner Sleer" is pretty much it.

 

[Starkers]

But I think there was an underlying assumption on the writers' parts that a woman in a position of power would be exceptional if not unique. There were a few other prominent women in the Federation in earlier seasons, but this season "Commissioner Sleer" is pretty much it.

Outside of Traitor can you point out any prominent male Federation personal in Series D?

There's Reeve in Sand but 'Investigator' doesn't sound like he's especially senior.

 

[Christopher]

Outside of Traitor can you point out any prominent male Federation personal in Series D?

That's basically what I meant, that "Sleer" was pretty much the only face of the Federation in Series D. But that doesn't mean the characters within the show's universe should've assumed she was the only possible female adversary they could face, because the characters don't see the show from the outside.

 

[Starkers]

That's basically what I meant, that "Sleer" was pretty much the only face of the Federation in Series D. But that doesn't mean the characters within the show's universe should've assumed she was the only possible female adversary they could face, because the characters don't see the show from the outside.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Listening to a podcast about Traitor the other day and it's true, they go out of their way not to use male pronouns which does kinda give the game away that Sleer is a woman. I have no recollection (I was 11!) about whether Servalan appearing was a surprise or completely expected.

 

[diankra]

She doesn't seem to be talking about herself. She just says "I don't think those tapes ever reached the highest authority at the time they were sent." It was apparently a scientific expedition rather than a military one, so the report wouldn't have gone to the Supreme Commander in any case, except at second hand after it was received by the civilian government. So if it never got to the highest civilian authority, she wouldn't have found out about it either.

Then again, the show itself has an unfortunate tendency this season to assume that everything revolves around Servalan. There have been two episodes, "Assassin" and "Orbit," when just hearing that some mystery figure was a woman was enough to convince Avon that it was Servalan, as if she were the only female adversary they could conceivably have.


I saw "Warlord" last night. A high point of the season, with strong and impressive guest stars, once I looked past the pink wigs. The irony revealed here is that Avon, when he applies himself to it, is a better revolutionary and coalition-builder than Blake ever was. Who knew he had a diplomatic side? It's also a strong showcase for Soolin, who's finally turning out to be an impressive character. If only they'd had more time to develop her.

Incidentally,

Spoiler: Warlord

since the toxin is spread through the ventilation system by the neutron bombarder, and Avon clears it out by reversing the direction of the air circulation, that almost qualifies as solving a problem by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow!

It works .better if you forget the pink wigs and the electric effects around the salute glasses. Without them Zukan is an intriguing character.

 

[diankra]

Outside of Traitor can you point out any prominent male Federation personal in Series D?

There's Reeve in Sand but 'Investigator' doesn't sound like he's especially senior.

He does seem to wonder why someone as senior as 'Sleer' is on the mission. Though that possibly is due to her role as head of the pacification programme, going to a place with no-one to pacify.

 

[Christopher]

...the electric effects around the salute glasses.

That was weird, but on reflection, I think that was meant to be symbolic foreshadowing. (Evidently non-diegetic, since the characters didn't react to it.)

Without them Zukan is an intriguing character.

Yes, although it felt like they were setting him up for a redemption arc, but then abandoned it and went for a melodramatic villain death instead.

He does seem to wonder why someone as senior as 'Sleer' is on the mission. Though that possibly is due to her role as head of the pacification programme, going to a place with no-one to pacify.

Not just possibly -- it's stated outright in the dialogue. "Commissioner Sleer? In charge of the pacification program? There's nothing for you on Virn."


I saw the finale today, and it reinforced my conclusion that

Spoiler: "Blake"

Blake was ultimately a terrible resistance leader who sabotaged himself with his own incompetence. If he'd just told Tarrant what he was doing instead of playing what Deva called his "stupid games" of playing the villain to "test" people, the tragic ending would never have happened. Ironic that Avon, who always was closer to being an actual villain, was more forthright and effective at building an alliance against the Federation.

 

[diankra]

That was weird, but on reflection, I think that was meant to be symbolic foreshadowing. (Evidently non-diegetic, since the characters didn't react to it.)



Yes, although it felt like they were setting him up for a redemption arc, but then abandoned it and went for a melodramatic villain death instead.




Not just possibly -- it's stated outright in the dialogue. "Commissioner Sleer? In charge of the pacification program? There's nothing for you on Virn."


I saw the finale today, and it reinforced my conclusion that

Spoiler: "Blake"

Blake was ultimately a terrible resistance leader who sabotaged himself with his own incompetence. If he'd just told Tarrant what he was doing instead of playing what Deva called his "stupid games" of playing the villain to "test" people, the tragic ending would never have happened. Ironic that Avon, who always was closer to being an actual villain, was more forthright and effective at building an alliance against the Federation.

Ah, good. The last episode is a bit of a tragedy of errors.