Rewatching Blake's 7

[Starkers]

I found Tarrant to be something of a Blake clone...

Its the hair isn't it

I think the only think Tarrant and Blake share is a sense of their own importance, it's probably just more justified in Blake's case. Tarrant is more mercenary and far less political. He'd happily see the Federation fall, but that's more self intrest than a desire to free the masses.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Don't you wish someone in the series called him Del Boy?

I looked over Tarrant's wiki, and how he seemed to go from pirate to freedom fighter overnight. And from Space nazi to Han Solo the night before that. He's a creature of opportunity more than a man with any real plan.

It doesn't really make sense why he changes his career so often?

Although this is interesting...

The very first episode of the series, "The Way Back", features a Federation security agent called Dev Tarrant who arranges the massacre of Blake's friends and the murder of his lawyers. No connection is made between him and Steven Pacey's character when the latter joins the series.

A third Tarrant brother?

Of course there's an audio made in the 90s without a license, but somehow with original cast, that says that Blake is not real. They just program his personality/memories into random trouble makers every couple years to draw out any local resistance cells, and then everyone dies on a penal colony a couple weeks later.

Running across the Liberator ruined the selfcleaning features of their "saftey-valve" which the Federation used to periodically ensure harmony, and they can't make a new Blake until this one is dealt to, or the jig would be up.

Which is surprisingly similar to the revelations dug up in the Matrix II that were ignored and never mentioned in the Matrix III.

So for what ever is deficient about Del Tarrant, at least he's not a made up social engineering widget gone rogue with delusions of existence.

 

[Marc]

There is an audio reimaging made by the BBC a few years ago.

Completely different cast, very similar story to the pilot, but with more politics and different fake scientific grounding.

On 11 December 2006 B7 Productions announced that it had recorded a series of 36 five-minute Blake's 7 audio adventures, written by Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt and James Swallow.[63] This featured Derek Riddell as Blake, Colin Salmon as Avon, Daniela Nardini as Servalan, Craig Kelly as Travis, Carrie Dobro as Jenna, Dean Harris as Vila, Owen Aaronovitch as Gan, Michael Praed, Doug Bradley and India Fisher.[64] The new series was broadcast on BBC Radio 7 and repeated in mid-2010 as three hour-long episodes: Rebel (written by Ben Aaronovitch), Traitor (Marc Platt) and Liberator (James Swallow). B7 Productions also produced series of 30-minute prequel audio episodes called Blake's 7: The Early Years, which explored the earlier histories of the central characters.[65]

Big Finish has taken over the B7 range now and sell the B7 Productions audios.

A second season/series of audios went into pre-production but they never received the funding to do the recordings which as a bummer.

The casting worked quite well - Colin Salmon was a different take on Kerr Avon but you still wouldn't want to turn your back on him - except was I wasn't rapt in the casting for Vila. Sounded a bit too old.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Like always, I spent most of the story imagining India Fisher cradling me.

 

[Candlelight]

C09: SARCOPHAGUS

Blake's 7 does the haunted house in space. Tanith Lee's first script for the series is a great little stand alone which resolves the arc of Cally's feeling for Avon (or rather than last one to mention it). There are some great little moments in this episode, such as Dayna's song and Vila entertaining the shadows. Lee takes a lot of liberties and goes beyond what we would normally expect to see in an episode. The first five minutes are very surreal and ambiguous. Tarrant is an even bigger dick in this episode than he was in The City at the Edge of the World. It would be easy to bring in a whole heap of extras simply to kill them off but Lee's script gives the six regulars (Peter does two voices, remember chaps) great material to work with and the direction is spot on. I love Avon's solution to defeating the God - pretend to be Captain Kirk! This is probably the only episode in the series where no one dies... I'm sure the God just left the ship to float amonsgt the stars...

 

[diankra]

Don't you wish someone in the series called him Del Boy?

I looked over Tarrant's wiki, and how he seemed to go from pirate to freedom fighter overnight. And from Space nazi to Han Solo the night before that. He's a creature of opportunity more than a man with any real plan.

It doesn't really make sense why he changes his career so often?

Although this is interesting...

The very first episode of the series, "The Way Back", features a Federation security agent called Dev Tarrant who arranges the massacre of Blake's friends and the murder of his lawyers. No connection is made between him and Steven Pacey's character when the latter joins the series.

A third Tarrant brother?

Of course there's an audio made in the 90s without a license, but somehow with original cast, that says that Blake is not real. They just program his personality/memories into random trouble makers every couple years to draw out any local resistance cells, and then everyone dies on a penal colony a couple weeks later.

Running across the Liberator ruined the selfcleaning features of their "saftey-valve" which the Federation used to periodically ensure harmony, and they can't make a new Blake until this one is dealt to, or the jig would be up.

Which is surprisingly similar to the revelations dug up in the Matrix II that were ignored and never mentioned in the Matrix III.

So for what ever is deficient about Del Tarrant, at least he's not a made up social engineering widget gone rogue with delusions of existence.

By a staggering coincidence, someone not a million spacials from here helped make those...

And the Blake-as-implanted-personality idea came from Chris Boucher. If there'd been a fifth season it would have explained why Avon now thought his name was Blake.

 

[Marc]

By a staggering coincidence, someone not a million spacials from here helped make those...

And the Blake-as-implanted-personality idea came from Chris Boucher. If there'd been a fifth season it would have explained why Avon now thought his name was Blake.

Going beyond the later part of Series D where Avon is beginning to lose his marbles?

Series E and he's completely lost them and now thinks he's Blake?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Considering how season D finished, it's likely that Servalan plugged Avon into a brainwashing machine, so whether he thought he was Blake or not, it's doubtful that all continuing adventures never took place anywhere outside of between his ears.

 

[auntiehill]

C09: SARCOPHAGUS

Blake's 7 does the haunted house in space. Tanith Lee's first script for the series is a great little stand alone which resolves the arc of Cally's feeling for Avon (or rather than last one to mention it). There are some great little moments in this episode, such as Dayna's song and Vila entertaining the shadows. Lee takes a lot of liberties and goes beyond what we would normally expect to see in an episode. The first five minutes are very surreal and ambiguous. Tarrant is an even bigger dick in this episode than he was in The City at the Edge of the World. It would be easy to bring in a whole heap of extras simply to kill them off but Lee's script gives the six regulars (Peter does two voices, remember chaps) great material to work with and the direction is spot on. I love Avon's solution to defeating the God - pretend to be Captain Kirk! This is probably the only episode in the series where no one dies... I'm sure the God just left the ship to float amonsgt the stars...

I really like Sarcophagus. It's so different from any other episode. I like the Cally and Avon dynamic and how all the other characters are assigned a "role." Yeah, it might be a little heavy on the hokey-meter, but I've always liked it.

 

[diankra]

By a staggering coincidence, someone not a million spacials from here helped make those...

And the Blake-as-implanted-personality idea came from Chris Boucher. If there'd been a fifth season it would have explained why Avon now thought his name was Blake.

Going beyond the later part of Series D where Avon is beginning to lose his marbles?

Series E and he's completely lost them and now thinks he's Blake?

More or less, yes. He hadn't made any detailed plans, but thinking ahead to season five, Chris Boucher had two big priorities:
1) He wanted to avoid the problems they'd had at the start of season four over not knowing who was going to be back (so scripts written for Cally had to be changed when Jan Chappell dropped out, and scripts written on the assumption that Jacqueline Pearce wouldn't be back had to be changed so the new villain was actually Servalan under an assumed identity). So anyone who signed up right away would have survived, anyone who said no or was iffy had died on Gauda Prime. Sorted.
2) He felt they'd have to justify the title, now that Blake hadn't appeared regularly for three years, and had died very bloodily and finally. So Avon would, for some reason have come to be known as Blake.

With hindsight, the way it would probably have developed would be that Avon had, like Blake at the start of the series, been brainwashed, sent to a show trial, and released into the community. Perhaps as a result of this, perhaps because of his own mental state, he'd have come to believe he was Blake.
Then a group of young rebels, followers of Blake who only know of him through the distorted rumours and legends that had escaped Federation censorship, would come looking for him (again like The Way Back). And they'd also track down other memebrs of the old crew, who of course know the truth, and in particular the truth about what happened on Gauda Prime.
So by a few episodes in, Avon would 'feel' he was Blake, but know intellectually that he was Avon, and that he'd killed the real Blake, and that his followers would turn on him if they ever found out, so his life (and sanity) depended on being Blake... a better Blake than the original...

 

[Marc]

2) He felt they'd have to justify the title, now that Blake hadn't appeared regularly for three years, and had died very bloodily and finally. So Avon would, for some reason have come to be known as Blake.

Just on the show being called Blakes 7 with no Blake, Jacqueline Pearce was once asked about that. Her response was "nobody gave a fuck as long as they were in it"


and if anyone's intersted, though it hasn't been update in years http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/ was one of the biggest B7 sites going around.

I was on the discussion mailling list run from there years ago.

 

[Guy Gardener]

"Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts."

 

[Candlelight]

1) He wanted to avoid the problems they'd had at the start of season four over not knowing who was going to be back (so scripts written for Cally had to be changed when Jan Chappell dropped out, and scripts written on the assumption that Jacqueline Pearce wouldn't be back had to be changed so the new villain was actually Servalan under an assumed identity). So anyone who signed up right away would have survived, anyone who said no or was iffy had died on Gauda Prime. Sorted.

Glynis Barber and Michael Keating said they wouldn't have returned.

2) He felt they'd have to justify the title, now that Blake hadn't appeared regularly for three years, and had died very bloodily and finally. So Avon would, for some reason have come to be known as Blake.

It would make sense, given the amount of people that had no idea what Blake looked like during the show. You'd think the Federation would put wanted posters around the galaxy and yet Blake and his crew were virtually unknowns whenever they turned up anywhere.

 

[diankra]

1) He wanted to avoid the problems they'd had at the start of season four over not knowing who was going to be back (so scripts written for Cally had to be changed when Jan Chappell dropped out, and scripts written on the assumption that Jacqueline Pearce wouldn't be back had to be changed so the new villain was actually Servalan under an assumed identity). So anyone who signed up right away would have survived, anyone who said no or was iffy had died on Gauda Prime. Sorted.

Glynis Barber and Michael Keating said they wouldn't have returned.

2) He felt they'd have to justify the title, now that Blake hadn't appeared regularly for three years, and had died very bloodily and finally. So Avon would, for some reason have come to be known as Blake.

It would make sense, given the amount of people that had no idea what Blake looked like during the show. You'd think the Federation would put wanted posters around the galaxy and yet Blake and his crew were virtually unknowns whenever they turned up anywhere.

The Federation would never do it, as that would mean publicising the existence of a rebellion, and good citizens know there is nothing to rebel against.

 

[Candlelight]

It would make sense, given the amount of people that had no idea what Blake looked like during the show. You'd think the Federation would put wanted posters around the galaxy and yet Blake and his crew were virtually unknowns whenever they turned up anywhere.

The Federation would never do it, as that would mean publicising the existence of a rebellion, and good citizens know there is nothing to rebel against.

Not just citizens but within the Federation itself. For example the officers on Horizon didn't recognise Blake until he said his name.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We saw no(?) entertainment media or infotainment or news as we understand it.

More so, basic drug and subliminal programming on every citizen in the Federation would have installed triggers as to how they react and conduct themselves in the presence of any freedom fighter called "Blake".

 

[Candlelight]

One main culprit is in Powerplay; the Federation's own Death Squad don't even recognise Avon when he's right in front of them.

 

[Candlelight]

C10: ULTRAWORLD

A very basic storyline but with great 70s BBC special effects. I vividly remember this one as a child and loved it. It doesn't quite fill the full 50 minutes, and it's sad to see Cally get so little to do. Tarrent and Dayna run the episode, the Core is silly but effective and the devouring of the humans once they're used up is chilling. Vila's riddles are within character and for once are used as a weapon, although the resolution is ripped straight out of Redemption.

 

[Starkers]

With regard to Blake it is strange that no one recognises him, but I guess it’s sort of explainable, as Guy says we never get much of a feel for the press/TV equivalents in the Blakes 7 universe (aside from Death Watch and that’s not Federation territory) though they must have something, I mean Blake originally recanted publically.

People not recognising Avon, or the others, makes more sense though I think. It’s like Bin Laden, everyone knew who he (Blake for sake of argument) was, he was the face of Al-Qaeda and most people would have recognised a picture of him, but show people a picture of al-Zawahiri and I imagine the % who recognised him would be significantly less.

I loved Sarcophagus, the Avon/Cally interplay, the inventive, somewhat surreal back story to the ring, the use of only the main cast…definitely Tanith Lee’s better B7 script (though I do like Sand).

Ultraworld is ok, a little silly in places and feels a little like a series 1 episode. Cally effectively possessed again though. Tarrant and Dayna have some nice interplay, as do Orac and Vila.

 

[Saul]

I found Tarrant to be something of a Blake clone...

Its the hair isn't it

I think the only think Tarrant and Blake share is a sense of their own importance, it's probably just more justified in Blake's case. Tarrant is more mercenary and far less political. He'd happily see the Federation fall, but that's more self intrest than a desire to free the masses.

Definitely the hair is a giveaway but also the fact that he was a foil for Avon when he came onboard basically saying the Liberator was his.