Another Centrist Insurrection

[00:03]

Maximal power.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only podcast that sends the excessive amount of 2 people to Ealing Studios to disarm a bomb that will kill millions.

One person to hold the flatback and another to get their hand in there.

Space Major Colin.

I'm space dentist Lambert.

I'm Space Major Pete of the Federation Space Assault Force.

And I'm space Latin teacher, Nathan.

So we're all gathered here today to talk about Countdown by Terry Nation.

So my 1st question is, what do we think about the battle scene at the start over to you, Peter?

Well, I think it's great that, you know, Hollywood nowadays is prepared to show its roots, and in all those awards that the Hurt Locker won, as they were going up to collect them at time and time again, they congratulated Blake 7, for inspiring basically the whole thing, because this is the episode that sets it all off.

It's a good battle.

It's a good, there's a lot of people and there's shooting and there's guns and there's smoke, but all in the corridor, so we know that we're still in the same cinematic universe.

[01:11]

Yeah, it definitely starts off with a lot of bang.

I think it's pretty good that they're on film at Elstree because then you just know it's going to be cut together a little bit better.

And this is Auntie Via Lorimar, who's doing this episode.

And so he knows what he's doing.

Like, sometimes he lets the side down, but usually he's pretty reliable.

And what I noticed as well about that battle is that whenever it cuts away, the sound design is really good, it really makes you believe that there's kind of a wider insurrection happening.

We are in the Elizabeth Parker era now.

So there's new sound effects, new sort of sound design and stuff like that.

I'm not, I think she's there for the rest of the run, but, um, yeah, they've changed sound designers for this or special sound.

Interesting.

That's right.

And then like Paul Darrow, she does timelash for Doctor Who.

He came with the pair.

I did notice that there were one or 2 sort of slightly enthusiastic but amateurish moments of kind of, you know, BBC actors trying to sort of fight one another.

[02:17]

And there's one delightful moment, I think, where there's a federation guard and a, you know, insurrectionist and they're sort of firing at one another and then they just sort of fall over randomly for no readily apparent reason.

There's a great bit of choreography a bit later on in the episode where I think it's Major Provine pulls a gun on some insurrectionists and they overpower him and just sort of punch him enthusiastically, which I thought was pretty delightful.

But it is actually pretty incredible for a Terry Nation script to start in the middle to just throw us right in medias rays like that.

And I wonder whether it's is it Boucher?

Has Boucher Sagittari, actually, we can lose all this shit at the beginning of the episode, love, and just start in the middle of the fight.

Could be, couldn't it?

Yeah.

I think it does feel very well edited, but the voice of this episode is very terry nation to me.

[03:18]

It's right in his wheelhouse.

And so I think Chris is probably chopping out the boring bits and cutting to the action, but that's what Terry needs.

He needs a good script editor.

And, you know, I'm right here for this.

This is very terry nation and I love it.

It's the kind of straightforward action thriller that he does very well and plot wise.

Feels like a bit of a throwback to series A. I can see it fitting right into that run, but it has that more enjoyable series B aesthetic.

So I think you're right, Nathan.

I think it's just a well oiled machine now, and Terry's got more time to write this script, and Chris has more time to kind of edit them and bring them up to spec.

And as soon as we get out of the battle scene, We immediately get a control centre, a chain of command, all of it starts to fall into full-on terrination mode.

So what do we think about the Albion invasion force?

Are they the poshest invasion force of all time?

[04:19]

There's a moment where Provine pretends to be one of them and he does the sort of right, mate.

You know, like a sort of, you know, like, just like, they're going to spot you immediately, darling.

No one's going to be fooled by that.

It's another centrist insurrection, isn't it, Tony?

We got right back at the start.

Everybody's just on their way back from Waitrose and they've really had enough of it. nonsense about their planet being occupied for whatever reason it has been occupied.

It's just evil, I think.

There isn't a reason why this planet's particularly been, a particular federation importance, is there it's just, they're just under that goddamn jackboot.

Yeah, space reasons.

But it is a very important planet.

Well and truly sort of apart from the people who are there who are completely dispensable.

You can tell that it's a very posh planet though.

Did anyone else notice that in the main control room, there's a space chandelier hanging from the ceiling?

Speaking of space things, we do get, is this the most use of space something in any episode, and can you, can you name all of them?

[05:27]

Oh, well, you know what we need right now?

We need a little countdown clock going to see how many space is.

We should get to solve this conundrum of how much, buddy.

Yeah, because there's a space heaters are the best ones.

Because at 1st they're just, the 1st they're just heaters.

Even because there's some heaters and then later he goes, there should be those space heaters.

There's a cafe in Sydney missing those from its alfresco dining.

We did have space hours and obviously space major Provine of the Federation space assault force.

That's double creating.

Okay, that's it.

That's like Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in terms of one-upmanship of your spaces.

She insisted of having the word queen in her title twice so that she can outrank her own daughter.

I think the same thing applies in space.

What is a space hour?

Is it a distance or time?

No, the amount of time you spend in space.

So it's one hour, but it's spent in space.

I see the best kind of hours.

[06:28]

It's the inverse of your earth hour.

Yeah, they could simply have said ours, I think, probably. and we would have got it.

It would have seemed less spacy.

So there's that.

Perfunctory.

It's one of the things that Farscape takes from Blake 7, which is they rename loads of words like arms, isn't it arms for hours or all units of time are renamed in a similar way?

Well, like garlic rells.

Oh, oh, yarons.

Remember Yarons in original Battlestar Galactica?

Yes.

That was years.

So that setup on the planet is really great.

Did you notice it takes almost 7 minutes for the liberator and the crew to put in an appearance?

I think that's a record.

Wow.

That really flew.

I think it's really properly good, even though we don't really care about these people.

[07:29]

And one of them has really alarming sort of eyebrows.

It's absorbing like we, sorry, Kyle.

I Greening from our host there.

Somewhat sensitive.

There is a tiny resemblance.

It's right in my notes.

I think it's reassuring, though, that despite being script edited by Chris Boucher, Terry Nation still retains the...

Well, there's Ben Steed, but the casual sexism award, at least so far, this season.

So poor old Rally, who gets sent off to, like, is she sent off to make the tea?

Certainly that character who's called Corder, now that I think about it.

Cord sends her off to kind of do a whole bunch of things, but it just sounds like it's kind of, you know, get the tea in love. do a bit of peril.

She kind of sorts things at a desk, yeah.

[08:29]

I think her last name is Tarrant.

Rally Tarrant.

Well, we lack a Tarrant and there really should be one.

Well, there's that bit before that happens where they're, I think, talking about Provine and where he might be and all this kind of stuff and he's behind the door, kind of listening, going, oh, okay, that's a good idea.

Maybe I'll disguise myself as a Federation officer, because they don't know who quite I am yet.

And so he kind of gets the idea what to do next by hiding behind a cardboard door.

But my other question about Space Major Provine is, is he a Romulan?

It's the haircut, isn't it?

I'm sure there was someone called Provine in Next Generation, who also had a similar kind of Vulcan or Romula haircut.

Yeah, I just thought you meant the haircut.

I didn't realise the name actually turns out.

Well, it's like a lot of Blake 7, isn't it?

The episode rises and falls on the quality of the guest stars and he's a good one.

[09:29]

I like him.

He's amazingly good.

Yeah, cold and calculating. very believable So he's obviously persuasion. in Fall to Doomsday.

He was also in a thing called Paradise Postponed, which I remember watching as a teenager, which was like a John Mortimer thing about kind of the rise of Thatcherism, and it had like David Thrill Falls, this sort of young man who was a working class, but was kind of lured into the conservative party.

And Shelley played Fred Simcox or something who was a sort of country doctor.

And I remember even then, you know, like he was the lead character.

He's good enough to kind of helm a reasonably kind of decent TV show.

And I think he's amazingly great.

He's great.

Nathan, you actually gave me the book of Paradise postponed for my 21st birthday.

I don't know if you remember that.

It also helps that Paul Shelley.

[10:32]

I think he scores on the Blake 7 scale of hotness, which, as we've discussed, ranges from Agorian to Nova, and I think he's certainly more of a Carnel or Adorian than an Arco or an Org. Which ended which?

And of course, we've got Tom Chadbon.

Dugan.

Fame.

I was going to say, Nerdine.

Who's Dugger?

Oh, yeah, it was in City of Death too.

Mainly trial of a time lord, obviously.

Do you want a little link here before we talk about Tom Chadbon?

because the guy who plays Provine was actually up for the role of Murdine, which Tom Chadbon Goss in Doctor Who's Mysterious Planet.

There we go.

He's great, isn't he, Tom Chadborn?

I mean, he's really strong in the action and he has proper agency, the character.

There are the rumours that they were potentially getting rid of Blake and replacing him with him.

Well known.

That would have been... on the internet.

I have totally been on board for that.

Well, it's on a Wiki, Wiki, but it's fan written Wiki page.

So, you know, I think this is probably definitely true.

[11:33]

Or it could just be fan speculation.

But there's something in that, I think, if they thought that when, I can imagine, even if it's just speculation, I can see where they could think, if by this point they probably knew Gareth Thomas wasn't doing a 3rd season or a sea season.

They might have been toying with what we're going to do to give Avon someone to argue with on the Liberator.

And this could have been a sort of backdoor pilot for introducing him.

But maybe that's just fan speculation that's become a rumour.

She seems to mean?

It would have been amazing though.

Can you imagine how fantastic rumours of death would have been with Del Grant in it as well?

Yeah.

And he's called Dell, of course.

It's another crucial thing if you want to be a new character coming into series, the 3rd series of late seven.

Yeah, like Dana Dell Mellenby.

So what do you think about that storyline of the two of them and what is ultimately revealed, thankfully at the end, with a line of dialogue that Anna was Grant's sister?

[12:45]

What do we think about that as motivation behind the characters and does it kind of work?

I think surprisingly, yes.

I think it actually works really quite well.

And, you know, we know Blake's backstory.

And we sort of had an idea of Avon, didn't we?

We knew that he'd kind of defrauded the Federation Central computer and stuff and that he's the best computer person in the world apart from or the 2nd best apart from the person who caught him or whatever.

But there's a kind of, there's a sort of realism about the way his backstory gets fleshed out here, you know, they're having to buy fake visas, having the price suddenly inflated.

All of that sort of stuff actually rings true in a way that Blake 7 often doesn't.

It doesn't feel like an exposition dump, because there's something happening between the 2 characters and there's action happening at the same time.

[13:48]

And it's not all just given in one go either.

I think it's very, very well done, I think.

They just sell it completely, don't they?

Yeah.

It doesn't feel conjured up out of nowhere because we need a bit of aggression at this point.

I get the impression that those 2 actors have properly rehearsed this and this is a scene of drama that they have really acted their way through and really got into.

That's certainly how it feels, yeah.

That's a big advantage to the way that TV was being made in those days.

You were watching a cast, rehearse and perform a script, not just a close-up of someone's face while they say one line of dialogue and then come back 6 months later to do the next line or whatever.

Um, so yeah, I just think it, I think that tension is, is, is really, really palpable.

I think this is the episode where you can tell that Terry Nation has fallen in love with the character of Avon and the portrayal of Paul Darrow because he said in interviews, um, that he only realised what a great performance Paul Darrow was after he'd seen the season.

And I think he's sublimally writing towards Avon in all of his scripts this year.

[14:51]

But apart from Blake, obviously, and maybe Jenna in Bounty, a little bit, Avon is the only character who's been, who's had his background explored up to this and he's given, is kind of fleshed out, like you said, Nathan.

And I think he's credibly being set up to be the lead in the series.

Yeah, and I think that is necessary.

We spent so much time on Blake's backstory before the show even got going.

And so doing this here, even though it doesn't really sort of play into anything very much beyond rumours of death, which is not negligible at all, it's terrific.

But I also think there's some really clever writing in that scene, which.

So, for instance, we get, and it's a little bit cheesy, but we get a thing where Grant looks at the gun.

Like I even asks him if he's ready and Grant looks across at the teleport desk and sees a gun and kind of, you know, flails a bit or raises eyebrows or something.

[15:56]

And then Avon hands him the gun.

And it's very clear that Avon doesn't regard him as a threat because when we get down there, Avon just bosses him around.

You know, like even though Grant wants to kill him because he's done something bad, like at no point is he frightened of him and he even sort of antagonises him.

And then some of the dialogue is delivered, you know, they're given this, there's this box, right?

which is the relay thing and it's a perspex box full of flashing lights.

And my theory is that it's Lorax, racist uncle.

And and and like they both have to get their hands in there.

And so they're delivering this dialogue, this antagonistic dialogue, but they're touching one another, like their chests are up against one another.

It's really good.

It's properly good.

And there's such good lines, like, I must be getting old, wasting more time, and you won't be getting any older, which is just a perfect Blake 7 exchange.

[17:00]

It's also that thing where going back to the scene in the teleport where it's all on Paul Darrow's face with the guns.

He sort of just goes, ah, fuck it.

I'll give him a gun. on his face, just ever so slightly.

And it's interesting because he's normally sort of pretty ruthless on stuff, but on this, he's going, I know this wasn't my fault, right?

I was unconscious for 30 hours and I'm going to, we're going to find a way to sort it out with him.

Maybe Grant, you know, realises deep down that it isn't Avon's fault and he's just said something like, I'm going to kill you in order to heighten the drama.

The way that Avon goads him and defies him, and it isn't remotely being conciliatory towards him or trying to get on his good books at all, it's like, we're going to get through this and we're going to do it with me being a bastard because I am a bastard and I'm not going to stop being a bastard to prove myself right.

Which snaps into focus and makes sense once you get to the end, because it is about him being able to be truthful and honest about this situation, and for once, that save on's driver to get the truth out there and to be, and to be, he says he doesn't want to be believed, but of course he does, and that's unusual.

[18:13]

Or so he doesn't think his story is going to exonerate him and he still is aware that Grant still wants to kill him.

And I wonder if there's a reading which involves him feeling guilty about her death, you know, even though he's able to explain on one level why he's not responsible for her dying.

Grant makes the point that, you know, he kind of is.

And there's a level on which he believes that, I think, and maybe that underlies the way he antagonises Grant and the way that he tells the story and he leaves out the most significant detail until the end.

You know, he doesn't say why it's not my fault.

He just tells the story. because he's not trying to exonerate himself.

It's his own disapproval of himself. is his real enemy.

That's what it goes down to.

We do see in other episodes that Avon is a bit of a self-flagellating character, but, you know, in private. doesn't put his emotions out there.

And I think, um, Grant is a chink in his armour because Avon likes to present himself as an enigma.

[19:19]

He doesn't give much away even to the other crew members on the liberator who he's come to know.

But Del Grant knows him and knows his previous life and kind of knows him intimately through his familial connection with Anna.

And so it makes Avon quite vulnerable in a way that we haven't seen before.

He knows him very intimately after getting that line, hold the flap, Grant.

Yeah, I don't know about you, but my fingers are cramming. how that was broadcastable.

Welcome back to Maximum Power Fix.

I love how mechanical the bomb mechanism is.

It's a blue Peter genocide device, isn't it?

It's washing out bottle.

You've got to drill a little hole in it and put a toothpick or a hairpin in and then you've averted apocalypse, which is exactly what this needs.

You know, if it was a micro circuit with a soldering iron or something is what they needed, that they just had to hunch over to diffuse it, that would be more scientifically accurate, but you wouldn't get to see the thing going down.

And you wouldn't get Avon's amazing line.

[20:21]

We can arrest the downward travel of each plunger.

I have not delivered that as well, sports arrow, and who on this planet could deliver that line as well as pull down, arrest the downward travel of each plunger.

It's amazing.

But this bomb, this bomb looks like something you would make in CDT at school with little sort of perspecs and acrylic and little sort of drilly holes and put little rods in to stop wobbly bits of plastic falling down.

And also, can I just say, I mean, not to disrespect the entire title of this episode, why even have a countdown of exactly 1000 space seconds?

Just set the whole fucking thing off.

And also, if you have this bomb and this timer, yeah, perhaps it would be noticed if it's been moved 4000 miles as well and perhaps that might trigger a, you know, an explosion in any case.

It's a question is, easy to really crack bomb.

It's a really crap countdown because people counted at different rates. 999 seconds is just over 16 minutes.

[21:29]

The ticking sound on the soundtrack doesn't match the digits flicking over.

At one point, Corder says that everyone on this planet will be dead in a matter of hours after he's already said that they've got less than an hour, and it's considerably less an hour.

It's 16 minutes.

It's crazy.

But maybe they die slowly of the soleum radiation, which magically vanishes.

I did think of that.

But still.

Well, you know, that is actually a real thing.

And in 1974 because I'm very old and as a five-year-old.

I was massively interested in nuclear weaponry.

But in 1974, they started manufacturing thing called a neutron bomb.

And I do remember it being in the news because, you know, it was sort of very late Cold War and stuff.

And the idea was that you could bomb a city, there would be a small explosion, everyone would die of radiation, the radiation would dissipate.

[22:30]

And so that is like a real thing that Americans made, so that's fairly delightful.

But we're back at time lash again.

That's what the bandrils have got in time.

Maybe the bandals are occupying the other the other continent on this planet. would be great.

Oh wow.

Extended universe crossover, Claxon.

That bomb, like the physicality of that bomb actually works incredibly well.

And it's not just because it's the person who brought us MacGyver.

It's proper you know, it gives you dramatic moments.

But I could think of a better dramatic moment with the bomb you could have done, is to make it a bit more like Dark Star.

So you've got Aurak, like some version of Aurak on the bomb, and you're trying to disarm the bomb, and it's like, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Or, um, you know, sort of I guess the password or some kind of grouchy computer, some combination of Zen and Aurac.

It's like gambit in games.

Elcott's computer.

I think if this world ever is accidentally destroyed by a misfiring nuclear thing, someone somewhere is frantically going to be pressing reset password and trying to log into their Gmail to get their dog in things.

[23:41]

The world's going to explode in 3 seconds.

I have 2 observations on this bomb.

One, Nathan, I think your point about the sound effects and the ticking of the bomb not matching up is peak 70s BBC science fiction series because it never, ever matches up in any Doctor Who or Peak 7 with a countdown. be a trade union rule.

But I also like...

There's probably some kind of demarkation dispute about who provides the ticking and who provides the bomb and whatever.

Which union does he?

Exactly.

But also, I love that Blue Peter connection.

Can you imagine on this episode of Blue Peter was showing you how to make a liberated teleport bracelet, and next episode will show you how to make a bomb?

Well, the other thing about the ticking sound is that it is the same sound used in the music for the 5 doctors, whenever the book Barusa is pushing the things around, that kind of just got meat.

Anyway, let's talk about Jenna and Callie, and are they even in this fucking episode?

[24:44]

I think they make some sandwiches at the start and then pack everyone off with have a nice day, boys, and that's pretty much all they're allowed to do. they get on each other's nerves.

Yeah, of course, women.

It's...

Yeah.

Yeah, that's all they did.

When you're not letting your female characters do anything, the only thing to do is get them sniping at each other.

I mean, maybe with being unfair.

We're not being unfair, are we?

Are we being unfair?

Is it just that this happens with the episode that those 2 don't get much to do, because there's always episodes, but some people don't get much to do, or really, no, there's a pattern here, isn't there?

We are definitely not being unfair here.

I think this is the episode where it comes into such relief what's happened to these characters.

After a strong start this season in redemption and shadow where everyone had a good role.

Our 2 female leads have just kind of disappeared from the storytelling, and it's so disappointing.

Um, I think I counted there's half a dozen episodes this season, including Countdown, where the female characters have nothing to do.

[25:45]

All they do is sit aboard the ship and do nothing.

And I think there's probably a couple of reasons for this.

I think, like we were talking about earlier, Paul Darrow, um, Terry Nation fell in love with Paul Darrow's performance.

And so Avon has good chunks of the action in episodes that don't otherwise revolve around him, and he takes some of the parts that would have gone to the female leads last season.

So I can think of weapon off the top of my head where Avon teleports down with Blake and Gan, and actually doesn't contribute anything.

He's just there.

And if it had been Jenner or Callie, it would have just been more interesting.

So you can play teleport swapperoo all throughout this season.

And if you put one of the female characters in the place of Avon or sometimes Villa, it makes every episode better, it's such a shame.

Talking of, by the way, talking of teleports, swapperoo, slight diversion, but did you all notice the amazing acting from Delgram as they as he teleports down?

Avon lands stolid like a statue, whereas whereas Dell Grant arrives with a wobble and a little stumble and like, oh, what the hell was that kind of look on his face, going back to what Gareth Thomas always used to do in series A, which I think that he's off doing from now.

[26:57]

That was really nice.

There was a bit of continuity on that.

But yeah, the fact that the 2 the 2 female leads are left up there doing a job, which we've already been shown all right, can do, um, and probably Peter Tubenham's getting paid more than both of them, so he gets to have a week off, but it's better for the budget, uh, knowing how awfully unfair things were at that time, for that sort of thing.

Like, um, John Leeson got paid a hell of a lot more money for canine and company than Elizabeth Sladen did, didn't he?

I remember hearing that.

Yeah, because he was the male...

You see here in Countdown.

This should have been Jenna or Kelly instead of Villa.

I have nothing against Villa.

Villa's a great character to watch, but he doesn't serve that much of a plot function.

And if you're looking at your characters...

He does open the door, yes. and sort of flails around little panicking.

Exactly.

But if you're looking at the logic of the storytelling, they're teleporting into an insurrection, it should have been Callie.

Callie should have been down there with Blake and Yvonne and it's just so frustrating.

If only we had a telepath and maybe someone who was skilled in the art of piracy, they might have come in handy on this mission.

[28:02]

Yeah, no, they're left up their banning reception.

I feel like they're trying to give Villa more like all of Gan's airtime.

So it's like, okay, he is the comedy character.

Let's give him a couple of lines and let's have him down there, but it's there's still not enough for him to do because there's too many guest stars this episode in a sense and not quite enough time.

So he does just end up teleporting down and then just sort of going, uh, okay, which room are they in?

11 AB 50 and then he walks out and goes, Room 1215 B?

Okay.

And then it doesn't resolve anything.

Does that explain why earlier?

Because Villa Beams teleports up to the Liberator to go and get the coordinates of where the bomb is?

He talks to Orac off screen and then he goes back to teleport to beam down.

And while he's beaming down to tell everyone what the coordinates are, Callie just leans into the microphone and goes, oh yeah, the coordinates are this.

And she reads them out to Blake while Villa's beaming down.

And as soon as Villa has teleported down, He says the coordinates.

Oh.

So I think they just don't trust his memory because it's done the wrong way around because then 2 seconds later, someone gives him some directions and he's forgotten them in the very next shot.

[29:08]

So I'm not quite sure.

I wonder if there was a setup for that, that got lost.

I don't know.

There's an adorable moment when he beams down and one of the Albions kind of just looks at him and sort of turns his head as he sort of walks off.

It's very understated, but it's a little sort of boggle moment.

It's like in every 4th and 5th episode of Blake 7.

They remember that teleporting is not a thing.

And so they'll cut to a reaction shot of some of the characters going, what?

They just, they just disappeared.

They've never seen Star Trek, are you?

What's that strange music that was playing?

Like a little circus fanfare?

I mean, Albion is such a sausage fest, and so they just, they didn't want to ruin that by letting Genoa Cali go down.

Well, they would have sorted it out in 10 minutes as well, of course, and we've got an hour to fill.

So that's probably don't let the competent people go down.

Why does Blake insist on Villa going down with him?

They didn't really have many doors to open, and so you're just letting the side down.

If you took Jenna or Calli with you.

Everything would be sorted, like you said in 10 minutes.

[30:10]

But neither of them would have done any sort of comedy complaining.

That's that's the reason.

Villa has that great line where they find out they've got, you know, an hour to live or something.

And he just goes, oh no.

So the other thing about this episode is about 10 minutes of it is actually spent in this rocket hangar.

So I have a couple of questions about this.

Why does the blue button on the door, conveniently set off a bunch of explosions, and how does that spaceship possibly take off?

Because it's on one, its rockets are on the right hand side, it's horizontal and it's just sort of sitting there.

It's parking bay rather than a launch pad, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's all done with magnets.

I think it has a Thunderbird 2 thing happening.

It sort of goes up on a ramp and then It's Ensor's old prop, isn't it?

[31:14]

Like we've had this over and over again, the sort of Spacemaster 2000 or whatever the hell it is, and they've just sort of wheeled it out again.

I love the bit where they go into the launch bay for the 1st time and Villa presses the button to open the doors and we get a shot of the doors slowly opening and then he presses the button and closes them again.

And then they bitch at him about doing it.

Even though they just stood there and watched him while he was doing it.

Like they didn't say no, don't or anything.

And they waited until the special effect shot had finished before they said, oh, you know, good one villa.

Like, it was badly timed.

And all I could think about was Gareth kind of going, you know, I used to act, I was in under Milkwood.

Um, you know, like, like, it was just so stupid.

It was very silly.

And Blake gets the dialogue while Yvonne just looks at Blake like, oh, he's done it again.

[32:17]

I think Gareth Thomas does really nice work in this episode.

It's Avon's episode, Avon and Tell Grant, but Blake gets a lot of reacting to do and he does it very subtly.

So that little scene where they 1st meet and Blake's already picked up on the fact that there's a problem, if this is the Dell Grant that Avon thinks it is.

And while they've got their big dramatic confrontation, Blake's just there in the background, checking it all out with kind of interest, but also a kind of rye amusement that this is something that the usually enigmatic Avon, you know, it's a chink and Avon's armour, like we were saying, and he's interested and amused to see this and see where it goes.

To me, this has a really interesting line in it.

You can take either way.

But so just before they're about to go to find the bomb, Blake says to Grant, if anything happens to Avon, I will come looking for you.

And this is building up to a little bit, I think, I think it's in Star one, where it's like, they have a really nice moment, everything stops.

[33:20]

I won't spoil it.

They have a really nice moment and then things sort of go the way that happens in star one.

But I think it's building up to that.

It's a nice kind of, I mean, you know, certainly in series A would be, don't muck about with Avon because I kind of need him, and now this is, I will come looking for you, is a bit more kind of personal, a bit more threatening.

And I thought that was a good, very good line.

It's one of my favourite bits about this episode.

Was the other way you could take it, you know, to give you a, you know, Harrod's hamper or something, a bottle of champagne?

Like, how else we can attack that?

I really enjoyed that and I think it's revealing of the relationship between Blake and Avon.

But part of me did want when he says, if anything happens to Avon, I will come looking for you.

Part of me did want Dell Grant to turn around and go, oh no, Blake's going to come looking for me.

It is that Blake 7 thing, isn't it, where it is very sort of soft, you know, occasionally pretty middle-aged man kind of pretending to be Harrison Ford or whatever.

[34:28]

I mean, you know, like if you were doing this now in America, I think Jason Momoa would have taken the Dell Grant role, you know, but instead we've got cherubic and sort of curly haired, blonde Tom doing it.

Which we're totally here for.

So my last question I had was, why does Provine spill the beans about Star one?

What is that as well?

It's like, I'm dying.

Just been saving the Federation.

I was about to set up a bomb for 1000000s of people to protect the Federation, but yeah, start one, just pass Marks and Spencer, left, turn right, down the road, cross the lights, and you're there.

You know, why?

Ask for Docaly, yeah.

Intergalactic space, there we are.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's the fundamental issue where these people are they're devote themselves to this evil regime.

But then when they find when they lose control and they've got no soul, it's a tragedy.

[35:33]

As the Bee Gees were illustrating at number one in the Hiberaid, that very week.

So, it all tries off.

That was brilliant, Pete. edit that out.

They do try and sell it, don't they?

you know, Blake says, you know, we've got paracetamol up on the ship or whatever and, you know, like we can fix this. if you tell us.

That's right.

But yeah, it doesn't quite work.

Like earlier when Blake said to him, you know, yeah, we've got teleport bracelets.

We could probably save a few of you. you know, only the good ones.

We'll can beam you up.

We can teleport you off if you want.

He has another one of that being the serious grown up taking the tough decisions kind of conversation.

Who thought?

Did any of you, because I didn't, but maybe it's just me, when they were kept, I could, I was hearing the name Dockerly, D-O-C-K-E-R-L-Y, throughout the 1st two, 3 times.

I think I may have seen all these this Arc of Blake 7.

And it was only the 1st time I saw it written down.

[36:35]

It's DOC dash H-O-L, that it's supposed to be Doc Holiday, abbreviated, spacish space to Italy.

And I think in the original script it was...

Yeah, no, they toned it down.

Apparently, I think it might have originally actually been Dr. Holiday or something and this, no, that's being too obvious.

And because Gambit is the shootout at the okay corral?

No, I don't think it quite is.

But that was, yeah, it is supposed to be space dot holiday.

For some reason.

It's such a great space name.

It's a great name.

Yeah.

But yeah, no, it's spelled D-O-C-H-O-L-L-I or something like that.

Is that a Bob Holmes one?

Like, I mean, Bob Holmes wrote Gambit, are they just sort of borrowing the name from him because he's very good at space names.

That sounds right, doesn't it?

Yeah, definitely. we see that in a previous, in an earlier episode.

Yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it?

I think there's some real tension in those last stages of Countdown.

I mean, it's all shot on film at Ealing, and you've got the water, and I think one of Dudley Simpson's best soundscapes for the series.

[37:44]

It's a really good score, actually, and quite dramatic.

And although it is just Avon and Dell, and they've just got like a prop bomb, they wring some tension out of this, and it sort of ratchets it up towards the end, and you keep cutting back to Jenner and Callie on the Liberator, sort of, you know, one's tapping, and the other one's getting anxious about it, and then you'll cut to Blake and Villa, and it goes past the 50 and Villa wants to teleport out, but Blake's like not yet.

And so it all gets amped up quite a lot.

I think when I watched this, the 2nd time round in 1981, having seen it a year earlier.

I had very strong memories of this episode and it felt very exciting.

It's really enjoyable.

It's, you know, you, as you said at the start.

It starts, it lands right in the middle of the action for 7 minutes.

There's decent character development and motivation behind it.

It leads on to Star one and there's some people doing karate chops and throwing grenades and it's got everything.

One guy flies across the room, doesn't he?

[38:47]

There's one game stuntman.

Um, I've got a question.

A few weeks ago, we talked about killer, and this has a lot of similarities with killer, doesn't it?

We have someone who has some kind of relationship with Avon, we split Avon and Blake Ump, we're in a sort of federation base, we've got a very definite, predetermined goal.

And I think the differences between those 2 episodes really tell us something about homes and nation.

Does that seem like a thing?

Absolutely.

The 1st thing that Robert Holmes will do is put Avon and Villa together because they have such an electric chemistry, whereas this places them in the same room and they barely talk to each other.

[39:48]

Also, I think it might be a symptom of the fact that killer, while it airs in the middle part of the season was shot at the very start of the season.

And so the 2 episodes feel like they should be separated by a lot more and you wouldn't notice them, but jammed up together, um, they just seem to echo each other.

I think too, although this is really solid and competent and has some character staff, killer is so nasty in all kinds of ways and sort of terrifying in a sort of very non-boy's own kind of way, you know, Terry's all off on a jolly adventure.

Whereas as Holmes gives us some really disturbing things to think about.

And so although I like this a lot, I don't think this is the best iteration of this story this season.

Not even in the last 3 episodes.

Also, killer has Benny from Orphan 55 in it, so it's got to be my favourite...

Oh, God.

[40:49]

He's Caprill.

Benny is Gambrill.

Is he?

My God.

I was really hoping to get through a Blake 7 podcast without fucking orphan 55 feet.

It's canonical. everywhere.

It's the thread that binds the universe or my universe.

Yeah, I think that's right, Nathan.

I think it's really revealing of the approach that Terry Nation has to Blake 7, which I love.

I think Terry Nation's Blake 7, especially when it's done well like this, there's a couple of instances last season which suffer heavily from the pennant Robertsitis, and it all kind of falls flat a little bit.

But when it's done well, it's really good space adventure, it takes other writers, other good writers like Boucher and particularly homes to make it something a little bit more than that and a little bit different from that.

So you've still got the bones, but there's that extra layer of interest.

However, having said that, when Terry writes for it and is writing out his peak form, it's the best bleak 7 there is.

[41:50]

Thank you, everyone, for listening to us talk about Countdown.

We'll be back next week to talk about voice from the past.

Thank you very much for listening and goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye, goodbye.

Goodbye.

Switching to manual.

Maximum power on all drives.

Maximum power.

So the other thing I noticed is Blake does the same face at the end of the episode acting, they did at the end of the trial, which is...

I'm doing an audio description for those of you at home.

It's so close to an end of episode laugh.

Yeah.

It's like, I don't know, it's like the end of a, like, I don't know, it's like the end of a He-Man episode or something.

They'd walk us all about it.

They're aiming for Star Trek, aren't they?

[42:51]

But it just doesn't, it's just so incongruous after everything after the 45 minutes that have preceded it.

But can I just say, I love that last scene.

I think that last scene is brilliant, not only because you end on Blake and Avon, which is the key relationship amongst the regulars in this episode.

But it also, they are friends and they do like each other, but there's that wall between them, which you're never going to break down where Blake makes an overture and says, will you tell me about Anna and Avon can't resist putting him in his place and saying, you wouldn't understand and just walks away.

And so the only thing Blake can do is just smile to himself that that's Avon being Avon.

I love that scene.

And the whole thing is underscored by one of those little Dudley Simpson masterpieces.

But it is also like his surprise and amusement at the fact that even bones, don't you reckon?

Like, is that...

Is that it?

It's like, oh, even everyone bones.

It's not just you, you know, that was how I was reading it, but it could just be weird.

[43:56]

Well, we learnt in this episode that he inserts a rod, pulls out at 50 and then tells you that nothing's really changed between you.

And her brother's the next best thing?

He kind of implies it once.

He does, he says it.

He says it.

I think we do have an out now. so to speak.

Yeah, talk about tension in those last scenes.

Sexual tension.

I think you're fine.