The Fisher Price Invasion Force

[00:03]

Max power.

Hello and welcome back to Maximum Power, the Blake 7 podcast.

Now, this episode we were supposed to be discussing Star One, but unfortunately, no one knows where Star One is.

No one at all.

Unfortunately, I found it on BritBox, so we're okay.

I'm Cy.

I'm Cole.

And James.

I'm Pete.

And I'm Peter.

So yeah, so here we are at the end of series B. Terry Nation has walked away because he's got no ideas left on how to finish the season, so it's up to Chris Boucher to end us.

So, I think he's done a good job, but Peter, what do you think of this episode?

Me?

You.

I think this episode is what happens when you have a pivotal entry in the series, which is written by the series script editor, and directed by the series producer, both of whom are better at the job than anyone they were able to employ.

[01:13]

So while it isn't quite my favourite episode of Blake 7.

I think it's sheer quality and it's importance and its demonstration of what the show could do just with assured writing and production.

It is clearly the best episode of the series.

I certainly agree with that.

I think, although it's not my favourite episode.

This is the best one.

This is the one that changes the series again for for the rest of its life, really.

This is a really pivotal story in the series history.

What about you, Pete?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, this is one of those ones where if they'd got it wrong, how could this have quite panned out?

But setting everything up, moving Avon into very much into the leader chair, especially by the end of it, and everything actually comes together, and it, and it feels like a real finale of the type we're used to in modern TV that really wasn't what people, I think, from my knowledge of it, isn't what people were particularly expecting back in the 70s and 80s, that a series would end with a big crescendo of an episode, other series we could mention, had more of a tendency to just limp towards the finish line having run out of money, but in this one, they really packed all their punches into

[02:20]

this.

Yeah.

I think they also did run out of money.

It's interesting what you say there, Pete, about the cliffhanger, because I think this is probably only the 2nd season cliffhanger in TV history after Aurak last season, and that's absolutely the best.

So someone proved me wrong.

I'm on a postcard, BBC television centre with my W-12, 1979.

It helps that I'm jumping to literally the final 2nd of the episode, but only just to talk about the music, because this is because Dudley Simpson throughout, is bringing his A game and the fact that he's able in that final moment to write incidental music that leads specifically up to the 1st note of his theme music as if it was one particular tune, is, yeah, the crowning glory on the whole thing.

But that's ages away.

I love the beginning, the spaceships in peril.

I really believe that the guys on the on the intercom conversation between the increasingly alarmed.

Are you kidding?

Pilot guy.

Yes.

Yes.

I think you're totally wrong.

[03:21]

I'm sorry.

So boring.

It's so boring.

It's like 2 fucking British Airways pilot. like seven.

I'm sitting there going, oh, would you mind awfully getting your thing off 040?

Oh, I'm not on zero.

Would you mind awfully just moving up 040?

That's because they think it's an ordinary boring day and then in the final seconds when it's too late they realise.

Do you know who the guy is?

where it's too late where 2 ships obviously going up one mile an hour explode at each other.

Do you know who the guy is?

Who's the who's the captain?

Morbino, you don't.

It's Morbius.

Oh, I take issue with the name of one of those starships because there is only one Nova queen in this series and that is so...

I'm more the lizard that crawls up at decolitage.

We all love to do that lizard.

And then the casual way that Servlan is talking, you know, they're just because, oh, yes, it was terrible. 1000s of people killed.

[04:25]

Oh, and then the nuclear character fell on the city.

Oh my god, yes.

I love that scene.

She's so differently moral, isn't she?

It's just like, oh, these things happen.

What happened, Durkham?

Turn it on and off again.

Star one's not working.

It's fabulous No, Pete, in all seriousness, Pete.

No, it is a good opening scene.

It just, it's explaining the whole setup for the whole thing and how things have sort of horribly gone wrong and that they've relied on something that they, uh, they shouldn't have perhaps, but it's just very badly paced and, you know.

No, it's not.

No, it's placency.

It's a slow build.

Okay, okay.

It's a tragic, I think.

I'm with Pete on this.

I think it's brilliant and I think it would be a brilliant audio drama as well. an hour of that.

What audio dramas of Blake 7?

That's strange.

Yeah.

Maybe I should do them sometime.

There is, as I said, a lot to unpack in this episode.

So let's start with one of the many A-plots.

[05:25]

Let's start with Serverland's grab for power and how she uses the collapse of Star one to seize ultimate power in the Federation.

James, I can see you are itching to talk about this.

No, I just love that.

It's just, it's so, she's just so cool about it and it's all done in dialogue.

There's no footage of of the president being dragged away.

It's just literally, they're being arrested, all done off screen just with hers sort of going, no, I've taken control.

It's fabulous.

It's the kind of thing that Jacqueline Pierce excels at.

I don't think she's ever better than when she's kind of delivering that urgent sustained dialogue with a hint of vulnerability.

She'll do it again in terminal next year where she just has endless scenes of dialogue and she gives them such urgency and drama.

She is excellent.

And of course, it helps that she's got, what's his name, who plays Durkim, John Bone, to play off.

He's really good because most of the season she's had Travis and he's not that great.

You know, what we've seen John Bonan before?

He's Antedus in Doctor Who and the Dalek.

[06:28]

He's a technical...

Wow.

Wow.

They've ditched the old pacifism, haven't they?

That's an actor with range.

Imagine if the Daleks had turned up at the end.

Yeah, yeah, well, this is one of the updates we might need to unpack it.

But basically the so the A plot is Microsoft Teams is glitching and it's leading to multiple fatalities at the moment, which is something that we can all probably emphasise with.

Yeah, I think pizza is absolutely right.

I think this is one of Jacqueline Pierce's finest performances in the show.

This is the end of her still and menacing Serverland before the big flamboyant Serverland turns up in aftermath, I think.

But she is absolutely resplendent here.

She delivers, like Pete said, delivers everything with such urgency.

The line that always gets me is the where she just very steely and quietly says space command no longer registers the command of the president.

[07:29]

She's just superb there, and you just think, you'd follow her.

Even if you didn't want to, you'd...

And that's the thing that this episode is doing, like everyone concentrates on the fact that, you know, Blake is being moved out of the way and Avon is being given the command, but also what's happening on the other side is that Travis is being ditched and Servolan is being moved into prime position.

And so it's such an important episode for her.

Yeah, it's hard to look back on.

Yeah, with knowing how everything about Blake 7, one of the things of watching it through in order is, it's hard to conceptualise the fact that she was a sort of bonus feature in the early episodes. which instead of being like the person that is almost entirely about, most of the time, and there's plenty of episodes where she's the character who gets the most dialogue.

What does some BBC worldwide call that?

Vam?

Value added material?

Not that they exist anymore.

Funnily enough, Vam was also the little known 3rd Tarrant brother.

That moment where he 1st calls her Madam President.

It's great.

She, and she, she doesn't particularly, or she does react, but I mean, she does make a huge, there isn't a huge fanfare or, you know, in the music or anything.

[08:32]

But it's just a moment that really lands.

But then immediately someone else calls her supreme commander on the phone and just like, yeah, she's not there yet.

She's convinced him she hasn't actually convinced the universe yet.

And as brilliant as she is, John Bone makes those saints as well because he delivers his dialogue so well.

Considering he's got a lot of exposition to do, and he's got a lot of the explanation of what's going on elsewhere in the universe because he's been the one investigating it all.

He delivers it really, really well.

It's one of the things about this episode.

I think, you know, David Loney, we've talked about what a great directory is, and we'll talk more about that.

But the guest cast is uniformly excellent because he just, he keeps them all on the same page.

So, John Bones, brilliant, Lorena's brilliant.

Everyone on Star one is brilliant, and the regulars are great.

There's there's nothing.

There's nothing bad about the episode.

Maybe.

There's always got to be one.

Wonder Centre.

Well, the Blake...

But I think you're right, Peter.

[09:32]

I think having your producer in directing, I do wonder whether that's made everyone raise their game slightly, because I think we saw it in the location scenes in deliverance last year when David Maloney directed those as well, and everyone is really on it and really pacy.

Because we forget, David Maloney is a superb director and he doesn't get a chance very often to direct his own show.

So it's only this half of deliverance and power play, isn't it, that he does.

So we don't see him take control of the show very often, but when he does, the quality is really, really good. right.

And Via Lorimer was originally supposed to be directing this until the very last minute, which is why David Maloney stepped in.

And as good as Vier Lorimar can be on episodes, I just don't think it would have been half as good.

And he's one of those directors, isn't he, who was desperate, who was actually desperate to do the big prestige BBC costume dramas and things like that, and indeed did.

But in interviews, he said, you know, I didn't really want it to be famous as being just a science fiction director, because you see the saw that was a bit formulaic and wanted to do the classics.

[10:37]

Well, he wouldn't be so bloody good at it then, should he?

Because you just think it's, oh, stop it.

Get all those, get all those historical frocks offset and get everyone in proper space costumes.

Stop making us give you work.

Yeah, stop doing culture. do adventures.

Are there BBC rules against the script editor writing scripts and the director, sorry, the producer directing episodes?

As I understand it, Chris Boucher was given special dispensation to write 3 episodes a year, and he wrote Star one because it was literally a last minute thing.

It's all a bit old boys network, isn't it?

It's not like you'd, yeah, it's not like you'd get a fine or a thing it would be, you'd be tutted at in corridors, is the impression, this is just me imagining how it works, but you get the impression from these BPTs website, well, I better not do that.

I might get, might be a mark against me. rather than there being a specific, here are your 3 coupons for writing scripts, which is how it sort of ends up feeling when they talk about it, but maybe it was more, yeah.

They could sort of sneak one in, which was technically breaking the rules.

But yeah.

Yeah, Barry Letts had to have it written into his contract that he would direct a Doctor Who story every year.

[11:41]

So it wasn't a given that just because you're producing, you could direct your own show.

That's right.

And it's a bit unfortunate that Blake 7 didn't have the talent of David Maloney to call on behind the camera more often because he is the perfect director for it.

He's not Douglas Canfield on Duel, who kind of does a really great job, but brings his own kind of style and pace to it.

Dave Maloney works within the constraints of the series and just delivers everything like an A game.

So not only does he have great action sequences and cover them well, and you see that, not only with the climax, but that great sequence which culminates with Cali throwing the bombs over the ridge, which is really well built up.

But even the dialogue is covered in a really visually interesting way.

So that great early scene with Lake sitting on the liberated flight deck and Avon's prowling round behind him.

The one where Avon says you can wade in blood up to your armpits, that brilliant line.

The camera just follows Avon, left to right, left to right, with Blake moving from the writer frame to the left of frame in it, and it kind of subliminally reflects the nervous energy and stakes of the episode. just brilliant. a really great point.

[12:53]

Yeah.

That great conversation about, is it, you know, morally, should they destroy Star one or control Star one?

Blake's of just of this crusading opinions like, well, I've just got to do this to prove I was right.

I'm not going to stop.

And they don't perhaps fully explore, right?

Well, look, you know, if we can control this, we could do this, this, this, and this.

And it's just like, well, instead, look, we've bought these bombs from B&M earlier, we may as well use them.

Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, and you're right.

And it definitely, it just takes it that little bit too far.

So you're like, okay, the way he says it, just lands as, oh, actually, yeah, he's a bit of an utter, isn't he?

He's gone, he's a little bit too convinced that he's doing this for the sake of, he's committed to it now.

It's brilliant, the way Callie just turns to him and says to prove you were right.

It's not necessarily about his whole crusade, it's about him, and this is where the season has been building to with Blake all the way along, right from redemption onwards.

It's Blake's crusading and almost megalomania.

It doesn't quite come across as that.

[13:55]

It seems to come across as like a man trying to find a parking space at Waitrose.

He's really cross, but he's not megliomaniac about it.

It could have come to a bit more of a blow.

But no, I just, I love what you said, Peter, around.

It's all focussed on Avon and he's standing up, whereas Blake's sitting down and just sort of go, turning around and going, excuse me, are you going to answer Jenna's question?

Because if you don't, the only other thing she's got through this episode is talk to the camera through a minute, you know?

So, yeah, it's a really good scene.

I mean, the whole thing is very, very well done as an episode.

It's got so much to it. so much to unpick, so much to think about, so much to realise what's going on.

And the other thing I really like about it is that Blake and Travis have the same kind of outcome in mind. in the sense that when Blake turns up and they're like, oh, hi, Travis.

He's like, yes, yes, I am Travis.

Let me show you my my hand.

Really good.

Yeah.

What I find interesting about that ending, oh, we jumped straight to the ending, um, is it's kind of a replay of the of the same sort of moral ethical dynamic they have at the end of killer.

[15:07]

You know, they could let this Federation be destroyed.

You know, they could let the space plague, you know, decimate planets, but they do the moral thing.

They warn Servoland because aliens, you know, wiping out humanity is bad. apparently.

It's a bigger friend.

It's Jenna's cool, which is a good... was this build as being Blake's last episode in advance.

People know.

I think I read some, but I might be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that people knew in advance that Gareth Thomas was leaving.

So that would have been mentioned in newspaper articles that they hadn't signed for a 3rd season.

Yeah.

Okay, right, yeah.

So, yeah, so that's that just puts an interesting context on it.

So people, particularly, everyone would have been worried, is he going to survive the episode?

But I guess not so much probably was made of the fact that it's also, of course, Jenna's last episode.

Yeah, I'm glad that she, at least, it's her who, who, who, it's her and Avon up on the liberator, and for once they, they don't just have, sorry, her and Villa.

Um, up on the liberator and um, once she gets to make a big call that saves the universe, we hope, or maybe we'll find that, but that's next year.

[16:11]

Credit to the show's female characters here because while Blake is running around talking about his mother and getting shot, Kelly's the one who gets the bombs out of the base and generous server land between them saved the human race from extinction.

Awesome Yeah, that's good.

After they've been really sidelined through the year.

They get good strong roles and it's nice to see Jan Chappell out on location. practically the last time ever.

That is so not true.

She's out on the location much more next year.

Yes.

I think it's only sort of the 3rd or 4th time this year that she's outside.

So that's, yeah, that's that's really good, and it's nice to see that, and she gets a good role and she gets, she gets some good lines and some good close-ups and things like that.

So yeah, it's a good episode for Callie and I do like her calling Blake out and keeping an eye on him all the way through.

Blake 7 is always better with Jen or Callie on location.

[17:14]

Fight me.

No, I don't think we're going to fight.

No, I'm not going to. no fighting here.

There will be no fighting here.

From like from her very 1st episode.

Kelly is brilliant on location.

Yeah.

In red, kicking, kicking Blake's ass.

Come on.

That's not too low.

And she does look superb in that green costume.

That is just a magnificent.

You know who did the costumes for this episode and half the season?

Barbra Kids?

Yes.

I wonder what happened to her.

She grew up.

We've talked about Blake's justifications here, and is he justified?

But what motivates his arch enemy, Travis?

Because this is also quite a pivotal Travis episode for many obvious reasons because they finally get rid of him.

But also he has an interesting story right at the end where he betrays the whole of the human race to Andromedons.

[18:15]

I like to think that he's just really butt hurt by the way that Servolans treated him.

So he just decides to...

Oh, she's, I'm really pissed off at her.

I'm going to destroy the entire human race.

It's good in a way that he isn't in it that much.

You didn't want another of him sort of turning out.

Oh, brother or whatever, you know?

Don't start that.

I'm sorry.

You've had a different costume.

But it kind of short and sweet, and I think the way he appears out of that doorway and shoots Blake is a genuine kind of, oh, shit moment.

I think that's really well done.

Yeah, yeah.

Finally, you've learned how to shoot your arch image after all this.

And he's back to his old self.

He's in his almost original costume after being new romantic and wearing big hats and capes all most of this year. including 5 minutes previously.

Suddenly he's back as the brutal leather cloud hen killer.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, the best the best part of Travis's appearance, this episode is when Laverna and Avon are outside the morgue, which, of course, has its own logo, Travis appears, and instead of shooting them with his finger, throws his coat at them. runs away with him.

[19:29]

That was the same trick that the master pulled on Sergeant Benton in Doctor Who's the demons.

He just threw his cape over him and caused him to collapse the ground.

It was the static electricity in that case that got him, I think.

So I have a question.

How much time has passed between the keeper and Star one because unless Travis had already made contact with the Star one pizza monsters earlier in the season.

Which seems unlikely.

A lot has happened in the interim.

It's not really clear and Travis's motives aren't that well explained or supported.

You just kind of assume that he's gone off the deep end and wants everyone to die.

What do we think?

This is one of the things that I have a small problem with the end of series B. I think, because we lose the big Terry Nation 3 parter, they're scrambling round for scripts.

And so nothing quite comes together as neatly as it might have done.

So all the ideas are there and they know sort of the beats of the plot, but the timings are all very weird and strange.

[20:31]

So Travis leaves the keeper early and goes off to star one.

But Blake is only seemingly hours behind him.

So there's not a lot of time for this plot.

And yet, in the meantime, the Andromedans have taken over Star one and all the crew and are going forward with their plat.

Yeah, it doesn't quite work when you stop and think about it.

No, I completely agree.

It does seem like there's 2 timelines going on.

But it's okay that that can still be a twist, you know, or just part of the plot.

It's still, it doesn't not work.

It's just like, well, we didn't know this was happening.

Or, you know, if they had dropped a hint a bit a few episodes earlier.

Well, just a couple of lines of dialogue.

Yeah.

Oh, we've been searching for weeks.

Yes.

So do we think that maybe the cremos in hostage were pizza monsters?

That's why they look so scared running away from the boulder. could see that run you just did.

[21:36]

I was wonderful.

You encapsulate a dull spirit. to be about 4 of me pushed together to make that one cremo.

I think the whole thing might be a relic, like you were saying, psy, of the original two-part finale that Terry Nation was going to write.

It's impossible not to think that Travis's story would have been sort of brought to an end in a more fulsome way, which sort of things more set up.

Whereas in this episode, even though he does play a role.

It's not really about him.

So somewhere along the line, the end of his character arc has kind of been lost or glossed over, but, you know, like Cole says, it's not really that important.

It still works.

Although these last few episodes have a lot pressed so many of the buttons of a modern box set or 456 part story, but they're really not.

They are just being a 45 minute standalone play, but that is picking up stuff that happened previously, but you don't have cliffhangers running into the next week's episode through them, even though it almost, it almost feels like there is because it's got that momentum going through the episodes.

[22:40]

But yeah, I'm happy to think.

Yeah, it's been a while, but not to bits and bobs between the episodes.

It would have been great at the end of the keeper, if Blake had said onwards with luck to Star one, and then they'd all just gone and, you know, had a holiday and visited Space City.

Well, they all, they're probably suffering from space fatigue again.

Jenna's got to come down after all those drugs she took in the keeper.

So...

Jenna's destined for several years on the Emmerdale farm, isn't she?

So that's the next step in her career.

So that's a comedown.

And a lot more location for Jen, but hey, that's where the other Jenna started.

Jenna Coleman.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, Cycle of Jenner's.

And Jenny Twigg, who is what's her face?

Larina.

Thank you.

I really should have write character's names, Animal Oates.

She ends up in Grange Hill and then Biker Grove.

Yeah.

She does.

Yeah, she's Samo's mum.

Yeah.

Oh, nice.

It's also in the Anedum line.

Of course, they've got the same hairstyle.

[23:40]

She is so brilliant, by the way.

Her performance is so nervy.

Yeah, she, you could, she's really on the edge of breaking, and you can feel it in every line she's saying, especially the out there, out there, they're still alive.

They're still walking around.

Yeah, the whole invasion of the body snatchers.

Yes.

Yes.

Actually, that was that came out not too far before that, I think, the Donald Sutherland version, which is...

It does feel very invasion of the body snatches.

At that moment, which you, that moment you referenced earlier, where they opened the door and those 4 Star one crew members kind of strung up with the white eyeballs.

I think that's that's the foremost moment of horror in the series.

Yeah, yes, I think so.

And then it's quickly followed by Avon shooting one of them and there's blood.

It doesn't you don't normally get that, right?

Because that bumps you up from a U to a PG, you know, doing it like that.

And a giant car mutant on the floor as well.

[24:41]

Yeah, yeah.

Made out of Swafiga and bubble wrap.

Oh, I mean, those pizza monsters are just brilliant.

They're just, they're icky with their, their pulsating and they're welching and they're bubbling.

There is no logical reason why aliens should be pepperoni.

It's that, it's that squelchy sound effect that Elizabeth Parker gives to them when they're, whenever they're on screen, their duplicates are on screen as well.

So you sense something is not quite right, but you don't know exactly what it is 1st thing.

That's really well done.

The other thing Elizabeth Parker does brilliantly in this episode is that there's often a very low kind of siren sound throughout it.

It's this constant feeling of unnervingness and, you know, discomfort with that low edged siren sound throughout.

The soundscape always helps Blake 7 so much.

You get it in this episode.

It plays such a key role.

We'll get it in terminal again next year where...

[25:43]

Oh my god, the soundtrack is just...

That's probably the reason that's my favourite episode. is just that heartbeat. is fucking awesome.

It's incredible And I mean, like you said earlier, Dudley Simpson as well.

This is his most striking score for the series and the whole thing feels epic.

He gives it a grandeur, doesn't he?

Especially when you've got lots of slow model shots of the liberator and space command and coming into orbit and then against the fleet, he makes those scenes tense when they could look.

I mean, they don't look brilliant, as we will probably talk about shortly.

Oh, we will.

You feel the threat because the music makes you feel the threat of them and the tension rising.

Yeah, he's magnificent here.

Yeah.

No, I have a question.

How many anti-grav mines would you need to protect the entire galaxy?

And how long would it take you to make them?

I, it's just like, they're talking about the, I love the whole concept of Star one, that it's outside just outside the galaxy.

[26:50]

It's almost totally dark, it's cold all the time, which I think is ridiculous because there's no, there shouldn't be any sunlight because it's outside the galaxy, but there you go.

But it's an opening a star.

A dead star.

A white door.

Star one.

Yep, yes.

Okay.

Which should be red light.

Oh, fuck.

It's a complete lift of the motif in it from a war movie of they've got one bridge to cross or something like that.

And it's like, but why?

Oh, there's mines or something.

It's thinking in 2D space rather than 3D space, like a lot of sort of space battles where they're not thinking, we can move in any direction.

You'd very rarely get, particularly at this time.

It's confrontational straight on head-on stuff, isn't it, rather than thinking in all 3 dimensions?

Probably, if it was being done now, they would just bung in a bit of techno dialogue about there being a vortex blood blue that only has one window or something.

So, yeah, to make it more because viewers are more familiar with space science-y, stuff like that, I suppose.

[27:50]

Yeah, that at that point, I guess they felt they didn't really need to cover their asses on that front.

They could just say, there's a moment field, there's anyone.

Well, they were just running out of time and money.

That too.

It does do a good job of having, we often have episodes where they're going from one place to another or zooming off through an asteroid field and coming back again in late seven.

There's often interstellar or interplanetary movement in episodes.

But in this one, it does, it just felt to me like a really good, big dramatic field of drama with the liberator in one place and star one in another, and then you've got Servlan over in back at her donut base.

Talking urgently in a control room.

Talking very urgently.

Actually, well, not be president of a ruined empire, which is one of her best lines, and I forgot to mention that when we talked about her earlier, because that's an amazing line.

Just the whole, everywhere feels in play at the same time, rather than there just being a place where things are happening and then we'll have to go somewhere else later.

I've worded that badly.

No, no, I think you've, I think, no, I think you've cracked it.

Yeah, yeah.

Everything is in play. everyone's got stuff to do.

Stuff is happening to everyone, wherever they, wherever they are, whether or not they're on the base or on Star one or on the Liberator.

[28:53]

Apart from Villa.

You know, he just gets to worry this week.

Yes, worried comedy lines for most of the season.

Sorry, for most of the series and that's fine.

That's fine.

He doesn't so well. let's run for it.

I've got a question.

What was what was the Federation's plan?

If Star one hadn't been invaded by Andromedans and destroyed.

What were they going to do when the original crew got old and died?

How are they going to replace the staff?

How were they going to run the interviews?

Yeah.

Oh, they just fire up star two.

Didn't actually go.

We got that on the standpoint.

Parton with the black hair.

He was actually the child of Stott and Lorena. you know that?

No, it could become a breeding colony.

You're one woman, but that's what she's there for.

I mean, you know who Parton is, though.

[29:54]

He's Juliano from Mask of Mandragora.

Oh, yeah, he is.

Yes.

In a fairly in a fairly small role, actually, which shows you how good the cast is for this episode.

Yeah, because he doesn't have a masses to do.

It's interesting as well talking about the minefield as we were.

The debt that 90 Star Trek pays to this episode because not only do we have that brilliant cliffhanger at the end of the best of both worlds, which is just the cliffhanger from Star one in a different context.

We also have the whole Deep Space 9 thing of seeding the mouth of the wormhole with mines to prevent the alien force from getting through.

And in that case, we've moved on by 10 or 15 years, and so they've got some technobabble to cover it, and the mines are self-replicating.

So you can actually believe that there is like an endless swarm of them rather than some kind of wall of mines that's being set up in 3 dimensional space.

That is a terrific point.

It also helps that it's the late 90s.

[30:56]

So they actually have a budget, and they didn't have to raid the BBC canteen to make all the spaceships.

All right, we just talk about this now.

Okay.

Yes, we can.

The reason I don't think this is a perfect episode is and look, it's not anyone's fault or anything, but the ships are terrible.

It's like the fucking Fisher Price invasion force.

It's terrible.

It's like, bless them for trying.

It's such a shame that what should have been a like an awe struck kind of thing.

It's just like, well, you see that last shot of the liberator and all of these sort of plastic spoons painted.

And the liberator could just go, well, I'll just go left a bit and I'll be fine.

You know, it's really unfortunate.

It really, it's, it lets it down.

They just don't look like anything.

It's like, hi, we're an invasion force, Andromeda, and everyone of our ships is completely different for no reason, you know?

You just get one ship and mirror it, do you know?

But of course, I'm not, you know, criticising the creative work of the people that had no money to work with.

[32:00]

I'm just saying that...

Just imagined their faces.

Their faces today, that script landed on their desk.

And it's warm of a 1000 spaceships.

Could they be blogs of light, maybe?

No, we want proper spaceships.

They have lobs on the scanner. for quite a while I think this is known as the end of season invasion fleet.

No money at all.

However, with that one saying that, that one lamentable exception, I don't think anyone will claim that it's a very good model shot, the bespoke model work otherwise is tremendous.

The shot of the liberator.

Yeah, Nova Queen's good, the liberator leaving the galaxy behind and then flying through the darkness. suddenly it in black.

Yeah, just a plain black background.

I think those shots are iconic.

I mean, Dudley Simpson, like we said, obviously helps, but I think those shots are amazing.

Yeah, it's just a shame about the fleet because we know the visual effects department can come up with really great spaceship models, particularly at this time.

[33:04]

They're doing good work in, and a lot of Blake 7 and a lot of Doctor Who.

But it just doesn't, doesn't quite... the point is that, you know, they can do like the London, right?

The London taking off in the 2nd episode is terrific model work.

It's just, sadly, they just didn't have the budget to realise what they could have and what they're capable of. and that's not.

Do you think it would be better if they'd created one big, big, space cruiser?

and sort of just shown that sort of coming towards it with sort of the hints in sort of lights or so many, many ways.

Yeah, in other ways.

Yeah, foreground a good model and then have lots of duplicate sort of tiny little things in the background.

What this episode and the rest of the series needs is a good special, you know, special edition with, you know, like, like...

Yeah.

Yeah, just imagine.

It would date.

Oh, it would.

On the Federation side, I love that the Cruiser Beagle is part of the flotilla because the Federation names its prison ships after cities and its warships after puppies.

[34:13]

We could maybe have a tenuous girl at saying that, well, the Andromedans actually. are established, they're a bit thick.

I mean, they don't realise that Blake isn't Travis, even when they're like, oh, your hand seems like, oh, what's happened to your eye?

So maybe they're just crap at designing spaceships and that's the only reason we're able to actually defeat them.

That's unfortunate, but it does lead us to the magnificent and beautifully written and beautifully played ending where everything is ramping up.

So Servoland has sent the fleet out, and you're getting all the communications between the ships coming through with the times and Durkim and Servoland, there are at space commands, sort of saying, well, what happens in the meantime?

So you've got this really feeling of tension right from the start of that that scene, and you know something big is happening and they're all ready, but no one is there in time, and there's only one ship that is there to hold it all off, and it's the best ship in the universe.

[35:14]

And all the ship that's been trying to destroy the federation the entire time is forced.

Yes.

Exactly.

So you're, yeah, you've suddenly have a bigger enemy than your enemy to, and you're in a loose truce.

And God Survland had that big red button installed to press in the event of aliens from another galaxy swarming over Star one, which is supposed to be impossible.

It's a it's a send in cruiser beagle button.

And Blake, they both, I think, at some point say, Blake, Blake definitely says, we've got a final act of our own to arrange.

It's like, yes, we might as well say we're on the last few pages of the script.

It metaphorically speaking.

I mean, the stakes couldn't be any higher, could they?

Not really.

Yeah, and putting the universe in peril or the galaxy in peril.

Is a difficult thing to sell and a difficult thing to land, as other series have learnt quite recently, I think.

I mean, this does it.

Yeah, because it's just the focus.

And what we've got also is we've got the de facto leader, the named leader of the series is really injured.

[36:19]

So there's just that moment of doubt with, well, who is going to take command here.

We know who's going to take command here, but we don't know because it's Avon, whether he will do what he, what needs to be done or whether he will, just that little moment of doubt, I think, will Avon do the right thing.

Get us out of here.

And yeah, and that's Paul Darrow is absolutely at his height in this episode. and it all ties back to that, the scene at the beginning where he shifts and his anger about Blake all comes out.

That could have just seemed blunt and coming from nowhere, but because of the way it's directed, like you guys were saying earlier, with the camera work, we follow him in that 1st scene on the Liberator to see how angry and passionate he is about how much he hates Blake, which makes the stakes at the end.

Yes. just lands it perfectly.

Does that line at the end, which I love, which is Avon, for what it's worth.

I have always trusted you from the very beginning.

Just think that's just a terrific way for them to sort of sign off.

And you know, for me, it's not even the line.

[37:20]

It's as brilliant as it is, it's Paul Darrow's reaction. which just makes it.

Yes, he's sort of like...

Yeah, he's so he's so halfway between.

Oh, all right, and that's odd, you know, it's such a great reaction.

You're right.

But brilliantly, what it also does is seeds Avon's ultimate descent because this is, he can't almost process that this man who, he doesn't particularly like, has always trusted him.

And I think this sort of sets him on the path, sort of his downward spiral for the next 2 seasons in a lot of ways.

So identity crisis triggered, isn't it?

yeah Yeah, it's like, it's almost like Blake is putting the knife into him and because he knows Avon so well that he knows this might be the one thing that sort of pushes him over the edge.

I don't know. that you could read it that way.

But also you can read it as a very heartfelt.

This is your show now.

Here you go.

Run with it.

It's okay.

I trust you to do the right thing here with my ship.

[38:23]

Yeah, it's very interesting that Blake is not on the on the flight deck with the rest of the crew at the end of the episode.

Yes, they're they're carrying on.

He's gone and they're just carrying... carrying on with... he's done.

His story is done and they're carrying on without him there. but he's finished. finished with.

It's a shame that, like, I mean, this is Jenna's last episode as well.

She doesn't have as much to do as, like, well, she has the same amount to do with Villa, who's staying on for another 2 years, but, you know, Callie is foregrounded.

Absolutely, absolutely.

But all she turns, all she really has is that scene where she's using Aurax faster 56 K modem to serve man.

And she delivers it straight to camera, which is kind of interesting, which does, I think, fluff her lines kind of twice.

She does.

She stumbles over it, doesn't she?

I think she's reading off cue cards.

Seriously, I think she is.

There's a lot to deliver at that point.

I like how we've got used to Avon sort of having him playing word games with Aurac and being like, I shall trick you into dementiarising yourself and all that.

[39:28]

And she just switches it on as like, send this bloody message.

Just do it.

Not having any of his crap, shit.

I think within the fiction of the series, Avon is lucky that Jenna didn't stay because I think she would have given him a run for his money as leader of the remaining crew.

Yeah, well, she's been there as long as he has.

And you see in this episode that she doesn't take any rubbish from Blake, she's probably standing up to him.

And that would have just been such an interesting dynamic.

I'm sad it didn't happen.

But you know, then we wouldn't have had Dana.

Didn't she leave to go and do a university degree?

She did.

She talked it over with Bruce Purchase, apparently.

And after the keeper and said he convinced her to go off and study.

He said, you must go and do a university.

Just...

Calliant.

Oh, shut up, Villa. is one of my favourite little moments of this is easily tossed aside.

She's had enough of his comic relief nonsense this week.

[40:29]

But still, he's the audience, identification person, isn't he?

Yeah, and he's the one who questions what they're doing right at the end, isn't he?

With the fabulous exchange, which I just love, where he just turns around, says, Avon, this is stupid, and then just Paul Darrow's brilliant.

When did that ever stop us?

And then you get the wonderful close-ups of each of the crew react, just ready for action and then the amazing fire.

And just see the finger going down to, to blast, and you don't see anything after that, and that is, and it's just magnificent.

The tension there is absolutely palpable.

You're right.

And there's so many great lines in this episode, like all those.

Oh, we are so lucky it's a Chris Boucher script.

But I think my favourite is. still and it still makes me laugh is she is my mother.

Oh, I don't know.

I quite like unfriendly, which is fortunate, really.

They'd be difficult enough.

[41:29]

I like, they are trying to kill me, and Avon says they have a novel approach to the job.

I like the simplicity of is Travis dead?

He is now.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the beauty of Boucher, screwdetting Boucher, really, isn't it?

It's like, oh, I'll put a joke in.

Oh, actually, I could make that joke better.

Yeah, double vouchered.

Yeah, it does feel like he's been unleashed this episode and he can do what he wants with this show.

And he's got such a great handle on how everyone talks and reacts and would play in any situation.

And I think he gives them really great stuff to work with all the way through.

And you can see the actors are raising their game because they've got a really good script to work from.

And every character in a scene, especially on the flight deck contributes and has an important role to play.

Some writers just aren't that good.

They can't they can't multitask like that.

[42:35]

I will survive.

It's still the UK's number one hit single.

That could be the theme music for the only thing Dudley Simpson could have done to take it even higher was to segue into that during the closing credits.

And this is the last episode of Blake 7 to be transmitted in pre- Thatcherite Britain.

She will be prime minister next time it comes back.

Wow, that puts it in its place in history.

That explains series D. Also explains why the next 2 episodes are called aftermath and power play.

I just think this is magnificent.

This is so, this is as far from the 0 drama pantomime of voice from the past as it's possible to get.

It's just brilliant.

And I think the moral of the story is when you're on a solitary planet orbiting an isolated star, don't order out for pizza.

[43:45]

Right, well, thank you very much for joining us to talk about Star One.

The best episode of Blake 7.

If actually no one's a favourite episode of Blake 7.

Well, certainly amongst the 5 of us here anyway.

We'll be back next week with our series B retrospective, which should be fun.

I don't know if it's going to be fun yet because we haven't recorded it, but we will do it by the time we get.

Don't overpromise or anything, sir.

Yeah exactly.

Right, you all bring in your...

Oh, seriously, game.

Yeah, we get it worse as it goes on.

So, is it over?

It is now.

Switching to manual.

Maximum power on all drives.

Maximal power.