Maximum Power.
Welcome to Maximum Power, the Blake 7 podcast that knows the word, the word, the word, is consanguinity, and we'll get more familiar in a family way with that later, but we're here to talk about hostage, the 8th episode of series B of Blake 7, and I'm joined today by the Creme de la Cremos.
Let's introduce ourselves.
I'm Pete.
I'm Colin, and I could murder a relaxant.
I'm Hannah.
And I'm Cy.
Welcome to maximum power, Hannah.
Do you want to dive in 1st and tell us.
What your overview of this particular episode?
I really love it.
Hence why I wanted it to be here.
And mainly for Travis.
I like the development we've got to by this point with Travis.
And whatever your opinion about both Travis's, you know, it's hard having change and this is the episode where I was really certain that I love Brian Crouch as Travis.
Fantastic.
Oh, there's not many people who say that. have a different view.
Go on then, Colin.'s yours?
I think it's one Travis episode too far.
How can you have too far?
I guess it takes us to voices from the past and and eventually what happens to him, but it does feel like, yeah, 0 God, here's another space battle to start with.
Okay, we're down on the planet again.
Oh, look, it's a quarry and oh, we're trapped and Travis has an evil plan that he's trying to convince everyone that isn't an evil plan and actually is an evil plan and he's sort of, you know... literally the show.
He literally, yes.
Thank you for listening to Break 7.
I feel like you've named all the things that I love about it.
No, that's fine.
Look, as our sort of godfather of the podcast, Peter Griffiths always says, is there are no bad episodes of Blake 7.
You know, even, you know, they're all great, even the, even the bad ones, you know, I think, I think I'm quite correct.
There are no bad episodes, even the bad ones.
Something like that.
I have to try, Peter, that's what he said.
Even the bad ones are good.
That's something like that.
And you know, this is very average Blake 7.
It feels like by the numbers, Blake 7.
There's lots of things that we've seen in the show already.
And I don't know whether this is one that Alan Pryor has come to write sort of very quickly or kind of last minute because something else has fallen through, but it feels like it's just taking bits of different episodes and mixing them into a new episode.
Let's seek locate X bar, you know.
Yeah, deliverance and all of those.
Well, people may call the battle sequence at the start padding, but I think it's really fun padding.
I'd like padding like that in my life.
I've got to say, even though it's not particularly plugged into the rest of the episode, those 1st 8 minutes, hey, hit the ground running.
I think you're right.
I think Pete, it's like when we were playing elite back in the day.
You had the basis of it, which is all the great sort of dialogue and people sort of sort of urgently saying what speed they need to go at.
And then you would imagine the rest.
But there are some good bits.
There's like this really good bit where it feels like in a, like in a space, you have this sort of like red blood cells or something around the ship is all red on the outside, and I think that was a really nice sort of effect.
But you do, is it Mr. Fibrilli in that ship?
It's this Aphibia?
Yes, the nameless space commander.
Although, although I think his name should have been Mark because he says that a lot.
He's like, shoot them.
Target that weapon.
Mark.
But and it's, I feel sorry for his, um, his, um, mutoids who no longer have the hats in that scene.
Muters are now allowed to take their hats off.
This is a brake make.
Maybe that's they can change it.
They can have blonde hats if they wish. or something.
They can see like different types of mutoids as well because they see they look they look older than the previous ones you've all been sort of dark and very like very kind of sort of youthful looking whereas.
These look a bit experienced.
Yeah, they're from an agency maybe, well, they're having a shortage of the usual...
Well, there's the episode title.
Yeah, I know.
But it is the French...
Well, it is the Flintstones of Space Chases.
You know, you got all these ships going past the same Starfield and all these things.
Blake gets the weirdest line at one point where he's like, put the, the peak of it all, and Jenna's Jenna practically gets it. the engines, can he take it kind of line, to which Blake, Blake replies, quench it, Jenna, full thrust.
And that is just straight out of the Sweeney or something. don't even know what it means.
Does he mean, does it mean put your foot down?
Does it mean shut up?
What is time?
What's quench it?
But it's exciting.
That's the point.
It's like someone's written insert exciting space dialogue in the script.
Yeah, but it's just when they say there's 20 ships.
You think they haven't got enough models to do this.
We can't see this. between them all several times. all adds up.
Yeah, but we do get during this space battle, a countdown courtesy of seafax.
We do, you know, just as something is about to happen.
But, you know, they do blow the hell out of the ship.
They do.
And if I was watching that for the 1st time as a kid, and I don't think I saw this one when I was a kid.
But if I had, I might have thought, wow, they actually blowing up the liberator, as if that could ever happen.
But that was kind of what I thought, they really went there with it, I think.
I feel like they achieved quite a lot with smoke and lighting and loud noises, and although kind of we've had sort of lots of space battles before, I think this one feels like them getting really quite vulnerable, like they are getting quite closer and closer, and rather than just of all we've taken a bit of a knock and sort of camera shaped a bit. actually impacting like the flight deck.
It really makes me feel a bit more vulnerable.
Yeah, I think the actors now know how to do urgent acting for when they're in space battles.
They know exactly how to pitch this now, and it's like a well-honed machine that they're all running around.
They're all delivering their lines in the most urgent way, possible.
They're giving it everything to make it really exciting, which I think carries it when the model work isn't quite up to showing you what's going on outside the ship.
And then when they've blown up the bridge, they magically bring in the children's kind of place at table and chairs to have a little meeting on, which either were there before and just quite easily sort of nailed down, or they just sort of bring them in, and they have this little meeting, where Villa turns out to be even more of a massive idiot.
It's like, you know, it's like, oh, it's everything's changed.
It's fine.
We're going to be fine.
I don't know how many sets of tables and chairs they've got on the liberator because every week they seem to have a different one that they just bring into the flight deck and then take away again.
It's really odd.
Is it like only fools and horses and they're flogging them every time they need to get rid of something.
That used to be Gan's job.
They've got too many of them now.
Yeah, we never saw the scene where Avon comes in and says, Jenna, there's a room full of tables up here that you must see.
And enough costumes to last is at least 3 years.
But not enough trousers for the girls.
No.
No, it's Space Laura Ashley on the Liberator.
I noticed in over in the meanwhile, back in the mutoid ship, as they're pursuing, one of the mutoids presses a button on a control panel, a little bit too vigourously, and like the whole little semi-panel that it's on almost falls in, it wobbles and goes in.
Oh, no.
But we cut away very quickly from that.
Yeah, I mean, I think Via Lorimer is doing a good job at getting an exciting start to the episode, but it does feel kind of tagged on to what is actually going on. doesn't it?
Yes, and after the battle, we get to the real doings down on X bar, don't we?
Well, we have summoned there first, don't we, by a mysterious message?
I do love one of them.
Like, it's Travis.
How are you?
X-ball.
I'm just calling you up to say, I've got your cousin.
No, no, it's not your cousin.
It's your father's brother.
And she don't... his father's brother every time.
Why can't they just say uncle?
Because everyone has to work out.
It's like, what is that incest?
Is that?
Yes, it is.
Well, not technically.
Well, it's not, cousins is, I mean, I've got a little Charles Dickens.
Well, just your own, Pete.
Off you go.
Charles Diggins and Albert Einstein, both married 1st cousins.
The queen married a 3rd cousin, but I don't know whether that's healthy or not.
That's another matter.
I just want, I just want to give a particular moment for Inga's reveal up on the scanner.
She does an amazing ABBA video head turn, and the camera comes around, your cousin, and I'm doing it now, listeners.
But I don't have the flowing locks too.
Oh, but Travis clearly has 2 cameras and editing software to cook between.
He's not just swung the camera around or dragged her into shut.
He's made an effort at making this video really impactful.
Do you think they had a couple of takes?
Come on, come on, love.
We've gotta really sell this.
I'm going to trap him.
Halfway through the broadcast.
He's like, Blake, sorry, can you just go on mute, please?
He's been on space TikTok for the Federation has it?
And it's absolutely not a trick this time, Blake.
Okay.
Now, there's this thing in Blake 7 fandom, which I'm still a noob to, about Villa becoming an idiot.
And it's funny because that's the villa that I like.
That the film that I remember as a kid.
And so seeing his path from being more acerbic in series A, towards becoming the guy who's always got the comedy cripple, sometimes the sometimes or more the butt of the joke as well.
Is an interesting path because he's really good, isn't he?
Particularly, I mean, jumping around a bit, but when he gets tortured later, these proper sweating, he's really selling it in that scene, I think.
Yes, absolutely.
I do love the bit where he's about to teleport down to the planet and Jenna is fussing over him.
Oh, yeah.
It's his birthday at school.
Have you got your bag, have you got, turn it up. you stay warm.
You got your dinner money.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's saying in like little labels into his into his coat and his shoes.
And you just, I just know Sallina that sat there at that console writing a letter to her agent in very stern words.
I'm supposed to be a signal. cool to do this episode.
It's terrible.
It's like, why does Villa need to go down?
Send Jenna with a couple of guns?
Yeah, or Jenna had some kind of telepath who might come in handy on these missions.
Well, she seems to know what's going on and just sort of going, oh, but they are, what's going on?
I can't fuck it.
I think this is the episode kind of point where you just realise they're never going to get involved again.
Oh, they?
It's, they've just sort of, it seems, oh, you have really given up on giving them anything to do, which it's, it's gutting.
It's such a shame.
Yeah, they're such good characters and they're both, they're both such good at, so good at it.
And they've proved themselves over and over again in prior episodes.
And then the scripts just stop...
Yeah, and the scripts just stop bothering.
Yeah, Callie hasn't left the ship since Horizon at this point.
This is dreadful.
It's practising this through and adding it up and you start working it out and you realise you've gone half the season at some point before they've laid the left things again.
Yeah, Jenna lost went down in pressure point and it's just awful.
It's terrible.
College.
Every time, you can't stop your sniggering.
Teleported down.
There's no innuendo in that phrase at all.
But it's a terrible waste of those brilliant actresses and a terrible waste of those great characters that they're just sat there tapping their fingers.
Which is you just dragged Jenna down to just look a bit grumpy about Blake snogging his cousin.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, that's written as her like, oh, she's jealous of it, but it comes across more like, ugh.
As it should.
Yeah, just reconsidering those allegations, though, originally made against Blake.
Well, it's like even Blake sort of, I don't know what mansplaining for flying the liberator is, but he does it.
It's like, um, like Jenna, just back at her console, he's just like bats her when goes, it's okay, Jenna, I've got it.
You the pilot, but obviously I've got it.
It's just, it's really, it's it's getting annoying now.
We've gone from Jenna teaching some of the others how to fly the ship to just Blake instructing her over everything now rather than just, I feel she should just be going, piss off.
I just step back.
I'm in charge here.
You do what you need to do.
I know what I'm doing here, back off.
Yeah, it's like they've just refined everything down to Avon is duplicitous and untrustworthy of Blake, whereas Kelly is completely trusting and does whatever he says.
And it's like, they could, they could be more gray, particularly on her side. then you get gray on Avon side, like in this one, and the whole thing that we're going to come to, about him having basically betrayed them all, quite colossally at the start of the thing, by notifying Servolan.
But Avon then gets, you know, the whole redemption sort of thing about being able to go in and save Blake's neck, whereas it just doesn't occur to them to give Callia Jenna anything that interesting to wrestle with.
It's very frustrating.
We do get a little bit of nice stuff between the 2 of them when they're on the ship together and Cali is being trigger happy again and is blasting things with the main blasters, which is quite good.
And they do the old teleport the crimeux into space bit again.
So we get to see Voggos exploding.
Again, in a bit of stock footage, which is I get to write letters to the BBC.
That's not how asphyxiation happens when you, well, unless you teleported it inside a bomb.
But how do we know?
Could it be the energy release from the teleport that turns into an explosion when you're in space?
You see, just go use your imagination, Colin.
It's got to fill in fill in the gaps.
It's 70 it's 70 science fiction.
So what do we think about Avon sort of changing his mind of, yeah, Blake, you go and do that.
Put yourself in danger.
We weren't here for yourself for a while.
And then it's like, oh God, do I have to save everyone again?
Jesus.
And then beams down.
Uh, to very specific coordinates on a planet, which are 0 to 46.
Really.
Did they come up with that?
No, exactly what I love...
I love that when Blake beams down.
I mean, Travis just basically gives him a postcode.
He beams down onto the planet.
First person he sees is his uncle, Ashton's your uncle.
And I mean, I don't have to be the only person actually on the planet other than Inga and the space cremones.
And the Space Crew Rose. at the end where Inger says, there's enough food here for all of our people.
It's like both of you.
Multi-pack of mini-calog cereals would keep you all going for a fair while.
But, um, this, because this episode did have a really tragic production. crisis, didn't it?
Because the original actor Duncan Lamont sadly died after they'd finished all the location footage, anyway, which he features obviously really prominently. and then they had to go back and do it again with a different actor as much as they could.
But there are some bits, I guess, where there are some takes that have still made it through from the original shoot, because you can see, uh, if he's not in them, but that must have been an incredible pressure on the cast and going, going back to work again to reshoot scenes with someone who you got to know and work with, who then tragically dies.
And, but that's, talk about the show must go on.
It's a weird really weird situation for anyone to be in and filming like that, isn't it?
You sort of get an idea of what he would have been like because he was in depth to the Daleks as thingy who betrays them all.
He was a fantastic actor and he would have been very good. at this.
But fair play to John Abeneri, who comes in at the last minute and gives a really good performance, I think.
He's very, very good in what's of quite a confused part with limps and no limps and is he a traitor or not a traitor?
And yeah, he's he's really good.
It's an epic tash.
And another guest character that we see, who we only see very fleetingly, is Kevin Stoney in his amazing scene with Servolan.
Kevin's familiar to Doctor Who fans, of course, has Mavik, Chen, and Masterplan, and Tobias Vaughn in the invasion, where he spends all of his time shouting, packer. which he doesn't get to do with Jacqueline Pierce, who, in her 3 scenes, I think, again, just makes fantastic impact in this episode, doesn't she?
I love the way that she's just casually in her office at the start, swinging a glass of absinthe thought something before her.
And she does not like when he pulls that I got you where you are move on her.
She, her performance changes so uh, so, so, sort of effectively into, into a different mode.
And when you know, when she says, I value our friendship, you know, basically she, he's a dead man now, isn't he?
And it's weird that we don't get more of that.
I think he's a great character.
I really wish we'd seen him, like, pop off again, like, as a recurring one, like, someone like clipping out of the walls a bit.
Absolutely, because he's back in an episode of series D, and it could easily have been the same character, and it would have been really interesting if it would have really worked as well, yeah.
Because then there would have been the Sleer Serverland thing as well and whether he's noticed and yeah, all of that.
But I think he's he's absolutely superb.
He's in full on smooth mode and he drags out the words supreme... in a very, very elongated way, which is absolutely wonderful.
Yeah.
You can tell Silverland's pining for Travis, can't you, at the start of that scene with a new commander, no name, just let it down.
She can't even be bothered.
She just says mutoids.
They just kind of drag him off camera while he's still trying to file his project review document with her.
I would often like to do that on Zoom calls at work.
Mutual Aids.
They just drag the person away.
That's another really good scene with Servaline where she, I think she's saying something about the message arriving.
And the mutoid is in focus all the time, and she's out of focus all the time, because normally, you know, you deliver one line and then you refocus on the character in the background, but it doesn't happen.
The mutoid remains in focus all the time, and server land is still delivering her lines, and you can tell she's doing it in this just like commanding that sort of calm and way.
I think that's really, that was a nice bit of direction.
What's the message addressed to you?
That's how I should reply on everything to Twitter.
See everyone here.
Everyone it comes into my stream.
I should just reply with that.
Yeah.
And it's somewhat hypocritical of Servlan, but then she is utterly evil.
So I guess she's allowed to be, but where she's disdainful of the of the mutoids.
You never criticise anything.
Then the next time somebody criticises her, she'll have them killed.
Can I ask a question?
Yes.
Why are the crimo so shit?
I mean, they're pointless.
It's just like, well, because they, it comes up with like, and Blake sort of clarifies it as crimos. criminal psychopaths.
And I'm like, what is that, an anagram?
No.
What?
Well, it's not even, it's nothing.
You're not even cutting 2 words together.
But it's like, okay, criminal psychopaths.
And then you've got that one guy, Merlock or?
Moloch?
I think you, Moloch.
He does a reasonable job and he's kind of like, because he's kind of psychotically smiling. all the time.
Hannah, what do you think?
I really like the idea of them.
Um, and the idea of having to be very incredibly intelligent, but also very sadistic. scary.
I think we just don't see enough of that.
Like we've already, you know, since like season, Yeah, outside that, Travis is quite sadistic.
And so it's, well, if Travis is hard then why aren't we seeing this?
They sort of shoving her around a bit, but they don't really, I feel that if they are like fulfilling that sort of psychopathic, you'd expect them to be uncontrollable to an extent.
And I'm not quite sure what the deal with is them.
I was trying to sort of ponder it out the 1st time I watched it, whether they are like escaped criminals or whether they are like a sort of little mercenary gang that you can hire.
In which case, if people are hiring them, they must be willing to be controlled to some extent and yet sort of I feel like, yeah, the very nature of the means, they shouldn't.
I feel like it would, it should really have been a very blix of anything, that Inga should have died, basically, because there should have been some moment where, that's it.
We see like what the crimos can really do and they accidentally kill her.
There's not enough follow through on them.
I wish we'd seen them again in episode.
It just felt like there's a lot of potential there and we don't see enough of it.
I think you're right.
And I think the other thing is they've kind of, as you were saying earlier, they've demoted mutoids from being kind of creepy vampire kind of ultra killers into sort of, you know, they've just had their purple rinse and they're just flying a ship.
Yeah.
I feel like the mutoids are very, like, regimented, like all they seem to do is follow instructions, whereas it seems like the crimos should be like a bit more independent from that.
Like the mutuids don't seem very intelligent.
Yeah.
And they wear those masks, don't they?
All of them apart from the one who's got a name, wear those masks, which I think is that maybe a legacy of there's a bit in the script about there being not much oxygen on this planet.
And I wondered if that was a bigger deal in an earlier version of the script that then got taken out.
I don't know.
Because that felt like an unexplored bit that was clearly put in for something.
I mean, it is a bit like Bane, isn't it?
From Batman.
It's like he's hasn't he got like oxygen, extra oxygen coming into that mask.
So they felt a little bit like that.
But as you say, the rest of the, like, everyone from the liberator that sort of teleports down, uh, or any of the other, you know, normal regulars are just like now, we're fine, but the criminos can wear them because it kind of looks scary.
And presumably they're fine when they're in the communications facility as well, because arguably they're, when they're sort of running around going uphill a bit and looking a bit out of breath.
But once everyone's indoors, you've got to start turning oxygen off before people start dropping down a bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just such such a shame. fascinating idea that's just underdeveloped.
And again, this is what makes me think maybe this episode was written in a hurry because nothing is quite there yet.
It feels like it's 2 drafts away from being decent.
Yeah.
I love that Travis gets the line.
You underestimate my cremos, which is an amazing line in any context.
And then 2 minutes later, that one of them trips over a bit of polystyrene and plummets to his death, and the other one just slips on a stick or something when they get crushed by polystyrene rocks.
I love the polystyrian rock.
I think my favourite is the guy, the crimo who goes over the cliff.
I think it actually looks quite good.
It's they've clearly weighted the dummy somehow.
It doesn't just look like sort of a bag of clothes.
It falls really well.
Yeah, I think you're right.
A a few comedy sound effects on that would be a Marvel, would think that, though, do boinks and doinks as he bounces down the hill.
Well, I think you're all being very restrained because I just can't help myself from just shouting, crib eyes every time we mention them.
Travis is stood in the quarry, just shouting crimos, and it's just echoing around the whole dance.
They haven't got radios, obviously.
No kind of communicators.
No.
I really like this quarry.
I've discovered I'm quite fond of a quarry, but I like that the script specifies it to be very cold and it is clearly freezing.
You can see Lake and Ashton's brass in front of their face at some point.
It looks gray, blue almost at times, um, and icky white as well does make a difference from just the sort of the usual beige brown sand as well.
Yeah, and there's some nice filming that they've done at dusk.
So the light is really good and really interesting.
And then you get the night filming just for one scene at the end, which just looks amazing.
I think it makes it really atmospheric, that scene with Travis and Serverland being at night.
And it means we get the point of view shot of Travis looking up at the liberator in the sky, which realised, do we?
I don't think we ever get another shot like that of like a point of view of like the liberator from a planet and suddenly why not?
Orbiting at a height of about 20 feet.
I don't know whether it was timing wise or what, but I just find the the dusk and the night filming a really curious choice because it's just not common at all in like programs of that period and even a few years later.
They seem quite hesitant about doing anything even just at dusk.
Yeah, we were talking about this in series A with the amount of night filming that the show got, which is quite a prestigious thing for the BBC.
They don't do this very often because it's more expensive than filming during the day.
So again, just to get that just for one scene is quite something, really.
Yeah, I wonder if it came out of necessity because of it having to be reshot.
Well, they'd already moved on to other episodes and they had to go back and do it again.
I did wonder this because the lighting seems to vary throughout sort of events that are clearly happening across one day.
Yes.
When they come out of the communications place afterwards, I always felt like there's some sort of filter, it suddenly looks very white or blue and then suddenly we are into dusk and darkness.
Yeah, and there's, oh, there's that lovely scene, one of the 1st things, and again, it does clash a little bit, but I don't, but it's so nice.
Blake 1st beams down, and it's like the reeds with the mist, when he 1st finds his uncle, and it's like, this is on the borderline of the, um, of the quarry.
There's quite a nice shot of Travis on the top of the hill.
And so you've got the chalk white of the quarry, the white outline in his black outfit that works well.
I'm glad we all like this, Corey, because we're going to be seeing a lot more of it over the next couple of seasons, according to the locations, guide.
I have a feeling this was David Maloney's favourite quarry because he used it extensively in Doctor Who.
So it's in the Deadly Assassin and for example.
Ah, it's the same one.
Is it Scaro from Genesis of the Daleks as well?
It is, yes. amazing.
So yeah, I think this is just his goat.
Maybe he lived nearby and thought, oh, well, this will be a useful one to film at.
There's probably a pub nearby.
You got to keep Gareth Thomas happy.
You can get there at lunchtime and back then it's good.
So we get a fairly, um, I think a fairly intense interrogation, tortury whole scene for um, tea time, time slot.
Although a lot of it's very silly.
That scene, the scene with, with Villa being tortured.
Just, I don't know.
I really felt that in a way that...
Is it being tortured?
or is he just being threatened, shouted out a little bit?
Well, he's...
He's sweating...
He looks upset.
What is the word to activate this teleport bracelet is the...
Bracelet.
It's very, it's very odd because Travis, who has studied extensively, everyone on the Liberator crew, particularly Blake.
Suddenly has now forgotten everything that he's ever learnt about the Liberator crew, and he's just there asking, asking Ashton, well, who do you think's the weakest out of this slot?
I mean, bloody hell, Travis.
You're not paying attention?
Exactly.
Why did they blindfold Blake before bringing him in?
Why?
He was stood outside the building looking at it.
They put a blindfold on him and take it in just so they could go ta-da when they came in for impact. because they want to disorientate him when he comes into that very brightly lit set.
That'll be it.
Yes.
I wonder if there's an alternative where, instead of what happens to Travis in the last few episodes, instead, they do team up and they do sort of team up to fight the Federation, and then you're never quite sure whether or not Travis is on their side or not or something like that.
That would perhaps have been a different way of doing it.
Yeah, it feels very much like it would have been a really good idea to have Travis and Blake in an uneasy alliance.
So who's your bigger enemy?
Is Servoland a bigger enemy than Travis?
So you do a deal with Travis to wipe out Servoland and sort of they could have done really interestingly about sort of the switching sides and can you really trust him like you said, Cole, and that could have taken the series in such an interesting way.
But instead, what we've got is, Um, Serviland's just got rid of Travis the week before last and now, She's just re-engaging him, but just on the sly.
So it doesn't feel like we've actually got very far at all.
Well, that does happen in local government a lot, doesn't it?
People get these golden payoffs and then get brought back as consultants and it's basically exactly the same thing, I think.
Well, I 1st viewed it, I was really quite sad to see that Servlan and Travis rejoin.
Yeah, I liked the idea of deliberate a crew having 2 enemies.
And it kind of feels like it's not really spelt out, but it kind of feels like the only reason Serverland brought back Travis is that to be held accountable for his actions if he's not actually part of the Federation.
Yeah, and that has got, that's got legs of its own, but um, I wonder at the time how much pressure they were under or what they, what decisions they were making in scripting about to what extent should we just do escapade of the week like they do on Star Trek?
Because that's what the show that this was always going to be being compared against, really, wasn't it?
Or are we making a 12 episode long story?
Like most other dramas?
And I guess all the pressure on them was to just do a heist of the week.
But Blake 7 flux.
I said it sucks.
Yeah, I mean, I think they're trying this year to do a longer piece of storytelling, but I believe there was difficulties getting the scripts in that fitted what they needed to do and that made it sort of more difficult when you've got a long running story arc and you've got to get certain beats in and then suddenly Terry Nation can't do the last 2 scripts.
So someone else has got to do this.
So we're looking for Star one, but we don't know.
Actually, we don't know that they're looking for Star one because that doesn't happen till next week.
Spoilers.
Sorry.
Sorry, anyone is listening.
It doesn't sound like we quite kick off the story arc until, like, pressure point or so anyway.
No.
Before that, we're just sort of carrying on with, let's say, escapade of the week.
Maybe could have sort of slotted in stuff like horizon a bit further down.
I think it does work where it is as well.
But just to kind of space it out and a bit and sort of give a bit more time for this arc.
I think that's right.
They should have introduced Inga earlier in a different episode, such that it has meaning, because they all come across as really stupid, right?
Like, you'd have found a different way or you've left it or you've gone.
No, we have bigger priorities.
This is a trap.
And then they all fall for it and they all get captured.
And then, of course, obviously magically, you know, everyone has to get away in the end.
But it just, it does feel like trying to make something grandiose that isn't like, you know, some big plot, but it really isn't.
Well, it's interesting that, like, Blake says he doesn't, he knows it's a trap.
They think it's a trap.
So, Trying to think he'd go on down there a bit more on his guard, but it feels a shame that they all get caught very easily in quite ridiculous traps when we've seen them get past quite an awful lot and just thinking back to pressure point of what they managed to get past a few weeks back and yet it's all just really primitive stuff like nets and bear traps.
If they've been monkey bars, they would have had no trouble.
They're good with them.
I still want to see Surverland going over the monkey bars and she went down because she went down there too.
The fret against a member of Blake's family should be a really big plot beat.
That should be really huge because we haven't seen any of Blake's family, and as far as we know, at this point, all of Blake's family have been slaughtered.
So this should be a really...
Yeah, maybe a more emotional thing, but obviously, Blake 7 isn't always engaged with the emotions of the characters.
It's so terrible for women this week.
It's like, it's, the whole plot is around, you know, female endanger plot, um, and Callie and Jenna get nothing to do, even though they're the ones at the end that actually go, yeah, okay, this is a trap, right?
We're gonna take some action.
And then at the end where they just have this kind of 80s sitcom.
They're flirting, aren't they, thing?
It's a bit terrible.
In that respect.
I don't.
It's odd that we have an episode called hostage, but we don't really care about the actual hostage.
Yeah, she's not given very much agency in the plot at all, although she and she does have the worst signposted elbow punch ever.
Like, she's moving her elbow, ready to do it.
She's going in.
Oh, there she goes.
But I think she gives a nice performance, but she's just not given much to work with.
Maybe Travis is the real hostage.
No, I don't know.
I think they're even wanting us to think that.
Well, you know what?
You could actually have just completely, completely reversed like Ashton and Inga's roles.
It could have been, you've got to come and rescue your elderly uncle.
Quick, write to Chris Boucher in 1978.
So is this familial consanguity?
I Googled it.
Romance between Blake and his cousin, um, in the, it's in the text, isn't it?
It's not just Gareth Thomas throwing in that and her throwing in that kiss at the end to shake things up a bit.
It is implied, isn't it, that they were childhood sweethearts?
Yeah, we were very close once he says something like that, doesn't he?
And they're about the same age.
I think he's about 3 years older than her, something like that.
So, yeah, but yeah, it feels like a, could this have originally been written as a pitch for a completely different series or just a movie that then got turned into a Blake 7 episode?
Sometimes, I think, because it's got this sort of strange other world already built around this guy who's been separated from his cousin and goes back to rescue her.
I wonder if there's something in where, should she have been his cousin or should she have been like the ward of his uncle, something like that?
Would it work, perhaps?
Yeah, being a ward is a thing that's got a lot of scriptwriters out of trouble, isn't it, over the years with various.
It's all right.
She's she's or he is my ward.
Yeah, that's a good point.
This week is also the debut of Elizabeth Parker, who is taking over on special sound, and I think she is feeling her way, very much on this episode, because she gets lots of the sound effects wrong, and it really folks me that the liberator guns make the wrong noise, and she forgets to put the force wall sound on when they activate the force wall.
Well, we need to get her to a Blake 7 convention for you to give...
In episode 4 of series B. She does, she adds really over the top sound effects to Travis's handgun.
It's like...
It's like when he's turning it on.
It's very cartoony.
So this is basically her 1st time being in charge of sound effects, having worked and sound effects wrong.
Well, you're gonna you're gonna press all the buttons, aren't you, when you're allowed when it's your 1st time?
Does she do all the rest?
Yeah, she does the rest of the series now. and she gets better and better as she goes on.
Oh, yeah.
So when you get to orbit, when you've got all these sort of incredible sort of weird, strange computer sounds in that room that the 2 blokes are in, I can't remember, haven't watched it yet, again, you know, there's some really great atmospheric stuff going on.
Yeah, and she she comes goes on to write them basically the score for Gambit because Dudley Simpson isn't available.
There's no time to do that.
So she puts electronic music over that.
And yeah, she develops really nicely.
She did David Attenborough's The Living Planet, I think.
She did.
That's beautiful. very good.
Yeah.
It's like, yes, we've just found the pan pipe sound on the synthesiser.
We're gonna use it a lot.
And time lash.
And time that.
Oh okay.
That funky?
I love that funky robot music from time.
I'm robot dancing as we speak.
So, I think it's fair to say, we've got a little mix of reactions to this episode among the panel today.
It's got its pros and cons.
Would that be a fair summary?
It's got his pros and cremos.
Uh, it's pretty, it, look, it's fine.
It's just, it's just, it just lets itself down with, um, with the, the characters just doing kind of stupid things.
They should be smarter at falling into traps, you know, and I think that lets it down, but it's like seven.
It's great.
I think I like how vulnerable the true are throughout it from the space battle to villa getting interrogated.
They're all being captured.
It's the 1st time Travis has managed to capture them and he doesn't want to kill them.
He just because he wants the liberator to seeing Avon covered in blood at the end.
Um, I really like it probably, sorry, in rocks and all.
I don't know.
It's just all very average, isn't it?
Alan Pryor gets a bit of a kicking generally for his episodes, but I think I said when we did Horizon that actually I think that one is a really, really strong episode.
But I think for the rest of this series, particularly of series B, he's drafted in at the last minute when everything else has fallen through, and I think sometimes that shows.
So there's some great concepts and some really great bits, the opening 10 minutes with the space battle is really exciting, but it's just not quite there.
It's just not quite developed enough to make it something better.
So you're saying, it's all right.
It's not a complete tragedy, which is what the Bee Gees would be singing about at number one this week in February 1979 if it goes out.
I think that's number one for a few weeks.
I'm going to have to do variations on that line.
Did you say tragedy or Travis tree?
is it a travis tree?
that all... don't know.
That joke was a travesty.
I'll quench it.
Thank you, listeners, for being hostage with us through this episode.
Thank you, Simon Colin.
And Hannah, for being here with us.
Next week, a maximum power squad will assemble to take you through a countdown.
Until then, we'll say goodbye.
Goodbye.
Bye.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.