Doing Coriolanus

[00:03]

Maximum power.

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

We're here to start series C, but not quite in the way you'd imagine.

So hello, I am Cy, and I'm joined by...

Hi, I'm Carl.

I'm Mark, and I'm Pete.

And today we are taking a deep dive into the murky world of Big Finish as we do their very 1st Blake 7 full cast Adventure, Warship, which I have to say is my favourite thing that Big Finish have ever done ever.

So you're saying, Simon, is like the TV show, but with no pictures.

How is that ever going to catch on?

I don't understand why people are doing this.

But apparently there is a bit of demand for it.

Apparently, one or 2 of these things have been extremely successful.

Yeah, I think they did a couple of Doctor Who ones and they proved to be a bit popular.

[01:05]

Okay.

So within Blake 7 fans, this must have been a huge deal when it came out, I take it.

Yeah, this was the 1st time they'd managed to get everyone together to record an adventure.

So it was the very 1st full cast adventure.

So what they'd done previous to this was the Liberator Chronicles, which featured 2 or maybe 3 different voices with half narrated, half dialogue adventures.

So you'd get Avon and Villa teleporting down to a planet to have an adventure and one of them would take the most of the narration.

The other one would be there for dialogue and banter with each other or whatever, but sort of logistically they found that this worked sort of fairly well.

But then this script came through, and this was actually written as a Liberated Chronicle originally, but everyone could just see the potential with a little bit of tweaking and a bit of clever financial work, we could actually get everyone in together and do this, which is why there are no extra voices apart from the main cast in this one because it's very expensive to do because there's a lot of main cast.

[02:14]

Yeah, that's the real challenge they've got, isn't it?

Unlike Doctor Who, where you've got your 2 or 3 regulars that everyone knows, and then you can populate it with new characters as much as your plot requires.

This must have been such a challenge, getting, particularly because I think, it's clearly an episode that gives everyone an equal bite of the pie, which isn't something that normally cereals, like, like, 7 or Star Trek could ever do.

Normally you have an episode that's like this week, it's a Blake episode this week.

It's a favourite episode, but this one is, I think it's, they did balance that really well, the scripting, to give everybody, it's not seventh, is it?

But no, it is.

Yeah, it's not quite.

Maybe Orac doesn't get all that much, but he still does.

Maybe that's not terribly authentic after we've watched series B of Blake 7, where lots of people didn't get an equal share of the pie, but here everyone gets something good to do.

Each member of the cast gets their hero moment or their in Villa's case, their moment of panic.

So packed with incident, isn't it?

[03:15]

It feels like any of the little subplots would have been half a normal episode of the TV show, like getting the limpet mind aliens off the hull of the liberator.

That would be fully half of a TV episode.

You know, they would spend that long on it, but there's loads, like say, giving everybody something to do.

There's all these little subplots and it's, yeah, it's really, really packed with incidents, great, really re-flies along.

Well, exactly.

So you've got Blake and Callie going down to Megiddo to explore, which again would have been sort of a major part of a normal episode.

But this is just sort of the C plot or kind of at that point of the episode and you don't know quite what they're getting into and how important it's going to be.

So yeah, it's really nicely structured, I think.

Had any of you listened to any of the other any of the 2 headers before this one?

I think I'd heard a couple, because they've been doing them for about 2 years, I think, before this one came out in 2013.

It's his 10th anniversary.

[04:16]

I just read this.

It's the 10th anniversary of warship coming out this year.

Because the casts all sound like they know that they're back into their shoes, their character's shoes very comfortably with varying degrees.

I've got a stalking cold at the moment and I feel like I'm like a 60-year-old version of me trying to convince people that I'm myself 40 years ago. my voice is like, and I think I'm much less convincingly me than they are themselves, to varying degrees, especially, I think Michael Keating is just particularly just straight into the comedy patter of villa, especially with that paired up with Avon, of course.

Although, for me, Avon is Paul Darrow now.

It's not like, it's like Tom Baker is not really the 4th doctor.

He's just Tom Baker being Tom Baker because really what's the difference?

Because really what's the difference in terms of, in terms of speech patterns and the, the, the, the, the same of, could have said the same of William Shatner, can't you?

there's a point where somebody is so wedded to one character that they've carved out so successfully that it's like, where is there even a line?

[05:18]

Why would anyone want a line?

Well exactly.

And I think you could sense Paul Darrow is just loving being back in the helm and loving playing Avon again, although his voice is much deeper than it was on TV.

It kind of suits the characterisation he's got and he's just, yeah, he's he's absolutely superb.

So he's he's really on it.

I think the one that always sort of sounds least like he did on TV is Gareth Thomas, whose voice is not quite what it was.

It's not quite John Luke Picard in Picard's stage or...

But it's it's not far off.

It's going kind of huskier, isn't it?

less deep, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah, whereas Darrow's voice is deepened and deeper and deepened, which kind of suits the character of Avon with Blake. yeah, you're quite right.

It's not his voice isn't as strong, so it doesn't sound quite as commanding.

They're all doing a lot to elucidate in a very Colin Baker kind of way.

[06:20]

You know, everyone's lines are very, very, very, very well spoken, even, even more in the TV version.

But I think they also improve, you know, really good.

I mean, I think Cali doesn't sound much different at all.

No, Jen Chapel's really good, isn't she?

She sounds great.

That's a name.

Yes.

Paul Darrow's, because he sounds really great and he's very commanding and everything, but there's sort of a slight quality to it that you get when you hear Michael Jason in big finish compared to how he was on TV.

I think Darrow, when Paul Darrow's got a funny line to deliver.

He delivers it now with a bit more relish, like as if he's delivering a funny line at a convention.

That's the bit where I was saying, I think that was what made me think, yeah, this is more Darrow than Avon to a certain extent because he's just, he loves his punchline so much and he loves his witty twists of words.

And he gets plenty of them in this.

It's got a good, really good few. comedy moments in a sense of witty dialogue, not like comic hijinks, but yeah, the dialogue here is really, really witty.

[07:21]

What I noticed, I don't know if I can't remember if this was in the TV episodes, that Avon calls Zen and Aurac, it, and everyone else refers to them as him.

Is that something that's, like, is it in the TV show, but it kind of stuck out maybe because I was listening more to the dialogue because it was audio?

Has anyone been paying attention the past 2 years?

I have no idea.

Back through my notes.

Yeah, but pizza angeladies.

I hope I pronounce it right, um, is very, is so um, sharp on his, on his Blake 7 law and things like that, I would imagine that if it's in the script, it must be because that's what it was, how it was done.

But if it is, then maybe Paul Darrow decided to do it while they were recording, as a way of making him different to everyone else, yeah, you can had to speculate on that, can you?

I'm not sure.

Well, I'm sure someone will tweet in and let us know.

It's interesting the way even commands, he keeps everybody compartmentalise.

So he doesn't tell Villa and Jenna, who are left on the ship, that Callie and Blake have gone down to the planet and that kind of thing.

[08:23]

He doesn't sort of let each subteam know what the other ones are doing.

And I couldn't remember if he's not normally in command in the TV show, is he?

So, uh, whereas this when he sort of commanding the ship.

But yeah, his sort of leadership style is, he's evasive when they say, well, can't Callie help?

And he says, oh, no, she's tied up doing something else.

He doesn't say I've just beamed her down to Megiddo with Blake.

You know, because certainly when we go to aftermath, he is in charge, because that's just happened, and this is the transition to him going, look, I'm going to send Blake down with a broken arm and maybe it'll fuck off.

Yeah, it's very interesting that he says, oh, there isn't anyone, we can't spare you, Callie, but we can send Blake off to do this half injured and half dead.

He could go and do this.

It kind of undoes that little bit where they at the end of Star one, they're like, I have always trusted you.

It kind of undoes that a little bit and that's okay.

So, but I mean, I like the way that he actually, I think he has the least to do in this.

I like I absolutely love the way that Callie and Jenna are pretty much, I think, the 2 that have the most to do.

[09:30]

Sure, you know, quickly followed by Blake and Villa, but that's my feeling.

Yeah, they've all got stuff, but it definitely makes a point of compensating them for their underuse in the previous one year, particularly, doesn't it?

Yeah.

There's a wonderful bit where Callie and Jenna get to have an argument as well once Callie has rescued her after Jenna's about to do her old smuggler's trick again, that we've never, we never get to see her doing her old smuggler's trick at all.

And so she's so close to pulling that off.

And then obviously she's furious about that.

So she's got her hero moment that's snatched away from her.

Also really good use of Callie's telepathy all the way through this one, which makes a change.

I know.

There's a brilliant line, there's a brilliant line where she does she say something?

There must be something about this area of space that makes my telepathy's actually working this week.

That's not what she says, but that's the gist of it.

Yeah, they've even put in a little bit in the script to say, yeah, this week we're doing it properly, so we better actually give it a reason why we are doing it properly this week.

[10:34]

We've all remembered about it this week.

Yeah, and it leads to that great line where Villa says, can you read my mind and she just snaps back, no one would want to read your mind, Villa, which is absolutely perfect.

And of course, we've got one addition to the cast for this, due to the much Mr. Peter Tudman's celestial unavailability.

We've got Alistair Locke stepping up to be the 2 computers.

Um, I don't know.

I guess he's done them before on the previous ones or had it?

Just done a few odd lines here and there because he was generally doing the sound design.

So he would pop those in.

Ah, I see.

Yeah.

And I think, yeah, I think he does them both really well.

I don't know, it's not, it's that thing of, do you do an impression or do you do it your own way?

And it's kind of a happy medium of the two.

I particularly like Zen saying systems, because I remember that Zen is always pronounced systems, weirdly, with an emphasis on the E, and you keep doing that in it.

[11:35]

Yeah, I think he does a pretty good job overall.

And he says that there's bonus interview clips at the end where he talks about, he says it is really, if you're doing 2 characters in an audio, it can be tricky.

But fortunately, they were created so individually and such strong personalities and distinctive voices.

There's no risk of it sounding, like it's the same person necessarily if you didn't know it was, which is a fair point, yeah.

I like the way the script of analyses Blake, quite a lot, you've got it through Cali's sort of interrogation of him when they're down on Megiddo about, you know, kind of almost what is the difference between you and Travis in terms of, you know, by destroying Star one, you're going to sort of potentially kill all these people, so the planets where the weather's controlled.

You know, is that going to sort of lead to natural disasters and things?

And then I thought that bit where he's recording his personal log at the start.

And it sort of stops on the bit where he says he could have killed 1000000s, even 1000000000s and then repeats that bit.

[12:35]

And then he listens to that right at the end and it's, I felt like that was sort of highlighting that thing as well of, you know, where, where he differs from Travis and from the Federation, because he talks about the Federation sort of killing people, to remove and just treating them as numbers, and then he kills the guy who's in suspended animation or whatever, stasis on the planet, and again, you know, by destroying Star one, potentially have killed a lot of people.

I really like the way it doesn't go straight into immediately after Avon says fire at the end of Star one.

It backs up by about five, 10 minutes, replays it, then goes to that.

They reenact the lines and then we go to the credits.

I thought that was really nice.

It's a really, really good way of interweaving it.

I think it should be a bit more of that.

You know, you could take particular episodes and do an audio in all the bits in the middle.

Yeah, wrap around, yeah.

Yeah, I think that was one of the things that surprised me when I 1st listened to it, where suddenly your, um, sort of Avon calling Cali back to the flight deck to do the end of Star one, which I wasn't expecting at all.

[13:40]

I didn't expect sort of the recreation.

And they're almost perfect with their inflections from Star one as well.

I wonder if someone had played the DVD into them.

So I said, no, do it like this.

Now this is how you've got to do it.

We've got to do this as properly as we can.

And then into the credits.

And then, again, at the very end of the episode when you start getting the bits from the start of aftermath with Zen's messages and villa going off to check the life capsules, which is sort of at the very start of that episode.

So you've got a perfect bridge between the two.

Yeah, I wonder if the maybe they let them watch the end of Star Trek Next Generation, best of both worlds, part one, which is also a reenactment of that exact same thing.

I've mentioned that before and I'm going to keep mentioning it.

It's exact... steal steal from the best.

Fire.

I was thinking, well, listen to it.

This episode could have been called Power Play, except apparently that title has already been taken by another Blake 7 episode, because there's so much about, they're teeing up Blake and Avon, and there, you know, there's the, where Blake finally calls it our ship. and everyone's like, that'll do for now, or what's that effect?

[14:52]

But yeah, it's not, we're teeing up Blake for that, and we're also teeing up our other character, who's not in with them all, but is certainly a presence, we've got Servolan at the head of her armada, also thinking, making her power play for not caring if the, if Star one gets destroyed as long as she ends up ruling the universe after it.

That's in typical style.

Yeah, the Blake Avon's such brilliant.

I really like when Avon Beams, Blake and Callie down to Megiddo, and he says goodbye, Blake, and then after he's beamed down, so he teleported down, he says, and good luck.

So it's like he doesn't want to hear him wishing him good luck.

I thought that was nice.

And the other bit I really like just before that when he approaches Blake to ask him to go to Megiddo.

And they sort of talk a little bit 1st and then Blake goes, what do you want me to do?

And Avon answers a little laugh 1st as if like, yeah, he knows me so well, like I wouldn't just be coming to check on his well-being after he'd been shot through the heart.

But he's such a nice subtle little thing.

[15:53]

He just gives a little sort of half laugh and then tells him about the planetoid.

Yeah, I think this works really well as a handover episode that we didn't get in the series itself that actually, this is, sort of Blake almost symbolically handing everything over to Avon and Gareth Thomas handing it over to Paul Darrow, which we didn't really get to see.

Would we have wanted this as a TV episode?

It would have been an explosive start to series C.

Yeah, but I can see why they wanted to start with it being, here we are now.

This is now a show without blaking it anymore.

You don't want the character who's leaving at the end of your previous series to have a big role in the 1st episode of the series that they're not in, I guess.

Yeah.

I'd actually just contractually.

I mean, you know, Yes, they've got a very time in the Rani, right?

Yeah, yes.

So I take it then not knowing the sort of the law behind this.

[16:57]

It was unexpected that Gareth Thomas didn't stay on or take it then.

Well, I think he was desperate to get out pretty much from week two, wasn't he?

Or something, but they had him contracted.

They had him contracted for 2 years.

So no, I think I think it was promoted as being, like the end of series one, sorry, the end of series 2 was promoted as being his departure.

It was like Blake, Blake, Blake leaves.

So yeah, at some point they took that decision to go on with Derek will get tweets now saying that this is all wrong.

But, yeah. once they'd decided that they would carry on anyway.

For one, for just one more year.

That was the thing that was going to be just one more year without Blake.

So why they didn't definitively write him out.

I mean, at the end of series B, if they knew.

Yeah, that is odd. he doesn't get a big final scene.

And in this, he gets the final scene with with Servolan.

He gets to say, well, Silverland.

It's not been.

I wish it could say it's been a pleasure, which she said to someone else earlier, I think.

It's like, in the same episode, in warship, which is a nice bit of looping round.

But yeah, he gets a final, a final farewell scene to Serverland in this.

[18:00]

Spoilers. where it's not a spoiler.

And then gets the final scene himself as well as he's leaving the ship one last time.

And he echos the line from the 1st episode, doesn't he?

Yeah, I'm coming back.

The, yeah, yeah, kind of recognise that, yeah.

But not for a little while Spoiler alert.

What was Gareth Thomas's redoing?

And again, this might not be interesting. the listeners who might already know this, but what did he not like about it, then, was, you know, enjoying it?

A lot of the problem was that he meets all the other actors who'd be at the RSC and they'd be taking the piss saying, oh, you're just doing this crappy sci-fi series.

Why are you doing this?

You could be coming here and doing Coriolanus with us at the RSC.

Come on, come back to where you belong.

This is, it's almost like...

You can be thinking of, this is beneath, beneath you and your talents.

You could be the new Patrick Stewart, but instead you're making a silly series about outer space.

[19:02]

It's peer pressure.

Again, there was a lot of actors sort of saying, come on, you're better than this.

Come and come back to the stage.

And stage work was his 1st love.

Yeah.

Paul Darrow is very nice about it in his memoirs, which again, if you haven't listened to them, get them and listen, they are amazing.

Paul Darrow manages to do that thing of sort of being slightly acidic, but at the same time, it's quite flattering, the way that he describes Gareth Thomas needed the visceral interaction with his audience and to be there with the new things every week.

And that's what Thomas requires, whereas I, I can't remember what he said. you know, I just want to be a star on telly.

That's pretty much what...

Yeah.

So dislike Michael Prade in robbing a show, but then he leaves to go back to the stage as well. kind of some story about that.

Yeah, that means about, yeah.

I'm just people who've trained, so they are so good, as good at acting as that, as these guys are, then find it really, really sort of restrictive, being stuck doing your filming once a week in the same sets every week.

[20:10]

Yeah.

But there was no bad blood, obviously, because, yeah.

And Sally Nevette was going off at the time to go back and study.

So she went off to university to do an English literature degree straight after this.

So thanks to Bruce Purchase from the keeper who'd sort of talked her into it and said, no, you're really clever, you could do this, you can you can sort of push yourself and and do this.

Say it in his voice, Si, say it in his voice.

Oh, Sally, you can do this, you fool.

Imagine that conversation in the list at broadcasting out.

It's sort of quite nice that 40 years on or whatever it was.

They get the chance then to come back and say goodbye and do the do the handover episode that they they don't get because famously in aftermath, they're both written out of the series with one line.

Yeah, and yeah, Jenna really does.

[21:11]

I mean, yeah, it is it is kind of strange that Blake doesn't get a big final farewell scene at the end of series B. But yeah, Jenna, there's not even really a hint that it's her last episode.

No.

There's nothing in the story.

So it's great in here she gets so much to do and she's out diffusing bombs and she's doing piloting.

It's great that she gets to put everything to do everything that she always could have done in a big finale episode for her.

I sort of imagined it was like Carolyn John or Mary Tammin, Doctor Who, where they sort of didn't properly get written out because they, everyone assumed they were going to come back for the next season.

So now it's interesting that they knew and chose to do it that way.

Yeah, or I'm not sure if it's the same for her and go, yeah, I wonder if with her they did do the same thing of assuming she'd change her mind or they'd go offer her a pay rise.

I don't know.

But she, yeah.

But she was, yeah, she became a theatre teacher, didn't she?

[22:15]

I like how, um, Aurak is depicted just the right way.

He's that fussy old professor.

He's argumentative and unhelpful, but it's so in character for him.

And again, he's not used all that much in the final episodes of the last of the previous series, is he?

It felt a bit underused.

The bit about the alien chips aren't made, the computers that the alien have got aren't made of tarriol cells, so he can't read their brains. is a nice rock solid plot reason for him not being able to just magically solve the things this week because that's the trouble when you've got this super computer who does occasionally magically solve everything.

You need a reason to have him not solve the plot in the 1st 5 minutes every week, which often they just don't have. don't mention that he's there.

Yeah, and obviously as a person that hasn't seen the next 2 seasons of Blake 7.

Other than I watched aftermath, at Side Suggestion before listening to this, which I'm really pleased, I did, it all sort of tied everything together nice.

I'm interested to know if the aliens that they're fighting and they come back at all because there's sort of suggestion that some of them get through and survive, you know, even when there's just the liberated defending the gap sort of thing.

[23:23]

So that's, yeah, it's kind of a tantalising story idea that I'll look out for.

Yeah, we're all very carefully not saying anything. some 3 excellent poker faces.

This is random, but every time in this now that they say auto repair is running, and they say it a few times in this because it's a battle.

Obviously, there's a lot of autopangon.

I get the autoglass repair autoglass replacing.

I can't get it out of my head now every time I mention it.

And then I started watching last night I started watching the Star Trek movie reboot, the Kelvin verse one.

Is it?

Call that.

And in that, someone's like, yeah, auto repair is on.

I'm like, ah.

Get out of my head now.

Villa gets a lovely line about.

Finally, we've been on the run from the Federation all this time and finally we want them and they're not here.

It's like much better twisted than that on the you wait for a bus and then 3 turn up at once, but it's that concept flipped around in a very villa way, which is really good.

[24:24]

It's such a great way.

He's chasing the little robot aliens around the ship and but having to do other jobs in between, so they're getting away.

And it's kind of like all his fault that they have to abandon ship.

But also not really his fault because just kind of the way things have panned out and the way that they treat him.

So it's he really plays that kind of very harried, yeah, kind of bumbling kind of thing really well, doesn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

And you're always you're always on side with him. made out to be an incompetent or title, you know, mucking things up out of idiocy.

He's really trying and he nearly does it and it doesn't quite work, which just heightens it all, yeah.

Because I did wonder as this was starting up, I was thinking, how is this just going to be an hour long battle scene, you know, how are they going to spread it out?

And so then when you get the Megedo, which they try so hard, I love how they spend all the time not pronouncing it as if it's just part of the word Armageddon so that when they eventually do say that, oh, that's very Blake 7.

That's very, like, 7 or quite terri nation as well. funny enough.

Oh God, I've never noticed.

[25:25]

Oh my god.

Oh my goodness.

What have I been doing all this time?

The Armageddon device.

Armageddo.

Well, you're too you're too wrapped up in the story.

That's good.

That's obviously it.

I love all that stuff where they're on the hull of the ship and I'd just like imagining that they'd gone to Ealing to do those scenes for a few days and they've got a big backdrop.

I could see this all in my head in all authentically, Blake 7 manor.

With the CSO snow over the, over Megiddo when they're coming down and all of that.

Yeah, and you can even imagine the makeup on the faces of the people that they find.

It would just be that 1970s slightly slightly bow-ish.

Yeah.

Which, but like those scientists at, uh, in Shada at the, uh, research place.

That's how I picture them.

Yeah.

Yeah, with that kind of falling down old rusty base.

[26:25]

Yeah, you could see it all.

And it mentions the, was it, the original Federation logo or insignia?

Is that something that we've seen?

I couldn't I couldn't recall it.

No, I don't think we've...

Maybe it's the right thing.

Yeah, maybe it's like the Star Trek picture itself.

You're saying it's like the Star Trek Federation and they've just turned it round a bit.

Exactly. right.

And maybe that's why they can't show it.

But it's that maybe it's that kind of little nod.

That will go through sort of everyone's head, perhaps.

Right I love the little bit, the little crossover of where they talk about the flotilla of ships.

That's a nice word for it. coming.

I just in my mind's eye, I know what the alien ships all look like.

God knows what the flotilla of human ships sort of look like going into battle with them made out of the same collection of plastic utensils and things spinning around.

They all look like the London.

Oh, they all did, that's true, yeah. 100 versions of the London.

Okay, well, that's fine.

Certainly not the best.

It's a nice little nod to both Winston Churchill and Battlestar Galactica, the idea of these the little ships coming to the rescue. nicely done.

[27:33]

I just loved that they'd come from all the planets that were named at the start of Star one.

So Vilka and Haran and Carl Fensus, Harnop, Maron, and Palmero.

I'd noted them all down because I'm so pleased.

It was interesting.

Blake had that line about how they, how, you know, they're all rallying to defend themselves against the aliens, but they never rules up against the Federation.

That was kind of an interesting line from Blake.

And there's a lot about Blake's kind of or perceived self-aggrandizement, especially from Avon about, you know, it's not always about you. you know, kind of leading people, inspiring people.

That was, there's quite a lot, which carries on from the TV, so it doesn't sort of puncturing his ego, I suppose, ego of it.

Yeah, it's like, basically the problem is you, Blake.

They would have all gang up years ago.

It's so annoying.

So your posh protests have just annoyed everyone instead of making them join your course.

Yeah, no one wants a centrist uprising.

That's it.

It's like stop oil that they're, yeah, putting the wrong people off.

[28:40]

One of my things that I remember mentioning on a previous episode that I've got this running, like, I don't know, just a joke with myself that how often an alien in science fiction will say something about my people sort of nobly. as I was very happy in this where Callie says, my people have a saying, and everyone comes straight in with, I rather thought they might.

And his follow-up is brilliant as well.

I was saying as well, Blake can handle this.

Yes, yeah. punch line after a punch line.

Yeah, it's a really good script.

This is someone, I think, who, um, in Peter Angelides, who has waited a long time to write this script and has had it playing in his head for 30 odd years, whereas, what would I do between Star one and aftermath if I was given this?

What?

Sometimes, you know, characters just write themselves when you know how they will react in any situation and everyone felt authentic and write to their TV characters.

And it did go on to become, it did spur them to do quite a few more full cast ones, didn't that?

[29:45]

Is that right?

It did, yes.

So, yeah, so they went back to series B for an extra set of 6 adventures.

So with the same crew, which were, yeah, and then they did a series C set of adventures with Del Grant coming back.

Oh cool. which was good.

Yes, but without Dana, because Josette Simon was not coming back.

Yeah, but only as Dana.

Is that right?

She'll do other things.

Yes, yes, she's done other things.

I don't think it's that she doesn't like Dana.

I think it's just that she's an like Gareth Thomas in a lot of ways where she just wants to keep moving forward all the time and she doesn't go back and she doesn't look back very often.

Yeah, you're right.

I just did a fan myth there and I've remembered now seeing that myth busted that she specifically said, no, it's not, that I didn't like Dana. just, yeah, I wanted to do something else.

Yes, but I'll do other stuff, but I don't want to go back and pretend to be 20 or whatever it was.

No, and so they do recast her.

And then they, um, then big finish, because sadly, don't care if Thomas passes away before they go into back, go back and do a set of series one adventures.

[30:54]

So they were going to recast Gan and do full cast adventures for series one.

So they go back to series C.

I'm getting my ones and my Cs and my Bs all over the place now.

This is so we're authentically back.

It's a multiverse.

Yeah.

So they go they go forward to series C.

So they recast Dana as Yasmin Bannerman, who comes in and plays Dana and they have another complete series C towards the end of series C. if you see what I mean.

So I think he's a set between Death Watch.

Yes.

Series CA and series.

All quite simple.

I love if you go to the big finish website and type in Blake 7 without an apostrophe.

It just says nothing found.

You have to type the apostle.

Thank you, big finish.

It's like the website's drawn by all right.

No.

I bet lots of them are up on Spotify.

If you don't mind listening, if you don't mind listening with adverts, you can hear that on Spotify even if you've not subscribed, but if you have subscribed, they're free, but it does get your, as I found out, your end of year listening stats are really weird.

[31:59]

I only listened to a few.

I listened to a few of them last year and it now thinks that Blake 7 is one of my favourite musical genres.

And so my Spotify playlists, if I ever listen to them, sometimes just have a random episode from a random track from the middle of one of these episodes, like slung in between my depressing singer-songwriters and Eurovision music, which is yeah. eclectic.

This also has typical great big finish sound design as well.

So it all sounds huge and epic.

You've got great music where you're suddenly out seeing the liberator flying magnificently through space in your head and the big battles that they can do on audio that don't require reusing all the model work that they've built so far and things like that.

So you could do this.

So it all sounds sounds really, really good.

Yeah, it's coming straight from that 1979 to 1980 crossover period.

You would never know that when this was actually released, then a number one track was Will I Am with scream and shout featuring Britney Spears in the UK chart in 2013 because that's not the vibe of it at all.

[33:11]

It's very much taking you back to the glory days.

We are going to have to do all the other big finishes now, just so you can tell us what was in the jar.

We were talking chatting just before we started recording about other ones that we have heard and just one that I would definitely recommend is there's one called three, which is Jacqueline Pierce and another actor playing other parts.

So it's basically a serverland standalone in which she is interrogating a prisoner.

And it's the darkest, most horrifying and horrible thing I've ever heard.

It's amazing.

It takes her.

It's still hurt.

It's not like, but it takes takes you with it, you know?

It's not, um, uh, a complete reinvention of her or anything like that.

It's the serverland as we know her, but and stuff that we know she's capable of.

We hear her going into and she's still witty and charming all the way through it as well.

Uh, and that's, that's one that I'd recommend.

It seriously shows off Jacqueline, what Jacqueline Pierce could do.

[34:11]

And she has all aspects of the character and it is chilling and the ending is horrible.

Really, really nasty.

You want to, you want to go and go straight to one with Michael Keating and in it afterwards, just to cheer yourself up.

But in a good way.

But yes, yeah, there's a lovely one that I can't think of the name of it now, but it was one a story that I'd always sort of hoped Blake 7 would tell, which they could do on audio, which is about a normal federation citizen being involved in Blake's adventures.

And the normal citizen is played by Louise Jameson.

And it's, um, she's just an everyday woman who gets dragged into, into one of the, one of their adventures and and caught up in it and you get to see her life and what her life in, in a domed city or or a colony is like.

And that I remember that one being really, really good.

[35:14]

Well, systems are malfunctioning on blocks 2 and 3, Villa is going off to check the live capsules and the life support is failing, so it's time for us to say goodbye.

Thank you very much for giving us a listen as we've taken a little bit of a sideways dive into the world of big finish and maybe we'll come back to some more later.

Who knows?

But anyway, hopefully you'll be joining us very soon for the start of series C, and aftermath, and a new set of adventures for Avon and his crew on the Liberator, whoever they may be.

Thank you very much for listening and goodbye.

All right.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Switching to manual.

Maximum power on all drives.

Maximum power.