Maximal power.
Welcome back to Maximum Power, a Blake 7 podcast.
I'm Cy.
I'm Colin.
I'm Mark.
And I'm Pete.
So here we are at Pressure Point, episode 6 of Series B of Blake 7 and nothing really happens in this one, does it?
So nothing of notes.
We're in standard Federation versus Blake territory this week, and it's all going to be fine.
Absolutely fine.
But absolutely.
Just as long as nobody tries to penetrate the forbidden zone.
Or is it the Forbidden Zone?
It's the security zone within the Forbidden Zone because you can tell it's a security zone because there's a sign on the floor underneath some grass that's catching fire, which isn't a clue in any way.
So, we're back on the planet Earth.
And as Jenna says, it's been a long time.
How do we feel about popping back to the planet where it all started and is it just a little bit different to how we saw it originally in the way back?
Well, I mean, the 1st thing is, for some reason, you get to see Arthur Dent's house, and I don't know what that, what that is.
I don't know if Serverland's in there or Travis is in there.
But it doesn't seem, it's like we've done this, a lot of this world building where everything's inside the dome.
So why are these people outside the...
You can't go free forbidden zones in dorms.
It would be a forbidden dome.
This is a forbidden zone.
The forbidden zone zone.
Look, they've obviously got interesting reasons for going back because obviously there's an underground bunker, so they must go.
But moreover, it's this Blake's instincts versus risk taking versus sort of gambling.
And it's in his instincts and like we've got to do this.
I want to strike earth.
I want to strike the Federation at its heart.
It's fine.
You just, yeah, I mean, it's not about perhaps world building on it.
There's only one tiny bit of a world building where Gan goes, what's this?
And he goes, oh, it's a church.
They destroyed them all in about 200 years ago or something like that.
Yeah, nothing nothing else has really happened since the left.
I thought that was interesting.
It sort of brings some elements of shading that the Federation isn't all bad, um, whereas before they'd sort of, uh, you know, been built up to, uh, you know, that they were just uniformly evil and all the rest of it, but it was nice to bring some nuance in, I thought.
Yeah, because Kasabi gets that line, doesn't she, about?
She says to serverland, you're the reason the federation's become degenerate, almost as if it used to be quite nice, really, until these people like serverland came along and ruined it all.
Well, maybe it's one of those dictatorships that starts out with the very best of intentions, and they're going to make the world a better place for everyone, and then gradually people see ways of exploiting it, and yeah, it all changes and becomes a bit of a mess.
We've all dreamed of a nice dorm-based secular society.
And then a few bad apples come along and ruin it.
Yeah.
You talk about centre parks, basically, aren't you?
Pretty much the difference.
This is the way that people in Luke got centre parks. view people who go to ordinary campsites, I think.
This is a very middle class podcast.
It's the Eden Project.
You come away from their completely drugged up.
It's fine.
Surrounded by about 20 feet of impenetrable unmowed grass, which is pretty much all that there is to it.
But it's done with conviction because as our 2 little bits of cannon fodder in the opening sequence showers quite clearly.
But, uh, yeah, you just tell that they're doomed from the 2nd that they come on, because you've seen teronation in the credits.
It's nice to have terri nation back.
I know they've been mixing it up a bit.
But it's nice to have Terry Nation back writing an episode and throwing all of his Terry Nation stuff right at it for me.
Except for the bit later on when the liberator crew are running across the, the sort of the deadly field.
And when Gan runs with Villa, and he says, I thought it would save time, and I thought that was very unterrination, you'd normally have them all running one by one across the, across Atlantic rats.
They should have bought a giant egg timer to turn over. to indicate countdown.
Speaking of return to earth.
It does give Jenna a chance to sing the theme to Star Trek Enterprise.
It's been a long time.
Getting from there to here.
Getting from there to here in 8 seconds over that field.
It's not 8 seconds.
It's like 2 fucking seconds.
Come on.
No, no, no.
My notes say it goes from total self-repair in 8 seconds, so it's definitely 8 seconds.
Definitely 8 seconds.
Wrong.
I'm curious in the opening section with Blake.
He's really going for it, isn't he?
He's sudden, he's back to being messianic, determined, obsessed leader.
I think he's kind of doing a little bit of a Paul Darrow impression at one point.
There's the bit where he delivers that speech and then Avon sardonically claps him.
And I thought that's like, is that Paul Darrow actually clapping him having, you've stolen my act, mate?
I love that.
No, it's really interesting, isn't it?
Because everything he's doing and saying is I'd rather not try.
I'd do this.
I do that.
Not we, not I want you with me.
He's determined to do this because it's him and it's like he's brought into his myth.
Yeah, it's a big change from the Blake of series 8, isn't it?
Yes, and we've seen this sort of all the way through series B so far, so particularly in Shadow, where he's not concerned with Cali, when she's having her Aurac inspired breakdown, and he doesn't care about what's going on there because it's getting in the way of his plot with the Pterranostra, and in Horizon, he's playing the percentages, so that Avon won't run.
He's thinking about all these things and how it affects him, but not necessarily how it affects the rest of the crew.
Yeah, man with man with a mission.
Yeah, I think I've watched this episode twice, and I think the 1st time the tragic finale, which obviously we'll get to, I felt like, well, that came from nowhere, but then watching it the 2nd time round, you see that it is seeded throughout where the whole crew are questioning him and saying it's not suicide mission.
And then when they find out that his his contact with the resistance has already died, and Gan says, right, like, we should just pull out now, he's given opportunity after opportunity to not to go ahead with it as the risks stack up and still does it, doesn't he?
Yeah, after promising them all.
Are you sure none of us are going to get killed on this mission, but...
Yeah, definitely no, nobody's going to like, what if we're probably going to get killed?
No, if you're probably going to get killed, I'll call it all off.
I absolutely promise.
It's kind of like when you're the one person at work who's John upside everyone to go out for a few beers after work.
I was like, are you sure?
It's not going to be a messy night.
It's definitely not going to be a messy night.
No one's going to end up punched in a doorway.
With everything collapsing around them.
We haven't done a spoiler warning, have we?
Have we done a spoiler warning?
For our wonderful listeners. who may be watching along with us.
I suspect they watched the episode 1st before listening to us. blather about it. would hope so.
Well, if you haven't, you've got about 30.
If you haven't, you've got 5 minutes to get out of this podcast or 8 seconds.
Yeah, 8 seconds.
Of course, because seconds have been probably been decimalized in this hellish future world, along with the new, they say it's the start of the new calendar.
Maybe they have new seconds too, and that explains why it takes different amounts of time to run across a mineshield.
It's still imperial measurements for the, for the distance across the minefield, though, isn't it?
Noticed?
Villa say it's 50 yards or something.
Maybe that's because he's a rebel.
He's not going to use that fancy European nonsense.
The stuff with Blake leads to a really interesting conversation between Blake and Avon about what might happen after this.
So, Pete, what do you think about that?
The tension in that scene is fantastic.
I've been shipping Blave on since the start and I honestly thought they were just going to give each other a kiss at one point.
It was just so just a testosterone.
You could smell the imperial leather.
And, um, that kind of 70s maleness that you just don't get anymore.
Uh, uh, yeah.
So, no, seriously, that was a, it was a really well written scene and it's, it's, I know we have a tendency whenever any good line of dialogue comes out.
We immediately go, oh, Chris Boucher, and maybe it will Boucher, but...
Right, in normal conversation, I can say easily, not that I have to all that off. recording going on.
Who played the 1st Travis, by the way, Pete, who played the 1st Travis?
I don't know.
Stephen Grief cry.
A grief cry.
Oh, yeah.
Of course.
I haven't got that written down on my notes.
I've deleted that But, um, Grief Grief left to set up a mobile phone company, didn't he?
Ladies and gentlemen, what was saying earlier about, I think Blake is deliberately doing an Avon to a certain extent, but in a different, for different reasons, when he says, while it exists, the Federation is invulnerable, and he really powers that word out, just like Paul Darrow would.
Wait, hang on.
While it exists, the Federation is invulnerable. impenetrable or whatever.
That means you could just give up.
I mean, clearly.
No, we can destroy it.
Well, control exists.
Yes.
Oh yeah, it could be in control in that sentence.
Okay, good.
Yeah, I thought that conversation was really key as well.
It's the 1st felt like the 1st time that Avon's really spoken about it to Blake, I think, before he said to other members of the crew, there will be a day when Blake isn't in charge, but it feels like it's sort of, you know, dragged out into the open, what's been there between him and Blake, and it's, but it's quite civil.
It's, it's sort of, you know, where you'll get what you want, you can unite all the rebels and I'll get the liberator, but it's not clear what he's going to do with it, is it whether he's going to continue the fight in space or whether he's just going to take this amazing ship off and rob people and just keep himself safe and from, I mean, imagine in the latter, but yeah, I thought it was weird that Blake didn't ask him what he would do with it.
No, it's almost like Blake's assuming he will carry on doing this work out in the outer worlds or wherever and do that.
But as we've seen in the previous episode in Horizon, Avon's definitely out for himself at this point or it feels like he is.
I think in later seasons, he does hand over the mantle.
I think Avon is trying to really take the Federation down, not just sort of go off to a desert island or anything or a space desert planet, but at this point he's still in the zone of thinking for himself.
And they kind of overdo that a little bit, I think, but it still works.
I do like the smile on his face as he says, and somebody has to take charge of all this looking round and liberate.
Yeah, off you go, Blake.
You can go do the admin work down on it.
You'll be in charge of the shipping freight and everything.
I'm off on a joyride.
He's going to be doing donuts around Jupiter and the illberator as soon as he gets rid of Blake, isn't he?
he So yeah, and there's a lot of tension between Blake and Avon all the way through.
Avon is super suspicious all the way through this episode, isn't he?
He's really pushing Blake and he's not at all happy about where this is going.
He's the only one who seems to see through what Blake's doing.
He's right to be suspicious because Blake has withheld the mission from them and then not told them about the Miss rendezvous and everything else that's happened.
So it's not Blake isn't really, I think, inspiring much trust.
Or loyalty in his crew at this time at this point.
Yeah, and I think it's really well done because it's a really natural conflict.
It doesn't, they just don't suddenly all start yelling at each other for no particular reason, which can happen sometimes when a scriptwriter is trying to shush things up a bit, but it has just, it's just grown out of their, their character's development and particularly Blake's frustration at not having been able to really make an impact.
And so he suddenly sort of bit out of nowhere, but it's the story of the week.
He gets this lead, which I think has been ceded before, but to go on this one mission that can suddenly make his eyes light up about making a difference.
And he goes a bit mad basically, doesn't he?
He's a bit off his rocker to put it in an unkind language.
To help him in his quest to take down control, he's made contact with another rebel leader, Kasabi, who it turns out, was originally written as a man called Kasabian.
So it's Terry Nation once again switching the gender of his his people, which is good.
It's good to have it's nice and progressive to have another female freedom fighter.
She's a bit tougher than Avalon last year.
Colin, you're making faces.
So you're not... not impressed with with Kasabi. awesome.
I'm not impressed with Kasabi because I don't think rebel leader of the week thing that's just dropped in and then suddenly you're just here to talk to Servoland, but her performance is terrible.
I mean, there's so many bad performances in this episode.
Oh, sorry.
That's really that's really mean of me.
Does Lady Jennifer from the war games that you're blaspheming against?
Is it?
Oh God.
Well, we haven't got we haven't got to Janet from Terror of the Vervoids yet.
Not yet.
We will.
I thought it was Gene Marsh at 1st when she had a hair up and a cap on and she was out in the woods.
I was like, oh, wow, it's Jesus.
That would have been awesome.
Yeah, and then when she was captured, I thought, oh, no, it's Jim Marsh.
It didn't look like a bit like a from a distance.
What I really liked is the relationship between Kasabi and Serverland, which is dropping some fascinating hints about Serverland past, which I think makes the character a bit more interesting than Rebel of the Week that you think you're going to meet.
And, um, yeah, so, um, what do you think about that mark?
Yeah, that was interesting.
It was a little bit late, the sort of Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi relationship, wasn't it, of the trainee sort of, you know, rising up and betraying the mentor.
And I suppose explains how Serverline has risen so high in the Federation, so young that she's just been willing to sort of stab anybody in the back and climb over anybody.
But the line that Kasabi said, when they talked, she was asking Kasabi about Blake and she says, is he young more in your line, surely?
I wasn't sure exactly what that was a reference to or what she was getting at there.
Because, I mean, because Servan's so young herself, I think.
Oh, I took that as a little digger, Serverland, sort of only being interested in sort of Toy Boys or something as if she had a reputation for that. not wanting to deal with anyone who might conflict with her or stand up to her.
That's what I took from that line.
Yeah, I thought it was something like that.
But I mean, she's only, she only looks about like mid 20s herself.
It's not like a cougar issue, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah, I wonder if it could be an overhang from an earlier, a very earlier version when, before Serviland was made female.
Well, when we 1st meet Surverland, she's got her very young bit of stuff, Ray, hasn't she?
Encyclocate destroyed.
So maybe Terry Nation is thinking back to that perhaps.
Well, it's just thought it was just one of those offhand lines that Kasabi is throwing out just to sort of try and get a rise out of Serverland, maybe, and so that she can battle her way then sort of out of this room or whatever.
I mean, it's okay.
It's a good bit of character building, but it's really not enough to justify this.
It's just she's just a plot device.
There's not really much to say, she's just captured.
Uh, Servolan insists on um, injecting her, uh, herself. you know, a bit of exposition.
You've just destroyed the entire format of Blake 7, I can't.
Some people and they have a fight and they fly around in spaceships.
That's right I just felt that Travis didn't need to be there in a way because he's, he's, it's just like unnecessary dialogue if you've got 2 of them there.
And what they could have done is have a bit more interesting stuff with, I was going to say wasabi.
She's probably named after, thanks to Google.
Linda Kasabian, who was the getaway driver of the Manson family, who did all the murders in America in the late 60s, that whole cult murder thing.
Yeah, which...
Stop Googling that.
Which is also where the band, Kazavian, get their name.
There is one good line, I think, where Kasabi says I should have tried to help you.
Yes.
And it provokes a really interesting reaction from Servoland as well, where she looks almost hurt or upset just for and the camera just holds it just for a 2nd and you see this almost fragile moment from her, which you don't see very often.
It's like she's got under her skin.
Yeah, the Kasabi had a unsuccessful de-radicalization program, if she really thought that she could save serve one, but from her own nature, but could not.
I love the, um, the, the, the, when the way Servlin appears in her, in her white, lovely white suit and hat in the woods, completely managing to sneak up on them somehow.
I think that, that was originally written to be Travis capturing them, but, but this is, oh, by the way, this episode is the point where um, Serviland now gets top baddy billing after you've had all of the, all of the, all of the liberator crew credited. 2 or 3 weeks ago, it was still Travis, who was billed next and then Serviland, but this week she has well and truly usurped him and taken her place.
She's been to the same space tailor as Skagra from Shada, hasn't she?
Yeah, great big white hats.
I like the way she's so dolled up, even though she's just been pacing around that room for 18 days waiting for something to happen.
She hasn't sacrificed any of her kind of style or anything, actually, for that job, just to stand in a room with 3 other people.
Perhaps she started off with the really practical stuff on day one, and it's got nothing practical, and she's gone along. and she's sort of gone through her wardrobe before.
Oh, no, this is the only one that's clean. except it's not because she does change into another dress for the last scenes.
At good point.
Yeah.
Genemous maker get changed at gunpoint because she's in one costume.
And then when they arrive in the empty room, she's got changed into another one.
Get it to your spaceball gown.
Well, yeah, and I mean, and what, I've complained about Jenna not being piracy enough at times in the past, but this time she's, she's like, she's about to host the Eurovision song contest or something in that blue evening gown that she resplendently.
And on the scenes on the on the liberator bridge at the start, she literally has to hoist it up because she can't run.
She has to sort of grab it at her hips and pull it up a little bit so that she can totter excitedly to her control.
I think Villa has the best costume.
He's wearing a bib backwards. really bizarre.
The rest of the costume is great.
The gray top that he's got on is really nice, but the yellow thing is just bizarre.
It's really odd.
Jenna's got a handbag as well. what she'd brought in her handbag.
It's full of teleport bracelets.
Yeah.
Why is there a teleport handbag?
Don't see many space handbags, so everything is a good practical solution for her.
As we mentioned, we've got Travis also in this episode, but is this the moment the character becomes completely and utterly redundant in the series?
What do you think, Pete?
I thought you were going to say completely and utterly deranged or something.
He is he is utterly deranged as well.
Yeah, it was never ranged.
But, um, it's, um...
Yes, but that, and, and that, I mean, we talked about it way back last year, you know, his sort of his impotence and his inability to do the one, his one job that, that Serverland increasingly wields all that power over him.
But in this one, at least it's, it's really not his fault this time because it's, it's Servoland getting, well, jumping ahead to the end.
But I don't think it's his fault this time.
But yeah, he's he's really lost it, but I love the uh, the dynamic of that scene where he is calling on Servolan to lift the, uh, to deactivate the minefield. so that he can get in and chase them in and recapture them.
And she has to put a call through to Federation HQ to get the minefield switched off, which just shows that the 2 of them are still a unit that has to succeed in order to impress someone else, you know, the, the, the, there are powers that be above the, above the 2 of them.
And I think that makes their sparring and their, um, a little bit of their bickering, still have a, and a really entertaining dynamic to it.
Like, particularly when he tries to stop her administering the final dose of the truth serum, of the likely fatal truth serum, to, uh, to, what you call it, Kasabi, and now.
Which is so easy to capture because she's got a club foot, perhaps.
But, um, that's the name of the Kazamian song.
Okay.
But that bit where she Tervlon goes and he tries to snatch it off her and she just slaps him back like a cat.
It's very good.
There's a bit of, speaking of Travis, some very odd dialogue delivery.
What are you talking about?
What is the matter with you?
It's not well directed.
No, well, I'm famously, the director, George Spenton Foster, had real problems with Brian Croucher.
The 2 of them did not get on.
So apparently he loved Jacqueline Pierce and he loved Paul Darrow and was not keen on a lot of the rest of the cast.
And it caused major problems for Brian Croucher because he directed Weapon as well, which is Brian Cruncher's 1st story.
And so he didn't get much direction.
He was not favoured by the director, wasn't given a lot of help to start in the role.
And I think it knocked his confidence in the park for quite a while.
He doesn't really even have any good mutoids around.
The mutoids this week to sort of say a couple of lines and they prod someone with their finger.
It completely blocked.
There's no way through.
Nathan's observation back when they 1st came in that after a while the new toys just become people in hats has pretty much proved true, hasn't it?
Speaking of direction, though, there was a couple of really ropey bits, I thought when the when Veron throws the grenade down into the basement.
It just didn't, it was, it was really unclear what, what had happened at 1st because they all went down and then the gas started leaking and they just stayed down so there was no sort of like coughing or a scene of them being overcome by the gas.
So I thought, are they out of range and they're faking?
It was just, yeah, it was just kind of a really weirdly directed.
Not only that, you can see her hair.
And then they cut back to another shot and it's just like person walking indistinguishable person walking downstairs so may maintain some mystery.
But it's like you can definitely see it.
It's like, are they, they're trying really hard to conceal who it was.
It's not like a Agatha Christie or anything, but it was just like, it's not like any kind of big reveal or mystery or who on earth could have done this or is she double crossing them?
Because it, there's no surprise.
All the surprises taken out.
The surprises taken out where Blake and Gan are sort of, sort of shouting what they're going to do with each other. while she sort of, when they say after they've said to her, you know, get some rest, i.e. just sleep on the floor instead of like somewhere else in that room.
And she's obviously sort of looks up and, you know, so it's just felt like a wasted thing to...
I think I'd just have a walk outside and get some fresh air.
Yes.
Going for a walk in the danger zone.
Kenny Loggins song.
That's the moment where Travis could have just gone in and captured Blake.
He's forced asleep on the floor about probably a mile away from where he is.
He could have just popped over there and captured him then.
But to escape this room.
What we're going to do is not use the guns that we have.
Consistently, they've left us with because the plot needs us to do some shooting, but we can't, but they take away our teleport break.
What?
Yeah, yes.
And so, you know, they do have their perfect one, but it's like, look, guys, this is Gan's last episode.
So let just let him bash things up a little bit. like open doors, hold over door.
He is Hodor.
Yeah, in this episode, he's really become Hodor, hasn't he?
I know we get plenty of Gang jeopardy.
So every time there is there is something dangerous.
Gan's the one who is in danger.
So like we said earlier, we've got the moment where he runs off the villa, um, when they're um, running to control to the entrance through the through the danger zone or whatever it's called this week.
It's the security zone within the...
Through the security site.
So we've got a moment where it can.
And is something going to happen again?
And then you've got the moment where they're on the space monkey bars in the city of the Exilon sequence, which I know, we're going to come back to in a moment, Colin, for you, especially.
Okay.
My favourite bit of like 7th...
I just want to get out of there.
Everyone's crossed the cross, apart from Gan, and suddenly, oh, no, the bar's broken and he's going to fall on the electric floor.
Go on, then.
What do I, what do you have for me on that?
We've got some of the very best corridor action here in this story, haven't we, Colin?
Come on, tell us all about it.
Oh, Jesus, it's my least favourite thing in Blake 7.
They're on a fucking A frame from PE at primary school.
It's just...
What?
Is it like a game show or something where you just, you know, you can't touch the floor.
I mean, how, how would you design a building, which is totally impenetrable in Forbidden Zone, in the security zone, with lots of wires that are radioactive and explode?
But when you get inside, you're okay just hanging onto a couple of bars which seem to be conveniently there.
And not electrified.
Find some other way. get it right?
I want to see how Jenna got Servoland to go over those monkey bars.
I'm jumping ahead of it.
I think you got the high council to turn them off.
Oh, yeah, just a button that nobody noticed.
They're not the brightest cookies.
But yes, and we've got our favourite Blake 7 trope back from Mission to Destiny of the same corridor filmed in the same way, but it's a different coloured light on it.
That's just how the universe works.
Even if they just had a couple of different camera angles to try and sell it for you.
But there's, it's in the same shot, but with a different lights.
Well, it's like what they, you know, when they, uh, in aliens when they're going down to sub-level 3 to find those colonists, they do actually change the numbers on the pillars and things.
So you could have just put like a 9 and then like a -10 or something just to prove that they've been down.
But we've built this.
We've built this ladder and we're going to fucking use.
But they've got these great big blank walls that they could have easily stuck a big number on.
Would that really have made a difference?
No, that sometimes looks a bit laboured.
That looks too obviously. trying too hard when they do that.
Hey, let's talk about everything Kelly does in this episode.
Anyway.
She does some very good bored acting when she sat at the Liberator.
Yeah, ever since she got her job as liberator receptionist.
She's really.
She doesn't use a telepathy to contact them and find out where they are, which they established the other week that she can do from the liberator.
Mark, stop thinking this through because it's not supposed to make sense.
It's an adventure.
That the thing.
But yes, we are now beginning the long, long run of Jenna and Callie are relegated to the liberator.
They act like they've never teleported on an away mission before, which is really, it's just funny, because after the, after everything we've seen them go through, and I haven't quite how Terry Nation has forgotten that, but then you could argue he's setting it up for it to be a twist.
The last thing we would have expected at the end is for genitor just teleported down and pulled a gun on server land, which anyone could have done from the beginning of the episode.
I appreciate if you're obsessed with the minutiae plot mechanics.
But that wouldn't be much fun, would it?
So, yeah, and they have their ball gown off.
It is another example of shonky directing, though, I will concede, when there's that scene.
I mean, it is meant to be to startle you, where Servolan suddenly looks at the opening door and says, what does she say?
Something like that.
Oh, it's you.
Yeah, who were you?
Um, because they haven't met before, I don't think.
I think Gener is the last one to actually meet Servoland.
I think she's seen her before about it.
I think they've met.
She's probably seen her vid files.
Yeah, yeah.
On the odd subject of teleporting, the music has gone from when they beamed out, beamed down.
When they teleport down, from bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom.
It's like the Muppet show, isn't it?
It's got really happy.
And Gareth Thomas is still very assiduously insisting on doing something interesting.
Like he beams down into the middle of the woods with his foot on a rock.
So he sort of stood proudly as if he's a statue or something.
He won't just be stood there on a flat bit of ground.
He's determined to make it more interesting than that.
No, he still does a little bit of teleport wobble every time, just to show that he's down.
I think they workshopped that.
But most of the others can't be bothered after a while.
Did you notice by, um, Villa getting his uh, David Tennant moment in with her, I don't want to go on the um, uh, to be dragged down to the surface by Avon.
I did notice that he does knock the sophisticated key locking mechanism on the door and it kind of wobbles about a bit like it's about to fall off.
But they weren't a lot of effort in putting the Federation logo on that door to an empty room.
Yes, but that shows you the lengths that they're prepared to go to, these evil maniacs, that it's the one door in the Federation that's got the official logo on it.
Carved into it.
I just, as well.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a special door.
And I think that is a really good moment with Dwight just bursting in there and absolutely losing it.
Yeah.
We've done it.
I've done it.
Yeah.
It's a good part of the episode.
It's like, I mean, it's a continual theme of Travis versus Blake, but it's also hubris or instinct or gambling, bad decisions has bad outcomes. you've got to take a risk if you're trying to destroy an evil federation that's completely enslaved your planet and loads of other planets.
You've got to take gamble.
Otherwise, you're just not going to get anywhere, but it does have that.
It was all for nothing type thing and it is foreshadowing something mark that will happen perhaps later, maybe, or maybe not, that, like, this empty room and, well, they, Travis does say it all got moved 30 years ago, you know, so who knows?
I've had that experience myself when trying to collect a new chair at work, actually.
I got sent to a place to work.
Yeah, I got sent to the place where the chairs were supposed to be and they're like, no, we've never had chairs here.
I didn't, I fell to my knees screaming.
Obviously.
It was the appropriate thing to do.
Pete has not been sitting down for over 7 years now. on an old chair.
That the problem.
We've got site to site.
Teleport all of a sudden.
That was a twist.
What, in your office?
I wanted the paperwork is a complete...
Red tape.
Someone needs to sort this world out.
But yeah, they can do site to site teleport.
That suddenly struck me watching this episode.
I don't know. that's a new thing.
I think.
I wonder if Aurak's done that because other than that, yeah, Aurak does it even less than Callie in this episode by virtue of not being in it, doesn't he?
But apart from being there at the start, being quoted by Blake at the start and say, oh, yeah, he checked it all out and all access, it's all real.
So let's let's go die.
Not that clever, is he?
No.
He didn't find the secret files, which revealed it been moved 40 years ago.
Now, who actually knows within the Federation that this is all a scam.
Servolan and Travis clearly do, although it's possible they didn't know before they got there, but I suspect they did.
But maybe it's one of those things where like they've only written, it's only like written on post-it notes.
No one's typed the truth into a computer anywhere.
So that way, all right, I can't get at it.
Um, so we're trying to get around the indexing of data systems.
So Mark, did you find that a shock?
That there was nothing there?
Yeah, I did.
I thought that was a good reveal.
I thought they could have done with a shot showing the empty room.
Not just their reaction to it.
I felt like that was slightly odd that we didn't get to see what they could see.
But I suppose it follows.
Yeah, that would be really, yeah, that would really be...
A bunch of people smoking and looking at them, yeah.
Talk ticking towards 10 p.m.
But I suppose it was good that you, it just stayed entirely on their faces as, as, Blake realised and then and then you heard Travis's voice as well.
Yeah.
It does take him a long time to realise after he's walked into this room and gone, I've done it.
We've done it.
I've done it.
We've done it.
It's like, you did have your eyes open when you were saying that.
I think we've seen plenty of examples of leaders refusing to accept the evidence of their own eyes in recent times.
Because, because obsession.
I think, I don't know if I'm going over the top because it's Terran Ocean script, but it has, does got that theme of obsessions going all the way through it, like, um, with uh, with Servoland, I'm sort of obsessed with them wanting revenge on, on Kasabi, and Blake being obsessed with the idea that this one fell swoop will, uh, will destroy the, the federation.
It's like they're all, and Travis obsessed with Blake and so forth.
The theme of gambling that you mentioned just before as well, because Travis has a line where it says about the look has changed.
It's my turn now as well, which I think it's felt a little bit sort of superstitious. for his character where he seemed quite kind of, just practical and down the line up until then, but I suppose it makes him more of a mirror of Blake, doesn't it, if it's about sort of gambling and odds and that kind of thing.
And of course, Gan is the one person who is quite keen for them to crook to pull out of this whole thing once the odds are going against them.
And Blake's having none of it.
Yes, well, I suppose now is the time, really, to talk about Gan.
And what happens to Gan?
I can remember watching this episode for the 1st time and being absolutely shocked because I had no idea what was going on in Blake 7 when I 1st saw this episode.
So, because I saw 4 random episodes of series B of Blake 7.
A long many years after I saw series D on the BBC.
So, C Blake 7, A with Blake, was really, really bizarre and beat all this crew.
I had no idea what was coming.
And suddenly, the roof is falling in.
We've had sorry, we've had the most magnificent slap.
Crevice has thrown his strontium grenade, which is too powerful to bring the roof in, and it literally does bring the roof in and down on Gan.
Gan, but not forgotten.
I'm sorry, Mark.
But yeah, they're all trying to get through that door.
And if Gan just got out of everyone's way, they would have all made it through in plenty of time, but he has to say, no, I'll hold the door. like, we're fine.
We're getting through it.
Um, but yeah, he gets his like, and that, that lovely moment as he, um, as he's quietly dying on the floor and Blake lifts him up for a 2 shot so that his face is in, is in, is in shot and we get to see him breathing his last.
It's very moving.
And it was a surprise.
I kind of, I remember when I 1st watched it, similar to you, I think.
I, you know, as a kid, I only remembered series D mainly, maybe bits of the one before.
So I didn't know who Gan was when I came to them on video.
And it was more of a surprise that he was still in it, to be honest.
No, we know you're like David Jackson on gender Pete.
It's not an agenda. pure ignorance on my part and I still have nightmares about the time I said who the hell is David Jackson when he was stood behind me for anyone who didn't.
He'd still know.
Where no Gan has gone before.
Yeah, do we think it's a good...
I think it's moving, despite being somewhat clumsily edited.
I don't think it's moving.
I don't think it's particularly shocking.
I think it's quite surprising.
I think it's done reasonably well.
I think they do a bit to sort of try and beef up Gan's usefulness in the episode, in a sense, by sort of bashing doors down and holding doors open, which we've talked about.
But it just sort of reinforces the fact that he hasn't got too much to do normally, although he does come out with some good stuff occasionally.
Like, you know, he does challenge Blake on this.
He's challenged him a couple of weeks before.
So I think it's, I think it's kind of there, but it's to reinforce the fact that it was all a complete waste of time and a mistake and it was all based on Blake's sort of instinct to do something.
But he doesn't even have dying words about his woman or Blake, Blake doesn't even close his eyelids.
Do you notice that?
It's normal. you know, there's people that sort of could do that.
Yeah, I guess that's that must be deliberate that they don't, you know, there must be a choice.
Let's not do that thing that they always do.
I don't think it is.
I think it's my direction again.
Oh, I think it's I think that's Blake being just being too stunned to do anything like that.
Right.
Just he just wanders off to, you know, goes over to degenerate and says, he's dead.
He's dead.
Yeah, he doesn't dress that up nicely for the rest of the crew, does he?
I'm really sorry guys.
I'm really sorry But that climbing frame he was on earlier. broke again.
So Mark, as a 1st time viewer, was that a surprise for you?
Yeah, a completed prize.
I didn't feel like it was it was telegraphed in any way.
I think the 2nd time I was watching it, I sort of picked up a few bits, but I didn't think that I didn't expect any of them to die really, particularly mid-series.
I think I probably thought things like that would be in a series finale.
Maybe they'd be contracted for the full series or something.
But yeah, I really liked the bits that he had with Veron.
I thought they brought out a side of him that you don't see that often with Gan, where Blake wasn't particularly sensitive with her, you know, given that a much, your mum's just died and I think she, well, they think her mum's dead.
She doesn't know her mum's dead, but she is.
But again, he's very, very, you know, kind of sensitive with her and caring towards her, which was a nice kind of gentle giant side that you see with her.
Blake was not particularly interested in her other than to get information out of her about Kasabi and stuff.
So that was good.
And like you say, and then we got to see his strength as well in breaking the door down.
So it was he had a few good scenes.
Yeah, he didn't make anyone any drinks this week, so it wasn't quite his greatest hits because he obviously takes drinks around on the hole.
But yeah, you get to sort of reminding that he's a good sort and is it only the limiter in his brain that's making him be nice to people and do all of that stuff.
And inside, he is still a deranged killer trying to get out.
Now we'll never know.
Maybe a good ending for him would be when if they were sort of trapped and the mutoids have gone from and they could have pulled the limiter out and he could have gone berserk.
While they left, he could have been, you know, holding them off and, you know, knowing that it was going to blow up anyway.
That is much...
Quick, right, back to 1979.
We'll sort this out.
They'd be that sadistic, knowing that it's all going to come to an end or something.
You'd go, come on, should we just pull his plug?
Well, he could have done it to himself, I suppose.
That would have been a bit more of a noble self-sacrifice, wouldn't it?
But yeah, and it's going back to what you said, Colin, it is unusual, isn't it, to have a, if you're going to kill a main character to do it in a sort of mid-season episode rather than as a finale thing, but I suppose it does get people talking and it's to give it a mid-series boost, I suppose.
Contermination did that in survivors quite a lot.
They're getting bumped off left, right, and centre. as you go through that a couple of years earlier.
So I suppose he's uh, He bringing it back.
And that's actually the right way.
It is more exciting.
I read that Terry Nation, I don't know if this is just a fan rumour.
I don't know if any of you know better that I read somewhere that Terry Nation actually wanted to get rid of Villa.
He thought that Villa didn't have enough interesting stuff to do.
Is that true?
that's absolutely true.
He went to David Maloney and said, well, the character I don't like is Villa.
Let's kill him, and David Maloney said, absolutely not.
The BBC has done audience research and Villa is really popular with the audience.
So we are not killing Villa.
And think, hang on.
Villa, Gan, Villa, Gan.
Who are you going to choose?
Yeah, it seems really bizarre.
Well, I think Villa only starts getting really good again after they left room for him, in a sense, because he'd had fuck all to do these last few episodes.
So the comedy comes back, the lines come back and I think it comes back.
You've got more time, if Blake's 7, for the moment, are Aurak plus N plus the rest, there's more space for him.
There's a nice bit at the end where they zoom in on Gan's space chair and it's empty.
Yeah, I like that.
It's quite understated.
I quite like the depth because it's so pointless, but it shows how much Blake has really not project managed to go back to our previous theme from last series.
Project managed his his adventures, again, because he's been so self-obsessed.
He's not thought of the details and it ends up in the death of one of his crew and he's going to have to sort himself out after this.
There's something quite tragic about Gan's last words or I think those last words when he said, I'm not worth dying for as well.
That's, um, I've written, or are you next to my name?
And just compare and contrast a few moments later, we get where Servolan and Travis realise that they're buried in together.
And I just love that scene where my life was at risk and you hesitated.
And then I'll bury you.
And we've got this far.
Podcast member James will be spitting tax that we've got this far without mentioning her dragonfly dress.
Oh, my God.
That amazing metal. is so rude.
If you look, where the hands are gripping.
And where the tail is pointing.
Oh my god.
June Hudson was having a laugh that day.
I've seen that dress in the flesh.
It's still it's still around.
In whose flesh?
How are you wearing that, friend?
I couldn't fit into that.
What really struck me looking at it was just how thin Jacqueline Pierce was.
Her waist was tidy.
She was a tiny woman, but you wouldn't think it on TV at all.
It's the presence she got presents.
I have a question for Mark here.
As a 1st time viewer of Blake 7.
How do you think Dan's death will affect where we go next?
Do you feel this will have repercussions sort of going forward?
Yeah, I'm interested in the effect.
Obviously, it has on Blake, whether it rains in that reckless side, that sort of gambling with the lives of his crew and himself to strike at the Federation, and also, I suppose, how the crew now respond to him, you know, whether I suppose they'll switch allegiance to Avon a little bit or be less inclined to go along with these with his missions, especially when he just springs, them on them at the last minute and says, oh, we've arrived at this place and we're going to go and do this without really consulting them 1st and talking it through.
So, yeah, I'm interested to see where it goes.
You'd have to have a heart of glass not to be moved by this, which is exactly what Debbie Harry had at number one in the UK hip parade that week.
Well, Gumpy.
Well, hang on.
That was that was a song that was number one when I was born.
Oh my god, this is your Blake's birth episode.
Yeah, it must be, yeah.
Well, depending depending on how long that was at number one.
I mean, it might have been that.
It had a a song that entered the UK chart that week at number 47 and had a long way to get it to number one was unfittingly.
I will survive.
I suddenly scammed.
Overall, how do you feel about pressure point?
So Colin will go with you first.
I like it.
I think it's, I think it's really good, but it's probably squeezing a bit too much out of the Project Avalon dual model of Travis and Serverland sort of scheming or something in a room, Blake and Avon arguing, them going out to the planet.
It's to the point where, you know, God, we've done that so many times now.
But I think it, you know, it has lots of different things.
It has, I enjoy all the explosions in the in the, the grassy field of death.
And it moves pretty fast.
I think the direction could be a little bit better, like the way the dialogue's delivered.
I think Jacqueline Pierce sort of holds it up, kind of gets nothing to do.
Villa gets nothing to do.
Jenna gets very little to do.
It's um, not particularly balanced, but it's good. enjoy it.
What about you, Pete?
Yeah, I think, I mean, I take Tomlin's point about it being it's very much a...
Well, you could spin it as a saying, it's a quintessential episode of the Terry Nation variety that we've had so far.
It's teronation hitting a lot of the things that he's already worked out for this, but I think it does come together generally.
Well, I like all the cast.
We haven't talked about Yolanda Palfrey, Janet from Terror of the Vervoids.
But once again, is there killing everyone?
Yes, just like a terror of the world.
She's a traitor and that's exactly and poison gas was probably involved in that too.
I think, Colin, were you less impressed than me, but from something you said earlier.
Wait, what did Janet do with the poison gas?
Oh, it's just a popular fan theory that actually...
Oh, the voids has an unrival narrator, and actually it was Janet, the hostess who murdered everybody, not the vervoids. doesn't really hold up.
We need to put it under too much scrutiny.
Okay good.
No, yeah, no, she's kind of, I mean, what is it, 7 years difference or something like that?
Yeah, 7 years later.
I think she'd been a child starter.
She had been in lots of things when she was really young.
She's playing much younger than she actually is isn't she?
Yeah, but she's been being children.
Sort of... quite breathlessly.
Sort of talk when she's very upset and more...
She's much better in verboids, I think.
Sadly, very sadly, no longer with us.
Yes, she died very young. a real shame.
Yeah, and she had loads of, you know, she was doing she was doing really, really well.
You know, she would have gone on to do lots more things, I'm sure.
Yeah, she was someone who made the sort of fairly rare career jump from being a child actress to being an adult one.
But yeah, so anyway, in summary, yeah, I really like this episode.
I think it's fun.
Well, thank you, Pete.
How about you, mom?
Yeah, I really enjoyed it as well.
So far, I'm enjoying the 2nd series more than the 1st series.
I think the stories are a bit a bit better, a bit less repetitive.
There just seems a bit more substance to them.
And yeah, the big shock of Gandhi and I think adds weight to it makes it feels like the stakes, that it's not just sort of scrape of the week and they all escape.
And I suppose the other thing I didn't mention before about the effects of this. whether a new character will be introduced to bring the number back up to 7 as it sort of is, if you include the computers.
And whether Blake counts.
I remember, is Blake one of Blake 7 or is it Blake plus?
is it Blake 7 brackets inclusive?
They really don't specify.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
All these people belong to Blake.
Well, there's no apostrophe.
So they don't.
Is Danny Ocean included in Ocean's Eleven?
But no, I really enjoyed it, yeah.
I mean, I agree.
Some of the plotting is a bit clumsy in this one, but it's so easy just to get swept along with it because it moves at a fair enough rate that you don't think about it the 1st 6 or 7 times you watch it.
However many it's been.
The twist of the empty room is really brilliant and scans death being pointless after that.
The last sort of 10 minutes are so superb that it's really brilliant.
Servolan is now top dog in the villain stakes.
This is her show.
Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see where this leads us to.
Yeah, yeah, you can tell that things are definitely going to change among the dynamic of the crew.
This is not a, now we've just got one less cast member and it's going to carry on, I assume and hope, but they're going to have real questions about Blake's leadership now. which isn't a thing that will definitely get you back next week.
Yes, and as we said, what will happen to Blake?
I guess he's going to feel like he's on trial somewhere.
I think that might be where we end up.
Thank you very much for joining us for Pressure Point.
We'll be back next week when, as Pete says, there'll be lots and lots and lots of trials.
So, thank you very much for listening and goodbye.
Goodbye.