Maximum power Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back.
To maximum power, and today we are discussing breakdown, the best episode of series A. I am Brendan.
I'm Simon.
I'm I'm Pete.
So, uh, this is series A's other Gan centric episode, and so we start on the Bridge of the Liberator.
Simon, what do you think of Gan learning to fly the Liberator by himself?
Well, I think he's doing an excellent job, but he only flies it for a fraction of a 2nd before he has his breakdown.
And I think it's one of the things I really like about it.
We get on with it.
There's no faffing around.
He has the headache and so on and coincidentally while the ship's about to go into a meteor shower or whatever it is.
I think it's great.
I think he is fantastic and I actually think he does a really good job with all the breakdown stuff.
I worry that everyone else disagrees, but I kind of don't care if they do.
Radio Mark, do you agree or disagree?
Yeah, I suppose the thing I don't understand about Zen and the Liberator and you probably say, this is my 1st time watching Blake 7 through.
So if anyone's sort of joining me this episode.
So Zen needs some instruction at that point because there's going to be a meteor shower.
Otherwise, there's going to be disaster and to be destroyed.
But then later on in the episode, it absolutely refuses to go somewhere because of some nebulous reason that there might be some danger there.
There's not a lot.
Computer says no.
Yeah, there's not a lot of consistency with that.
If Gan hadn't done anything, it would have just like carried on trundling into this meteor shower and been destroyed.
I think, yeah, space peril is the real.
There's some kind of complicated space peril thing going on.
And yeah, just in terms of creating situation, in which Jackson finally gets to do the most quantity of acting that can possibly be done in one episode.
He finally gets something to go for.
And I do wonder if the previous episodes have been sort of almost really making Gan very quiet and full foregrounding his politeness and meekness just to try and set this one up as a bigger twist when it comes, I suppose.
But does anyone feel that we've seen this sort of thing before this series?
In terms of in a different program?
I'm thinking in terms of the web.
Is this different enough from Callie's possession in the web?
Because...
Oh, yes, I think it is.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well, you obviously think it's too, it's like recycling the same plot you feel.
Yeah, yeah.
And I do feel perhaps it's not as effective here, but it sounds like you disagree, Simon.
So what makes this effective in a different way.
I suppose is what I'm asking.
Oh, well, look, okay, I accept that there are similarities there.
But interestingly, in our kind of recent watch through, because Brian and I have been watching Lake 7 through ahead of, you know, well ahead of this podcast.
And oddly enough, that is not something we notice.
We did not, neither of us thought when we were watching breakdown that, oh, this is just the same plot as from the web.
I, I, yes, I suppose it's the same sort of thing as, you know, one of the characters has some kind of breakdown slash becomes quote unquote evil or whatever you want to call it for the purposes of the episode.
I don't see it as similar enough to be of great concern.
I think it would probably be of greater concern if the episodes are only 2 episodes apart or something, but I think they're far enough apart that I don't think it matters.
I think that the web was, I'm writing since Callie's only her 2nd episode as well, isn't it?
So we haven't quite learned to trust her yet, whether she's going to become a full member of the crew.
So it's quite plausible that she is just evil, I suppose, to begin with, whereas with Gann, he's been around from the start.
So we know there's something wrong.
Actually, that's a good point.
Yeah, I actually think that that's probably what they're playing with in the web.
It's less the loyal crew member has gone off and been possessed.
It's more the, do we really know who this person is?
sort of effect.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point, especially seeing as from Cygnus Alpha, really, where no one else wants to believe Blake, Gan immediately stands by him and has been super loyal throughout.
So yeah, that's a wonderful point.
Pete, I'd like to ask you, what do you think of the resulting fight scene?
I think it's it's a ballet, basically. recreated for us on the wonderful set of The Liberator.
It's quite a thing, isn't it?
But I think that we've been having Gan made up almost like sort of Lenny from mice and men, this gentle, it becomes this sort of gentle simpleton almost in the, in the words that they might have used back then.
And so having him turned into someone who is actually really nasty and really violent, is rather than, and we, what we don't know as well, as viewers at this point, is whether that's actually his real personality coming out or whether he's under an external influence as, as Callie was.
It's got and everyone to off to Ealing for the Sick Bay, which we've now built in a much bigger studio.
So it's on film.
But that's my sequences is one of the best studio fight sequences.
I think I've seen, and the fact that they have a handheld camera in the studio, which I was racking my brains when I was watching it this afternoon, where we've seen that.
Like, I don't think we've done handheld in the studio in quite the same way.
And I was stunned at how well put together and choreographed that fight sequence at the beginning was.
I don't know if other people have a view.
I really love it when Blake grabs that computer bank or whatever it is and smashes it on Gan's back because sort of the tension with Blake's character is how sort of gentle he is, but when he becomes violent, it's a great shock.
And that to me adds to the realism of the fight.
Because his 1st words after, you know, basically he's seen Gan dragging Jenna across the flight deck by one leg and he tries to appear to him. me, it's Blake.
Calm down and the 2nd that doesn't work, it's like, okay, I'm going to grab whatever is not nailed down and beat you with it.
Yeah, it gives a real visceral feeling.
He's not afraid to put the fighter into freedom fighter in these situations, which sometimes you could forget because he's so often the one having the moral dilemma.
But yeah, he will pick something up and whack someone with it in an emergency.
And yeah, Jenna's gymnastic bit of being flung across the console room is pretty impressive. console room.
Sorry. forfeit for me.
Wrong series.
Who reverence of the episode?
Oh, accidental one.
And she's back in her pastal pinks again, isn't she?
After being in her space garb for a while with her black starry night dress.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, then they are number one with take a chance on me at this week.
Excellent.
I'm also very glad that Blake is not wearing his sort of bell sleeve kaftan shirt.
He's wearing the far more businesslike green tunic with the black over bit, which helps me take him a lot more seriously.
Now, they basically use 2 horse tranquillizers to take down Gan and Callie very helpfully points out that, yeah, they need them because he's a big chap.
And as you say, we are at Ealing Film Studio for the Sick Bay, and the only reason I can think of that is they thought, okay, we have a film allocation for this episode, let's use it.
And it's very interesting that they don't use it on that fight scene and they just get it right in the studio because there is a little bit of action on this sick bass set, but it is mostly just David Jackson sort of opening and closing his hand and it makes his hand look like one of those little French pugs, I thought.
I thought he's limited to his malfunctioning and turning him into a punch and duty operator or something.
And that's why, no, he's going to start doing puppy shows.
What can we do?
But that's actually an interesting point, Brenda, that you raise.
You'd think that with that fight sequence, they want to try and do the console room.
What we call the flight tank.
The control room as on film, but probably because there's just far too many sequences in there, they can't move the, have the entire set, uh, that entire set at Ealing.
And having, having it a jump where just, just that bit, just the opening bit is on film would probably be too much.
But yeah, your conclusion is exactly the same one that I thought of during Mission to Destiny, which is you've got these sets, which are at healing or on film or wherever they happen to have been done.
For no apparent reason.
There's no fire, there's no big fight sequence to choreograph.
It must just be that there's a filming allocation that they need to use and okay, we'll put this sequence there.
And it sort of makes sense because that is a new set.
It's not like it's an existing set.
It's sort of interesting to me, therefore, because usually these filming dates are sort of in addition to the studio dates and they try and keep the cast to a minimum.
But really all David Jackson gets to do in these scenes is lie there.
You know, easiest paycheque ever.
Lower on Twitch.
Yeah, yeah.
And interesting sort of, you wonder if this script, I think I read that this script went through a few iterations and nearly came out as a sort of different story with the same basic premise, but then got got reconditioned a bit.
And I don't know how much of this comes from that.
They have to go to Sick Bay suddenly, and suddenly Jenna and Callie both become nurses, and Avon becomes a brain scan specialist, just because someone's got to, and that we don't have an emergency medical hologram.
Yeah, and someone, and Avon becomes for a moment in time, Avon is a person who could conceivably perform an operation if he had to.
It is on the table, isn't it?
Yeah, on the table at one point.
But the one thing that I found sort of, which occurred to me when watching it, was that there is no doctor among them, which is probably, you know, they don't want to be like Star Trek and obviously it's not a, it's not a formal crew.
It's just a bunch of, you know, rebels who've, you know, criminals who've gotten together.
But it is sort of surprising that one of them hadn't been some kind of, maybe they dropped out as, as a med school in their, in their younger days, so had at least a sort of a working knowledge of medicine, to get them through, obviously not to perform sort of operation.
They still end up needing to go to, you know, the space stations to get the operation done.
But at least to sort of fill that role because it's not indonceivable that they need a medicine someone with some medical training at other points.
I mean, they sort of managed to get through life without too many scrapes and bruises, all things considered.
Imagine if they had a ship's counsellor, like the enterprise in the next generation.
They would be a very busy person, wouldn't they?
where that was.
Are you getting a signal sound?
like, no, Gan's choking me again.
What's missing was Callie's telepathic transmission to the rest of them when Gan's struggle is strangling her.
Yes that's true.
That's what I keep thinking that Kelly's telepathy is going to come in useful like that.
Like it was, she was going to help to be able to soothe Gam, because I don't think we, well, I, so far, really, we haven't got a sense of what the range is, yeah.
So like you say, I thought that's how she would alert the rest of the crew that he was on the rampage.
It does seem to be when we've seen Callie's telepathy up until now, when Callie is in control of it.
It's line of sight.
When she speaks to Blake and Signus Alpha, she's looking at him, when she speaks to Jenna in the web, she's looking at her.
Yeah, it is interesting to give her that ability, but as you say, not sort of really exploit it in a high concept sci-fi way.
Well, it's too magical.
And she's like 3G, maybe only a 2G telepath, basically.
It's kind of...
But there's an episode where she's, where they're captured somewhere and she transmits to, I think, Avon, there's 2 of them or something.
And that, so that's not live side.
No, no, you're quite right.
I can't remember what that was in.
You could always say it depends who's writing the episode each week.
And then you remember.
Yes.
Because the episode where, actually, I don't know all the names and stuff yet, but the one where they leave it behind and don't notice for ages...
Oh, seek location.
Yes.
And then Travis says to her, you know, if you cry, if you call out and warn them, then I'll kill you or something like that.
And I thought, oh, well, great, because she doesn't need to call out to warn them, does she?
But again, it's not it's not used in that way.
Yeah.
Maybe, maybe, maybe she sort of needs to, needs to focus.
I just need to, you know, get it all in alignment.
Don't distract me.
Now I can now I can transmit.
Got to be in the zone.
Yeah.
Gen's limiter is malfunctioning and we do get that little scanning thing on the head.
There seems to be a moment in a lot of episodes.
This season where they're like, hey, look at this incredibly advanced science, which we can now look at as sort of quaint, but it's like, yeah, you wouldn't have had handheld scanners like that in hospitals at the time.
You know, it was sort of cutting edge for the audience.
And we get this whole discussion with that wonderful sort of clear whiteboard with Lecraset planet written on it. as to as to all these different places they can go.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's really nice when they talk in terms of like how many 100 hours it's going to take to get there.
I like that in science.
It's unusual because the narrative of normally for plot reasons, obviously, but normally in any space show, they just want to get you there as quickly as possible.
So to have them talking about how many 100s of hours it take to get somewhere, makes it, you know, it's a big universe.
It's nice to be reminded of that, even in the Liberator.
We get up to standard by 12 in this one.
I haven't I'm meant to keep track of what speeds the liberator actually has.
And I never understand why they don't just go at full speed everywhere, but then that's my driving.
You're doing the fabric of the universe or something. isn't that what usually is the problem with speeding into space?
I don't think, you know, they need to get there as quickly as possible because Gan might die.
And yet I'm sure when they head off at first, they're already going standard by 3 or something.
Isn't that rattle standard by 6 maybe?
don't know Yeah, they accelerate later.
It's like, it's already a life and death situation before it then gets a bit worse and they decide to really put the foot down.
And of course, this introduces the concept.
Well, you know, it gives us a bit more of Zen's sentience for want of a better word.
It's not exactly sentience, but, yeah, he's unwilling to pass through this area because it might be a bit dangerous.
So he, it's, whole thing of, well, I'm not going to kill myself, but I'll let you kill me.
Because.
Yeah, well, he's got that lovely white paint job.
It's not there's an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine that revolves around one of the trains refusing to come out of a tunnel, which because it doesn't want to get his paint dirty in the rain.
And sometimes I wonder if Zen is operating on a similar, similar basis to Henry the Green engine in that respect.
I think the plot reason why...
Well, should I say, there is no plot reason, adequate plot reason for me why Zen refuses to tell them what's there, fly through that area, whatever it is.
And yet all it is, quote unquote, is a sort of some kind of gravity eddy thing.
For me, if you want to have that, because there are plenty of other dangerous parts of space, which then will quite happily fly them through or allowed them to fly through.
There needs to be something special about the distortion.
There need to be some kind of time eddy effect or something that meant that the people who managed to get through it for some reason, for one reason or another don't remember what they experienced or something.
You know what I mean?
Because the impression we're getting is that it's just some kind of commuter triangle of space.
No?
Yeah, I think that's an edit from the original version of this script, which then got transplanted into another episode, not getting ahead of ourselves and not spoilering it for Mark, but in a year or 2 maybe.
They fly through something that was originally they were going to fly through in this episode and then that got chopped out.
So this is on Blake 7 Wiki.
I dont know how much I can how to what extent that's theorising or documented.
But yeah, on there it says that they were going to have them flying through something really deadly.
And then they decided to take that out and because that wasn't going to be the focus of the episode.
That could be a fan theory, of course.
And there's a bit when they have passed through the danger zone, they all look with delight at the monitor screen.
And it's like, look, we've made it.
We're in the end title sequence as the end title sequence Starfield comes up.
I do know Zen sort of just shuts down when they need a bit of padding because does the episode where he refuses to take that little shuttlecraft on board?
So they have to do it manually.
Endless thing of trying to line it up and get it.
Oh, then comes round again.
Yeah, I also wonder with that because, of course, Terry Nation is very famous for having written Doctor Who, and because he was with Doctor Who at the beginning, he knows the basic structure of a Doctor Who story is that within the 1st 15 minutes, you isolate the characters from the TARDIS.
You can't really do that in Blake 7.
You know, you can knock off their teleport bracelet.
So instead, he will quite often in the 1st series isolate them from Zen.
So he's not he's not taking them off the ship, but he's but he's going, okay, really all you have now is a fast ship. which everyone else has as well.
Zen is what makes the ship special.
And by taking that away, It's also a matter of reminding the audience that Jenna is this crack pilot.
And, you know, I think Sally performs that very well.
And it takes a, I think that the shades of that old classic science fiction story, the machine stops from Ian Forster, where, which all sorts of things have been inspired by. the idea that at some point will become so dependent upon technology that when it's taken away, our society simply might not be able to function anymore.
And that crops up in lots of science fiction, and that's an overtone here, isn't it, that yes, you are dependent on this, this computer, that is actually rather touchy and prone to having Mardy moods, uh, and that's going to create some, some issues for you as you go along.
I do like to keep touching on the sort of ongoing mystery of Gisen's origins as well.
I'm not sure if it's in this one.
I've just watched like 7 episodes in 2 days.
Some of them are running.
But Avon says like one day, I intend to find out who programs then, and then there's another one where I think Villa speculates that, you know, he's someone behind the way that Zen withholds information from them.
So there's definitely one of the sort of ongoing things that is keeping my interest in the series, definitely.
Well, yeah, that's right.
And we are sort of finding out new things about Zen and new things about the ship.
And in this episode, we discover that in an emergency, the human crew can take control of Zen's sort of self-repair and self-correction systems, which, of course, Avon manages to do, but of course, Callie has let Gan go due to her sympathy for him.
That is a tough sell, isn't it?
That this hard, this extremely wily and wise character that Cali is.
But he said, no, I can't release you.
And he goes, oh, go on, please.
She says, oh, all right, then. promise not to do any murdering.
Probably stopped to go on a rampage.
It was a bit of a, um, it was a bit of a meme with me and my flatmates watching Voyager when that was 1st coming out as to whether or not each episode would be a 7 of 9 goes on a rampage episode because we did get quite a lot of that when she 1st came in.
They were brilliant episodes, so that was fine.
It's the same vibe that's being rocked here, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, I did think that perhaps Villa might have been a more likely person to set Gan free because, of course, they know each other from the before time.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, that's good point.
Yeah, yeah, that's really good.
Yeah, but Villa seems to be...
It just seems to be that they decided that the girls are the nurses.
So they're the ones who are going to go in, obviously, and be there and be sub-subject to him, persuading them, I suppose.
Once the decision was taken that they would do the medical stuff.
I guess that's what put them in that place.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're right.
And that leads to another action sequence.
As Gan attacks Avon in the computer room. do we think about that?
We want as much of that as we can get.
I love a bit of cast flinging each other about and I think they all go at it with gusto, don't they?
Another good sequence.
I kind of, because that's sort of the 3rd one by now, I've kind of tuned out.
I sort of, it's like, it's like missing time for me.
I mean, it's all very well done in everything, but I just wait till it's over and then the story can keep going.
Yeah, because there's even a bit where Avon shouts to him, no Gan, don't do that.
You'll break the computer linkages and Gan does the thing that Avon said not to do.
And 15 seconds later when Gan is subdued, Avon's like, yes, I've accessed the computer linkages.
It's like, well, obviously he's not going to break them.
Yes, or maybe he was pretending that.
Oh, yes, break that one again.
We can do without that bit.
But, you know, Yeah, that's true.
That one buffing.
We do get some nice the trademark dialogue successes are still peppered through this episode still. lovely I'm from Avon about staying with you. requires a level of stupidity that I'm not capable of maintaining or words for that effect.
Blake comes back with, you're just being modest.
The action sequences are either the bit that really drives it for you, or like I remember when I was watching Buffy, the bits where she was actually fighting with the vampires, or like, actually, okay, they fight for 30 seconds.
Dum, dum, dum, right, fight's finished. we can get on with the plot.
Sometimes you can really get drawn into that.
And other times it's like, yeah, the director's enjoying themselves. and so you have your fun and then we'll get back to the story at the end of his fight.
I mean, that's one of the reasons why I don't enjoy, you know, big Hollywood blockbuster sort of action films because, you know, these ridiculous fight sequences or action sequences go in for like 30 minutes and I just don't care.
I just want to I just want to get to the I just want to get back to the plot, the interesting part.
Fortunately, these sequences in these BBC shows are, um, you know, brief.
They do sell and strength quite well, I think, especially the the 1st fight where there's the sort of 3 of them trying to take him down and he's throwing them off.
I also like that in each of the fights, we're treated to Avon's.
Oh no, I'm very surprised by being beaten up face that he just seems to get in every fight.
It's like Paul Darrow is like, I don't want to show extreme pain because, you know, that could be upsetting for the viewer.
So I'm just going to show extreme surprise.
Yes, yes.
And then there's that pause before he then retaliates with his, you know, karate cuts or whatever it is that he does.
Yeah, there's that sort of pause where he can't, it's almost like he's readying himself for the retaliation.
I think it's implied at one point that he knees Gan between the legs.
I didn't pick that up admittedly, but it may be that.
Yeah.
It's either the stomach or between the legs and, you know, being the BBC in 1917. don't see it.
He got down in the go now. has one weakness.
Well, yes. possessed by no one else in the world.
Now, this, of course, leads us to Space Station XK7, which is populated by Count Scarlioni and his assistant cut price Michael York, and their bureaucratic boss, Farron, which is in no way just a very smudged version of a usual Terry Nation name.
Like, I can literally imagine, you know, Terry typing out that name and then something happens to the paper and like the tea smudges.
Oh, Farron.
Yeah, right.
Lunch, yeah.
So, yeah, we sort of have another episode of 2 halves, which we've had earlier this series as well.
On board the station, we get some very very terry nation style dialogue and I'm not saying that as a pejorative, but it very clearly sets up who these 2 characters are.
What are our 1st impressions of Dr. Kane and Mr. Farren?
Yeah, it was immediately overjoyed to see Julian Glover because he's just brilliant in everything and particularly seeming to be a good guy and then turning out to be a bad guy.
He's one of his specialties, isn't it?
I think for your eyes only in the last crusade and things like that.
And I think he does very well with the dialogue.
As you say, it's quite sort of exposition heavy and terrination like, but yeah, he brings he brings a lot of a lot of character to it.
So yeah, absolutely fantastic to see him.
And it's great having a doctor named Kane named after the 1st murderer in the Bible is like, yo, I'm sure he's a lovely doctor really, and there's no reason why he's got that name at all.
But yeah, Julian Barber really is such a good actor.
He, he, he choose the scenery just enough to keep sort of a, nibble, nibble. the 1970s TV performance, which, you know, as Mark was saying, you know, he becomes the villain, but he just keeps it on the right side of that to, to make it uh, convincing and, and all consistent.
And that's the other thing.
He's performing the dialogue.
He's performing those scenes as if it's Shakespeare.
I'm not meaning in terms of pretending to speak in a sort of a Elizabethan speech pattern or something, but I just mean in terms of he's treating it completely seriously.
And he's, you know, the script is the script and we will perform it correctly.
And I think he's just a fantastic actor.
And I think, yeah, he's good in he's been brilliant in everything that I've seen him in.
And even little things like when he teleports over to the liberator.
He just does a little reaction to it too.
And that is, we were discussing that on the previous episode, that you don't, that teleporter dematerialisation effect looks quite painful, actually, when they all wobble and you seem to get splattered apart.
You don't just gracefully fade, like on other spaceship based series. to have him landing and just saying, no, you know, I can't remember his exact words, but, you know, he just how remarkable it is.
Yeah, yeah. they sort of play with the very beginning when Blake goes down to the planet and he comes back and sort of, I think he says something about it being an interesting sensation or whatever.
And then, of course, then of course, we don't hear that ever again, even with people who are being teleported for the 1st time.
And yeah, and that was also nice because, you know, they're leaving the laboratory or the space station.
And the camera stays in the same place and it's like the, you know, they they wibble and wobble out into sort of bits.
But then they're in the same place and it's the background which has changed.
I thought that was a nice, just a different way of treating the teleporting.
Yeah, it takes you through with it, doesn't it?
Yeah.
I wondered if his joke at the start.
Sorry, I wondered if his line, Kane's line, right at the start.
I'm a surgeon.
I'm not interested in spaceship design, was meant to be a riff on...
Dr. Jim, not a whatever that was Dr. McCoy's catchphrase in Star Trek.
Or maybe I was just looking too hard.
But it made me think of that.
Well, I think I think you might be onto something there, Pete, because I'm reasonably sure.
First of all, that the BBC didn't get Star Trek until 1970.
But secondly, that they did regularly repeat it because as an import, it was cheaper to pay for a repeat than it was for, say, a repeat of Doctor Who.
And it also cast my mind back to something you were saying earlier, Simon, I think Marky was saying it as well, that none of the crew were a doctor, but it's a matter of if you look at Star Trek, the original series.
The main reason that Bones was there was so they could have stories about space plagues or someone getting injured.
And it seems that Terry Nation has essentially gone, I'm not terribly interested in those kind of stories.
And when they do happen, the solution generally isn't medical, you know, it's just there's a poison gas here, once we get away from it, we'll be fine.
And there are episodes of Star Trek, the original series where Bones only function is to occasionally walk onto the bridge for no reason and berate Kirk and then flounce off back into the into the turbo lift.
I'd be hesitant to suggest that termination deliberately chose to not have a doctor on board because he wasn't going to be doing those kind of plots.
I strongly suspect he didn't really think about it.
No, you're probably right.
Yeah, it just crops up as a thing.
That's been going along.
So, so neat to have Professor Kane's speciality as space medicine, though, isn't it?
That is a qualification.
And for some reason, performing surgery on implants put into violent criminals is space medicine.
It is.
Yeah, you don't get any of that nonsense.
And I mean, Julian Glover absolutely sells this guy having a, actually, he's having a legitimate moral dilemma about these people who he considers to be murderous terrorists, and at the time this is going out, IRA bombs are going off often, and being in the news immediately before and after it.
And so, well, we can look back on it now as a sort of cosy.
Well, we know their freedom fighters, really.
There is that, you know, Glover does, it doesn't just, he doesn't have a moustache twirl or even figuratively.
He really does present you with a person who genuinely thinks that helping them is the wrong thing to do, which and delivers it quite believable.
I see it, though, as a moral dilemma, because he's kind of, he's kind of that sort of, taking that line that, you know, the Federation is good because the Federation is strong and we need order and it's kind of the, you know, Mussolini making the trains run on time kind of argument.
Blake and his gang are disorder.
And so I don't really see him being conflicted in the episode.
He's better playing what he wants.
No, that's true.
Yeah yeah.
I use the wrong word.
Yeah, it's a moral, it's a moral stance.
It's not a dilemma Yeah, good point.
Yeah, and for Blake's part, Blake gets him on the ship under false pretences, and despite the fact that the reason they've come here is he's neutral, Blake assumes that he's in with the Federation anyway.
And, you know, everyone points out very sensible reasons for that, but yeah, it's like you don't immediately hate him for what he's thinking because from his perspective, All he's got to go on is not being given the full facts and being brought over to this ship, not being able to leave it because it's not docked.
He hasn't brought anyone with him.
So it does create an interesting situation and again gives Gareth Thomas an opportunity to play Blake's greyer side.
I wouldn't necessarily say darker, except perhaps for one line, but certainly his morally gray side.
Even then, I'm not entirely sure.
I agree with that because I don't see it like has tricked Julian Glover to come onto the liberator.
He's just not been, he's not told the entire truth.
He, he's, he's not gone into the details of, of, um, how, who they are and why they're there and and why there might be this, this problem.
So, yeah, I see where you what you're saying, but I'm not entirely sure I agree with the idea that it's Blake's greyer side, that's all.
Yeah, it's a mission rather than deception.
Yeah, exactly.
Mission.
Exactly.
Yes.
Yeah, that's a fair point.
But I think I know which line you're referring to, Brendan.
It is.
It's horrible.
I shall destroy your hands.
Yes, that is very dumb.
Okay Sorry.
Yes.
Okay.
That is very dark line.
And I think Blake 7 rarely gets gruesome like that. does it?
Yeah, and he delivers it just so, I mean, what are you going to do?
You know, give that line to Brian blessed. you'll get something very different.
Or indeed, or indeed Jacqueline Pierce, you know, both of whom are wonders and marvels, and they would both deliver that their own way, and it would be fantastic.
But so, but Gareth Thomas has to be this, this liberal sort of fairly centrist rebel actually needing to convince, he, he just needs, and it's that thing is that we know that he just needs Kane to believe him.
He doesn't have to really do it.
That's a hell of a line.
And what is really lovely about it is, we've already been subtly clued in to the importance, Kane places on his hands, and it will become significant at the end of the episode as well, because when he is refusing to start work, he's buffing his nails and checking his cuticles and every and all of that.
So it's like he is vain, but specifically about his hands.
And they have to be in they have to be in perfect condition.
And Blake's not even there to see that.
So, but, you know, he's a master surgeon.
And funnily enough, I wonder if Terry Nation got this idea from Marvel Comics, where, of course, Doctor Strange trains and gets his powers in order to regain the use of his hands so he can be a surgeon again.
Strange, Kane?
I think I'm drawing too long ago on this I think it's a very long though. sorry.
So yeah, and what do we think about Avons?
double or is it treble dealings with with Farron where he's trying to strike a deal with him?
I think it's just exploring, you know, what the other options are.
I don't really get the impression that he's ever intending to stay, especially when there's the question of, you know, the pursuit chips on their way.
Maybe in that initial conversation.
And actually that initial conversation that they have where he's talking about leaving the liberation and staying on the space station.
I actually think it's a really well performed scene from both of them, but particularly from Paul Darrow.
He's just got the right delivery of those lines.
It's not overplayed at all.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
Yeah, I don't think I really bought it that he was going to leave.
But yeah, it was interesting for him to explore that.
Well, I find is there's normally a bit more of a subplot from the main plot that involves more of the crew.
This was much kind of smaller deal than that, wasn't it?
just a couple of scenes, really.
Yeah.
And it does.
I mean, in a way, Avon is made to look a bit gullible almost by simply getting Farron's word.
I mean, it's sort of almost touching.
You think, oh, Avon really does care for them.
He doesn't want his friends to be killed, even though he's ditching them.
But then when he just takes this basically evil person saying, yeah, of course I won't kill your friends.
He's like, fine, that's good enough for me.
I didn't really think Aaron was that evil or he seems fairly, fairly reasonable because he was, he was annoyed, wasn't he?
that Kane had contacted the Federation.
That's true.
Yeah, and of course, yeah, and he's, there's the tension between the 2 of them, isn't there?
Yeah.
But he quite liked the rest of the crew didn't find out about Avon doing that. either like the fact that he'd tried to secure their their continued freedom because he kind of acts much more aloof than that and uncaring, doesn't he?
Because there's a line that I thought when they're trying to, when they're working out the distances between the potential places where they could heal Gan, and he says, you haven't anything like that amount of time, like it's like it's nothing to do with me.
You know, it's kind of a problem.
It's you're going to sort that out.
But so that more loyal side of him, the rest of them don't get to see.
Yes.
And yet, he is the one who points out there is somewhere closer by that offers a better chance and we should go through it.
It's only when his own life is threatened by the general sort of ship failure that he grabs Jenna and tears her away from the controls to try and get her to stop.
And, you know, is, of course, stopped by Blake.
He's sort of his sort of deal of take me in and let the others go free.
He's the one who's pointed out earlier, you know, there's a price on our heads.
I think he's kind of realised there's not necessarily a price on my head if I'm just living a very quiet life on this comfy research station that develops big weapons.
I think he could find himself a very nice little spinoff series there, couldn't he, if he'd wanted to?
Yeah.
Avon.
I mean.
Yeah.
And it's great.
I mean, you know, we're what, 10 episodes in and with a less convincing and engaging cast.
This idea of is Avon really one of the team or not, would have burnt out by now, but it hasn't at all, if it, um, it's, it's just genuinely interesting character development ongoing.
I do wonder if that's perhaps part of the reason that Gan is slipping by the wayside, because everyone else sort of has a little bit of their own agenda and varying degrees of loyalty to Blake, but Gan only has loyalty to Blake, and it seems to be the only thing we can do interesting with him is to not bend that the way that Avon does, but totally break it.
I think it's fair to say that Gan isn't working in the terms of the ensemble cast, and I just like to hear your thoughts, these 10 episodes in.
Why isn't Gan working?
I think there's a couple of reasons.
I think partly it's, dare I suggest laziness of the writer to come up with something about his character that they're going to use in episodes other than this limiter, which is basically his entire reason for being, is to to have this limiter so that we can have this episode basically.
There's nothing else.
There is nothing else there in the character.
He's also surplus 2 requirements in terms of numbers of characters that they've got to work with.
And I think that it is one too many.
And so he's the one who generally gets the gets the short straw on that.
The other thing is that his loyalty to Blake is too puppy dog.
It's too, you know, I will basically follow him to the end of this.
I can't remember which episode it is.
There's a line where he says something about his unquestioning.
He'll basically unquestionably follow Blake.
It's one of those sequences where Avon's talking about how stupidly loyal they all are, but he is particularly loyal.
And so therefore, there's nowhere to go with that.
Now you think that if he was really loyal to Blake, they'd be there for tension with, say, Avon, right?
Whereas Avon sort of belittles him as effectively being stupid from time to time, but that's about all.
There's never actually, again, it doesn't really stand up to athorn.
And so I just think that it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When you have a character that's not fleshed out, they get underused in the scripts and they get, because they get underused in the scripts, they're never fully fleshed out.
And so it just got all spirals down.
And then they'll suddenly do an episode like this because they realised, oh, we haven't really used Gan much.
Let's do an episode about him.
And, and this, so this almost feels forced as a result.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Yeah, and I think, well, well, well, Kelly and Jenna are sometimes, you know, underserved by the scripts in terms of stuff to do.
They do get just some general action-y stuff to do as well as having episodes that centre around them.
Whereas Gan is so pinned to the gentle giant concept that he doesn't tend to get any just general being part of the team stuff to do apart from when that is foregrounded.
So maybe that's why he's sort of stuck in this in this narrow place that can either be a whole episode about it or an regular episode doesn't really get touched.
And as you say, the girls get their they get their place in the sun. even if they, as you said, they get out and utilised, they have something meaningful to do, which is a reason for them being there.
Whereas again, doesn't.
Mark, what's your impression of Gan as someone viewing this for the 1st time?
Yeah, no, when you're talking them, I was trying to think what part he'd played in some of the other stories and nothing really springing to mind.
I say, beyond the ones about the limiter, because they discover it in, again, Sorry, I don't know the name of all the episodes.
I should have had the little booklet out of the DVD set.
No, your summaries are more informative than the title, actually.
So go with what comes springs to your mind.
The one where they find that the little spaceship with the people in it.
We try and kill.
The one with the sandal assassins, yeah.
So they, that's when they find out about the limit.
And I can't, yeah, I'm struggling to think of anything that he did until this one, the sort of significant part that he's played.
So yeah, he's a bit of a secondary character, isn't he?
Yeah, and it's just with, and I think 6 human central characters being taken to a completely different setting every week is an unusual structure for a series and they're just finding out there isn't really all that much, that much elbow room for them all.
Yeah, yeah, that's work.
For that to work, you really need to have episodes where, or each episode you have one or 2 of them who are basically barely or not in it.
And that's the way kind of Star Trek would work, particularly TNG.
You get episodes where, you know, Beverly is not in that at all.
Or you get them where Reik is only in half a scene, which is actually filmed for the different episodes or something.
You know what I mean?
That's what they, they don't do here, really.
And that's why you end up with the gang situation.
Yeah, and it's part of what makes the big finish audios of Blake 7 so successful, even when they move to full cast, they're generally only focussing on 2 or 3 of the characters.
And, you know, then the next player will focus on the other 2 or 3 of the characters.
I agree absolutely with what you've all said about Gan.
And I look at an episode like this, and I think it's such a missed opportunity because he spends most of it unconscious.
The acting that David Jackson gets to do when the limiter is malfunctioning is great.
Like that scene where he fools Calli.
I can't fault his performance there and just the little impish grin as he attacks her.
I am left wondering, wow, is this his real personality?
Is this is this not the limiter malfunctioning per se?
This is what the limiter was holding back and it's like, wow, that would be very interesting to explore.
You know, the concept that one of these people that Blake has brought on board is actually too unstable to be reliable.
But unfortunately, it's just not something they're interested in exploring, which is a great shame.
Even if we'd seen more of a battle between the 2 sides of his personality, it would have been interesting seeing him play that as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
But I do agree with you, Brandon.
I found David Jackson very, very good in this where he could have been ordinary to a bit embarrassing.
And you sort of did wonder.
I was kind of wondering by this point in the series, was Gan being underused because they discovered that actually they don't think he's a very good actor and so they can't give him too much to do.
But that's obviously not the case.
Can goes through his surgery.
Yes.
And at last, and, you know, we've sort of got the ticking clock of the Federation ships approaching on their CSO Starfield.
The travesty of directors refusing to use the dedicated model work on this series.
I take it we've discussed this in previous episodes.
We all aware of this.
Yeah, yeah.
Does it cut to the cardboard version?
Yes.
Because, yeah, there was a big model session and they're like, we're going to do it like Star Trek and have these dedicated model sequences that'll be used throughout and the directors who are coming into the show objected and said, well, I'm not putting someone else's work under my name.
Demarkation, isn't it?
Demarkation may or may not be the issue.
And it's it's, you know, it's such a shame.
One thing I'm glad of is they didn't get Stephen Grife in to do a voiceover because, you know, it's one thing to have some Federation pursuit ships nearby.
That's understandable, but if it just happened to be Travis nearby, that would have been a bit ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's good to keep it that they are, they are being hounded by the whole of the Federation.
Not just...
And yeah, we get we get that great line we've already discussed about, you know, I shall destroy your hands.
We get keyhole surgery, which, you know, had been invented.
Yes.
He's operating on the or fixing the limiter, but isn't the limiter actually just kind of staple to the top of his crown?
Or is there kind of another piece of it?
Are we supposed to believe there's another piece of it which is well inside his skull?
Is that the idea?
There's like 22 ends to it.
That's what I took from the x-ray.
Yeah, there's one at the top of the score and there seemed to be a wire going deep into his brain, didn't there, with another little printed circuit board or something.
Yeah, that was that was the impression I got as well.
I thought it was odd that Julian Glover is not wearing gloves during the surgery given that he is wearing a gown and mask.
On his name, Glover.
All of the pointers were there for some classic gloves to be used, but nobody picked them up.
Julian Glover going, no, that joke, that joke happened to me all the time in the 60s.
I don't wear gloves anymore.
Yes, maybe that was with his contract.
No clubs. sick of it.
Then I do also very much like Julian Glover's angry permanent marker acting.
He very angrily uses a permanent market to circle some circuits on a picture.
I knew his motivation was to use that market used for using that market, Brendan.
I think that's what it's about Yes, yeah.
Vera, darling, how angry am I in this scene?
Maybe when I was a child, I wasn't allowed marker pens.
A repressed memory.
That's what turned me into a space Nazi.
Episode title.
Space Nazi.
Dogs, they listen to us all laughing as if it's the end of an episode in which everybody's nearly been killed.
Oh, I actually have written in my notes here.
The expletive Scooby-Doo ending.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's unfortunate.
It's the word that I would choose. regrettable.
Yes, yes.
Isn't there a version of it on YouTube?
Was anyone on this particular podcast episode responsible for making it where that cuts to audience applause and the new music?
I wouldn't get past you if it was one of you who'd actually done it.
I remember seeing it years ago.
Not me.
But I think it is the theme to Heidi, hype.
That's it.
Because, yeah, um, it's a tonal, it's a tonal ship.
Because Farron has just been beaten to death.
Incidentally, Ian Thompson, who plays Farren, was also an Optera in the web planet.
So I did promise you all at home that wasn't the last Doctor Who reference at the beginning.
So he doesn't get to see the light in this episode.
Well, maybe he does.
Julian Glover staring at his hands after he has bludgeoned his boss to death as he explodes, pathos or pathos.
Simon go.
Pathos.
Pathos, radio?
Mark?
Yeah, I think Pathos as well.
And Pete?
I think Space Foss is what we're getting there.
A whole new thing.
Combining with pathos and pathos at the same time, like reversing the polarity of a neutron flow. because there's just a whole new emotion in that very scene.
Ah, look, I'm leaning more towards the pathos side as well because, you know, just we've had a little bit of foreshadowing about his hand, so it makes a nice, nice little story arc.
But also, if I can just extend that thought, sorry, because what you're trying to say, what you're trying to suggest, or trying to get us to suggest was that it was a bit rubbish, right?
The way it sort of overplayed, right?
Whereas I think for me, it's always something's overplayed or not overplayed in the context of where it is.
And in the context of this program and this episode, it's entirely consistent.
So if that's why for me it's pathos.
Whereas if it was in a much more high calibre program of the present day, it would be very rubbish. you know what I mean?
Yes, yes.
Absolutely.
Like, I was hoping everyone was going to say some degree of papers because I think it is actually perfectly pitched.
But I think it's also a matter of if you were to watch that scene in isolation, not having seen the rest of the episode, it could be held up as a moment of, oh, this is the level of high camp we come to expect from Blake 7, but absolutely, Simon, you're right.
In context, it totally works and is and is grounded in the truth of the character.
One thing that's odd for me is that this space station, research centre, you know, highly qualified individuals there can be utterly annihilated by just the one plasma bolt.
Don't you think that it's, and do we feel that the space station really needs to have been destroyed at the end?
Wouldn't it almost have been nicer to have had Julian Glover sitting there looking at his hands and all that?
And because he's just bludgeoned someone to death, and then he has to live with it rather than being killed 15 seconds later.
Yeah, I'm not sure why they went with it other than it just being.
And then everything explodes.
I mean, that's...
Of course, that's the blood.
But there's no actual reason why it has to.
I actually think it would have been more powerful.
No, no, I agree with you because I look at that and I feel very sorry for Dr. Reynold. who's been a very nice character who doesn't care who Blake and his people are.
He's a doctor and he wants to save Gan's life.
You know, that's his through line.
And, you know, even though he sort of leers at Jenna, there's no, yeah, there's no sort of threat there. like they're both charming young attractive people and he recognises that she's not impressed by his flirting and comments on it and she insults him and he smiles at her.
And he's just this really lovely character that I, yeah, I am head cannoning jumped into an escape pod.
I, I had him down as really smarmy.
I thought he was horrible. mommy at the beginning, but then he's the one who takes the moral high ground and insists that they need to do the operation and and especially that line, you know, when Julie Lovey says, are you defending their behaviour?
And he says, I can't defend ours.
I thought that was lovely.
And so I think the character does actually, for what it's worth, the character in inverted commas develops in inverted commas in the 10 minutes that we have with him.
That's fine.
And he does.
Yeah, it does start with that.
There's lots of pretty girls on this spaceship.
Yeah, right.
They're all men out there.
Well, it's a Terry Nation space station.
Exactly.
They might they might have one woman in a silly hat.
But that's actually an interesting point where you mentioned that women in silly hats or something.
When you think about it and it's so easy.
It would have been so easy to make any of those 3 characters that we see, um, on on the space station, a woman.
Uh, whether it's the, the, the station, uh, you know, the administrator or Julian Glover's character or this other Renault, any of them could have been a woman and yet they're just automatically nailed.
It is quite interesting when you think about it.
And, you know, it's what Louise Jameson talks about when she talks about Pennant Roberts.
You know, Pennant Roberts would go, there aren't enough women in this script.
I'm going to make some, but it just doesn't seem to occur to other directors.
And you know what?
These scripts probably don't have mail written next to these characters, but as you say, it is just the default.
Yes, especially because at this time, people would have been using the expression female doctor.
Yes. as a necessary qualification to say that this doctor is a woman rather than just being, she's a doctor, you know.
Now before we get that terrible Scooby-Doo ending, something I find very interesting is that after they have very slowly reversed away from the space station, being very careful to check both their rearview mirrors, Blake doesn't give the order to get underway.
He turns to Avon and says, you know what to do.
And I think that's kind of Blake's way of saying, um, I know you were over on the space station talking about something.
Make your decision now.
I like, are you are you with us or are you going to go off on your own way?
And I think, I think it's, I find it a subtle moment.
I'd never picked up on it before.
What do we think about that?
Yeah, that's a really nice little moment and it stops them having to have a long heart wrenching discussion.
Should I stay?
Should I leave?
at that point in the story, which the story just doesn't need right then, particularly, but it nevertheless, it leaves us as viewers sort of knowing more about what happened than Blake did.
So yeah, it's really nicely handled, I think.
That's interesting because I don't necessarily see that as, as, as that being what that sequence is about because for me, maybe it's for me, I've already, I've already interpreted the fact that Avon was flirting with staying on the space station, but the decision has long since been made because there's no way now that he could go back there with the pursuit ships coming and all the rest of it.
I, I, I, I, I, it may be, it may very well be what you're suggesting and maybe I just, just completely misread it, but yeah, I sort of feel like the decision's already made.
I think because Farron had basically said they'd be able to hide him.
So it might have been interesting if he'd had a moment there where he had to make the decision and then having decided to stay, they see the space station blow up because that's basically an accident, isn't it?
So as far as he knows, he could have decided to stay.
Farron said, you know, we could hide you away here till they've gone.
And he could have stayed there.
And it made more sense exploding as well.
Yeah, that's a really good point, Mark.
And maybe that does loop back to where we were saying, well, why do they blow up the space station?
That just by blowing it up, that just leaves us that with that little thing of, what if it hadn't blown up?
Avon could have still gone back to it.
It leaves it as a, uh, maybe, I don't know.
Maybe that leaves it as a little bit more doubt over Avon's commitment still.
I actually really like this episode.
I don't sort of, I'm not in tune with what's the received wisdom, quote unquote, think about all these episodes, but I actually really like it.
It's not perfect, but, you know, the regulars are all in good form.
There isn't any logical or inconsistent changes in their characters from what's been established already, which does happen from time to time.
And David Jackson, as I said, does give a really good performance during his whole breakdown.
And of course, you know, Julian Glover, what you can't go wrong.
He's always an excellent character, an excellent villain.
But I suppose my main quibble is that I wouldn't preferred a lot less of the gravity well sequence and a lot more of the internal politics and goings on at XK7, I think there's an interesting untold story there, whereas the challenge of getting through the gravity, Well, was all a bit too standard.
Now, I suppose going through the gravity will bit gives Gan a chance to escape and cause havoc and do all that.
But you could have had an equivalent sequence in the context of the space station as well when they're waiting for the doctor to come back from, we're waiting for Julian Glove to come back from somewhere else or where they've got to do something to him for 24 hours before they can possibly perform surgery or whatever it is.
So if I was improving it.
And I think I think there's much room for improvement in the episode.
It's not it's far from perfect.
That's what I would have wanted to see.
And, you know, we've already said that the Scooby-Doo ending is very unfortunate and I think that lets the side down.
It does, and yeah, I wouldn't want to live in a world where that ending doesn't exist.
I do I enjoy it.
I kind of look forward to it when it's coming up, despite being aware that it's quantitatively bad in air quotes.
Yeah, do that ending, though.
They should have actually made a joke, not just said, it's good to have you back.
They could have said, you know, like, oh, you gave him a piece of your mind or he really got into your head or something.
It would have been a joke, but it would have actually been a joke for them to laugh at.
Mark, well, Chris if only Chris Boucher had you on the phone. when he was editing this.
We need the most daddest dad joke to round off this episode.
Get me, McManus.
Just no joke there or even in the temple.
That's what I found odd.
So does everyone else like it or not really?
I go into it thinking I'm not going to like it and then I generally do.
I'm kind of with you except I don't want to see more aboard the station.
I want to see Gan doing more.
And I want to get inside his head a bit.
But I agree with you, the space peril isn't as interesting as the mental peril gamble we're going through.
And there will be later episodes of Blake 7 that do manifestations of what is going on in characters' heads better than this one.
But in a way, maybe we wouldn't have had those without this exploration.
So I think it introduces ideas that are done better further on in the series, but it is a qualified success.
Yeah, I mean, it's probably one of my preferred episodes of the 1st series, and the 1st series would be my least favourite of the four, but nevertheless, it is one of my preferred of this season.
Yeah.
The ones I've seen so far, I'd say it's kind of mid-table.
I think the ones where they, they sort of usually have a subplot that takes up half the crew and those ones are kind of a bit more, bit more interesting, I think.
Yeah, I've got it. as in the lower toward the lower end.
But at the same time, it's perfectly watchable.
And you've got that there.
You know that Julian Glover's turning up soon.
And it is odd that you don't that he doesn't get dropped in until past the half hour mark.
It's a story of 2 halves quite literally, isn't it?
Well, that is all the time we have for breakdown, dear listeners, I'd like to thank you all for tuning in and hope you come back next week for some absolute seriousness and not at all any campery for the episode bounty.
Until next time, may you need as many horse tranquillizers as you like.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Good night, tonight.
Switching to man.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maxim, power.