Yippee-Ki-Yay-Liberator

[00:03]

Maximum power.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to Maximum Power, a podcast about Blake Seven, but also for one week only, about gramophones, weird little keeps in the forest, and bounty hunters in fetching blue capes.

Uh, quick introduction to your hosts.

I'm Peter.

I'm James.

I'm Colin.

I'm Nathan.

This week we're talking about bounty, not the delightful coconut based confection, but in fact, a delightful terry nation-based confection.

So let's dive in.

I was saying to Nathan this morning, I unapologetically love bounty and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

So I imagine everyone here agrees with me, James.

I think it's terrible.

No, I absolutely love it as well.

Oh it's just so delightful.

Even with hapless federation security forces and TP McKenna, it is most fruity.

Actually, that's the reason it's so fabulous.

[01:04]

No, I love I love this story.

Colin, are you with us?

I am absolutely with you.

I thought you wanted this story because you hated it, but I'm delighted to you love it as well.

I think it's fantastic.

I think it's got so many different sort of parts to it.

It's just a load of fun and it's, you know, hilariously bad and like with the guards in places and chitty, chitty, bang, bang is... where it regenerates into Bessie.

But, you know, I think it's got a lot of good stuff going for it.

And I really like the way Jenna gets to be Bruce Willis and Die Hard.

So she's kind of yippee Kai Liberator the whole way through.

Yeah, nice lining kind of high kicks as well.

Yeah.

So yeah, no, I'm a fan of this one.

Very powerful high kicks, huh?

She just sort of gently nudges one of those offensive space Arab stereotypes in the stomach with her foot and he's unconscious.

She can knock people out with a single tap.

Now, Nathan, I'm sure that you're agreeing with all of this.

I actually think it's a little bit shit. actually.

[02:07]

Is that bad?

It's...

I'm sorry you have to leave now.

I'm talking about the, talking about the actual chocolate bar.

It's a shock.

But no, it's, I think the script is really, really undercooked and the direction is lamentably bad.

And it has some great ideas in it, but there's sort of ideas that are really not very much like anything else that ever goes on in Blake 7.

It is, it is very strange.

Like I'm here for all of those other fun camp things that everyone mentioned.

There's a lot of fun to be had, but you have to have it very very slowly.

Yeah, it does feel undercooked, doesn't it?

There's something about pragmatism versus idealism and there's something about kind of defeatism versus activism or something like that.

But it doesn't really go anywhere.

I think that's a good point.

[03:07]

It doesn't really have the vision or the budget to sort of realise the whole rebellion beginning.

I feel like this episode is a little bit of false hope in the sense that they, they go and get Zarkov.

He goes back to Lindor to make chocolate, presumably.

It's our so good.

It's our 2nd piece of confectionery in the episode.

Oh my god, I didn't realise that.

Sorry, when they go back to earth next season.

They're going to go past Mars.

No, no way.

What if we renamed this episode, Cherry Ripes?

Would that be okay?

This is gonna be a good one.

But yeah, no, I just, I just think it, it's kind of a bit of false hope in there that is like, oh, you know, we've got one Guan guy.

We've sent him back to his planet to try and lead a rebellion, and we might be fighting back against the Federation.

But again, it's just left and, you know, you don't ever see anything, you need to do with it again.

[04:08]

I think it's that the conception of Blake 7 changes out from under the program and it turns into a sort of ludicrous space opera where we're kind of intermittently meeting bad guys.

And this is from a point where there's some kind of political content to the show, you know, as if you can reinstate a president in exile and affect political change.

And that will stop the federation rather than, you know, having server land to send in a sort of whole bunch of battle cruises to kind of wipe the thing out, which is what the show will eventually turn into.

I think that's absolutely right Nathan.

It's the 1st time I think Blake 7 embraces camp to this degree.

So we're moving away from quite straight laced caper episodes like Time Squad or Project Avalon, and into a universe where theatrically dressed politicians play vinyl records, while the liberated crew are overwhelmed by a couple of loveys with spray water pistols.

But yeah, I'm here for that.

[05:10]

But I think it's also quite good as well as being entertaining.

I think the script is about something.

And there might be a good time to talk about why it's undercooked because I think this was the episode where the script crunch happened, and so you basically had Terry Nation saying, I can give you a 2nd draft, or I can give you the next script, got to that point in the season.

So, it's sort of got a lot of cooks to it, and everything is a little bit underdeveloped, and it's a shame because I think what is there could have been developed into something interesting.

It's really the stage of the season where Terry Nation is saying, I've got a draft for you and here it is on the back of this napkin, though, isn't it?

Yes, exactly.

Isn't that how he operates most of the?

Yeah, survivors, see survivors.

Exactly.

Well, charitably, it's because Terry Nation would always take on this huge job.

I mean, when can you think of another writer who's written all 13 episodes, hour long episodes of a series?

It's clearly overwhelming for anybody.

[06:10]

And I do think he gets a little bit under appreciated sometimes.

I think that's fair.

I think the only other person I can think of is J.

Michael Strazinsky, Babylon 5 having to just go, race basically right 4 years, and he was knackered, completely broken by it, I think, from, you know, the amount of stuff he sort of posted on it.

But, you know, fairness to Terry Nason, we do get it.

We do get, you know, a bunch of tropes as well.

We do get a nearby mine.

He's he's definitely uh, including bits in there.

But anyway, speaking of the campy stuff then, should we talk about how hilariously bad these Federation guards are because they're just, this is a classic.

I mean, there's so many scenes in this.

It's like a bit right at the start where 6 of them are like, should we, should we start to run?

Shall we sort of jump gently?

And they all sorts of where trotting along.

I noticed that scene as well.

I think it's the federation's D squadron.

They can't shoot straight.

They're tricked by feeble ploys and they're, well, they're blind.

[07:12]

They can't see Calli when they're walking straight past her.

I love that bit on where Callie and Blake sort of freezing on top of the sort of battlements of this sort of tower thing.

And they're standing there looking guilty as if they've been caught.

And then they just keep standing there.

They're still there in the next shot and no one has noticed them.

Did anyone notice as well?

When the guards say, oh, there's movements, maybe it's a rodent digging under a detection device, I think that's Chris Belcher because he uses exactly the same plot beat in rumours of death in series C.

And that time it is a rodent.

So we're on that planet side plot, which is sort of half the episode, and we've got Sarkoff and Tice.

I think Lindor political story at the Heart of the Plot is very Terry Nation, and even though it's not very well developed, as I think, we're probably all on board with, it is quite interesting in its own way, thoughts.

I think the best thing about it is that it gives us the character of Sarkov, and that's a sort of reasonably grounded idea, you know, the idea of a rigged election and a president in exile who sort of seems defeated and stuff.

[08:23]

Like there is something kind of comprehensible about that.

It's not space politics, you know, it's sort of a little bit more grounded. planetary politics.

And it gives us tice as well, because I think those scenes would not work as well without Tice.

It sort of gives you a nice thing for Sarkoff to play off that isn't Blake.

I guess it's that defeatism versus activism thing.

I mean, she's still a young person.

She still sees hope.

She's slightly contemptuous of Sarkov for having given up.

I do love how it's not revealed in dialogue until the end of the episode that she's his daughter.

And the revelation has literally no effect on anything.

Oh no, not at all.

This revelation.

Trial immediate.

Yeah, you read it as that.

And then, and you're like, is she his daughter?

And it's like, Father, you can kill him.

In fact, doesn't, doesn't someone once call her his woman before she reveals that?

[09:23]

Yeah, it does feel in to the point that this is sort of underwritten.

It's a bit of a mess, right?

You could easily have left that out and it would have been much more effective, that she's his bodyguard, right?

It kind of devalues her presence as someone that is supposed to be a bodyguard that can't seem to start the engine on a car.

Yeah.

She completely devalued all the way through.

She starts off with like being holding 2 sawn off shotguns or and then she just sort of needs saving towards the end.

It's kind of, it's kind of annoying.

But yeah, it is a great performance.

She's very good in it.

You know that Corinthia West was screen tested for the part of Ursa, the Superman?

I was going to mention that.

I've watched that audition.

Really?

Was it?

How was it?

It's very short.

She just, there's basically, it's in a, it's in a studio and it's on the DVD as an extra.

I think they have like loads of people in, but she's one of them.

She's kind of buff and, um, she's saying to this bloke, um, you puny man, perhaps I will keep you as a pet and that's, that's all it is.

[10:27]

And she's pretty convincing, actually.

She's she's pretty sort of malevolent.

There would have been a completely different take on the character.

It would have, yeah.

Yeah.

I think her performance in this is really good.

I think the character is actually a bit thinly written.

She's just there to kind of provide an alternate point of view to Sarkoff, but she brings something to it.

And also in real life, she was a journalist and photographer as well as an actress.

And she apparently moved in very famous circles with people like Angelica Houston and Robin Williams and Rod Stewart.

And if you go online, you can see some of the personal photographs that she took of these people. really quite interesting.

What about TP McKenna?

What do we think of him?

You know, I think I think he's pretty good.

I think he's given dialogue that he kind of washes over.

Instead of, you know, it's like, what's there's a couple of things I wrote down.

Yeah, civilisation was always depended on civility rather than truth.

And it's a little bit kind of, my dear, civilisation has always depended on the village rather than truth.

[11:31]

You know, it's it's, it's like him talking to himself or giving a soliloquy or something.

TP McKenna's all over it.

Like, that's that's his thing.

That's his shtick.

I think also that dialogue really exists just to kind of, you know, it doesn't exist in any meaningful way to convey information to Tice.

It is really just look how defeated he is and or or is it sort of real politic is the idea that that Sarkoff is a politician.

He will lie, he will do things that he needs to do in order to sort of achieve his ends and she's more idealistic.

That real politic kind of collapses in the face of the federation rigging the elections I think.

Is there something here?

I think there is.

I think actually it's a product of the script underrunning or needing to sort of be filled a little bit more, that it slightly gets over-gged in the dialogue?

There's some interesting points there, but it becomes a little bit overly fruity.

[12:31]

So all that stuff about tolerating mediocrity and the tyranny of 2nd class minds.

It's kind of like, yeah, get on with it a little bit.

Do you think that Chris Boucher has cut a whole bunch of shit from the beginning of the episode because it, it starts in that crisp Boucheryan kind of way.

I want to say Baucherian, that Baucherian kind of way, where we're in the middle of something and we don't know what's going on and I'm thinking, again, rumours of death, you know, where it very frequently happens in Boucher scripts that we don't get the liberator sort of arriving at a planet and us learning about it and then a tedious scene in the in the teleport bay or whatever.

We're just down on the planet and we're left to find out what's happening.

It's really interesting that we do jump in right there because you could have imagined a long, boring setup scene, but in the face of having a script that's underrunning.

They just jump straight in and choose to make up the time elsewhere.

Yeah, I think it's a good choice, and Blake 7 once Boucher gets much more control of it.

[13:34]

It gets better because of that sort of storytelling device.

And it's kind of the 1st time that we've had this juxtaposition of things.

It would have been very easy just to have had something which looked very federation and a little bit boring, but instead to make the slightly camp choice of having it set in this folly in the middle of the woods with this giant mast on top, which I thought was a glass shot, but is apparently real.

Um, sort of lends it this quite interesting juxtaposition.

It's like they've tried to add desperately, furiously add layers to a script that's really thin.

You know, also, it's not a later addition to the building.

No, that's why it was built.

Yeah.

It's a bell tower.

Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

Because I had strong memories of this as a child and I think some of that interesting scenery is because of that.

And then the sort of space version inside where you have sort of the silver bricks and the sort of Gothic arches and stuff, but they're all sort of metal pipes and things.

That's brilliant, Nathan.

I'd written, it's a space castle on the inside because it's painted silver and I'd like to.

[14:40]

It's not Roger Murray Leach's best work, is it?

You know, like, I think it's okay.

It does add something, and it is a place that Blake 7 won't go.

Like it never kind of mentions 20th century things before or after this.

It's not until Bob Holmes comes along and starts talking about sandwiches and stuff that we get any kind of reference to real world history.

This is the 2nd calendar and, you know, like a giant totalitarian government has wiped out the past.

And so this is nice.

I do think that this is the most striking thing about it.

There's something about the incongruous site of Blake and Kelly in that automobile.

All of the mistakes are fun too.

You know, that this is a typical residence of the 20th century, uh, says Sarkoff.

It's wonderful.

He doesn't know how to hold vinyl properly though.

That does my head end.

He can hold it better than Blake.

[15:40]

It's not vinyl, is it?

It's a 78.

Like it shatters when Blake smashes her.

Shellac.

Yeah, it is Sherlock, yeah, which is disgusting.

I really wanted Sarkov's record collection to be more contemporary, but still historical in terms of the Blake 7 universe.

So if he'd only put on that record and take chance on me, it started playing, that would have been amazing.

Oh, worst Elumber.

It's interesting talking about that iconography because the costuming is quite camp.

Maybe for the 1st time in Blake 7.

It's sort of taking its cues from the weird backdrop and the anachronisms, but I think it adds a level of visual interest that, you know, the episode might have been quite gruelling if it looked like mission to destiny.

If everyone had been wearing sort of space outfits and stuff.

Sarkov's jacket is just stunning.

Is this frock watch?

Well, I don't remember what we call this segment.

[16:41]

I think Frockwatch from now on.

Frocalicious.

Uh, no.

Um, like it's a sort of velvet Paisley jacket, a sort of jacket.

It's lovely.

And then Tice is sort of dressed like a sort of camp chauffeur, isn't she, with a little cape and things like that?

Like she's going fox hunting.

Well, that's her job.

She's the daughter slash driver.

Yeah.

It looks like a cast off from Pertwee, doesn't it?

I think it was Mark that referred to him the other day as a pert we cosplayer.

Would you know T.P.

McKenna has always struck me as quite a John Pertwy-like figure, and wouldn't that have been interesting casting if John Pertwy had actually played that role?

I'm not saying it would have been good, but interesting.

No, I mean, it would have been good as well.

I mean, just imagine pert we popping up in more sci-fi stuff would be great.

There'd be lots of business with sandwiches and red wine.

Sardonic wines.

So I think maybe the scenes down on the planet are the ones which show most clearly, they needed to fill the script a little bit more because a lot of them are quite languidly paced.

[17:51]

So all of those scenes with Blake and Kelly outside.

With the space picnic basket.

That's right, they've come for a nice picnic.

It feels like an episode that's struggling to reach its runtime and the scenes are much longer than they need to be for sequences that are really lacking in dialogue or much event.

So that's why they got Pennant Robertson, isn't it?

You know, make it slow, love, you know, keep it leisurely.

Because, I mean, those scenes could have actually been fun action sequences.

You know, there's nothing wrong with having long stretches on location with no dialogue.

But if the federation guards felt like they posed any threat at all, then that could have actually been quite tense and exciting, but just everyone sort of ambling around in a sort of fairly uninspiring sort of way.

Yeah, they're like on the other side of the house at all times to wherever the...

They can carry off.

We're on the side of the house.

And we're just talking into this radio, which we have to press the button and make sure it lights up, and we're saying that something is terribly, terribly urgent because we've gone from red alert to red standby, to red mobilisation, to blue mobilisation.

[19:05]

And then it's just shit.

You know?

Nothing happened.

He's so bad.

He's Chaney, isn't he?

He is, he's so posh.

He's got no chin of any kind.

And just the way he speaks is just bizarre.

Like I've been cross at Blake 7 for having sort of RP accents even for, you know, the Delta grave thieves and things.

But I mean, this is another level.

He's royalty, I think.

He must be the Duke of something.

That's actually his castle.

That's why they cast him.

So they could use so they could use his castle.

Yeah, come on love.

We'll give you a bit.

So, you know, those wood scenes are Black Park.

Yes, it looked very Black Park.

I was just thinking that.

So am I correct in thinking that is the same place as Doctor Who's full circle?

And the visitation.

And the web.

Ah.

And Battlefield as well, no?

[20:06]

Isn't Battlefield filmed around Black Park as well?

I'm not sure about that one.

But it's also going back to Superman 2, where Superman 2 is filmed as well.

Oh wow.

So is that a Corinthia Westlink?

Yes.

Well scraping it a bit, aren't we?

So this is the same place that the web was filmed.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Well, I think this could have been improved by an attack of the decimas on that little game.

What do you think?

Banging on the windows screaming.

All is forgiven.

So someone like ring big finish and get the decimas back.

Oh, say it 3 times.

Yeah, and they get Corinthia West to fight the decimals.

There we go.

We could give them the other 7 functions that we don't know what they are.

I thought they were mostly just saying, help me, please. and stuff.

Crying, crying.

You can have a crossover with the decimas and the zygons.

Yeah.

[21:06]

Very deep zigons.

You're thinking like Nicholas Briggs, James, well.

Call me a big finish.

I have other ideas like this.

So I think one of the good things is actually that Callie is the crew member that's chosen to go with Blake because I think she's quite interestingly used.

It would have been actually much less interesting if Avonne or Villa had accompanied Blake down to the planet.

Why do you say that?

Because I think that for the most part, the female characters are less well served than the male characters.

Maybe not so much in this season, where it's not so much for a problem.

But I get tired of seeing the boys run around on location, and I like it when you have a male lead and a female lead, sort of doing the action bits.

And I think Cali is an interesting choice because of her background, um, because obviously she's, they've given her the link with Lehan, who is also R and R and was the ambassador to Lindor.

[22:07]

Wow, all these words.

And I think it's an interesting choice that it was her that they chose to do that rather than villa because he could get into the castle or whatever.

It just added another element to the script.

So at this point, and we rapidly forget this.

Callie can't go back to her people because she failed on Sorian major or something.

And so we get a little kind of resolution with Lee Hahn, presumably going back to Lindor, to be the ambassador again, which kind of opens up the possibility that Callie could go back.

But there's also that really bitchy side kind of comment from Blake, where they're talking about him being ashamed, because he'd failed, and then Blake says, you can understand that.

Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, yeah, but I mean, part of what Blake wants to do is kind of get Sarkoff, to stop doing what he's doing, to his just sort of acquiesce to sort of federation control.

[23:10]

He's a president in exile.

He's not doing anything.

And it's a result of his failure, I guess, or his sort of perceived failure.

It's quite interesting, isn't it?

The number of times that Blake helps somebody out who is generally in the same position as he is, opposed to the Federation, and who could be a thorn in the Federation side, and basically says, I'll come back and help you if you need it. and then never follows through on it.

Yeah.

You will have an episode next season where Blake says, I will come back and help you.

I'll give you 3 years or whatever and you think, well, you're not going to follow through on that. dead by then. full of empty promises.

I think it's interesting that Avon has hardly anything to do at all, this episode.

Like 7 in my memory, it's always like Avon is very front and centre, and obviously it becomes much more so in series C and D, but this, he's just there to be bitchy, really.

He's just, you know, and even Villa tells him to shut up, but his utility in this episode is kind of zero.

Well, you did say he was being bitchy and that is super...

[24:13]

Yeah, no, that is his utility.

Yeah, but Nathan bitterness is not going to bring down the Federation or is it?

That's it.

Depends where you direct it.

So we're back on the liberator. and we have, again, this sort of incredibly undercooked B plot, which is just there's a distress call. even says it's fake, they fall for it anyway, you know, big stupid Gan goes over there.

But I quite like the way that that is set up where Jenna Gan and Villa are kind of on board and he's kind of standing to one side refusing to sort of properly intervene, but just basically telling them how stupid they are.

And using some great Chris Boucher dialogue to do it.

He does that.

I'm entitled to my opinion.

It's your assumption that we are entitled to it as well as irritating.

That is perfect, Blake 7 dialogue, for example.

Yeah, yeah.

I also like the test is not whether you are suspicious.

[25:16]

It's whether you are caught.

Like, I think that's wonderful.

It's so great and it's absolutely right.

You know, they are suspicious, but nevertheless.

What the fuck is he wearing, by the way?

Let's get back to frock watch for a second.

He's wearing a green skivvy.

It's like his worst outfit.

It's worse than the lobster thing that he does.

Dr. Zoidberg Cosplay.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

It's atrocious.

Everyone is costumed interestingly in this episode.

I think, you know, like, yes, it was an underrunning script, but I think the joy of a sort of underrunning, messy script in Blake 70s that you do get much more Chris Boucher.

Yeah.

And so it might be a mess, but there's some great bitchy put downs and one-liners and people vamping all over the place with fantastic dialogue.

Yeah, there's also some fairly kind of crummy dialogue, though, I think.

[26:19]

I like to think that's all Tony Nation.

Well, no, clearly.

I just kind of think that Boucher isn't giving it his full attention either.

Or there's a lot of people standing up and explaining their views to one another.

There's not a lot of subtext to a lot of things.

It feels like the crunches hit everyone at this. doesn't it?

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Because I think it was Simon, Simon Moore, who said on our Times Squad episode, that it wasn't an A plot and a B plot.

It was 2 B plots, and this feels a little bit the same because they're both undercooked and they're both quite interesting ideas, but don't really go very far.

It's a little disappointing from that point of view.

But there are other positives from this sort of Amazon bounty hunter plot on board the Liberator, because I think where Avon was standing aside earlier, Jenna is foregrounded, and even in those early scenes where they're group scenes, she's in charge.

And I don't know if we see that again.

In fact, both of the women get good roles in this episode, don't they?

[27:22]

Jenna is fantastic in it.

I mean, she's boned what's his face, hasn't she?

Is that the is that what we 2 understand?

That time they spent on the mountain?

Which is...

Yeah.

It's kind of, it's a bit unfortunate.

You know what it means?

She only knows him because sex rather than anything else.

So there are things about that B plot that I actually quite like, and maybe the most effective one is just having everyone on the liberated disappear.

It's quite suspenseful, isn't it?

Yeah, and you don't get to see it for like 20 minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a big gap when you're sort of wondering a bit what's going on.

We even cut back to the liberator just to see the empty sets, don't we?

Yes, we sort of cut to those kind of wide shots of the bridge when Blake's desperately trying to get in touch with them.

And then when they get teleported out by magic, it seems, because in the split 2nd that they're teleported up, someone has left the teleport bay.

Um, it's really quite interesting and I think it's good for Jenna.

[28:23]

That whole story is good for her.

It fills out some of a history.

It also makes her clever.

She changes sides to stay at liberty.

Avon says she only changed sides at the last minute, so she was clever in that.

And she totally saves the day as well.

And some of the dialogue that she has, I'm thinking in particular of that exchange with Tarvin, where he says, have I changed so much?

And she just quietly says, one of us has, I think that's really quite interesting and revealing of the character.

I also think that her way of delivering lines where she's always got a bit of a half smile and she kind of always thinks the situation is a bit ridiculous, particularly when she's talking to a man.

Um, I think that works terrifically well with the sort of slightly crappy noir-ish dialogue that's going on in that scene.

It's all a little bit heightened, isn't it?

It's interesting because we're trying to get our heads around.

Is it good or not?

And it's enjoyable and it's fun and we like it and it's certainly something we watch.

But when we're listening to what we've been saying, it feels like there are so many good bits in it around the general interactions, her deception, and then the presidential plot and all these things.

[29:36]

So it's just missing like an extra an extra zoom to make it work.

It is undercooked.

It doesn't really achieve either of those 2 things massively successfully.

What you're left with is people being down with a picnic hamper, collect someone in chitty, chitty, bang, bang, beam back to a spaceship, have a little fight, and then go home.

It's a bit the the hole is a less than the sum of its parts kind of situation, isn't it?

It really feels like it needed that extra draft.

Just one more draft would have tied everything together a bit more and brought out the characters and kind of linked them together.

I do like the last scene with Sarkoff and Tice and the leader of the Amazons.

I think that does tie up the characters and say something quite interesting.

But it could have been so much more.

Things could have been thematically tied together, quite a bit better, and it just feels like a product of not having enough time to do it.

I don't know what they're trying to do with Sarkov.

But it looks like Tice, the activist is trying to get him to actually take some positive action.

[30:38]

And so she should really be encouraging him to kill Tarvin, and she does do that.

But he doesn't really properly do it, does he?

I mean, he doesn't really kind of rise to the occasion until the Liberator crew intervene.

And I think that's a bit of a shame.

I think it muddies what that scene should be about.

You're absolutely right.

He's not proactive, is he?

It takes an immediate threat to Tyson's life for him to do it.

So he has the choice of, I can shoot Tarvin at my own behest and take on board everything that Tyson's been saying, or I can do it last minute where it's clear he's about to press the button and kill her.

And so it's sort of taken out of his hands, isn't it?

Yeah.

There's a much more interesting version of this story where she is inspired by the, like, you know, wanting to live up to her father's legacy, and she liberates her people.

Oh, that would have been good.

Yeah, that is interesting.

[31:39]

She's a strong, she, well, apart from, you know, occasionally, like where the character is let down by sort of lack of writing or sort of lack of time.

Her inability to start a car.

Yes, she is a woman after all.

Get out of the way, he says, Blake.

Like, He's never seen one before.

Exactly.

It's like she is actually written as quite a sort of strong forthright person and they could have done something much more interesting with her than have her threatened by terrible racial stereotype and then and then sort of just flirt with Blake at the end of the episode.

That is quite odd.

Can we talk about that?

Because it's quite odd all of these, but we'll have more of them to come.

Female characters who are kind of enamoured of Blake, and then we have one of our female crew members, or in this case, both of them, watching on and looking a little bit jealous and then making a catty comment about it.

I mean, it...

[32:41]

At least it's not his cousin this time.

He's much younger cousin.

They are doing this thing of ending episodes like police squad where they they end up with they try and make it into a joke.

We had breakdown and they're like, they all sort of have a hilarious laugh at the end of it.

And then this one, it's like, oh, gosh, Blake got hit on in front of us and it's like, well, what?

There's work to be done.

I actually quite like it.

His line is, uh, well, don't just stand there and then we cut to the credits.

And I think that's actually a really strong ending and again, very Baucherian, I think, to just sort of go out on that and without the sort of crummy Scooby-Doo laugh thing at the end of the episode.

I like that, just to sort of sudden out.

And it's not the end of the scene.

Do you know what I mean?

It's just it's, it comes in in the middle.

It's humourous, but it's not necessarily played for humour in a way.

[33:43]

Although I did laugh at that look between Callie and Jenna.

It's also interesting that it's a comment on the episode because don't just stand there.

I mean, most of the episode. have just been standing there.

Yeah, he was actually talking to pennant Roberts, he would actually...

Do something pennant.

I think the other enemy we have in this episode is that there's a bit of a trope around the teleport not working on the communications not working.

So how is it that you get this hilarious scene where Villas, he's realising that Gan is like synthesised and is trying to decide whether or not it's quicker to run down the space corridor or to go back and use the telecom.

And he goes back and uses the telecom and it's like, it's basically pressing the button that says, put the speaker on in the teleport bay so they can hear me.

And it's like, for some reason, it's just not working today.

You know, like, can we?

[34:43]

Or Zen just saying, no, I'm not going to tell you, you know, like, like there's sort of a characterisation of Zen there, but it is also just Terry Nation saying, I'm giving them the biggest computer and the best guns and the biggest spaceship and all of that sort of thing, but we'll just make it not work when we need it to not work for the plot, you know.

Nope, sorry, I'm not going to tell you, confirm.

You know, like it's ridiculous.

He has a mind of his own.

It's the biggest computer and the best guns, but then you put villa at the harshole.

But I mean, Zen announces that it's not Dan, but he only announces it on the flight deck and we know that he can talk into the teleport bay or maybe they haven't decided that can happen yet.

But equally, like why, why, oh, why, is there all this sort of running backwards and forwards when you could just communicate via the intercom?

Like, I think this is the 3rd episode this season so far, maybe the 4th, which has a bit of that sort of, Oh, shit, shit, shit.

[35:48]

What are we going to do?

running about because they're not very good at what, using the phone?

Well, I mean that would have been dramatically interesting.

How long do we think the corridor is between the flight deck and the teleport bay?

That is the greatest questionable time.

Yeah.

It's never been established, but very interesting as well when the corridors lead off the flight deck in this episode.

They end in kind of these white walls that we've never seen before.

So clearly they had a packed studio.

Aren't they the white sheets they use in the battlefield when they've sold TARDIS Waltz.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

I think there's a lot of stuff in this episode that gets jettisoned later.

So you have things like Zen isn't able to tell you if there's internal movement in the ship and by the time we come to power play, he absolutely will be able to tell you that.

And anyone can operate then on the flight deck.

So you have Tarvin, just interacting with Zen, whereas later they will make it that only people with authorised voice prints can do that.

[36:50]

So they haven't quite locked down their little get out of jail free cards.

No, it's very much they just sort of make up whatever rules are sort of required. this week to get the plot to work.

Like, I have to say, I don't mind that approach.

It's one of the things that I like about Blake 7.

You know, I bitched about it on previous episodes.

But the fact that it's just kind of made up as we're going along makes it a little bit more interesting than having a Starfleet technical manual that we all have to adhere to, you know.

I think it's interesting where you say people just sort of standing around because this was, we've talked before, about the episode, we've talked before, that this was the episode where everything came to a crunch, and I believe in some of the scenes with all of the regular cast, there was actually improvised dialogue.

So those scenes where they're all in, trapped in that room and they've got the colas around their neck, a lot of that might have been improvised in rehearsals by the cast to fill the runtime.

And I think it actually works because everyone gets a bite at the cherry and everyone has quite interesting things to say.

[37:57]

Do we think that's a plus or a minus?

It works fine.

You can't really tell.

It was, I mean, they are professional, darling, but I mean, Blake does get his own sort of dad joke with the, be careful, Villa, don't lose your head before I lose mine.

I'm wondering if that's created by them or it is about Voucherianism.

It doesn't like a very actively joke.

Yeah.

There's the scene where Jenna kind of gets into that room and starts wandering around kind of lording it all over them.

And we see a moment where she sees that they've removed their manacles.

I think she sort of kicks them with her foot.

And I thought that that was going to be the way that she indicated to Blake and the crew that she was actually on their side because she hadn't given them away.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think at least one of them reacts to that sound.

And so I just sort of thought that that was happening, but I think they're really stupid.

[39:02]

Can you imagine a version of this where Jenna was really credibly betraying them, but we don't believe it for a moment, do we?

And so it just makes them dumb, I think, that they that they fall for it.

That's a great point If we didn't have this sort of 20 minute gap between the liberator bit ending and then the boy down on the planet again, you could have built that into much more of Jenna being realistically, has she turned, because she could have seen checks notes, Tarvin, and sort of gone, oh, it's you again, and how that's much more played out and much more, you know, believable.

So I think that's a really good point.

The one scene that I do really like is when they arrive in the teleport bay and she's there and she sort of says, no, they're all dead.

And it's so weird and she plays it so weirdly, you know, like it almost looked for a moment like it was going to be a return to the sort of weird Blake 7 that we saw in duel.

She covers her mouth before we realise what's happening and it's really quite disconcerting.

[40:03]

It's really good.

I think as well, when the space pirates teleport on board, and we end with the big close-up on Jenna's face, presumably recognising Tarvin, when he teleports on board, and she sort of bathed in the teleport light, and it's a really interesting show.

No, no, no, no, no.

He arrives naked.

That what happens.

That's it.

She's just reacting to him having his wang.

Just like up on the mountain.

It's that scene also where Blake is hit by the water pistol and it's like 15 seconds of sort of holding his eyes in a very strange way and then sort of rolling around and sort of going a bit cross-eyed and stuff like this.

It's like the direction is like, no, no, no, no, no.

Make it make it like your eyes really hurt.

No, no, no, hang on a minute.

Make it like you're rolling around in pain, but don't actually scream or anything, but oh, just fall asleep, you know?

It's sci-fi extra acting.

[41:05]

I like to think that it's a pennant up in the studio going, yep, fill the episode, give it more love, longer, longer. those water pistols are really bad, aren't they?

I mean, you can see those poor guys desperately pumping them to keep the smoke coming out.

Like they have to repeatedly pull the trigger.

They're kind of triple work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, the pendant Robertsitis is strong with this one and that's kind of a, that's one of the things that reveals that he is, in fact, behind the camera.

But I actually think his studio work is a bit better than his location work on this, which is the reverse of the usual pattern.

So that's bounty for us.

So just finally, what do we think of the episode now that we've sort of turned it around and talked about it?

Do we think it's good, bad, or a mix of both?

Nathan?

I think it's definitely a mix of both.

I think the pace is really languid and the whole thing's undercooked, but it does do things that Blake 7 hasn't done before and won't do again, and it sort of explores some areas that the show will eventually kind of reject.

[42:14]

Someone once said that an interesting failure is more fun at least to kind of talk about, if not to watch, than a kind of mediocre success.

And I don't think that this story is boring because it's got nothing going for it.

I think it's just boring because Pennant Roberts is directing.

James.

Look, I agree.

I really love bounty.

But I think that's in spite of it.

Like it's, It's, it's, it's got some really interesting ideas that never quite reach their potential and it is so very different from a lot of the show around it.

So it kind of stands out as something interesting, but is it good?

Probably not, but I think that's what we've been saying for the last 45 minutes or so.

It may charitably be what we've been saying for the last 11 episodes.

[43:15]

Answer the podcast, how about you?

I think we've reached our conclusion.

I have always enjoyed this.

I think it's good, but it is underdeveloped and actually talking it through today, I've realised I like it more than I think I did, but also that I knew it could have had more potential.

I, the Jenna deception could have been bigger and the liberation of the planet of Lindor chocolates could have been bigger, a bigger thing and more convincing with more sort of convincing dialogue and to have the characters come back in some form would have been much more interesting.

But now it's just a, it's a small glimpse of, oh, we've made a little bit of a hope.

We've, you know, there's, we're putting chess pieces in the place to hit the federation.

But nothing really comes a bit.

But I enjoy it.

I think it's I think it's good fun for 45, 50 minutes.

Bless you, Colin.

Much like this podcast.

We hope.

It struck me as the inverse of breakdown last week because breakdown was a fairly standard idea that really wasn't developed and was a bit like wallpaper, whereas it feels like this episode, they've absolutely chucked everything at it to try and jazz it up a little bit.

[44:25]

And they didn't really succeed on all counts, but like Nathan said, I think it's an, if it is a failure, it's a very interesting failure.

Well said.

Well, that's bounty for you, maximum power.

So please join us next week for deliverance when we'll have our 2nd episode in a row where the crew are left to their own devices, in this case down on the planet, and we'll see just how much they muck it up without Blake being present.

Until then, thank you very much for listening.

Goodbye from all of us.

Thank you very much.

Good night.

Bye.

Switching to manning.

Maximum power on all drives.

Max