The Series A Retrospective
Episode 14
Sunday 19 December 2021
We’ve reached the end of Series A, which has taken us from a carpark on a totalitarian Earth, via Cygnus Alpha, planet of the Decimas, Centero, the freighter Ortega, unnamed planet from Episode 8, unnamed planet from Episode 9, an inexpertly constructed Airfix model called XK-72, the Waterloo Tower in Quex Park in Kent, and the planet Cephlon, finally landing triumphantly on the planet Aristo. But what have we learned from the experience?
Recorded on Friday 20 August 2021 · Download
Transcript
Maximal power.
Hello, dear listeners, and welcome to the Maximum Power Blake 7 series A slash one slash tarriel cell retrospective podcast.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Cole.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
I'm Pete.
And I'm Cy.
And today we will be looking back over the 1st series of Blake 7.
And if I say 1st series, it avoids all those horrible arguments about what this thing is actually called.
So I'm going to start with a question and we'll go through the group, and this is just a question for any listeners who might have come to this podcast as sort of a summary and they haven't heard the previous episodes, and this is just a bit of a warm-up question.
So, Cole, if you could recommend one episode of this series of Blake 7 to a listener who has never watched the series before, which episode would it be and why?
I would go with the way back because it explores lots of really interesting themes and then completely abandons them for the rest of the entire thing.
No, I think it's a brilliant opener.
It's just got the these, it just gives a great job of world building of this, you know, drug induced tranquillity and sort of Pretty Patel's Britain, sorry.
Yeah, no, it just sets things up.
It's dark, it's twisted.
You kind of get this feeling of, wow, this is building to something.
And, you know, you want to come back next week.
So I would start with the 1st episode.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Nathan?
Um, I would go with Project Avalon.
And I think probably...
I was going for that one.
You were right.
It seems like typical Blake 7.
And it isn't really typical for the season, but it does seem to be going in the direction that the show will eventually go in, I think.
And it has all of the sort of series strengths and weaknesses.
You know, there's all sorts of crappinesses and upsetting things that are sort of typical of like seven, but it's got Servoland, it's got Travis.
It's, you know, pretty enjoyable.
There's enough plot and incident to fill out 50 minutes.
So I think I'm going with that one.
Fantastic.
Well, there's a space corridor, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Love a space corridor.
Why are we here?
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Peter.
Oh, well, I'm going to go for all the same reasons as Nathan, but instead I'm going to go seeklocate destroy.
The 1st episode I ever saw, which hooked me on this series.
I just think it's kind of the, it's the acme of Blake 7 Clocate destroy.
It sort of, it's finally arrived fully formed in what the series will be.
And it's the 1st time that we see all of our regulars, all of the gang kind of working together in their assigned roles.
They're all away on a mission doing something.
Jenna's operating the teleport.
You know, everything's in place and for me, it's just, um, it's exactly what Blake 7 should be.
Fantastic.
Pete?
Uh, I, yeah, and the, which is the best episode, typical of Blake 7, which is the episode most typical of this series.
A slightly different questions.
The duel is probably the one I've enjoyed, I enjoyed most.
I love the vampirism.
It's maybe atypical, but it was the one that really dragged me in.
Yeah, I'm going to go, dual.
Oh, wonderful.
And Si, Project Avalon, or would you like to pick another?
Well, I would pick Project Avalon.
I think that's like Nathan said, it's archetypal Blake 7 for me.
It's Blake versus the Federation.
There's lots of chases, lots of action.
It's the one that I think of from Sirius A. Yeah, just the one I'd come back to each time.
I know when I got Britbox for the 1st time last Christmas.
I thought, oh, I'll watch an episode of Blake 7 and it was Project Avalon.
So yeah, it's always that one really. wonderful.
Okay, so that's a good range of episodes there, I think.
Now, a similar question, but this is more in universe.
I want to talk about the locations that we've visited along the way.
And I'm just wondering where each of you would live in this universe.
So, uh, let's start with you again, Si.
Well, Earth wouldn't be too bad, because most of the time, you probably wouldn't notice what's going on around you, but you don't run the whole time that actually life would be pretty, pretty okay.
I mean, I watch those people walking around in the dome and they've got beautiful velour.
They're, they set up for life, really.
I'm not these fresh puppies.
I mean, just static electricity is the biggest danger to you.
I'm just saying, I'm with all that polystyrene.
All those street monuments, you know, you might be in trouble.
But yeah, I suppose you only have to step out of line and you're in that holding sale with women screaming at you.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think Earth would be pretty okay.
Pete?
Like the kid who's only read one book before going into an exam.
I'm also going to say duel again.
I just really like...
Is it called names?
Duelless.
I love the forest.
I love a space forest, space caves are also good, but science fiction forests are just I love the contrast of that.
And yeah, that's I would be up a tree avoiding vampire bats and metaphorical vampires in that forest, I think.
Yeah, great.
I mean, you know, you've got nuts to eat and as you say, bats.
Yeah, I'm a growing boy fellow.
Nuts and berries are not the answer. eating bats maybe also isn't a good idea. a bit of trouble.
How about you, Nathan?
Well, I think that I think that Cy and I are copying each other's work at this point because I would live on Earth as well.
And I think more or less for the same reason.
There's that sort of fantastic moment where Ravella asks Blake, doesn't it bother you that you spend your life in a state of drug induced tranquillity?
And I would have to say, no, that wouldn't bother me in anyway.
And until the Federation releases Pylene 50 and I can hang around a shopping centre going up and down escalators, I think, I think that probably Earth is the best bad.
Great.
Coal, anywhere with a metal door in a rock face, an iPad.
That's like seven.
MP.
I mean that's every episode, right?
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
Where I live?
Yeah.
Oh, I'd hang out on a space station XK72 with Julian Glover and, you know, all the pretty ladies that his assistant is after because, you know, who wouldn't want to live on a space station shaped like a balloon animal.
Just check your insurance policy.
Absolutely.
You stuck my hands.
I mean, I'd be very happy living with living with Dr. Kane's assistant, to be quite honest with you.
You'd have to be a pretty lady, Brenda.
I can be a pretty lady, I can be a pretty lady. to be honest with you.
I've got the foundation garments.
I think I'd actually pick Sarkov's prison.
I like a nice folly.
Vinyl collection.
Silver wine.
A nice automobile.
Yeah.
Yes, lots of guards that can't do anything.
I can think up a few things.
Anyway.
Which leads us to...
Still up that turret.
Which leads us neatly into a category.
I am very shamelessly stolen from my dear friend Todd over on both your entirety.
This is Snog Mary, put in a water tank so deep Roy can throw rocks at them, and this one is for Pete.
Servolan, Travis or Dev Tarrant.
Um, I have got, well, I've got to marry.
If I could marry a Tarrant and have the surname Tarrant, that would just turn me into an amazing outer space type person.
So I'm doing that for the surname alone.
Uh, uh, uh, uh, then in that case, I've got to, I'm going to, I'm going to snog Travis.
Travis is exceedingly snuggable in this 1st year.
As I said before, when I 1st watched this series.
He was like some middle-aged bloke now.
I look at him and he's a handsome young man.
That's amazing how the Patrick of time and changed one's perspective on 1970s actors.
Um, but then for that means, well, I would avoid serverland, because obviously she would see me as a supreme bitch, um, challenger to her role of fabulousness.
So she'd want to do away with me.
So I would have to avoid her like space play.
You couldn't marry server and you'd be dead within a week.
Precisely.
Whereas I'd probably outlived somebody with a surname Tarrant, on average, some of them last a bit longer, but on average, Tarrant, don't crank around all that long.
Yeah, well, I have to say, Pete, good choice with Travis, because I have found Rod's notes from when we watched series A, including that note that he doesn't want to watch series B, because as far as he's concerned, everyone's dead.
But he does say Travis has best bottom in show.
So yeah, I think he'd agree with you.
Isn't that a stunt bottom, though, from the final episode?
Yeah, but I don't think you see it.
I don't think you see it.
Okay.
All right.
Bottom if I haven't. who plays that stunt, Travis, because I'd love to think that it's Peter Lorimer.
I'm playing Trevor Lab this week.
During the week, I asked everyone who'd been involved in the podcast, this series to rate our characters out of 10. and my grandmaster plan for that, and I apologise to the statisticians on the team who are probably going to tell me I've done this wrong, but I added all the scores together and then expressed them as a percentage as sort of a satisfaction index of our different characters.
Does anyone want to take a guess as to who came last?
Don't want girls in science fiction.
Well, look, I have to say, this person does share the last 2 letters of Circle Man.
The satisfaction percentage of 43.75%.
Ouch.
It's Olag.
Oh, kill my woman.
You know what he needed?
He needed a beard.
He needed to give him a, he's a bear without a beard and that just doesn't work.
At least stubble.
That would have that would have saved his throwing Jenna at him or something.
I do think it's a great shame because although, you know, Pete has openly expressed contempt for David Jackson on the podcast.
He is actually...
I don't know who he was. in front of him.
I didn't I didn't say you're awful.
I said I have no idea who you are.
Is that worse?
I don't know.
Had you seen 2 seasons of Blake 7 at that point?
I mean, it's entirely possible.
Yeah, we done a rewatch about a year earlier.
Oh, God.
I mean, he's, they don't know what to do with him.
I mean, Terry Nation is not sort of characterisation guy at the best of times and they just kind of give Gan a high concept thing and then throw David Jackson at the role who has a lovely voice, but and sort of seems to be doing his best, but it's a pretty thankless role, I think.
And the thing is that when Gan does get given something in series A. He's actually pretty good to watch.
I really quite enjoy that.
I think we called it at the time, the double A plot, or maybe the double B plot of Time Squad, where he and Jenna are kind of sorting things out on board the Liberator with the, uh, with the people who are in cryogenesis.
I think he's really quite watchable.
It's just that he never gets anything interesting today.
No, because he takes charge quite quickly in Cygnus Alpha when he's down on the planet of the convicts, which is quite interesting to see going back to it after you see what happens to the character.
So there's obviously potential there, but they just never realised it.
That might be his best role, might not?
Yeah, and he set up to be the strong man who just needs a leader to follow. strong man in a cardigan.
And then there's just not much for him to do.
And you can absolutely tell that they knew it because when it comes time to do a again episode, he doesn't get to do anything in it.
Yeah, he sleeps most of the episode.
I found out something interesting about that Gan episode, which I didn't know when we recorded it.
And I don't think this was discussed, and if it was, please cut this out.
Is it that it's full of lovely ladies?
The gan is short for ganitis.
Well, the limiter was going to break down and he was going to have his little fight scene.
Um, but then the the solution of uh, the limiter was going to play into this situation where where they're going through that um, evil zone of space, which serves basically no function in the plot instead of set for a bit of word peril.
They were actually going to encounter a ship.
And Gan would teleport over to it.
There would be a consciousness there that would take his form and they would both come back and it would be like a Mirror Gan episode.
So you would have one gan who's this rampaging guy and the other gan who's really calm, but the rampaging guy is actually the real gan, and they have to sort out other gan together.
And then, um, then he gets his limiter replace, uh, like fixed in about 5 minutes.
And it was a lot more perfunctory.
So he actually would have had a lot more to do.
And yeah, it looks like even at this point they're just like, oh, no.
No.
Let's tie it to the bed.
I don't know, maybe ripping off one Star Trek episode in...
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2 might be just pushing it.
It's about this script.
Well, I'm not repeating myself at all.
No, but you're ripping off Star Trek again.
He does win this season's posh watch award, because there's one episode where he goes, well, it was, it was a miserable...
My woman.
Moving slightly up the rankings then.
The next character on 70% approval.
So it's quite a jump to the next character.
However, it's a little bit surprising that the 2nd lowest ranked character. is Rog Blake.
I'm not surprised by that.
No I'm not surprised at all.
No, but he's boring.
And he can't run.
It's the pudgy middle-aged man fight sequences that absolutely kind of cement him in that rating for me.
It's kind of like, you know, Avon is written as the very cerebral character who doesn't get physically involved.
But then Gareth Thomas is also very cerebral and doesn't get him doesn't get physically involved.
And when he does, he's flapping his arms about like he's got no bones in his forearms.
And that's before the bingo wings for next season.
I just did a quick search of my notes to find out what I've written about Blake to defend him with them.
The word Blake doesn't appear in my notes. this season.
Apart from an observation, by the way, he says the word viscual instead of visual.
That's the everything I remember I wrote now.
He's on a quixotic quest.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
Because you have all of these really quite interesting characters.
I think Terry Nation, you know, has served up a really interesting bunch, but Blake is kind of the least interesting of all of them, and that's not a reflection on Gareth Thomas.
So I think is, you know, pretty decent and he's, if he's not exactly charismatic, he sort of makes Blake grounded and sort of, you know, gives him a mission that you can believe in.
But Blake just isn't as interesting as someone like Avon or Jenna or Callie.
Is the problem that he just falls into the role?
Like, he ends up leading this group of people, not because of his sort of dynamism or his, his, you know, fierce hatred of the Federation or because of something he stands for.
He just sort of is some schlub who wanders around and gets arrested for no reason that he can remember and then sent off to prison and stumbles across a big spaceship.
He doesn't drive the kind of creation of the, of the premise in any way at all.
He sort of talks ideology and stuff like that, but he just, he just doesn't quite seem to be the right character as the lead for a show with his premise, I think.
He's kind of neutral good, isn't he?
Surrounded by these people who are chaotic, good or evil or whatever, you know, the rest of the gang.
And so he's, because he's sat there as the one who will do the right thing, well, all of the others will do the interesting thing. that makes him a sort of uncharacter.
But then that it, but he's the hub of the wheel sort of thing.
So, so, so I could see what, I mean, getting ahead of ourselves, that why they didn't decide to start out with a series without, let's have this, let's take the sinister, slightly, slightly sinister Machiavellian one and make him the central character, which in retrospect would actually have been the obvious thing to do.
But yeah, having this point, this kind of neutral guy in the sort of hero role, I say neutral, and obviously he's very committed to his, you know, he's the kind of person who'd be really up about electoral reform and stuff like that, really, wouldn't he?
He's a very real democrat, sort of thing.
Very liberal democrat.
I think there's a central problem with Blake as well in his character, and it's set up in that 1st episode, which we've talked about the fact that the 1st episode is actually not like the rest of the series.
And so even though I love the way back, I don't think it's a very successful debut because it doesn't really give you a flavour of what the series is like, it's a standalone thing.
But back then, they sort of glossed over it.
Now it's a problem.
Blake and his conviction for quote unquote moral deviation, it's sort of weird and glossed over because Terry Nation used that as sort of something hard hitting to go in on.
But wouldn't you think that down the track, as the show gets camper and it gets a bit more tasteless to think about that, all of these people who Blake would be encountering, their 1st thought would be, oh yeah, you're the guy who got sent down for that.
Yeah, it's never, it's it's never mentioned past episode too.
No, yeah, thank goodness, though.
It's the same with his memory.
So his memory's been wiped.
He's forgotten everything that's happened to him, and then he gets his memories back, but we don't ever sort of deal with him getting his memories back.
And surely that should be really traumatic and really in a really interesting part of his character to for him to find out what he's done in the past, but you just get a little line in seat locate destroys, said, oh, yeah, I got my memories back weeks ago.
Well, that thing, they've been bobbing into my mind, you know, like, watching some repeats.
You see this Irish policeman in the distance and he doesn't know what that's about. been seeing him for weeks, honestly.
He was running down a corridor and someone stepped out and clubbed to me and went, oh, yeah.
But it's lucky he gets it back just in time to remember the reboot of Blake 7 where he's been, he has an arch enemy all the time that we've not heard of before.
Yeah, it's just his character just doesn't quite work, does it?
No.
That does give rise to one of my favourite scenes in the way back, though, where Bran fosters logic free meeting with Blake, where they come together and he pumps his hand and says, oh, good to see you again.
And he looks momentarily puzzled and then slaps his brow and says, oh yeah, the whole brain wiping thing.
Oh, I remember.
Yeah.
But I think the problem is that the BBC doesn't really want to do a show about a revolutionary, like someone who is absolutely committed to bringing down a totalitarian government.
And so they just kind of make him this kind of milk toast guy who's just sort of stumbled in here somehow.
Well, Thatcher really hadn't started.
Thatcher hadn't become prime minister yet, so they wouldn't know to do that.
No one wanted to rise up and overthrow Jimmy Callaan or...
They only needed to gently lean on Jimmy.
It wasn't really, yeah.
It's weird looking at it now, as an example of what I suppose is sort of typical for the time, though, of a serial in which characters do not have arcs, really.
It's their job to turn up and be Batman and Robin every week. or whoever they are, or the Riddler or the Joker.
That's just normal.
That's what a serial is supposed to be.
Duh.
Why would you want character development?
would be that they might say it more eloquently than I just did.
But unless it's a film of a novel, in which case, sorry, a series, you know, an adaptation of a novel, in which case you'll go through someone's life.
But when it's an adventure serial.
That does that just seems to be a modern thing, which did it just not occur to them at the time that people might enjoy that?
Is it the old thing of it?
Well, it'll go into syndication in America one day, so everything's got to be able to be shown in random order.
Voyager printed out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Harry Kim will never learn how to open an envelope because he didn't have to do an episode one and he won't know how to do an episode 500.
And it's not like dramas of the time didn't have character arcs.
You know, you look at any period drama that the BBC or ITV were making and the characters developed and changed and got married and had relationships and children and, you know, got killed and new characters got brought in.
Yeah, so it is very odd.
And there are moments simple, except, like inseclocate destroy with, Oh, yeah, my memories came back weeks ago where you do get that development, but instead of being a gradual thing, it's just like, yeah, that's already happened, don't you remember stupid, it's like, well, no, it didn't.
And now that we have videotape.
We can go back and look at it.
Thank you.
It's like the point in an argument where somebody says, I've already apologised for that.
You just want to jump to a point afterwards, you did.
Speaking of a character who would never say I've already told you that, but just wouldn't tell you, unless it wasn't for your own good, we have Zen, is the next most popular character in our little group or 73.75% approval rating.
So the bloody computer outranks the lead of the show. 7 hour rings to blink.
Well, he's just got such a beautiful calm voice, hasn't he?
It's just a reassuring presence on the ship.
Again, he's a very oddly characterised computer through this series.
Yeah, and it's kind of like unlike the lead.
He's got hidden depth.
Because with Blake, we, the audience, are never in any doubt that he's not guilty of what he was accused, but what if we did have that doubt?
What if these charges were there?
And we were, it was presented to us as the audiences.
Actually, no, this is credible.
This could have happened.
And so we could spend the whole 1st series going, okay, yeah, he's a revolutionary.
He's doing all this stuff, but is he actually a pervert?
We don't know.
Where a Zen?
Hey, I'm not...
I'm not saying...
Well, I'm just saying Zen, you know, the characters constantly comment when Zen is not being helpful.
Who is he actually working for?
Is he on our side, et cetera, et cetera?
So there's always that bit of danger there with Zen that you don't get with the lead of the show and you even get that with characters like Avon and Kelly.
You don't know where their true allegiance is away.
And I think that's what elevates Zen from being just a computer voice, which most sci-fi stories were doing at the time, to being a character.
Yeah, and they landed it really well with the name.
Zen is such a fantastic name for a calm computer to then, whenever it gets slightly deranged, it just makes it more upsetting and perilous to everybody.
If it was just called Thinkbot 12,000.
It wouldn't be so, it wouldn't be so dramatic if it started going haywire, but when Zen starts to go haywire.
You know, there's a big deal going down.
I think there's an aesthetic thing with Zen as well.
I mean, we can't underappreciate Roger Murray Leach's design work, but Zen is a nice looking computer.
Yeah, it doesn't need to look how it looks.
It looks how it looks because it's awesome.
Yeah, it's kind of like it sort of fits the flight deck aesthetic and gives you the idea of being a computer without being high tech, like maybe slave later on.
Exactly.
Those flashing lights are just, they're just beautiful, aren't they?
And it shouldn't work, but it really does.
I think it's that central lie that lights up when he's speaking that's almost kind of like a mouth.
You know, is it an early episode where they haven't quite established how the lights are going to go and they just all flash on it once, whenever you speak?
And then later on they decide, actually, we're not going to do that.
And it's really great.
Just the way that that light lights up while he's speaking.
I don't know, I don't know what it is about it, but it really kind of sells it properly.
It's a little bit of a shame that he's so unhelpful sometimes when it seems to be just, oops, we gave them an all knowing computer and that would ruin our plot if it actually worked, you know.
And then they have to take that away from him and give that quality to the other or no introducer.
Now, I will just say to our listeners, you won't hear about Aurak in this, in this array of characters just because he's only in one episode, this series.
He's not he's not a regulator.
Not Canon.
It's special guest appearance by Aurak.
He'll take the number to eight.
That's not...
That won't be a problem for long.
Now, the last Mender of Blake's crew to join in the 1st part of this series is Cali, who is slightly ahead of Zen and approval with 75%.
Oh, she deserves better.
This is not Kelly's moment to shine.
I think as we go on in the series, and I'll keep it spoiler free, I think that Callie becomes a much more integral part of the series and becomes a character who is much more beloved.
But in this season, she's good.
She not quite there yet.
No, I'd agree with that.
I think you're right there.
The Genesis is there, but they're obviously working out what to do with her through most of the year, and I think perhaps the most interesting episode for her other than Time Squad, where she's really kick ass and brilliant, is Mission to Destiny, where she gets her 1st pairing with Avon, and you can see the seeds of a really interesting relationship and friendship between the 2 of them at its genesis.
And I, I, that's one of my favourite pairings in the whole of the show and I'd watch them in any episode.
I think they're superb together.
So they kind of do this thing where they go, oh, she's kind of a bit alien and she's got these like, um, telepathic powers and things, and it's, it's kind of underused.
Really?
And you'd feel like they could have given her more different some more different alien qualities or something like that.
Because it kind of goes away for a long, long time and it's kind of faded out after a while.
She starts off well and they they do go to town on that.
Yeah, she sort of comes in spurts, doesn't she?
She'll just be sometimes a spotlight lands on her and she shines, she really shines.
And then a script just doesn't have any Cali stuff for her to do.
So she's she's not she's left not doing much.
She is the Deanna Troy of this series.
It is a weird shame though, isn't it?
Because the show over its run will 3 times introduce a new female character who sort of kick arse and gun wielding and and all of that kind of thing.
And she's the 1st iteration of that.
And they just can't see how to commit to it and she just turns into the other lady character, you know, who is sort of super passive and doesn't do anything.
You know, it is a bit of a shame.
They will do a better job. the next time and possibly the time after that, although who knows?
Um, but, you know, this one, you know, she's very, very quickly just the nurse, like by breakdown, isn't she kind of like, um, that's right.
You know, yeah, she's turned into the ship's nurse, which is super disappointing development, given her sort of kick-ass introduction.
Yeah, and and and if it was a case of, well, you know, the writers have come, the writers are coming to this series with their individual pictures of their stories and and they're not picking up the threads of the preview.
No, hang on.
The same fucking bloke wrote the whole thing in an excuse for forgetting that he created a really interesting character and then has her turning down hospital corners on bedsheets in one episode because somebody's got to do it.
And the fact that she is at heart, an interesting character and is played by an interesting actress means that Cali is the prime beneficiary of teleport swapperoo.
So if you play the game in your head where you think, I will swap out one character for another on an away mission, if you add Calli to any scenario where they're down on a planet, it can only be more interesting.
So I'm thinking about the planet in Aurak.
If it hadn't been Blake and one of the other crew members, I just don't think it would have been as much fun to watch as the fact it's Blake and County.
I'd agree with you there.
I agree with what you said earlier, Simon, about Mission to Destiny, being Callie's strongest episode, and it's really interesting comparing that to breakdown, because in Mission to Destiny, there's that moment where Callie says, oh, yeah, look, we'll stay here as hostages and investigate for you and Avon's like, you what?
Um, uh, what?
And she's got that line, a man who dress can never be betrayed only mistaken.
So she has this trusting nature and is very philosophical about that, but it's not naivety.
It's optimism, whereas you get to break down and it's naivety.
And I think that's that's the difference.
Cali's great when she's written as an optimist who has faith in people.
But something like breakdown.
It's like all the optimism in the world wouldn't compel the Callie of Time Squad and Mission to Destiny to unbuckle Gan, for God's sake.
And yeah, go on, please unbuckle me.
Oh, all right, then, but promise not to go on the rampage again.
And it's just like, I mean, you could have, he, he, something in him could have, something in his mind could have given him the ability to override her because of her telepathy or something.
You know, they could, they could have been a little bit around that that led to her being semi-hypnotized into releasing him.
But no, it's just silly woman.
She'll do it.
Which is infuriating because that's not at all how she's introduced.
And that's not how she's treated later either.
It's just such a weird moment to drop that ball.
Moving on to the other leading lady of the cast.
Jenna Stanis is slightly ahead of Cali by one point.
That says it all, doesn't it?
76.25%.
Jenna Stanis, who, according to Rod, has the only decent hair in Blake's crew, that was his observation.
Yeah.
Fabulous base here.
I think that the best thing about her is the fact that she very clearly thinks this is a little bit stupid.
Yeah, she looks right down the cave. you watching this?
Are you enjoying this?
You know, that will only increase next year, which is why we end up not getting it after that.
She's very, very clearly kind of as the show goes on, more and more amused by just how ridiculous all of this is.
Every 2nd line delivered with that half smirk.
Oh, it's wonderful.
I just adore her I think she is absolutely superb.
But it's really not because of the writing or, you know, anything to do with her characterisation.
It's entirely Sally's performance.
She's just magnificent Well, you know what?
I'd forgotten how well Jenna is defined in series A. I think she loses it a little bit going on, but Jenna's given a big part of the action.
She plays a good role and she's quite gutsy and um, I enjoy watching her.
I like watching her lead the action in kind of, you know, those plots in time squad and bounty that she's a central part of.
And I miss her when she's not in episodes like Clocate Destroy.
I think she's great.
I think she might be my favourite character in the 1st season.
Yeah, interesting, because she has a really good relationship with Blake, and I know we've, we've said Blake is quite dull, but actually she brings out the best in him, which obviously isn't much.
The scenes of the 2 of them in dual, for instance, are really fantastic.
There's a real chemistry between the 2 actors, I think.
And where they're sat up in the tree and they're talking and they're talking about their pasts and they're talking about what they're going to do.
There's just a real sense, I think, of the 2 characters sort of having a bit of a bond.
I know people will read into that a sort of romance thing, but I don't think there was any intention of doing that at all because Terry Nation hasn't got any interest in that kind of thing whatsoever.
The sparks were there and it could have gone that way.
There's that key line early on in Space 4 where Avon says, have you ever met an honest man and she's looking at Blake?
She says, maybe.
Yeah, exactly.
Even, even, even, even the episode before that where when they're in the holding cell before getting on the ship and, you know, Jenna's been all sort of bullish and at one point she says to Blake, don't get your hopes up, no one gives a damn about you in here.
A few scenes later, she kind, she kind of basically says, you know, I hope you're successful.
I hope you get out and I wish there was someone out there working for me.
And it's interesting because quite often, writers at this time, if they wanted to make a female character vulnerable, they would go down a stereotypical root of making her panic and scream and what have you.
Whereas Jenna is very strong, but when she's vulnerable, it's more a matter of, look, I'm just speaking my mind here.
I'm, you know, I'm still, I'm still composed, I'm still calm, but I am speaking my mind.
And it kind of reminds me of what Honour Blackman said about playing Kathy Gale.
She's like, the 1st few scripts were written for a man and all they did was replace the name.
Yeah, Cassie Gale is what I've gotten in my notes for her, because I think Kathy Gale casts such a long shadow through 70s and 80s TV, adventure serials TV, very specifically, of having, you know, she's she is Sean Connery.
She is the, the, she's a driver of plot.
She's a, she's a, and with Jenna.
She's a captain and a pilot of the ship and we don't get any lame.
Oh, there's a woman driving the ship, gags, which, let's be frank, in 78.
That's a masterstroke of restraint from everyone here.
Because it was bloody compulsory to if a woman got near a steering wheel to make some wacky crack about it.
Well, isn't that the fact that every time Deanna Troy took the hell on the ship crashed.
Yes.
Yes.
So, yeah, so the fact that she is not written as the girl and that the performance always steers it away from that too. is really credit to her and the fact that she's glamorous as well.
Because those 2 things are not exclusive and she's just a really comfortably drawn character, I think.
Going to what some people would view as the hypermasculine end of the scale.
Covered in leather.
And wearing a BBC Nick Courtney eye patch. we have Pitt Villa.
Sorry, friend.
That's a better introduction, I could have hoped.
It's Travis with 80%.
These votes, by the way, everyone at home were confidential, but I'm going to reveal that I actually only gave Travis a 6 out of 10.
Just because, and once Stephen Griff pointed this out in an interview, I couldn't unsee it.
He's like, for spoiler alert, he's not going to be around next season.
One of the reasons he left was he's just like, every week Travis lost.
Why is he still alive?
Why doesn't Serv Elaine kill him?
He's completely incompetent.
I'm like, actually, yeah, like...
But he's in a lot of trouble.
That means Servolane gets to wear the eye patch tonight.
I claimed earlier, and I'm shooting myself right down here.
I claimed earlier that I didn't do story arcs and adventure serials, but my God, this guy's got a story arc, even if it's an accidental one, because he's introduced as this mad beast of complete callousness and server land is like just the politician who is his tamer and within about in about 3 episodes of actual screen time.
Yeah, he's a he's a hapless complete failure, which is exciting to see.
He's the minister that the prime minister doesn't sack because he's so shit.
It makes the prime minister's stakes look less bad.
We see this.
Yeah, it's like we pointed out, isn't it?
When we were doing the deliverance episode review, that the scenes of Travis and Servoland are completely reversed and their roles are completely reversed from synclocate destroy.
And whether that's Chris Boucher filling in the plot, the very Finn script that he's got from Terry Nation that week and doing something clever, or whether Terry Nation did that, whatever, it's a fantastic piece of character work for this series, I think.
You do have a kind of regular villain problem, don't you?
Just sort of generally in adventure shows because it's not too long before they're clearly incompetent.
I mean, look at the master in series 8 of Doctor Who, who just gets foiled, you know, literally every month without fail.
And so it's always going to be a problem.
And I do like how next year they will acknowledge it.
But it's a striking performance.
It is.
It's a little bit like wacky races when, you know, he's called again every week.
But he is quite commanding.
He does capture the screen a lot and he's, you know, he's really determined.
He's obviously got a grudge against Blake.
The stupid finger thing, though.
But, you know, I really like him.
It's that thing of overusing it.
You know, there should have been more Federation people or whatever, and he shouldn't have just been there every week because it does start to look formulaic.
He's got a sort of real sort of laconic contempt for Blake that's visible in the performance.
Right, which I think is replaced by just kind of aggression next year.
And I really like that.
There's a kind of, again, it's another lip curl performance, uh, among the regulars and I think, uh, I think it's pretty good.
Wouldn't you love to see Travis and Jenna facing off?
Oh yeah. makes me out.
I know I know I've mentioned these before, but one of the Liberator Chronicles does do just that.
There's one that pairs up Stephen Griff and selling a vet and one that pairs up Stephen Griff and Jan Chappel, and they're both really good.
That's a nice confrontation, isn't there, between Stephen Griff and Jan Chappell at the end of Seatlocape Destroy that really sizzles.
Well, we've got EastEnders travels to look forward to.
Before we get to that vote. someone who, spoiler alert, is never recast on television, just slightly ahead of Travis at 81.25% approval, it's Villa Restal.
Hooray.
Hooray, because it wasn't a server animal. top two.
Really?
This is thrilling.
I said it before, but when I was a kid, as far as I concerned, Blake 7 was this show about this really funny guy called Villa and the people he hung around with and his and his computer in a box because I just wasn't used to science fiction action adventure series having a character like him in it, who's a character from a sitcom, or he's the comedy character from a soap, but the good but a good one, you know?
So he's just so likeable and gets so many zingers of dialogue.
He starts off being very unlikeable in the 1st episode, dealing Blake's watch or something, and he's pretty horrifically, you know, horrible and you like, they very quickly do, as you say, go or go a bit Terry and June on him and a bit ever decreasing circles on him and become the comedy character, and that is welcome.
They do use them in the right way to because also it's like he becomes the spiring partner for Avon.
Yeah, which is, you get the best lines coming out of it.
So he's there, he's there to, he's there to sort of walk past signs that say top secret and to make make Paul Darrow say some terrific lines.
What's very interesting thinking about the series as we've just watched is that every member of the cast gets their episode where they're really in the spotlight, but Villa doesn't, and he doesn't get one in series B either.
It's takes until series C before he gets an episode that's a villa episode.
Otherwise, he's the comedy foil or the 2nd person, the 2nd lead in the episode, but he's never the centre of attention here.
I think that's his job.
I think he's such an important character because he's the every man.
And so he's there to basically comment on all the stupid things that Blake and Avon are going to do.
And he draws the eye in any scene.
So you can just like pop him into any scene and he makes it instantly more entertaining.
He doesn't need to be the focus.
And I think what also defines him is that everyone on the ship has a slightly different relationship with him.
And so whenever someone is talking to him, he's kind of a mirror, we're learning more about their character.
It's like Avon holds him in contempt, but respects his ability, Blake respects his ability.
And really pushes him just as hard as Avon does but does it in a far more subtle way.
Cali thinks he's this strange, funny little man.
It's kind of weird that the relationship Villa has that is the least defined, is the one that is set up the earliest, which is his relationship with Gan.
I think, you know, anyone sort of looking back and remembering the series if they remember Gan remembers, oh yeah, he's Villa's mate.
And it's like, actually after Cygnus Alpha, they don't have much to do together.
Yeah.
There's a lot of Shakespearing going on.
There's a lot of Shakespearean people on this.
This is the most Shakespearean spaceship there's ever been.
Villa's the fool, isn't he?
He's Lear's fool, yeah.
He's the jester.
He's the one who's, yeah, who Blake and Avon are facing off about doing the right thing or doing the thing that will bring victory, then he'll just chip in with the thing, saying how stupid they vote for, and let's do this and stay alive instead.
Yeah, let's wait for the keeper next series to see that point subtly made.
Is it subtly made, Peter?
He does have a nice line in the last line of the episode that makes you smile and makes the crew howl with laughter, doesn't he?
And it's kind of like when Blake tries it, when can you get back to work?
No.
Just know.
Give it to Villa.
Villa would have made that fine work.
No, Blake should just have bad jokes and nothing else.
That's all.
He should really do. he doesn't even have any of them, but he can probably do them.
Now, someone who, even if he told a dad joke, we would be rolling in the aisles.
We're jumping up a full 10 percentage point, oh, more than 10 percentage points here, by the way, with a 92.5% approval rating.
It's ker Avon.
Wow, right.
Well, obviously, even at this early stage of the series, he's the one you're watching, isn't he?
He's the one your eyes on.
He's got the snarky comment.
He's he's got the Chris Boucher touch in his dialogue every single week.
He's just magnificent and Paul Darrow ceases every chance he can get to make this character come to the front of the episode.
He's just superb.
He's very, very much more restrained than he will end up being, but I think you've nailed it exactly, Si.
I think that Chris Boucher loves writing lines for Avon, and he does it so incredibly well, that Avon shines even when he does seem like he's seeking to, he does seem like he's not trying to upstage anyone too much, but he just ends up doing it because the lines are so, so clever and so funny, and he delivers them in just such a superb way.
Nathan Chris Boucher has said that, hasn't he?
He said the entire year there was never a line spoken by Paul Darrow that wasn't written by him.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Yeah.
We know how you, you know, you found out that. information. didn't you?
didn't you interview him?
I did, yeah.
Sorry, it sounded like some sort of covert means.
You just said it to me over.
You're basically Calais and he read his mind.
I think Avon is the reason the show is successful and so watchable.
It's the writing.
It's the it's the delivery.
Paul Darrow just gets better and better and better as the as the series goes on and it becomes his series.
Him and Servolan are the magic formula.
Sort of the droll quality that Blake 7 has all comes from Avon.
So in my mind's eye, when I think of the show, I'm really thinking of him.
Avon is also dry and a little bit camp and a little bit sarky and smart, and that's what I think the series is. like the whole thing takes its cue from him.
Definitely.
And it's just those moments, isn't it?
Where he flashes his smile in the most unexpected moment.
It's just a masterclass of performance.
And I think we'll be saying this all the way through the series.
Yeah, he's he's just superb.
Yeah, it's one of those unrecastable roles, isn't it?
Paul Darrow is Avon, is Paul Darrow.
It's just him doing everything that he's been learning how to do up to that point, which if you read or listen to his autobiography includes everything from being Elvis in a musical to...
If only we had recordings.
Yeah, steals the show without chewing the scenery.
But also has a little nibble now, whenever he feels like it. because Harry becomes more edible as time goes down.
Wow But it's almost like, I mean, again, we're getting ahead of ourselves, but it's not a massive spoiler to say that Blake does not remain in the series throughout the full 4 years, even if he had.
I know.
Even if you had, I think Paul Darrow would have become the one that everyone was talking about.
They probably already were anyway.
I don't know.
Certainly all the divorced women were, were they?
I think, actually, the fact that Avon is such a successful character in the 1st year. has a negative impact on the 2nd year because Terry Nation takes note of just how good Paul Darrow is and how interesting Avon is and starts to push him to the front of the action.
And so Avon plays a key role in virtually every series B episode, and it's to the detriment of some of the other characters. the women.
I'm not sure if he started doing this yet, but the way he uses his gun, like a Smith and Western, you've got to cock it, is, you know, he's always got his hand over the top.
Yes.
I just love that little car.
It's so great.
The only thing that went up both at the top.
But you're right, Colin.
He does this thing, doesn't he, where he grabs his gun out of the whole stuff and puts his up his hand over the hand that's holding the gun.
And it's just such a Darrowism.
My favourite bit in his autobiography is when he talks about being hired as an actor to do a performance thing at some corporate event for a high street electronics retailer Tandy or someone like that.
And the chief executive is there and he does this thing.
It's all quite, you know, a selection of funny scenes with some other actors.
And afterwards he's dining with the chief executive and the chief executive tells him, asks him, have you ever used any of our products?
And Dara says to him, oh, yes, I use one of your compact disc players because it's extremely cheap.
And the chief executive turns to him and turn to him and said, no, no, it's not cheap.
It's competitively priced.
And then later he says to him, now, could we maybe book you for another one of these events because it's been quite good.
And Dara turned him and said, well, I am very competitively crised.
No, he said, sure, sure, that's what I'll tell you.
That is the difference between John Purley and Paul Barrow encapsulated and 2 different anecdotes.
I also just considerably priced.
He was Janet Lee.
Oh, you win.
For someone you win.
It's rare for someone to be so arch and camp and utterly self-aware at the same time.
Thank you very much.
Oh, I'd book you for a corporate do anytime, Peter.
I would say, though, there is one other member of the cast who I think manages to be arch and camp and self-aware, and that is our top character with a whopping. is a 96.25% approval.
Wait.
Wait, hang on.
Sorry, stop that.
Who did not give her 10?
This podcast is overstaffed.
I think you should reveal that, Brendan.
Well, yes, please.
I can only accept myself because these are so anonymized.
They don't have any names attached to them.
But I know that I voted 2nd because I do know who voted 1st and they did give them a 10.
Uh, I, I voted to say.
I gave Servolan a 9 only because... only because... only because...
I want a monster.
I'm watching her and I'm like, I can see there is something deliberately in reserve and I know you haven't peaked yet.
And I think I think that's okay.
I think that's okay.
Yeah, I mean, that's fair.
I think we've got a long way to go with this character before she reaches the heights that she will reach.
Well, she reaches maximum.
I will also say that 2 other people voted 9 as well, but everyone else voted 10.
Yeah, one of them was me for the same reason.
She's not fully formed here, is she?
She, I mean, she isn't fully formed and they haven't decided to just go with her.
And I think partly because, you know, she's a lady and, um, you know, all 3 of the regular or semi-regular female characters are sort of backgrounded in some way.
Was it clearly?
You said, Nathan, on sick location, destroy.
I think it might have been, how if we were, if you were rebooting Blake 7 today, the idea that you would wait until episode 6 before introducing this character would seem like, just preposterous, you'd be in the pre-title credits, teaser, probably, because she would be in every scene.
Yeah, I believe with C cloquet destroyed.
She was written as a one off character, which is why she doesn't appear in Mission to Destiny and why she doesn't appear in duel, but they enjoy working with her so much. they went, okay, we can work her into project Avalon forward.
Yeah, but she's clearly, she's clearly Travis's boss, you know, like the no nonsense boss back at the station that doesn't agree with Travis's unorthodox methods, you know, and is going to take his badge and gun off him and stuff like that.
Like that's a politician, not a soldier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the other thing I've, I've sort of found out recently listening to interviews with the great Jacqueline Pierce is when they were designing the character, they said, oh, we're going to put you in a, we're going to put you in a suit because, you know, you're very masculine.
And she turned around and said, well, why not hire a man if you're going to put me in a suit?
Put me, put me in something soft.
So when I turn around and look at the camera for the 1st time, everyone thinks, oh, you know, pretty woman, she's not going to do anything.
And then you punch them with the fact that she's ruthless.
And I think that, and I want a different dress every week.
She does.
That's the other thing.
I could get all these fabulous outfits, instead of being in the same leathers every week, like poor Stevie.
There is just something wonderful about her being dressed in white as well because the camera just grabs her.
She is the centre of everything because it is so stark and I think the character loses something when she moves to the black dresses is just so obvious.
But the white is fantastic and she looks magnificent in whatever she's in.
Like a snow queen, isn't she?
Definitely.
Especially in Project Avalon with the furze as well.
That's Yeah.
Because she does fade into that office background a little bit in that 1st episode because although the white is striking, the walls are also white. true.
She hasn't got triangles on that.
Yeah, certainly I've never had that.
It was always flat.
I remember being on Pebble Mill at one, which was the one, the lunchtime equivalent of the one show of the, if you were having your lunch at home from school in the 70s and 80s.
And she was on there when they, they had some kind of looking back at Blake 7 thing.
And, uh, and in that she claimed that she used to get her costume designer to steal dresses from Shirley Bassey after she'd been on Malcolm and Wise or...
And that has an air of being a too good to be strictly burdened with accuracy kind of theatrical anecdote, but I still want them.
I love the notion.
That sort of rounds up our character roundup.
Although, quick rapid fire round, I've devised an idea called save and kill.
So I'm going to ask each of you to pick a supporting character from any story across the season to join the crew of the Liberator.
However, you have to sacrifice one of the existing crew in order to do it.
So, starting with you, Peter.
All right, I would sacrifice Avon, and I would add Girrock.
That would be an entirely different and equally entertaining series.
All righty then.
Nathan.
Bombshell there, Peter.
That's great.
Make it all sick.
Like, hang around and see how long must I suffer you, Shirok?
About another 39 episodes.
I am totally sacrificing Blake and replacing him with cane with Julian Glover, for sure.
Awesome.
Sorry.
Okay.
I am replacing Gan with the lovely and beautiful nova because we need a bit of eye candy on the liberator and Tom Kelly is gorgeous.
So I'm very shallow tonight, but that's not sure.
No, that's the correct answer. a scientific fact.
Bringing shaping firm?
Pete.
I'm torn.
I want to go part of me wants to go for my almost namesake Nigel Lambert, the groovy computer operator guy from your 1st episode. just so that he can be today groovy. and he could just work the teleport every week so that everyone everyone can beam down and he can just be there with his with his space shades on grouping away doing that.
But you know what?
I'm sorry, Gan.
I'm going to switch you for Brian Blessed.
Because Brian would be an amazing edition to the crew.
Right, oh.
Thank you.
Colin.
I too.
I'm going to let Gan go and replace him with all the decimals. 10 of them.
Only be a production of his character.
My woman, he killed my woman.
You let me down.
I thought you were going to choose tice.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I will...
She actually has an ideology.
She stands for something.
We could definitely sort of swap Blake out for her.
No problem.
That's not the reason I was thinking.
Okay.
It's the same thinking as me, really, isn't it?
Just so somebody else that Kane's assistant could come on board and say, wow, that's another pretty lady.
You know what?
Let's just have an all-female crew.
Let's have tice, let's have cynapha.
Let's have more rag from episode one.
Pamela Salem.
Yeah, I'll ditch Brian Blessing.
Yeah, lovely, lovely meat cat.
Sounds like cat food, though, that name.
She's the Katerina, really, of series A. You could have leather admission.
Your night squirt.
You have Sarah for a Mission to Destiny, just sort of murdering one, someone every week.
No, I think I prefer leather because she lacks affection.
And she has got the most awesome run that turns into a walk that's useful down very short corridors.
It's like Servolan escaping an assassin.
She just, she escapes Dana by turning and walking out of shop.
I will say in like the women of this season, you do have the Terry Nation thing of he's got Kara in episode three, and then a few weeks later, he's like, oh, um, Sarah.
Yeah, okay, fine.
We'll do that.
I would actually ditch Gan and bring on Tice.
I think Tice is really wonderful because as you say, she stands for something and also when, you know, she's being totally contemptuous of our father, she's like, okay, yeah, kill me, that'll show him.
I love that.
And every so often she could back and visit her father. it'd be great Yeah, yeah.
Okay, that brings us into a Snog Marrier void, including 3 characters we've just discussed, Nathan.
And this is Snog, Mary, Steal their Antifungal Cream.
Cinaphar, Negat, or Tice.
Oh.
Well, you know, it's it's been a long lockdown and I'm looking pretty rough.
So I think I would marry Cynifer.
I think that would probably, uh, that would probably work and not really change the dynamic particularly of that episode.
How much longer must I suffer you, Nathan?
The other 2 again.
And you're stealing the anti-fungal cream.
I actually think that MeGat is very lovely. in all sorts of ways, but again, just sort of slightly tedious, so I would tend to avoid her.
You know, like unless I had some ironing that needed doing or something.
Do you know what I mean?
Um, and then I would snog, uh, tie.
So I think for the same reason that Cole would bring her on the program.
She is a very pretty lady. think that's fair.
Okay.
I know I'm going to get pure.
So no comment.
So next thing I want to talk about is how many Terry Nation troops do we have this series?
All them.
So what have we got?
We've got a sea of acids.
A planet that's radiation and has reverted to primitivism at the same time.
We've got.
Have we got any count?
Yeah, we've got loads of countdowns through the episode.
We've got lots of things being absolutely vital.
We've got more than one space plate.
Yep.
Yep, a lot of space things, actually.
Quite a few space things, space vehicles.
I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure Marriott is qualified in space medicine.
Yep.
Yep, he is.
Yeah, I'm suffering from space for tea, and so is Blake, I think, at some point.
Oh no, that might be next year.
Space fungus.
Space fungus.
We have very hot summers here in Sydney, so it's kind of unavoidable.
In Time Squad, you have long spaces between dialogue.
I want to nominate leaving an important character behind by mistake.
Oh, yes.
Don't give a shit about them.
We've got a Tarrant.
Yes.
Just the one, but we have one from the very 1st episode.
Yeah, in the whole names thing.
I've listed Tarrant, Veron, Vargas, which is like a Varga plant.
Laren is dangerously close to Varon and Tarant.
And I've also mentioned the recycled names of Kara and Sarah.
We've got the repeated name of Dortmund, which was in the Dalek story, and of course, the decimas named because they have 10 functions.
And the Phibians named because they're amphibious.
They were liars.
Completely untrustworthy.
Isn't there a Anova and a Navara?
Oh, yeah, you're right.
There is.
Oh, yeah, well done.
Nova and an Avon.
Letters switched round the bit. literally reversed in the same episode.
I think they should do that with Aurak at some point.
Caro sounds good.
I'm also wondering, before this, in Doctor Who, did Terry Nation write women in power very much?
I don't think he did.
Yeah, well, she's accidentally in power, isn't she?
I mean, she is just the desk bound politician who will, because of Chris Boucher, turn into something bigger and more important.
And she was introduced as a man originally, she was written as a male character and then he just switched it.
So, yeah, yeah, I suppose it really is.
It is a Chris Boucher thing.
You know, you've got Servoland, you've got Zirok and Cinaphar, you've got Tice.
You know, you've got Sarah.
The whole episode is set up that a man did it, but it's like, no, it's, it's Sarah who's the killer.
It's nice, isn't it, to get sort of murderer representation.
Hey, like, look, I said on Twitter the other day.
Just watched a Poirot where Lady Pain Fort killed Garon.
And of course, Fiona Walker was Terry Nation's 1st woman murderer on television.
Oh, yes, of course she was.
You're at Fort Carla.
We've never been clear on the sex of Stigron in the Android invasion.
Oh, no, she was alone.
Abby Grant in Survivors.
There we go.
There's Ter Nation writing, yeah.
The show does get over that quite quickly, though.
Moving on to another strong marry, put under Callie's command on saurian major because that's really the same thing as killing.
Colin.
You'll be glad to know that you don't have Jirok.
But you do have a choice of Vegas?
Sarkoff or Kane.
Okay, so I've got...
Okay, so Vargas is Brian Blessed.
Sarkoff is T.P.
McKenna and Kane is Julian Glover.
Because of the tongue.
Like Jiron.
Sarkoff has got a sexy daughter. got Pamela Salem.
I've got to go...
You've got to go...
Okay, I think I've got it.
I've got it.
So I'm going to have to marry Brian Blessed because why wouldn't you?
And, you know, Pamela Salem is around.
I'd have to snog Sarkoff just to, no, that sounds wrong.
I have to start off. because he's got an excellent record collection and some butterflies.
And I would have to destroy Julian Glover's hands.
He's a rich doctor though, Colin.
I think you need to kind of rethink.
I just, this is why I'm still single. don't understand.
Thank you for that.
You are very welcome.
You see, Girok's not looking like such a bad bloody proposition now, is she?
Oh, you know she's very exciting.
Any port in a space storm?
Now, don't worry, Si and Peter, I do have Snog marry various punishments for you. a bit later on.
But the question I have for you all now is.
What are the rules for the series that this season has laid down?
Okay, we've got a few, haven't we?
We've got.
The liberator won't be on station when people need to get away from it, the danger are down on the planet.
That's happened a few times and we'll be seeing that again and again and again.
That's the only rule of the show.
Yeah, yeah, that's the most.
Everyone is posh.
The posh people in the spaceship. don't always know best, which which I think is quite original.
But it doesn't feel original now, but in 1978.
I imagine that was quite original.
Federation Guards went to the Stormtrooper School of Amy.
And walking.
I love in that 1st episode, how they decide to commit a massacre by standing in a circle firing inward. can go wrong.
You've got to kill all these actors.
Some of them are far too expensive to last more than one episode.
That guy from when he comes down.
They're not.
That's the one.
That one movie star who's the leader of the Reb.
Bran Foster, he's got a serial name.
He has.
That's true.
Whenever there's a robot it'll be shit.
What?
Mutoids are quite sexy.
Is it a rule that it's impossible to determine the physical relationship between the only 2 rules?
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Speaking of getting a room, Si.
Snobs, marry, smash up their record collection.
Aphibian, a decima, or a farting security robot.
Well, thank you very much, Brendan.
Well...
Okay, so what have we got here?
I'd have to avoid the decimas because those screeching voices would just drive you insane after a while, wouldn't they?
I mean, especially and they would make a mess of your kit.
So trying to get dinner done would be a complete nightmare.
So I think we're going with... going to have to snorg the robot.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
No, hang on.
No, no, no.
I'm going to have snock with the phibian because it gives a good hug.
So that's okay.
You can have a nice close relationship there.
And, you know, the robot for all its flapping faults does have a very good projectile.
And it's very good at spraying.
So, yeah, that...
I'm sorry, that's my Simon.
How did that have become the filthiest one?
Let's have asbestos pants. in very serious struggle, I think.
When you got tired of it, you could send it outside on guard duty.
This next question.
I'm naming this after someone we haven't seen yet, but it's the best example, I think, in the series.
This is the Barbara Shelley Award for the actor who's too good for this shit.
Eat any thoughts?
Well, that's hard.
I immediately think 2 have immediately sprung to mind.
One of which is Mr. Gareth Thomas, let's be frank, he is doing... getting a hell of a lot of money and it's a really nice job, but he would, he wants to be doing it.
He wants to be on treading the boards.
Uh, but he's uh, but he's doing his best to go at it with gusto.
Um, but, but in terms of Underuse, uh, I'm gonna go Pamela Salem.
She has, she's wonderful, but literally it's a job that she's just a henchman, sidekick type character.
She could, she should have have had, you know, you get someone that good in a role that small, and, uh, I mean, it, it, it's, you don't turn them, you don't turn them away for being too good.
But, um, yeah, she, she, she could have been easily been a big, a big character in this series, I think.
Right, yeah.
Thank you.
Si?
Okay.
He's absolutely brilliant.
But I'm going to choose Julian Glover, because he should have had a bigger role.
He's in the episode for what, 15, 20 minutes and he should have been the focus of an episode.
Although the character is brilliant and he does amazing stuff with the material he's given.
He just deserved the focus of a whole episode, I think, and he's just wasted in that role.
I'm imagining him as sarkoff.
Yeah, exactly.
That would have been really cool.
Not to give TP McKenna a kicking because he was fantastic, but yeah, he'd have been brilliant there.
Great.
Colin.
I think Reika would have been good to have...
Damn it.
You can have the same...
Oh, no, if we get to hear your reasons, but he's he's particularly nasty.
I think, you know, if he just sort of bounced out that airlock and then the um, the ship from the hitchhikers go to the galaxy just pops and picks him up.
And we meet him later.
Yeah, that's it for me, I think.
Uh, Nathan?
Well, I kind of feel like I've answered this question before, but in the sense of the actor who thinks they're too good for all this shit, and that's Sally my man.
Fantastic.
Again, I'm creeping off Simon for my actual answer to this.
I think Julian Glover is utterly superb and it's a shame that he didn't get to do more.
And Peter.
I think Glenn Houston in Space 4 playing Commander Leland, he's in a slightly different show.
He's just someone who's sort of the character is one of the dog's bodies who doesn't enjoy what he's doing and doesn't seem particularly federation evil.
And I think that's quite valuable in that episode.
So I would have liked to have seen more from him and I think he, uh, he, Adds a lot to that episode.
However, having said that, the 3 aliens from Time Squad, who I believe are called Tony Smart, Mark McBride, and Frank Hanson, they should be in every episode because they're, they are brilliant slash terrible.
And fit.
Aren't they fair?
They're so fair.
Absolutely.
I think I have to go with the path of least resistance and say Julian Glover.
Like, you know, he's clearly having a good time and he doesn't think it's beneath him at all, but it's just kind of like, yeah, you deserve more.
Give me some heavy, more heavy lifting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love the fact that his role in breakdown means that he is one of the few people to do the Doctor Who Bleak 7 Star Wars Indiana Jones.
Yes.
Ooh.
And Game of Thrones.
Michael Sheard.
Yep, Michael Schitt's number.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That brings us to our final Snog, Mary, put down on a planet with radiation.
And that is for you, Peter, and your choices are Zirok, Ensor, or Samon.
Sure, you'd have to stalk because of all the spectacle.
Same on you'd have to marry.
Now, I cannot make joke about same. can't do that.
Just like that again.
Pardon me, though?
Same on, I think you would have to marry because he'd just sit in his box and sort of talk at you and I imagine that's what married life is like.
And Ensor, I think you'd have to avoid because he's very dull and he lives under the sea with his plants.
You could marry him because he's dead quite soon and then you inherit all the plants.
I mean yeah, that's true.
You could leave one...
Can you imagine?
Nuclear family, you and Saw and Aurak, the kid.
Terrible.
The problem with Samon is he comes with all of those, you'd become a stepfather to all of the decimas.
My God.
The Decimus cousins.
I mean, you know, really, that is having a bunch of stupid children because as Rod pointed out to me when that episode ended, Samon's habitat is made out of bubbles and the decimas have spears.
Never going to end well.
The decimals like bubble wrap.
They just go around popping at this, I think. sort of related to that last question.
But this can be someone in front of the camera, someone behind the camera.
Who is for you, the greatest contributor for this series, and the series would be much, much poorer, if not impossible to achieve without them.
Colin.
It must be Chris Boucher, because I think he takes, you know, reasonably formed ideas and makes makes them into extremely interesting and well-written stories with great characters.
I think he's the real driving force behind it from what I believe, what I can tell from what I've heard.
So I think it's probably Chris Boucher.
Fantastic.
Pete?
So I'm still, I'm going to say Terry Nation.
Because obviously he's had this idea for doing this series called Plague 7, which we have to give him credit for.
But as Cole says, you know, that took finessing and taking it up to the next level.
I think, but by the talent, the different talent of Boucher.
It's interesting if you look at survivors is what happens when Terry Nation has an idea and then Terrence Dudley adds his bit to it.
Whereas Blake 7 is what happens when nation has an idea and Chris Boucher adds his bit to it and it's as stark as that. survivors has great potential and is quite good for a while.
Whereas Blake 7 has got much more capacity and growth and just fires off in all these different directions because of the combination of those two.
So yeah, that's why, uh, yeah, girl Terry.
Great.
Peter?
Well, clearly the 2 people who've already been mentioned.
I think they have complimentary talent and they just come together so well on this series, but in the absence of those two, I'd say Michael E. Bryant is the man of the hour.
He directs the way back, the web project Avalon, and I think parts of deliverance, and his episodes are clearly put together so much better than the others, and he can do action and atmosphere.
And, you know, it just goes to prove that a vision costs nothing.
You hand him an episode and it looks like something and then you follow it up with an episode by our go-to man for standard BBC corridor science fiction, Pennant Roberts.
You'd get better Roberts somewhere.
Uh, Si.
Okay, um, I'm going to plump for David Maloney for putting the crew together for the casting for bringing Chris Boucher in for making it all happen, choosing his directors pretty damn well on the hole, apart from Pennant Roberts.
I think he's a very stable hand behind the scenes and yeah, he's just almost silently good.
And then he comes in and just directs the um, location scenes in deliverance just because Michael Lee Bryant isn't around and he's he's just really good, isn't he?
I mean, he's learned his craft on Doctor Who.
He knows how this all works.
He's not quite there yet.
I think we will see better productions over the next couple of years than we have, we do a lot of the time here, but I think without him sort of behind the scenes keeping it all together, it wouldn't be half the show that it is.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, David Maloney is just absolutely brilliant.
Nathan.
I think it just has to be Chris Boucher again.
I think this is Chris Boucher show.
Terry Nation writes really incredibly pedestrian dialogue normally, and Boucher just makes it sing, and I just can't see this show as anything other than kind of set pieces in space corridors without him.
It's the thing that we remember about the show is the banter between the regulars and that's all boucher.
I just don't think it's possible to overstate how important he is to the show.
And maybe in subsequent years there might be other people who are able to do something similar in the stories they write.
You know, I just think it's it's voucher show.
It's funny, Nathan, isn't it?
People talk about the sun makers in Doctor Who being kind of a spiritual ancestor of Bleak 7.
But actually it's robots of death because if you look at robots death written by Chris Belcher, the dynamic between the characters, the dialogue, it's all exactly the same.
Yeah.
And the line, you electronic moron. is in both of them.
Yep.
From your crouch in both of them.
Yeah.
Even home and non-s, I guess.
I'm going to choose someone in front of the camera.
And I'm going to choose Michael Keating.
Oh, good choice.
Just because I think...
It's always surprising to me when I remember that Blake 7 was being made to go at it in a later time slot.
It was a drama for adults, but the BBC very quickly cottoned on that children were watching too.
And I think Villa is the character who makes it safe for children to watch because if the children are scared, Villa is scared as well.
And so that so that makes it okay.
And Villa also provides levity without ever becoming annoying.
Like you look at other science fiction shows that introduce sort of comedy characters, even when like Star Trek, the original series or the animated series occasionally did it with a guest character, they're like, oh, we're going to have a comedy episode and they do it by, we're going to have someone really annoying and have the federation characters who are squares react to that and that's the comedy.
Whereas here, Villas comedy is a defence mechanism and it's very consciously a defence mechanism, but it is also funny and it's kind of like Villa is the person at home going, yeah, I'm not going in that cave.
I don't bloody care if there's tarriel cells or contron crystals at the end of it or whatever.
I know that's time rush, but anyway.
I think Michael Keating strikes that balance between scared and funny really well while still being endearing and likeable.
Talking 70s sci-fi. is interesting to compare his character's comedic contribution to the story with Tom Baker and Doctor Who, being sort of, oh, I'm bored of this shit and I'm just going to make jokes about how pathetic it is.
Um, which and they're good jokes, which do get laughs.
But once Tom's gone there, it's really hard for them to then reel back the story to, but no, but actually we do want you, the viewer, to care about this perilous situation, even though the lead characters just told you it's a load of nonsense.
Whereas Keating's Villa is much is in the midst of it as the funny guy in the office, but not actually sort of disdainful of the concept of the program, which it could be, and that would be funny too, but would then undermine everything.
You know, I think related to that is the fact that Tom Baker always delivers the punchline.
Almost always.
He's the funny, he's the funny one and Lala Ward or Mary Tan, uh, is the straight man.
Whereas with Michael Keating. sometimes he's doing the punchline.
Sometimes he's doing the setup, but he's funny no matter what.
The one I always remember from this season is, I can't go down there.
I've got a weak chest.
Navon says the rest of you is not very impressive.
I think that's that's it too.
The role that he plays as someone for Avon to insult.
Yeah, we're absolutely crucial. don't kick the puppy.
Villa gets a really nice moment like that in one of the 1st 2 episodes where he says he gets the line. he says to Jenna, I can't go. can't go in a small space.
I have a condition.
And she's cowardice.
And it's a lovely moment between those 2 that anywhere beyond about week 3 of the series would have been turned into an Avon Villa situation because sorry, it was sorry, it's Jenna, not Kelly.
Oh, sorry.
Um, uh, but, um, it was, it was, there's those 1st few episodes where Villa hasn't yet emerged as the funniest one.
And actually, and then Jenner is getting, getting more punch lines at the start.
But yeah, he's just such a natural for it, that it just all gravitates to him.
Michael Keating has that very nice performance tick as well where he gives a panic today when something happens.
So they'll say, you know, we should go on a mission to this terribly dangerous planet, Villa.
You can come with us.
He goes, eh?
And that continues all through the series.
It's really great.
Right, oh.
A question to close us out, and I have to thank Pete for this one, because I had a similar question that he phrased it in a much better and more interesting way.
If you were showrunner for series B, What changes would you make?
Uh, and I will start with Pete, as he suggested the question.
Oh, didn't I?
So yeah, forgetting, yeah, forgetting what we already know.
If all that we knew was the episodes that we've just seen, what would you be doing?
And I think I would want more Douglas Canfield.
That would be top of my list.
I think that he takes the script of jewel and turns it into something so tense and exciting.
I would want more of that.
I would want to know much more about the earth of this world.
We start on Earth and then we zoom off into space.
And yeah, parking my foreknowledge.
I would be hoping and interested to see what would happen more about what life on earth is like, maybe them going back to earth starting a civil war.
I think that.
Gang should grow a bit.
I already mentioned that.
And Peter, you alluded earlier to teleport swapperoo, which is a much better phrase for what I was thinking of, which was having a teleport wheel of fortune every episode.
Instead of who's going to go down, who's going to get stuck on the ship.
They could actually incorporate that into the drama, spin a wheel.
A big wheel goes around with everyone's place is on it.
And Jenna.
This week, you get to come on the away machine with me to a quarry.
And better luck next week, Callie.
Can you imagine that episode?
Jenna, Kelly, and Ken.
Really?
I'm just going to break the teleport.
We can do it by remote control, really.
We just pretend that we don't have to so they don't all have to come with us every week.
That'd be great.
They come up at the end and there's a Blake sitting at the teleport desk, looking very bored, as opposed to Blake being on the planet.
I'm getting very bored.
Okay.
Colin.
I think I do 3 things.
I would probably introduce a bit of radiophonic workshop to it, just to get some of it, a bit, a bit more time you wimey atmosphere, analogue feel to it.
Like, because, what was the episode where it's all kind of library music?
Is it dual?
Dual.
Yeah.
I think that works tremendously well, and I think it would have worked.
Well, with episodes like the Web, so I would have got Peter Howell and Paddy Kingsland and Roger Lim, especially on atmospherics.
So the 2nd thing I would have done is I would have made, I would decide that if I was going to do a flamboyant episode in a casino, I would make it a 2 part because it's probably going to be fucking good.
It just feels like a two-parter, I'm afraid.
And I would also not introduce a stupid climbing frame scene in pressure point because it's like doing PE at school.
That's...
Peter, let's see.
I would put Gan in a cape.
With the beard.
Put them all in, capes.
I would I would visit the exotic sounding planet's Kynesos over on Casiona and Epinal.
Oh my god.
And I would probably have traversay, if I'm guilty of murder, of mass murder, then so are all of you.
I 3 most important things.
Let's hope you have it.
I think that wins.
Nathan.
I'd want to radicalise Blake.
I think he is a bit of a guardian reading, kind of libdam, sort of doughy, middle-aged, centrist, and I want him radicalised.
I want him actually blowing things up and maybe the others, like, you know, you can imagine a dynamic where Avon is trying to restrain him out of self-interest and and perhaps Jenna is trying to restrain him out of a desire not to kill a whole bunch of people by blowing things up.
But I just think that for a show about sort of revolutionary, it's just a bit too tame and it's reluctant to be properly political.
So, uh, that's uh, that's what I would do.
So make him a bit more major Kira Nurris.
Oh yeah, yeah.
I want Major Kira to look at him and kind of go, I think maybe you're going a little bit too far.
And sorry.
Well, the thing that I would do is make it more colourful, because it's been really dour this year, the design has just been a bit flat.
There's lots of really boring space corridors and no matter how you like them, they're not very interesting to look at.
I think the whole visual aspect of the show needs a big boost.
We need some flamboyant costuming perhaps.
And we need some outlandish sets and make it just, I think they can bring a bit more to the screen than they're doing.
The costuming through series one, A, whatever.
It's late. don't know what it is anymore.
Is just really dull and I've been, they're trying to go for, for some kind of realism, but it looks cheap and I think maybe what they need to introduce is leather.
I think that will go down.
Oh, no, we've had Travis, but I think maybe getting the whole cast in leather in some... will work well.
There are other shows you can watch for that.
I was pretty sure it was vinyl.
It might well be.
Like Sarkoff's record collection.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point, Si, because the series takes its aesthetic from the 1st episode and then it doesn't fit because the series becomes by about the web, something completely different and to sort of catch up, it reads, it needs a real injection of June Hudson.
Yeah, and we're gonna get it, aren't we?
Oh, yes.
And the other thing that I would do is just give Jacqueline Pierce a few more episodes per year.
And I think that will be to the positive for the series, really, wouldn't it?
Get rid of the space anorax.
They're going.
Yes, well, they're in the bin already.
From Avon Space Parker, which we will see again, which is possibly the best costume that any of the breaking...
I love how he wears the space.
It's like, no, no, no.
I want to wear tinfoil.
Not in that.
I would say structure your makeup of episodes to more consciously feature different characters.
The best way to do that is to go with unusual pairings.
So perhaps have an episode which focusses on Jenna and Gan working together or Villa and Blake without Avon around.
And that way you bring out different dynamics, like you already have done with Villa with everyone throughout the course of the season, especially, I think, Pair Gana with some more people.
And like another Gan combo.
I would love to see more Robbie's Gan and Avon on some kind of mission where actually brute strength is the way through and Avon's on the back foot and has to rely on Gan.
Just playing more with the dynamics of the characters.
Avon Gan Romance, man.
Yuck.
Yeah, you know what we were missing, Brendan?
We were missing out of all of them, a Janet Kelly. matchup.
They should have had a mission together and it would have been great.
And that's something that selling of it has spoken of in recent years.
She's like, you know, the thing about always leaving one of the women on the ship or both of the women on the ship is we never got stories together.
It was always, and we have a woman playing an active role.
We don't need to worry about the other one, whoever it is this week.
And it's like, well, actually, no, if you have a mission where you need someone who can shoot and someone who can fly.
There you go.
That's your story for general and Callie.
And spoilers, there'll be a terrible episode next year called hostage, and yet one of the only interesting things about it is that Jenna and Kelly get their own little subplot on board the ship where they fend off and attack, and it's really pretty good.
Well, folks, that is all the time we have for our retrospective.
Thank you for sticking with us through this episode and throughout this entire series, and we will discover what happened to the crew of the Liberator next after the ship exploded when we discuss series B with its 1st episode Redemption in 2022.
And for series B, as all of our episodes are out now.
That voting I did for characters, we're going to open it up to you, the listener as well.
So look out for that, so you can vote for how you think the series B characters go, and we do get a new one next year.
Sort of, spoiler alert.
Until next time, check out our show notes for the website and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts by searching for Maximum Power, a Blake 7 podcast.
In their absence, I would like to thank Simon, James and Mark, who are not here, who have also contributed throughout this year as well.
And next year, we've got some exciting new people join us.
Yes, we have.
I'm really looking forward to that.
I want to keep our power dry on who it is, so you can listen along and be surprised along with me.
And of course, thank you very much, Colin, Pete, Cy, Nathan, and Peter for joining me on this retrospective.
Until you hear us again, may all of your phibians stay in the tunnels.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Switching to man.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.
