Blackpool Not Vegas
Gambit
Series B, Episode 11. First broadcast on Tuesday 20 March 1979.
Episode 27
Sunday 15 January 2023
And now on Maximum Power we head to Freedom City on the trail of a former Federation cyber surgeon who can apparently tell us the location of Star One, and while we’re here maybe a bit of light cheating at high stakes gambling.
Pete’s cracked the gaming tables, Mark’s cheating at speed chess, Col’s a cheap little space tramp, Brendan’s a ten-credit touch, and Nathan will have that vulpine degenerate eviscerated with a small and very blunt knife.
Join us as we discuss Episode 11 of Series B – Gambit.
Recorded on Saturday 19 February 2022 · Download · Episode Gallery
Transcript
Maximal power.
Welcome to Maximum Power, the pestilential rat hole of a podcast with Vulpine degenerates, space tramps, and a 10 credit touch if you're lucky.
Because this week we're off for the eviscerating experience of Amelia DeCat's KitKat Club Cabaret Space Chess Carnival, it's Gambit.
I'm Pete.
I'm the very Vulpine Brendan.
I'm Colin.
I'm Mark.
And I'm Nathan.
Now, I think it's fair to say that nobody thinks Gambit is an average episode of Blake Sam.
But a gambit is a chess move where you sacrifice a pawn at the beginning to try and give yourself an advantage.
Nathan, what did you make of this episode?
I had always loved this one.
I'm doing a reverse TARD on this. listen to flights through entirety.
And watching it lately and every time I've watched it lately, I actually think it's probably not very good.
And I think it's hardly.
It's almost all George Spenton Foster's fault.
He's terrible.
The pacing is absolutely shit.
There's no atmosphere.
We desperately need June Hudson in this episode and we have Ken Ledsome or whatever who, what did, yes, minister.
And even Bob Holmes seems to be having a bad day.
I agree with you, Nathan. you know, received wisdom, as we say, is that this is like the classic and it's a good one.
Um, and I watched, I watched singing this afternoon.
I was like, there's so many characters.
And I was, and at one point, I've, I, I was like, I was getting bored and looked up and goes, this scene's still going on between the guy dressed as a humbug.
And the, you know, John Leeson dressed as a Centauri.
I was like, is this still going on?
So, yeah, it's kind of like, there's a couple of good bits, but the rest of it is just like this long padding to just find out that your arm isn't going to explode.
That's it.
Yeah, and it's never quite clear to me whether Travis thinks the bomb is real until he's saying, oh, get it out of my arm, but he sort of wakes up and says the server lab, what have you done to me, knowing there's a listening device and it's just, what do people know in this episode and when do they know it?
He's something that's not entirely clear.
Even though there's hours and hours of scenes explaining things to each other.
This is John Lacarre level plotting.
This is, we don't know, everyone's got at least 2 names.
People have only got one name and get their name pronounced different ways just to help make it more confusing.
Um, I, I, I think, um, Jeriere's little, um, proto Sylvester McCoy.
Sylvester McCoy could play that role in the movie that I'm sketching out in my head. as Serverland's hench person. and replaced the fact that she's replaced that she's replaced Travis with literally a fool, which will get another iteration of next week.
There's a theme running here, I think.
Yeah, why is Lee Fair even in it?
Someone for her to expond it to.
I mean, that's all.
You say that like it's a bad thing?
It's like I said, way back in weapon that they should have kept Carnel on to give Servolan someone intelligent to talk to.
You know, I'm sitting here going, why is she putting up with this person who keeps saying, but why?
Commander.
I mean, the problem is that the show won't do any more regulars than it already has.
So it was never going to contract someone to play that role.
And so we just get a sort of different person each week.
And look, I think one of the strengths of Blake 7 is that it's completely different every week.
Never again is anywhere near the Federation, anything like this with fucking nuns and, you know, priests and shit all over the place.
And I think that's great.
We've talked about that as a strength before, but it also just means there's no kind of overall plan and it all just sort of wanders from place to place a bit, despite the arc.
I think there's a brilliant idea at the heart of this episode, which isn't fully realised, and that is that there's a Mardi Gras carnival on.
So the one day of the year where everybody's dressed up as regency princes and cavaliers and nuns is the day that they all arrive.
And they should have made more of the fact that that means that they stand out like a sore thumb because they're not in the costume and Blake should have thought, I should have worn my big sleeve thing.
At least I'd have fit in a bit more.
It's like, you know, in Blackadder, when he's facing the court martial and Baldrick brings in the escape kit and he said, you know, if you got something to help me blend in in a French village and he goes, I have, and he pulls out a Robin Hood outfit or something.
And he says, well, I thought, what if the village was having a fancy dress party when you arrive?
It's like the reverse of that.
If Zen had been switched on this week.
Maybe he would have thought.
Yeah, tends to start learning updates this week, I think.
That's why he came up from it.
At least so, okay, Jenna and Callie get to go on a mission and I love Jenna's bye to Villa and Avon as they go down.
But unfortunately it's me, I really get to do all that much apart from having their amazing cat fight, but apparently that was edited, their roles were edited quite a bit because originally they had a whole plot line of being ladies of the night that was, it was decided, had to be taken out of it.
It's like, yeah, that's your one.
The one time they get to go on a mission, or pretending to be anyway, you know.
There are 2 great things about that cat fight.
One is it is basically Pat and Peggy from each EastEnders.
Yeah, you slag.
And then it's when it's off camera and they're still fighting each other and there's all these ridiculous sound effects.
Oh my god, what are they doing?
What it says, what it says, you so-and-so, where the scripts, the scripts obviously run out, they just have they continue to fight.
No, you are, but what am I?
You space harpy.
I will say as much fun as that was.
I was kind of sitting there going, so let me get this straight.
They've been on the ship making the coffee for 10 weeks and when you give them something to do, they're 2 women scratching at each other's eyes out because of that.
Yeah, because we will do that to anyone, to be fair.
Yeah.
I think it's the sure that she puts in the Midori.
It's like what the hell are they doing?
Because I really liked them sitting at the bar being surly having their drinks and everyone else is having a great time and they're just like, we don't want to talk to anyone.
We're too cool for this.
And it ties in with.
He ties in with what you were saying earlier that everyone else is here for Mardi Gras, but they're here to find out information on Star one.
And that's the other thing I'm finding with the Star one arc.
The stories aren't really about the search for Star one.
It's just at the end of the episode, Blake grabs the guest of the week and says, well, where's Star one?
And they're like, I don't know, but this person does and he's for God's sake.
So...
Docily.
Now, time has clearly passed since the last episode.
That's the way I read these things, which some people would call a plot hole, but I think time has passed in various ways.
One being Dockley has now been doxed by everyone.
And then, oh, here's a photo of the guy we've been looking for.
He's spotlight photo, actually, it turns out.
It's a very nice photo, yeah.
It's always nice when a cyber surgeon gets a nice photo taken.
He is possibly the world's worst side surge..
It's Professor Chrono tits again.
It is hard to take him seriously as this hard bitten.
Did you, I didn't know until I watched it with the subtitles on to make my concentration on the plot that, um, it, uh, Doc Colley, it's spelt as like Doc Holiday.
I've already mentioned this in another episode, but yeah.
So he was supposed, it's not, it sounds like they're saying dockerly, like a bit like a docker.
And the fact that he goes down to the docking area at one point as well.
This was the 1st episode of Blake 7 that I rewatched as an adult.
Um, so it did set me with very unrealistic expectations as to what I was going to be getting with the rest of the thing.
But it worked.
It did its job.
My friend was like, yeah, I think I'll show you this one, Pete.
I think I think this might get you get you get you back into it.
But yeah, it's supposed to be this amazing cyber surgeon.
It starts with a guy complaining his legs are the wrong length.
And then when Travis has got a broker arm doesn't work, he's just immediately going back to him with his guarantee.
I don't know what the what kind of warranty he gives on these jobs that he's doing.
He's really got a very good record at all.
Can we just talk about the arm for a second?
It's really shit, isn't it?
Like, it's really quite extraordinary.
And like they just stick it.
Like it's like he's got one shoulder longer than the other.
Like there's literally no attempt to do anything, but stick it on the outside of his actual arm.
And you know, there's kind of a, I've used this line before, I think, when we were talking about the chase on another podcast.
Spent and Foster has this kind of that'll do attitude.
You know, like there's just half-assedness to the production.
It's a half-assed universe.
I read that.
It's very digetic.
The crappy tinsel.
It isn't even a good Mardi Gras.
Yeah, tint someone out. car park.
Yeah. show in the galaxy car park.
It's the beer is under the beer.
It's under the BFI, isn't it, I think?
National Theatre.
Yeah.
Which says so much about so many of these cats did go to Rada.
And now here they are covered in tinsel in the basement under the national. including Aubrey Woods.
The scene when Cini's packing Dockley off to, yeah, she tries to help him on with his coat.
And he's also trying to put the coat on and the 2 of them can figure out.
So they just style it out and she'll treat it as a stall or something instead.
We're still gonna keep going.
Still keep going.
No, they spent hours working that out in rehearsal.
It'll be a little bit business.
It will be great.
We do get lots lots of our homes and double act clacks in this.
Everyone gets a pair and and and, well, there's a lot of that and and they're all about reflecting each other and and Dockley and Cini are definitely one of those and they get some of them.
I did a because this has got a heck of a lot of people in it, hasn't it?
And it was a lot of names to learn.
And I did a little word search.
Who do you think gets the most lines in this episode?
Jerry Ere.
No, he's not even he's about ninth or something.
He gets, he gets 10 more lines than Jenna, and he's not in the top.
Oh, God.
And a lot more.
Is it the woman that looks like Betty Davis from Death on the Nile that says 1000000 credits?
Yeah.
She's gone to Mardi Gras, Madonna.
No, it's not her.
It's Servolan.
I've got a theory that this whole episode is a backdoor pilot for a server and spinoff where she just goes around the universe finding things tiresome. and having people killed.
That's a show.
What more do you need?
Jimmy Cranky could be a sidekick next week.
It's actually kind of funny seeing her be being prim and being a bit of a good girl.
You know, she won't take the drugs, she won't sort of eat the patechy cakes.
She's actually really kind of a little bit less naughty than, you know, Crantor is.
Yeah, and we don't know to what extent that's her.
I think in this episode, we get to see a new layer to serve alone because we can see she's not, she's outside the Federation.
She's not on her own turf, although she's got plans for it, and there's that, there's, there's one line that, that just really stands out to me where she's, she's someone who doesn't want to have the place closed down and she just says, as I have argued for years, like she's a put-upon member of the, of the project team.
Federation HQ who's been trying to convince she's the supreme commander.
Who has she argued with for years?
And unsuccessfully.
That's an amazing thing to just sort of drop in there.
And I think that turns her from the steely...
I mean, we've seen, oh, we've seen it.
We seen it before plenty of times really, but here it just, that just really lands it, that there's more to her.
She's not just Darth Vader in her dress.
She's got these layers.
And that's what goes into the whole issue of what campness is, doesn't it?
that she can do that.
She can drop the mask a little bit.
And her 1st scene on the space sofa, wearing a mask, holding a dove of peace.
She immediately chucks out, chucks away as soon as Crown door is ready to see her.
And I love the power play where Crantor keeps calling her commander and she keeps correcting him to supreme commander.
And, uh, but then Jerry air calls a commander all the time.
She doesn't give a shit.
Oh, he's not even an underling, is he?
He's a renter.
He always came with the sofa.
It's just a sofa delivery guy.
The great thing about server line is that how she normally dresses as well.
I mean, she fits in at the Mardi Gras.
And that's what I thought he should have made a flux point of that.
Yeah, that, like, that she can just fit in easily through her normal dress in a way that, you know, Blake and his friends can't.
But I think the 1st time I watched it.
I thought when she leaves Crantor's quarters and tells him which room she's in, uh, because they've been lying on the bed together and things, I took that to be more suggestive than it was and then as the episode unfolds, um, it becomes clear that it's just like so that you can bring me Travis and Docley and let me know the, yeah, keep me updated sort of thing.
What happens at freedom City stays at freedom.
Maybe everyone...
It's probably only one key that works every room, Dora.
Something I find very interesting about Servoland's motivations in this is, you know, usually when she wants a planet or whatever, it's because there's a scientist there that she wants or there's some resource that she wants, but she wants to shut down Freedom City because of its sort of moral decrepitude as she sees it.
And given that crantor and toys are very unsubtly coded as being queer, if not completely gay.
Um, I find that very interesting from Serverland, who, right from her 1st episode, it's clear that she is a very sensual character when she's talking to that captain.
Is it Roy?
Ray.
Yeah, it's very clear that they've had a dalliance in the past and she uses that against him.
So then for Servoland to sort of turn around and say, no, this place is too sexy.
I won't abide it.
It's very interesting because it's a change in motivation for her and...
It implies...
One of the few times where she's not just out for doing something for herself.
Like she is getting something out of it, but she actually sees this place as dangerous, not to her, but to the federation.
And I'm not even sure we see that again really from server land. you know, it's usually sort of self- self-self, even trying to track down Blake is for the kudos that gives her within the Federation. power system.
But yeah, I was just watching that going, that's that's really interesting.
And of course, this is only Robert Holmes' 2nd script for the series, I want to say, after killer.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's got no authority here.
She probably hates that about it as much as...
Just the idea of being somewhere.
The Becky Weaver in space.
Eat the Petrachia cake and understand it, sir.
You know, I actually really, really, seriously hate Aubrey Woods as Cran, sorry.
And I'll tell you why.
When I watched this as a kid, or not as a kid, like as a, like I watched this as a kid when it was 1st on TV at Australia, but when the videotapes came out, I was watching it through properly, I thought this was fantastic, it's like super gay, look, toys and crants were gay, blah, blah, blah.
But, like, Woods just leans into every, every line and makes it into a kind of smutty innuendo, you know, like the relish with which he says, you know, it is our duty to serve our fellows, you know, like to drop to our knees and serve our fellows.
And it just all just seems a little bit sordid to me.
And like he's constantly kind of like wiping something off the corner of his mouth and like I just think it's super gross, you know?
Me too.
I love about it.
The unsubtlety.
Yeah, the unsubtlety is great.
There's that little edit where Crantor says, well, whatever happens, Crantor wins both ways.
And then it cuts to Villa going, they say it's wide open.
Avon says, what is?
So he goes, Freedom City?
Not the character in the previous city.
Yes, it is, boys.
We know what you're doing wrong at home.
You're a smutter.
Do you know, actually, when he does it in a couple of years time with Agrarian and Pinder, who are just very explicitly gay, I think, you know, we can't say it on television or something.
I'm actually less offended by that.
Even though Agrarian is really super grotesque, there's, I don't know.
There just seems to be some kind of unpleasant.
It's homes being a prick about gay people, I think, almost certainly.
And then Spenson Foster, who's never seen like a camp excess that he can't shoehorn into an episode.
Just runs with it.
And I just sort of think it all isn't that great.
See, I think it's all part of the cabaret atmosphere.
So, Crantor is like the MC.
But of course, so is the croupier a little bit.
The croupier is also a little bit liesa Manelli.
Yeah, but, you know, more Judy Garland's age.
Um, And yeah, it's Robert Holmes doing space cabaret.
And Serverland is the Nazis coming over the hill, you know, and the thing is, you know, Robert Holmes giving Serverland a a motivation beyond what she wants for herself makes her scarier in this.
And I think that's probably him going, I know my story's a little bit ridiculous, and the characters are a little bit ridiculous.
So I'm going to give this really quite terrifying threat because obviously it's not Brian Croucher at this point.
Like, I've said before that I've quite enjoyed Brown Crutch's performance, but it is now getting to the point where he's just sort of gnashing at the furniture. with that.
Well, okay, because this was the 1st time I ever saw Travis, I think, because I, or the 1st time I could, I didn't have clear memories of Travis from when I was a kid, because it was only the last 2 series I remembered clearly much.
Um, so this was my introduction to him.
And seeing him as this kind of, I think, um, that he just like walked out of an Ultravox video 2 years before Ultravox got invented.
And in this, he's, he's, he's camp, but it's silly and quiet and also nasty.
Um, homophobic to, to, uh, to Jariere.
Definitely pronouncing powder puff the way that in his natural accent.
He's pronouncing it P-O-F, not P-U-A. Yeah, obviously.
But that's an accent thing.
Already, we don't like this guy.
It's clearly just when you're really going off somewhere.
You can find out they're even worse as well as being a genocidal thing.
Is there a bit right at the start where the guy he shoots?
Is that the same actor from the 1st episode?
Yes.
Yeah. the same plate?
It's Blake's defender.
Yeah.
No, a different name. everyone's...
It's not the same part.
No.
We can head cannon.
He's caught Z. Yeah, of course, yeah, because yeah, of course he dies, doesn't he?
So what spoilerer?
Sorry, in the 1st episode.
Yeah, they just found outside the film, isn't he?
I'm like...
Maybe you just faint his own death. hard to tell.
It's like there are 2 Tarrants, so there can be 2 whatevers.
Tell Varon.
His brother, Val, Darren.
The thing that really annoys me about Tell Varren being back in another role is we've just had voice from the past last week with fucking awful fake Van Glynn and his stupid beard.
It's like, you know, if, um, if Michael Halsey was available, why couldn't he have been available last week and actually tell Varon survived?
Oh, but you were killed in a skimmer accident.
Yes, but then I killed Jeremy Wilkin.
I wasn't actually dead.
You know, nothing's going to say this from Travis's disguise last week, but we could have actually had, and, you know, that would make it more believable as someone who was always on Blake's side instead of someone who wasn't on Blake's side, but now is, but he's a different actor, but he's betrayed anyway.
And I couldn't even decide last week whether I cared about Legrun or not, let alone...
She's spent and foster again. isn't it?
Like, he's really terrible.
What do we think of Ava and Villa's plot?
I'm home alone.
It's like the opposite of home alone.
It's supposed to be staying home alone, and instead they go out.
So can I ask a question?
Can you contact Aurac when Aurax on the ship?
Can you use your bracelet to contact Aurac from the ground?
That would have been a good idea.
So they shrink Morak, but Villa is still communicating with him through his communicator.
They could have been the left, I told you, not things through like this.
Maybe Bob Holmes didn't have a mobile phone.
I guess that's just possible So he doesn't know how things work when you can communicate with people all the time.
And I'm absolutely here for that stupid scene where he tricks or acting to shrinking himself.
My, this is how I imagine it went right.
Someone said, like Maloney said to Bob, look, no, you can't communicate with Aurak from the ship.
So you'll have to find some way of taking him down.
And he said, all right, fuck you.
He is what I'm going to.
And so he shrinks.
And like that's just the sort of home scene.
And that's awesome.
I think that's really great.
My head cannon is just about him only having Bluetooth.
Oh, fair enough.
I will say my one disappointment with this, because it's incredibly fun, is that I think it's utterly out of character for Avon to do this.
Like I know he, he's on the ship at the beginning because of his failed bank fraud.
But, you know, that was to get money for Anna to get away.
And I think he's always saying to Villa, no, don't run off.
Don't go to the casino, don't get drunk, and this time he's like, it's Avon kind of going, yeah, I heard the security's really impressed.
Yeah, I've heard they have a lot of money.
Yeah, Villa.
Yeah.
Don't they?
Don't they, Villa?
Yeah.
Don't have fun.
Someone has to do it though.
It's a casino.
You want a casino heist?
you want them to sort of play the casino?
I just think the problem is that the realisation of the casino is so shit.
It's so tampered, you know. that it never really feels like we're in a casino.
It's cool, not Vegas, isn't it?
Yeah, it's miserable.
And Holmes must have known that that was the best they were going to be able to do.
So it never really comes off as a casino.
But I'm absolutely there for like let's go and try and, you know, I don't know what the verb is.
Let's go and try and kind of.
Cheat at the casino.
There's a verb.
You're so pure, Nathan.
You don't even know the right.
And there's only crunter and toys who are in charge of it, in charge of security, in charge of anything.
And then it's like he somehow is doing it.
He keeps putting that big chunky bracelet up to his ear.
And there's that guy in the silver anorak eating soup with another bracelet on a box.
With a flashing one?
can't believe it.
Yeah, it's like they've never heard of communicators.
It really is the world's shittest casino.
It's ocean too, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's more like it's the Isle of Man rather than Blackpool.
I suppose it's meant to be spoofing like Sun City or you know, 70s awareness of there being these out of beyond legislation areas where places like this were set up.
But yeah, it's not.
But we can have...
I suppose now, Pete, because we've left the European Union.
Your sausages can be filled with sawdust.
My favourite bit about that Avon Villa storyline is the way when they're back on the Liberator.
And he's like, hi, the money, hide the money.
And then they call up and they one goes, hello, liberator, can I help you?
Avon, like, I must act innocently.
What's that?
Yeah, and he has that line, he has that line.
Blake has how Blake says how it's gone and everyone says, oh, great, wonderful terrific.
That's wonderful, terrific.
Lovely.
Terrific.
There's not a word you'd expect everyone to say.
Yeah, and Blake's whole suspicion seems to come down to, Avon, you're not being a prick.
What's up?
What's happening?
I've seen some people claim.
I've seen some people claim online that J.
Michael Stratinsky was inspired by Blake 7 to create, well, he said it himself to create Babylon 5.
I've seen people claim it was actually just this episode. make it less tinsely and you're not far off. give it higher budget.
I heard that as well.
I'm watching it earlier.
I wrote down, you know, several kind of things about um, about Breck 7.
It's like the Crantor and Toys do look like the Centauri, and then all the sort of drapes and everywhere in the palace, it's a little bit like that as well.
And, uh, and then there's, and you step outside and it is a car park dressed with tinsball watch.
Well, it's about...
It's a port of call.
A home away from home.
That's right.
Regency princes.
Catholic.
Oh, last best hope for chess.
Re-exhumed Liza Manelli.
Can we talk about how incredibly dull and undramatic and completely lacking intention the chess scenes are?
They're really bad.
The music.
The music's great.
Deep Roy is having a fun time.
The Mr. Sims laugh is actually his laugh, which is fucking terrifying.
Elizabeth Park is going great going full on Jean-Michel Ja for it. take that back I thought it was going to be some kind of twist where it turns out that Deep Roy's character was actually being fed, moves by a computer as well, and that was why Avon spotted that Aurak would be able to help him.
But it just seems to be a gamble, doesn't it?
It's just sort of like, no, play the game.
It'll be okay.
It's really funny.
This is our 2nd chess computer of the season.
And it is sort of super hilarious to think of this show being made in a world where no one knew that computers could just wipe, you know, like kick people's asses in chess with no particular difficulty without breaking a sweat all the time.
The Queen's Gamba is definitely not based on this in any way.
I have a suspicion that in the spring of 1979, maybe as Abu Watouring through the UK, Bjorn and Benny might have caught this episode before.
After this ABBA thing's burned out, maybe it's room for a musical in this kind of chess contest thing.
Maybe have, you know, Elaine Page and Servolan role.
Barbara Dixon is the klute.
Yeah, they had to shake it up a bit for copyright reasons.
Well, we're talking about other sci-fi series.
When Crantor introduces the 1st speed chess contestant, does he call him a young trekker?
Isn't that what Trekkies tried to rebrand themselves as in the 90s?
Yeah, it was a whole fandom war thing of people wanting to be Trekkers and Trekkies and that and that's sort of what Futurama sends up with the Star Trek Wars.
Oh, you mean the massive migration of Star Wars fans?
No, that was the Star Wars trek.
I did think for a 2nd that maybe Holmes was making fun of Star Trek, people. very probably.
Probably didn't give a shit about that.
He doesn't look particularly young either, does he?
He's like a, he's like a sort of another sort of fat nobleman in a regency portrait sort of guy.
Okay, non-speaking part as well.
He has to whisper his name like sooty.
He doesn't even...
He doesn't get a death scream as well.
He just he just explodes.
Yeah, his punishes.
I guess I'd cast Stephen Toast in that role in it.
He'd be right in.
On the topic of the speed chess.
The costume designer for this story is Barbara Kidd.
Yeah, where's June?
We really need a June this episode.
I mean, Barbara Kid just went to the BBC wardrobes and just pulled out whatever old shit she could find.
The thing is, the Barbara kid also... costume.
Let's put Sylvia Coleridge in a leotard.
I wonder which ones of those actually are costumes for Mardi Gras or does the nuns just actually go there every day?
Yeah, no, nuns go.
Very degenerate.
Well, amongst her past triumphs, however, are frontier in space in Doctor Who.
So she designed the Draconian outfit, the Ark in space.
So she had a thing for space.
Yeah.
Kinder.
Okay.
Kinder.
But also the entirety of Doctor Who series 6 from a Christmas carol right through to the wedding of River Songs.
Wow.
Which featured speed chess.
It did be just being chess.
Live and have been in her contract.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, she is designed at least 3 outfits.
If not, what, 4 outfits for deadly chess games.
We did mention servilance outfit, and this is her only time wearing red ever.
And I think the outfit is magnificent.
I think it is one of her very best.
It is one of the full neck lizard outfits.
Yeah, wonderful.
Yeah, from Jurassic Park.
Look, you know, if you imagine a dilophosaur, but about the size of a gerbil, that's a frill neck lizard in Australia.
Oh, right.
I thought they were just real.
No, no.
They're awesome.
We used to have them on our $2 piece, I think.
And we don't have the ¢2 piece anymore.
And also for fans of Ultraman, you can see a very similar looking thing in the monster, girass, that's girass, which is actually just a recycled Godzilla costume painted green with a frill attached.
Nice.
And Ultraman is totally a dick and rips off the frill.
Wow.
Yeah.
Ultraman's an asshole.
Just better get out there.
Well, remember, this whole story ends with them going on a quest to find a song with a brain print on it, which I love.
Apparently, thong doesn't just have to be worn around the groin.
It can be one.
Oh my god.
Imagine if...
Bruce Purchase had been wearing a thong in next week.
That's what you call flip flops in Australia, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember walking into a pub that said no thongs.
And I thought, and you were wandering a thong.
That's shit.
And then you think, oh, no, no, it's all right.
My shoes are fine.
I thought is it somebody's job to check.
Sylvia Coleridge.
There's a nice little dialogue loop back that I noticed.
No, I could, I'm saying this.
It could just be a reuse, but in city at the edge of forever.
There's a moment where Villa produces the diamonds and whatnot near the end, and Avon goes, I'm impressed.
And Villa says, wonderful, that makes it all worthwhile.
And then this one, Villa says, Avon, there are times I almost get to like you.
And Avon goes, well, that makes it all worthwhile.
I figured that might be a little coming back to coming back to that.
If it's a Chris Boucherism.
Maybe.
Yeah, yeah.
This is the, so, I think I just note it down to talk about was theatricality, which we've currently touched on a lot.
So I did a thing of just listening to the audio of this while I was commuting.
And didn't miss, despite it being such a visual story, it was so much style and over the top stuff.
Um, it's really wordy.
It's all about word games, which people either find tedious or amusing or maybe both.
Um, but and so a lot of the sets, I mean, some, we talk about things not having a 4th wall.
A lot of these sets don't have any walls.
They're almost just in the round.
Like you just put a big round bed in the middle, plonk your characters on it and get them to spa with each other.
And I just don't know if any other episodes done in that way.
And it surprises me that spent in foster.
It doesn't seem, in that way, the way that it's all staged and set up feels quite, uh, I don't know if radicals will, yeah, just or just unusual, anyway, it's certainly unusual.
There's no corridors because there's no rooms almost.
You're right.
There are there are really only in 2 rooms.
And it really lets it down.
It's like it doesn't feel like it's in a casino.
It's like not lit like one.
It's lit like, you know, studio 2 in Lane, you know?
It doesn't feel like it.
One character we haven't talked about.
I genuinely thought was called clever dick.
But it's it's Chevedic by everyone's favourite American in Doctor Who, Paul Grist.
And he's doesn't appear on location.
So he just 80 R's his lines over the car park scene.
So he's not even there.
His most important scene.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was on it was filmed on his day off.
I love to imagine him at convention saying, no, I didn't get to go to the car park, unfortunately.
I was devastated.
A lot of Doctor Who people.
Yeah, it's and it's sleep is slapdash, isn't it?
Yeah.
And that's the thing, like, unlike Colin, I quite like Dennis Carey, whenever I see him.
But it seems like he can be sort of easily flummoxed as an actor.
Like, I think in Shada, Pennant Roberts for all his other failings.
Every actor who works with him says, no, no, no, I completely understood what was going on because of Penn.
And I can imagine Pennant Roberts explaining the, you know, unalive scenes to him and whatnot.
Dennis seems really kind of all at sea with this.
He seems to pretty much get, you know, that he was some kind of surgeon, but then, you know, during the scenes with Cheney, it's like then he's not quite sure what their relationship is, like she sort of flirting with him and he's like, what, uh, who are you?
I actually think he does really well because I do think that he brings a kind of vulnerability and maybe it is just the act of not knowing what's going on.
No, I think it's because the rest of the whole thing, I think there's definitely 2 layers to him and he's being inclined and he's being his real self too.
Um, so the times when he's letting that mask slip, uh, which I don't I don't read as an act of being inconsistent.
I think he is, and I get him, and in the early scenes.
I think I think I'll pick up the, he, yeah, he and Cheney do have um, a history together, a very, very recent history, but they're, they're involved.
I mean, you know, we know that they're not just meeting there.
Um, and we know that a lot of time has passed since the whole thing that set it in motion with the, uh, the, the crashed ship where he met, um, Travis for the 1st time, which I assume were meant to infer is Travis caused, maybe causing the crash of that ship so that he could get to Docley because he's wanting, he, Travis is getting to Docley because he knows that Blake is trying to get to Docley, isn't he?
That's why he wants to be his bodyguard.
And so I figure that Travis has actually set a lot of this up in motion.
But it feels like a four-part story that's been chopped down to a Blake 7 single episode.
I wonder if there was a version of this, it was a Doctor Who story.
In the in the back of Robert Holmes's mind as it was germinating.
Speaking of the whole a surgery thing.
The other thing I really like about this episode is when they're trying to attach the arm and everything.
It's all like camera.
So you've got these like, and then, insert server lands like, insert A over B and turn like...
Like, well, that doesn't fucking work because they can't get it to work.
Use Alan Key.
Instructions are in Swedish.
Also, I just remembered something about that arm. you know, not only is it really dodgy when they when they pull it off, Travis at the end.
You can visibly see his arm is going into a pocket on his...
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You can see his other arm inside his costume.
And it's just like, just pull the cloak back over it.
You know, be already shooting him from an angle where if you have that cloak there, his shoulders wouldn't look any bigger because he's almost side off.
Yeah, no, but it's just like...
It is that that's good enough.
George, that's good enough to spend and foster.
Which is bizarre because for Doctor Who, George Spenton Foster does image of the Fendal and the Ribos operation.
And Rybos is totally studio bound, but... and good.
And you there's not really any part of that you look at and go, that could have been much better, except, of course, for Prentice Hancock.
Does it have more money?
Is that the problem?
Is that we've got to do this whole thing in 50 minutes, whereas a Doctor Who story has... good point.
Yeah.
And this is a cheap one, isn't it?
I mean, this is definitely not a big budget.
No, that's why you book Robert Holmes because he can write wordplay as well as as well as he can write action.
And like, yeah, we're not we're not doing action this week or not much, apart from having Travis beaten up in a car park by someone who's off screen.
But I mean, think about killer, like killer, which is his previous story this season is so much better, and it is partly, I think, because like the setting is doable on a BBC budger, we're in another space base, but it's a space base full of people saying interesting sort of clever things are not kind of slobbering over all the lines.
I think, you know, it's surprising how this misfires, given how good.
The previous one of these was.
Our friend over at Making Blake 7 recently did his analysis and information about Gambit.
It's Pete, by the way. you know that?
Not many people know that.
Is it?
No.
Oh.
I was going to say.
I was like, I can't remember. aren't we having him on at something?
He might have told you.
But something that those tweets raised was that even Bob Holmes said, you know, I sort of wrote it camp with the expectation that the director would temper it slightly.
And while I love Aubrey Woods performance, it would have been more interesting if in private, he was a little colder because you can, you can be camp and still be cold and have layers, you know, but he's exactly the same as he is with Serverland, as he is with toys, except he occasionally gets a little bit grumpy.
And, you know, you've got toys saying, uh, we should really stop this bloke who's won 3000000 credits on the wheel and Grantor's like, no, wait until he gets to five.
I amused.
He's just hedonism bot all the time.
And in some way, so devastated at the end because 5000000 he's got 4000000 from Servolan for finding Travis.
So losing 5000000 isn't like, it's not going to break the bank, is it?
And he says earlier on that they make 4000000 credits a week.
I don't know if that's turnover on a profit, but even so, it's not like, it's not going to absolutely, you know, it hasn't broken the bank, presumably. just they've just had a bad week.
Mark, do you work at that building society by each other?
Yeah.
I just mean, if you hadn't had the 1000000 quotes of several, 5000000 would have been more than a week.
It could be the principle, maybe.
Sylvia Coleridge's leotards cost much more than you might.
They should have made a much bigger amount.
When they've talked about different amounts all the way through the episode is what I mean, if they'd made it like 20000000, right?
That is that justifies his devastated reaction at the end.
There's massive inflation, isn't there?
Maybe it's after the space war at the end of this thing, but we start throwing 1000000000s around in sort of series D, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I guess that's why 10 credit touch is such an insult.
I really got much at all.
A 1000 credit touch.
That sort of leads to what I find one of the more interesting things about the end of this episode in that, you know, aside from the people who have been blown up playing speed chess and um, poor grist.
I don't think anyone else dies.
Oh, um, Val Taran dies, of course.
Um, But, you know, you would expect Servoland to burst into um, Crantor's chambers at the end and gun them both down.
Yeah, see, that could have been fun.
Why would we do that?
But instead, we did that every week.
Instead, turboland just seems to go at the end.
Ah, bugger.
Spoiled again.
But we'll get to see her being more of a fish out of water in terms of stylistics next week down on Goth, which is much less to her aesthetic.
Well, she bought something warmer to wear as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wonder if she travels with all the, yes, she mustn't.
Of course she cannot.
I thought the other federation should be possible.
You'd tell she arrived on Freedom City.
I was like, ah, you've dressed for Mardi Gras.
Mardi Gras.
That's Mardi Gras.
It's Tuesday.
That's why I'm wearing this.
See, yeah, the problem next week is going to be, Serverland's going to go to Goth.
She's heard that the brain print is on a thong and she's like, well, I need to bring something to barter with.
And so she's got a whole box of underwear.
And she's like, shit.
So how does he send again?
Oh my god.
Yeah.
Pay attention, they think.
It's another crap joke, isn't it?
It is kind of like another crap joke.
We don't quite all sit around laughing, but we do have an attempted comedy beat, I guess.
Yes, but in this case, something funny has actually happened.
Avon and Villa have got away with their little side plot escapade rather than, yeah, oh, well, yeah, everybody's dead.
Yeah, get back to work.
It's just how it sometimes is landed.
But shouldn't we have seen Blake's reaction to Aurak suddenly returning to normal size?
That's when the credits roll, you know, that you, like, there's a whole 10 minute dream of him going, what?
Blake, Blake is even posher than usual this week.
And I want to make special mention of his pronunciation of the word merciful, which I just think is, I don't know, particularly merciful.
That's probably how liberal Democrats say it, right?
I kind of I kind of wish Jenna just gone.
No, I'm going to shoot him.
Which is funny because, you know, Jenna doesn't have any particular beef with Travis.
Yeah, yeah, you know, um, whereas, you know, Blake specifically does.
And, but it's just, it's just funny, therefore, that Jenna's like, I'm going to shoot this guy who keeps getting us into trouble and Blake's like, nah.
No, no.
Blake Blake just wants to get a restraining order on the guy.
He's just he's a stalker of everything.
He's just avloying me by turning around everywhere.
I think that he thinks that being Brian Croucher is its own punishment.
I don't know if it's a coincidence that I will survive is still at number one in the pop charts.
That's a good...
I wonder if Jacqueline Pierce was channelling anything because this was broadcast the same week that Margaret Thatcher laid down the no-confidence vote that happened a couple of days later that brought down the Labour government and ushered in her ability to punish the vulpine degenerates and pestilential rounds of the UK.
Sometimes, sometimes fact and fiction rhyme.
Yeah, we could have history repeated itself, but in the reverse.
Yeah.
So with that, we will head maybe back towards a bit more normality in our next episode, maybe not, as we head to the planet Goth next time.
We hope you'll be joining us then.
From now, from all of us, we'll just say goodbye.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Anyone's in my thong?
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.
Flashing forward to the space year 2022.
As we record, Star Trek Discovery has just returned for the last half of its 4th series.
God, does it have to?
So good, Colin.
And this season isn't.
Sorry, Brendan.
Now, am I going to am I spoiling last week's episode for anyone who wants to watch it?
They have a casino planet.
Yeah.
Pretty much.
They go to a casino planet.
And 1st of all, there's this hustling to get money with a physical contest in a boxing ring.
Yeah.
And then there is this high stakes poker game to get the magical McGuffin of the week. and they've gone they've gone here searching for a missing scientist.
Awesome.
There's atmosphere.
It's incredible.
It looks great.
There's atmosphere, there's comedy.
There is oho totally kicking the shit out of a really hot guy.
He is really hot.
Yeah, ridiculous.
Yeah. than Travis?
Even hotter than Dennis Carey.
Even hotter than Stephen Grief Travis.
Yeah.
Even hotter than Stephen O'Challa keep his top on this.
Unfortunately, unfortunately, I agree.
But he does gaze longingly at Sonika Martin Green for long periods of time and who can blame him?
Really?
I do too.
I have done that and she's held my hand and I have melted completely.
Oh, the other thing about this is beautiful.
She is fantastic in every way, especially her sort of whispering emotional acting, it's like we're going to get out of the ship.
I'm going to find you and it's going to be, she does this all the time in every mind she delivers. really, really intense and shouting.
Yeah, she's great.
So yeah, she's Sylvia Colebridge, I'm saying.
Okay.
Do we sound from this one, is it?
Do you talk first?
Do I talk first?
The last Jedi, aren't they going to go to get a scientist from a casino as well?
Is that, um, is this another inspiration that sprang from the uh, the well of...
And then they do the...
Yeah, and then they do the horse race bit.
Yeah.
They're going to get, um, what a colon, aren't they?
The guy from license to kill.
No, I know what you mean.
Benicio del Toro.
That's it.
The guy from Sicario.
Yeah, see a scientist, they're going to try and get from a casino.
Maybe it's a more tenuous inspiration.
You should do it again.
That's just about casino scenes in science picture.
Battlestar Galactica, the Battlestar Galactica, where all their planets blow up and then they go to a casino where there's a lounge singer with 4 mounds.
That's the next generation one as well, isn't there?
Yeah, the Royale.
Season two.
Series two.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And and Gambit, where Riker totally flirts with the forehanded organ player.
And that's not a euphemism.
And come to think of it, Travis's plan, you know, to crash the ship he's on in order to need surgery from this bloke to work his way into his trust to trap Blake.
It's kind of like that summer of 2012 where 3 major franchise movies hinged on the fact that the villain wanted to get caught to get inside the institution, which of and including the Bond film.
Yep.
So I'm talking Skyfall.
I'm talking the Avengers and I am talking runny egg cumberbond in Star Trek into darkness.
Oh my god.
You see?
And we've got gambit to thank for all of it.
Thank you very much for listening. and good.
It minced so they could run.
Minced words and I like...
It's very, I mean, in a way, it's a remake of mission to the unknown, but with chess and a casino instead of Daleks and monsters in a forest.
When you think about it.