Exactly. The show managed fine continuing despite losing three of it's main cast by the end of season 2
Watching Blake's 7 for the first time in ages... and loving it!
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Exactly. The show managed fine continuing despite losing three of it's main cast by the end of season 2
Probably I'm just annoyed because this ruins my idea for a continuation series
Continuations are crap, and seldom work. I'm glad it's a reimagining, so it can be removed from the original series if it doesn't work. Still, season one will only be six episodes, so you can put you head in the sand for six weeks while it's on.
Yeah Next Gen was shit wasn't it, and Dr Who is sooo unpopular. Meanwhile reimaginings like The Bionic Woman, Kolshack, Knight Rider etc go from strength to strength
Thing is your logic can can easily be turned on its head. If the characters are going to be so different from the originals then why don't you create a whole new universe and new characters? Why call them Avon, Cally etc?
...yellowdingo emerges from Soolin flashback...What?
What remake? I thought it was a Radioshow of the old Series.
My fave B7 qoute is:
AVON: "Quick! Hide the money."
If you dont know, you havnt seen the episode.
Sky have commissioned 2 scripts (If I remember correctly) with the possibility of going to series.
It's a re-imaging rather than an straight radio production of the original series.
As for departures
Apparently Jaqueline Pearce was asked if the actors minded it was still called Blakes 7 even though there was no Blake.
Her reply apparently was "no one gave a fuck as long as they were in it"
Her reply apparently was "no one gave a fuck as long as they were in it"
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[Dorian]30 years actually.[/Dorian]
And how do you move it along? Have yet another band of prisoners led by yet another former resistence leader called Blake and somehow managing to find yet another alien ship called the Liberator...?
Those were the things that made it great. Repeating them again would only make it sound very contrieved and coincidental.
Next Gen was a spin off.
Doctor Who's universe allowed it to carry on, whereas Blake's 7's does not. Plus it was British-made.
Ah... good old American reimaginings...
Well...
Chris Boucher, the script editor on the original series and author of the last episode, had a vague idea in mind for the fifth season (despite the apparent finality of season four's ending, it was only meant as a season cliffhanger which could be a series conclusion): it would open with a restaging of season one's first scene, except this time it's Avon who's the model citizen who's lured to an illegal meeting, and finds out that he was once a rebel leader until he was captured and brainwashed... and post-brainwashing, Avon thinks his name is Roj Blake.
Imagine that as the last line of the pre-credits for the fifth season opener: Avon intoduces himself with the words "Blake. My name is Roj Blake."
It's a riff on 1984 (lie much of Boucher's take on Blake), where the party has created a tame dissident movement as a way of controlling opposition: 'Blake' is a personality which the Federation implants into captured and brainwashed rebel leaders, knowing that new rebels will seek out this legendary resistance leader and therefore lay themselves open to capture (just as Control is used as a trap for rebels in Pressure Point). But last time round, the Gareth Thomas 'Blake' got out of control when he escaped onto this massively powerful alien spaceship.
Too late now to do it with Paul Darrow as Avon/Blake, but you can see how the idea could be adapted so that the new hero could be known as Blake. And Liberator, of course, was named by Jenna, and the new Blake's followers could name their ship Liberator in turn...
...that really depends on who you speak to. Some stories I've heard say the production team knew absolutely there would not and never be a Series E, and so they wrote the wild west shoot out to end it for good (although I did hear how Series E may have functioned, partly set out of Gauda Prime).
They would also have to recast several people as I know Glynis Barber signed on for the one and only series, plus Michael Keating didn't like the development of Vila in Series D (mainly with the red wine stuff).
I've read that had it gone to a 5 season, those who survived GP would depend on which actors wanted to return and that reason for no Servelan was Jacqueline Pearce had been contracted for a certain number of eps by her agent and by the time "Blake" went into production they'd been used.
No, you go forward and have a group of dissidents who are following in the tradition of Blake and his group, in the uprising they started. Or perhaps even someone within the Federation who begins to be convinced he/she is on the wrong side and decides to rebel. There are a number of ways you could carry it on, none of which mean rehashing the story in the way you're suggesting. Same universe, going on from what we saw and building on it, and telling the story of people who continued their work.
Actually my idea is kinda similar to Boucher's (to a point) and would see the Federation 30 years later coming to the realisation that their power is crumbling and deciding that what they need is an enemy, a focus to crack down on all dissenters and to make the people fear democracy. They basically create their own "Blake" and engineer his escape. The twist is that whilst Roj Blake was a resistance leader, framed as a pedo, this new Blake might be the reverse, and is essentially a man so brainwashed and conditioned that even he isn't sure who he really is. Is he the great resistance leader he seems to be, or actually a common sexual deviant turned into Blake by the Federation. And in the end does it matter? He'd have a new crew around him and a new ship (which doesn't have to be called Liberator-heck calling it Zen would be a nice touch)
Anyway the politics of fear/is there ever an excuse for terrorism theme would have worked much better whilst Bush and Blair were still in office
Anyway the politics of fear/is there ever an excuse for terrorism theme would have worked much better whilst Bush and Blair were still in office
^ There's all sorts of interesting story line that could come up from your idea. Some I don't think they would want to touch on TV though.
Well a lot of stuff could be hinted at 
and obviously though a Federation creation, this Blake would exceed his programming.
I even had plans for a season finale featuring a Cygnus alpha style oprison colony ruled over by an evil old woman with curiously short hair
and obviously though a Federation creation, this Blake would exceed his programming.I even had plans for a season finale featuring a Cygnus alpha style oprison colony ruled over by an evil old woman with curiously short hair
Which could be an interesting story line in itself, is he actually exceeding his programming, or doing exactly what they want, does he realise his programming and actively try to push past it, or seemingly do it even if he knows that's what they want him do to.Well a lot of stuff could be hinted at
Which could be an interesting story line in itself, is he actually exceeding his programming, or doing exactly what they want, does he realise his programming and actively try to push past it, or seemingly do it even if he knows that's what they want him do to.Well a lot of stuff could be hinted at
We've already seen this in Weapon.
Servalan had the Clone Masters create a clone of Blake to use a decoy but it turned on them.
As you say, it depends who you speak to, but the only people on the production team who had a say in how it ended and whose comments really count were the producer and the script editor/episode writer - and the latter says he delibberately wrote it so that those actors who signed for another season could be brought back, and those who didn't could be presumed dead without too much fuss, after Jan Chappell's changing availability had caused him headaches at the start of season four.
I think he's got to be treated as the 'authoratitive' (quite literally in this case) source.
I thought it sounded familiar when I said it.Which could be an interesting story line in itself, is he actually exceeding his programming, or doing exactly what they want, does he realise his programming and actively try to push past it, or seemingly do it even if he knows that's what they want him do to.Well a lot of stuff could be hinted at
We've already seen this in Weapon.
Servalan had the Clone Masters create a clone of Blake to use a decoy but it turned on them.
But what I meant was a longer drawn out story, expecting you to go along with the character, kinda like Crichton when he's slowly sinking in to madness with the Scorpy in his head.
Which could be an interesting story line in itself, is he actually exceeding his programming, or doing exactly what they want, does he realise his programming and actively try to push past it, or seemingly do it even if he knows that's what they want him do to.Well a lot of stuff could be hinted at
We've already seen this in Weapon.
Servalan had the Clone Masters create a clone of Blake to use a decoy but it turned on them.
This would be a bit more involved than that, and he wouldn't be an actual clone of the original Blake, or even think he was the original Blake.
Ah crud you spoiled it...read the first Paragraph on Chris Boulcher's Season five and my brain blew a "holy manchurian candidate" fuse but yes the idea that Roj Blake was infact a Psycho-construct used by the Federation to lure out people resistant to the Pascification drugs made everything fall into view...
Mind you I think the idea that both Blake and Avon worked on the TELEPORTATION PROJECT is a little coincidental...
Does that mean every Blake has his Avon?
Did Avon and Blake realy work as Scientists/Technicians on such a high-end project?
Was that the Original Leaders of that first failed Uprising on whom the Blake and Avon Psycho-personalities are based?
Blake: "Aquetar!"
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