Maximum Power.
Welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast that offers universal healthcare at point of use for the low monthly cost of just all of your internal organs.
Today we're discussing PowerPlay, the 2nd episode of Series C, written by Terry Nation himself, and Avon isn't the only one dismayed to find someone unexpectedly in charge of the ship this week, as I'm hosting the podcast for the 1st time.
I'm Mark.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Cole and the condition is purely temporary.
Hello James, but probably not the one you're expecting.
And I am Chevron, and this is my wife.
Peter.
Welcome to the podcast, James.
What are your thoughts on PowerPlay?
I love this episode.
I always have, but I watched it again this week, you know, for obvious reasons.
And again, I was really just really, really taken with it.
I think it's terrific.
I mean, I think that aftermath and power play together as a kind of 2 parter might be my favourite episode of the whole show, if you counted it as a as a like a 2 hour premiere.
So yeah, I love it.
I love it to bits.
I'm totally in agreement with James Thaird.
This is the 2nd half, my favourite Blake 7 story.
We're back in producer David Maloney's hands as director and Light Star one.
He elevates the series to its confident, well told, best, um, and yeah, I adore it.
Brendan?
Yeah, I really enjoy this one, and there's a bit of genuine mystery by having the suspects we have for who's up to the shenanigans on board the ship, and the villa plot is also just, it's a 100% villa.
You know, it's really playing to Michael Keating strengths.
So yeah, everyone has a great week this week, I think.
I absolutely love this.
I just love Terrence introduction.
I love the way you're trying to figure out what's going on, the twists that come and go, all the actual power play.
And Mr. Bronson from Grain Chill. playing a working class. for the only time in his career and doing it really, really well.
Yeah, slightly off.
I mean, I remember the 1st time I saw this, you know, it would have been when he was in grain chill pretty much, and realising it was him, but kind of going, ooh, actually, he's more versatile then. than I thought because I generally thought we could do kind of nice and posh or nasty and posh, you know, and Hitler, those other things he could do.
And he's a sort of working class sergeant, isn't he?
He's a sort of proper thuggish NCO.
And he's really, really good.
And I think the repeated viewings of power play have gulled us to the shock of seeing Federation troops aboard the Liberator for the 1st time, but I can recall the thrill, the 0 shit feeling when Clegg and his men arrive.
It really sets it up well.
Hey, and Mark, what did you think of the episode?
Yeah, I loved it as well.
So it might be worth reminding listeners who just knows there's a collection of voices.
I'm watching Blake 7 for the 1st time.
So this is as far through the series as I've seen.
And I'm really enjoying series C so far.
I think the 1st the 1st ever 3 episodes where it's an ongoing story.
I've been my favourite and the return to that is really exciting again and not knowing if or when they're going to find their crewmates and yeah, the sort of the cliffhanger ending to aftermath and then leading into this story of, yeah, really, really enjoyed it.
And the thing about that cliffhanger ending is it's a Danger Mouse cliffhanger.
Do you know what I mean?
If you come back to it, and it's shot from a different angle, it's shorter, and then Clegg's men are just suddenly in the room.
It's completely refilled.
I want to say, Mark, about the you watching it for the 1st time.
I know you sort of have some vague kind of cultural knowledge of the show. but not necessarily kind of actual, um, what happens.
When I 1st saw this, I had no idea that Tarrant was going to be a regular character.
So for me, the twist that he's not actually the commander of these men, they are separate federation men, then he's not a federation man at all.
Then he's the murderer.
Then he's going to join the crew. was this brilliant sort of tick, tick, tick, tick, tick thing that completely blew my mind.
And I just wondered, you know, was it that good for you?
It absolutely was.
Yeah, I didn't know he was going to be a new main character.
I don't recognise the actor from anything else.
So it wasn't like, you know, I had that kind of idea that, you know, we'd sort of, we'd serve land, everything, you know, it's talked about in Doctor Who and everything that she was, she's famous from Blake 7 and I've seen loads of gifts and everything, but with Dell, yeah, I haven't really seen him and everything else.
So that was really good.
So that's what storyline on the Liberator with Dana and Avon, it's sort of like Die Hard on the Liberator, isn't it?
Die Hard with his engines, but...
It's great.
It's great what he's saying about Tarant there, because all the clues about his double dealing are there.
They're in plain sight of the little luck that he gives Avon when Avon's trying to avoid identifying himself to Zen.
He knows what's going on then, clearly. and when he's standing on that underfloor great and his little, I'm not really sure about anything.
All the clues are there, but the 1st time you don't pick up on them, it could be anything.
Yeah, I think you're right, you realise just before Avon goes for the gun, which would be an incredibly slim line gun.
Uh, you know, Terrence sort of looks at him and goes, you know, he's like, okay, okay.
And I think he probably knew all the time.
But it was like, oh, I know what you're going to do.
So I'm going to follow Sue and it just is glorious from then onwards.
One of my favourite lines that Tarrant gets in this is when he says they've launched an escape pod.
Not, they, not, they've taken an escape pod.
Right, which is really great because they're sort of setting him up to be not exactly an analytical character like Avon, but a character who tries to deal more in facts.
So he doesn't have a fact that they've taken the lifepod.
He has a fact that they've launched a life pod.
And when he's reasoning with Avon Leisure in the episode, it's all based on if this, then that.
You know, it's, it's, okay, someone who lives aboard the ship considers the ship theirs.
It's not Blake, because I know what Blake looks like.
There's 2 other people it could be.
It's a proper detective story.
And, you know, it does work like one in exactly that way that you're describing.
It's also it's quite interesting that the sort of policeman being the murderer thing, you know, which is the end of the keys of marinace.
So nation has, nation has done that before.
But also it is, you know, spoilers, it's the mousetrap as well.
Um, you know, it'll be just incredibly famous, but it's a brilliant trick and it works, you know?
Excellent.
Can I say something which might be a bit controversial?
Always.
Stephen Pacy is always fantastic, but I don't think Tarant is ever this good again.
Perhaps it's because he has to be clever and he's playing both sides and we never see him being this cagey again.
He sort of settles down into the heroic bully boy kind of role, which is just a bit less interesting than when he's really got survived by his wits here.
So even though I do like Tarrant, I like Stephen Pacey.
I just think this is such a good episode for him.
He's really well written for.
Do you think that's because without spoilers, Terry doesn't write him again for a long time.
It could be because he is well written in terminal.
Is his character?
Yeah.
I just think that he's given a really good part of the action here and once he becomes a regular.
He just isn't afforded that ability to be so interesting again.
No.
It's interesting, you'll call Taryn.
I know my notes have written Dell.
So obviously it becomes it becomes more known as the terror left, really, yeah. through the series.
I did wonder if he was going to drop the accent when it sort of revealed that he is the murderer and the one who's been working against the Federation.
I thought maybe you'd been putting that on as part of affecting this air of being an officer, but obviously he doesn't.
But he is just a posh murderer.
Yeah, yeah.
A friend of mine has suggested and it's not contradicted by the story, but it's also not confirmed by the story, but has suggested that it's actually not clear how much of the thing about him being a pirate and running his own game and stuff is true.
So, yeah, he says, my own ship was destroyed.
I was rescued by a federation ship.
My clothes were wrecked, so I put on this uniform.
When I put on this uniform, the ship I was on was destroyed.
Then I got into a life pod, then I found myself here, and then I bumped into these guys.
Now we know that he's not been known to Clegg for more than a few hours.
But that story is kind of so complicated that it could be that he still is a federation officer and he's just lying to Avon because Avon is even less likely to trust him if he was metaphorically as well as literally still in uniform a couple of hours ago.
Whereas they said, just saying, well, I trained, but I quit, that's why I can do it, but that's not really me, is the sort of story it's more likely that Avon will buy or accept.
I mean, the only thing that might mitigate against that is that Serve Land would probably know him if he was from the ranks.
But yeah, it's an interesting theory.
Depends how big the Navy is.
Oh, that's true.
Yeah.
It's not my theory.
I don't know they claim to it, but I do like it.
It's quite cool.
We said in Countdown last season that Del Grant, Anna Grant's brother looked like a bit of a backdoor bleak replacement, but here we get the real deal.
But I think it's established later on this season that Tarrant's not a backdoor pirate.
Sorry, a backdoor pilot. master a double entry.
There is talk, isn't there, at the end of series B of this idea of the replacement character for Blake being inverted commas, the captain.
Yes.
And that character kind of becomes Tarrant, but also in some ways more resembles Grant in that when Terry comes up with them, The idea is that they're older, they're at least 35 and that kind of changes the balance in the crew.
And Tarant is only young because Stephen Pacey aces his audition.
Right.
And actually, what you were saying, earlier, Mark about maybe Tarrant was putting on an accent as an officer, actually it's Stephen Pacy being saddled with that gravelly voice because he thought that because an older character in his audition, he had to be sort of lower and more gravelly.
And then when he got the part, he stuck with it.
He's 22 or 23, isn't he?
Which is just crazy.
And and Josette Simon's even younger.
There's a great interview with Stephen Pacey from around this time where you hear his real voice and it's very light and up here and I'm only exaggerating slightly.
I saw him play 30 Worcester in the musical by G's in the West End in the 90s.
And his natural voice is very much more in the kind of 30 Worcester space. had no idea.
I thought that was his real voice.
Because I listen to the his reading of Doctor Who and the Enlightenment.
And I was like, oh, his voice has changed over time, like actors do, you know, it's got less R, you know, RP and stuff to say.
Oh no, it really is putting on a voice.
Okay, something you learn something new every day.
You can really hear it in episodes.
Orbit next season where he's there and you say, nah, I'm not a mathematical prodigy.
It's all down here.
Something you touched on, James's, and Peter, is that Tarrant was originally envisioned as an older character.
And also, there was going to be a lot more speculation as to his true allegiances in this episode, which didn't really become a thing.
But having that knowledge.
Now, I watch this episode and go, they could have hired Michael Shiard to play that character.
Because he does bloody well here.
And I'm just like, having Michael Shiard as a regular, but maybe he, you know, if the offer was there, maybe he didn't want to be a regular unless he was a nasty teacher or a version of Hitler, including Space Hitler on the Tomorrow people.
I'm not sure if Michael Sheer was ever irregular in anything apart from Grain Chill.
I don't think he was that kind of actor in the 70s.
Also, one of the other reasons that Stephen Pacey got the job is that David Maloney's secretary more or less fainted when he said hello to her because he's just so, so dramatically handsome and apparently she grabbed, she grabbed hold of David Maloney's arm and said, you have got to have him. that if he could inspire that amount of female devotion was arriving for an audition, then he might be worth having in the show.
I suppose it was just a coincidence that he just looks like a younger slimmer Blake.
We saw him last year at a convention and yeah, he still looks terrific.
Yeah, everyone was swooning then.
Yeah.
He's only going to be like 65 or...
Exactly.
He still looks great.
Watching this, of course, I've told the story before where Rod gave up my husband gave up on Blake 7 after series A and said, you know, they've blown up and that's how I'm going to remember them, stupid and dead.
Now, he sort of wandered in halfway through this episode.
And at the end, he turned to me and said, so Blake, um, Blake?
And I'm like, that's Blake now, and I pointed it Taryn, and he's like, oh, thank God.
Blake was the worst thing about the show.
Oh, Serbaland.
I think Terence like an excellent Blake replacement stroke improvement.
I don't want to, I'm not going to spoil anything, but he just ends up being a great sort of counterpoint to Avon and more of the revolutionary.
To your point, James, are you talking about whether or not he was still going to be turning out to be a Federation person?
That would have been a nice twist, like a season from now.
It's like, oh, I have been a federation person all along.
But no, we don't want that.
Tarents a hero. love him.
I was just going to say that I think this is the best version of the crew.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Sorry, Glennis Barber.
I love Jenna.
Jenna's amazing, but this is the Blake 7 that I really remember from my childhood.
And this is just such a great introduction to Tarran.
The episode is really well written.
Terry Nation is just firing on all cylinders.
Everyone's really clever.
Like Terrence Clever, Dana's really strong and written well, and this is Josette Simon's 1st performance because it's the 1st episode shot.
And Avon's clever.
The way he just comes up with that Chevron cover story just off the cuff immediately.
It really shows how on the ball he is.
And when they're taken down to the flight deck, he throws in this little, is this the way as they're going down?
And it's just, it's real, and his life pod ploy is clever.
It's just, it's a clever writer writing clever characters.
And also, it uses the lifebod set, which they've built to shoot the beginning of aftermath.
So it's not just clever on a plotting level.
It's clever on a, on a, production, a, budget and production level, using the, the, the same set a week apart for completely different.
Everyone's going to have forgotten most of that 1st scene by the time they get to this bit.
But you know, you get to use the same set and shoot it on the same day, which is really smart.
And it's undeniably Terry Nation, because there's also inspection channels, which are just, you know, one bitter way from air darts, to say. pure nation.
You mentioned the thing about Avon's pretending that Dana is his wife.
One of the things I think is quite interesting in this episode and in aftermath, and it never really comes back, is that when he pretends that she's his wife, she doesn't object, and obviously the 1st thing that she does last week, is kiss him and say, you are very beautiful, Avon.
And, I mean, that's part of her Miranda Tempest thing that they've got going on in that episode.
But then, obviously last week, Dana kisses Avon, then Servolan kisses Avon, and then Servolan kills Dana's father, although Dana doesn't seem to know that Servolan has kissed Avon.
So suddenly you have this thing that's a bit like a sort of a love triangle, almost, between those characters, from a program that's been, I don't think it's been any kissing at all in previous 26 episodes.
Only between cousins.
Yeah, I'd wiped that from my memory with brain bleach.
But yeah, it seems to be setting up this sort of love triangle thing, which would be really interesting because even is in a position now where he has these sort of 2 female regular characters who've expressed an interest in him and one of them wants to kill the other.
And that never goes anywhere, but it does look like it's something that Terry is putting in there in case he wants to go back to it or in case anybody else wants to go back to it.
Yeah, it's really interesting.
We spoke last week about how efficiently all of the new relationships between the crew and especially with Servlan are formed.
So last week, in aftermath, you got distinct personal relationships between Serveland and Dana and Serveland and Avon.
And this episode, you get another one between Serverland and Kelly, who I don't think have said a single word to each other previously and yet get whole really entertaining scenes in their own subplot, which we may come to.
Aren't they only in the same room in pressure point and they don't exchange words?
They're not even in the same room in pressure point.
I think they're never even in the same room in CClocate Destroy, where, you know, the 1st appearance of Servoland and Kelly's taken prisoner, but it's all Callie and Travis.
They do come face to face at the end of Orach, that says.
Yes, that's it, yes.
Because Avon is only in the same place as Servlan in all rack of pressure point, isn't he?
And he sort of picks out from behind bleaken weapon.
Yeah.
But they don't even have a conversation.
No, it's so efficiently done the way that all of these new relationships are set up.
It's a fantastic piece of reformatting aftermath.
I mean, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to come on and talk about that one.
They're almost one story to me, these 2, because I 1st saw them on the on the UK VHS, which is these 2 and then sarcophagus.
What, the episode where they didn't have to pay any guest roles?
Yeah, that's the 1st time I saw any season C, the 1st time I saw kind of this version of the show was on that.
I rented it.
You know, you could you could rent them.
Um, So yeah, aftermath and power play are kind of one story to me.
The Scotts Kofkus never quite feels like it's part of the same story as, to be clear.
All the same series.
Was this story, the 1st that you saw from Blake 7?
No, not quite.
I have a weird thing where I had incredibly vague memories of seeing little bits of season D when it was repeated in 1983 when I would have been like 5 because it was a program that my parents watched, not in a Fannish way, but in a, you know, it was amongst the things that they would watch occasionally.
And I have very, very vague memories of remembering having seen bits of season D. And then the 1st time I actually saw any of it properly was those big chunky compilation videos that were released in the mid 80s.
You know, there's the beginning, duel, and Aurac, which are sort of 3 or 4 episodes of season A, each kind of chunked down into 2 hour Inverted Commas movies for the shelter and rental market.
And then a little bit afterwards, there's a 4th one, which is aftermath and power play and sarcophagus.
It's a pity that they didn't continue that formatting on.
I would have paid good money for the compilation of traitor, star drive, and animals.
Well, terminal and rescue would actually be good. absolutely.
After that, I sort of got most of the double cassette versions as they came out because by that point I knew that I liked the program and I was a little bit older and so, you know, you can't have little jobs when you're a teenager and stuff and that was kind of where some of that money went and I didn't quite get all of them.
I missed some of them out.
And then there's another weird thing, which I will tell you, which is that, I had a Blake 7 video in my bag at school and my history teacher saw it and said, I've got some of that on video if you want it.
And I said, it's okay.
I've got all the ones I've released.
And he said, no, no, I've got some my recorded when it was on.
And the next day he came in and he'd got a tape which had got ultraworld and death watch on.
Oh, my God.
Your fan heart must have leapt in joy. absolutely.
Which, um, he taped when they were on, when they were repeated in 1981. before series D was on for the 1st time.
And sorry, I watched those and I copied those.
But also that means that weirdly, I didn't see Moloch until it came out on DVD because we already had Death Watch, so I didn't buy the Moloch Death Watch tape.
What a blessing.
That is how I reason you would watch it.
And I also didn't buy the Stardrive animals tape because everybody said it was terrible.
So I saw Stardrive when it was on UK gold. for the 1st time.
I saw animals for the 1st time, again, when it was on the DVD.
Wow.
So it's a sort of peculiar path through.
I could actually write a list of the order in which I saw the program, but I'm not going to it because that would be even more boring than what I've just said. that's led you to this podcast.
If we're in anecdotal mood, can I tell an anecdote about watching power play?
Yes.
So, um, this is, as I said, one of my favourite episodes, um, and I saw it in 1980, which was when Sirius B and Series C were shown back to back in um, Australia.
And then they repeated them very late on a Saturday night in 1982.
And so I was 10 years old, my parents used to let me stay up and watch them at midnight on a Saturday night because it was not a school day the next day.
And I was really, really looking forward to seeing this episode again because as you do, it's like a 10 year old.
I remember that this was the episode where they said the full names of the crew.
So there's Janice Stanis, Kerr Avon, Villa Restal.
And so I was staying at my grandparents that night because my parents had gone off to a wedding.
And I said to my nan, I watched Blake 7 at midnight on Saturday nights and naturally she said, you're not staying up till midnight.
Well, I threw maybe the biggest tantrum of my childhood.
Ring mum and dad.
Tell them that I watched basically she couldn't ring them.
Obviously, it was days for mobile phones.
So I went to bed at like 10 o'clock or whatever, absolutely stewing and thinking, right, well, I'm just going to stay here and stay awake until...
And so I woke up at 7 o'clock the next morning in a filthy mood.
So that's my power play anecdote.
I didn't see it again until 1990.
That is incredibly tragic.
One of the formative moments of my childhood.
So we catch up with Villa back on Planet Chenga and see how he's doing.
It's a great reintroduction to Villa, isn't it?
I think if this sort of season is a jumping on point, when he's there, he's injured, he's pretending he's got like 10 men under his command and he's sort of giving orders to keep people away.
It shows, yeah, he's sort of his cleverness is sort of different to Avons and the other characters and it's more about sort of subterfuge and deception like that.
I thought that was a great reintroduction to him for new viewers.
Yeah, and and it's nice that he gets this kind of long film sequence all to himself having been barely in the previous week.
Yeah.
You know, sort of really, um, remind everybody that this is an important character.
I think the idea of splitting up the crew and then having to track them down is really fun.
And I can't remember Villa ever leading a storyline like this.
It's very watchable.
Yeah, it is.
It's very wittily written.
Yeah.
It's interesting actually, because I've got the script.
I watched it earlier with the rehearsal script just to check for any kind of deleted scenes and changes and things.
And there are no scenes in the script that aren't in the episode, unfortunately.
And there aren't that many dialogue changes.
Okay.
One of them is, um, it's all right if you don't count the agony is not in the script.
That's Michael Keaton.
Excellent.
Which I'm really, really pleased with.
As a general rule, everyone is letter perfect to the script, except Darrow and Keating get some leeway.
Right.
Darrow fiddles almost every one of his lines a little bit at some point.
He does that match Stratton thing of just, you know, changing rights to correct or putting a pause in or he makes little changes to almost every single line he has. whereas Kiki normally says what is written, but he does put little extra jokes in that obviously they've worked out when they're on location, but yeah, that great line.
That's Michael Keating, not Terry Nation, which is which is brilliant.
Isn't that fascinating?
It does contain my favourite line from Blake 7 of all time, which Peter, this might be yours as well.
I think, maybe, which is that's a very difficult way to commit suicide.
Dainers.
Maybe he was cleaning it, so it went awesome.
It went off.
They are both brilliant.
Fucking awesome.
This episode is littered with good lines.
The one about where Avon says, oh, and 2 intelligence of Villa, and Terence says, oh, it was an even bet.
And of course, Servelands, I want to see them here.
And I want to see them.
Now.
Well, after a number of attempts to end an app, just to jump to the end for a moment, they've tried to sort of end on a funny line and it actually ends on a genuinely funny line for the 1st time I feel in this episode as well.
That line is not in the script.
Right.
Is it not?
Wow.
No, the script ends differently if I can just grab it.
It ends slightly differently.
So you have welcome to the liberator and you are welcome to it.
Um, and Callie's line is, given the choice, where would you rather be here or sitting in a ditch with a broken arm?
And Villa says, I'm thinking about it.
And that's what's in the script.
But obviously on screen, you get the pun.
Would you rather be spare parts down there or spare parts?
So that must have come in rehearsals.
Which is a fantastic line, and also it gives you that payoff because Dana and Tarrant get the last shot looking at each other going, oh, this is the kind of banter we've signed up for.
And also just the fact that it is a pun, but it does tie everything together, doesn't it?
You know, the spare part surgery and the coming back together of the crew.
It sort of ties the 2 plot threads together really nicely at the end.
I mean, you don't know if it was Maloney or the cast or maybe Boucher, but yeah, it's not, it's not in the scripts are signed off and issued to everybody.
It's just not there.
Isn't that fascinating?
I do really like that Villa subplot, although I think that Z and bar might be some of Terry Nation's best slash worst space names ever.
They're not quite up there with these 2 syllable foul names, you know, Taron, Marat, Lartep, Weber, but they are awesome.
Ziambari.
When they're described, they are described as very attractive girls and then girls is in capital.
And the costume, the costumes that said they should be space age sexy, is what he asked for.
I mean, there is there isn't an universe reason for that because Villa's head is only turned by a pretty girl.
It's just a very straightforward inversion as well, isn't it?
That, you know, the, the people who look like the good guys are the people who are the bad guys and vice versa, you know, and the script does say that Nation says he doesn't mind which way around it is, but Z and Barr should be of the same ethnic group as the doctors running the hospital and on Kelly's ship and that the savages should be different.
Of the ball, definitely, than this should be.
Yes.
Yeah, yes, yes.
John Hollis squeezing this in between Professor Sondegard and Lobot in the Empire Strikes bag.
And I'm wearing it now.
Isn't he the head of Blowfelt in Fjores only as well?
Yes, yes, I think I think you're right.
I do love that after that whole, there's 10 of us.
They don't know a certain depth to take us off.
John Wallace is just like, who are you talking to, this?
No, no, we've been around.
We've been circling you for 2 hours.
There's no one else here.
And it's just so lovely and matter of fact.
And you get that beautiful wide shot and they've bought the escape pod out on location.
So it looks really, really great.
And I'm just a big fan of John Hollis anyway.
He plays a villain in some early Avengers episodes, including one with Charlotte De Rampling, and Donald Sutherland is his co-villain in the Superlative 7.
And Brian Blessed, without a Beard is in that.
Do you know that Insignus Alpha?
Brian Blessed is clean shaven and wearing a false beard.
I did not.
Go back and look.
You can tell, you know.
How is this?
Activated me all these years.
It's the 1st thing you did after right, Claudius.
Ah, and I don't know if he turned off in rehearsals and they were like, where's your beard, Brian?
But if you go, look, you can see once you know.
He said, I brought it with me.
It's in my pocket.
It's a clean shaven, Brian Blessed, wearing a false beard to look more like Brian Blessed.
I think the, with the high-tech, the, uh, when you see just the lights through the trees and it's on film and there's that sound effect, that's really, really effective and you can't quite make out what you're seeing.
You don't realise that it's just people holding sort of guns or scanners or whatever.
Um, that's quite creepy uh, to begin with when uh, the, the, sort of the so-called savages and uh, and Avon are running away from them.
Yeah, that was that was really good. really looking at the screen trying to make out what's actually chasing them at that point.
I thought it was like some clever drones and they were doing these drones flying in.
And I was like, no, I can see the actor behind it.
Oh, it's shit special effects that, you know, they've not done this properly.
Oh, no.
You know?
And it turns out to be Zibar. those scenes, those scenes were written to be shot at night.
The script specifies that their night is a night sheet.
Oh, Terry, you knew that wasn't going to happen.
Obviously it isn't, but it would be even more effective if it was dark because it would be like, what are they?
Are they flying machines?
Are they animalize?
Um, you know, exactly what is it?
I think it works in the episode, like you said, but if it was darker, it would be even more effective.
I mean, it's kind of shot day for nice or maybe very late in the day because it's very dim, but I think Dave, it just shows you.
David Maloney is ringing everything out of the script in the hands of, dare I say it, Penet Roberts in series A. It would have been fairly risible, I think.
I actually have a list or I have some notes of, because in the script, Terry kind of tries to direct it through the script a bit.
As writers do, particularly senior writers describing how he wants things shot.
And a lot of those, Maloney does something completely different instead.
So I don't know if you'd be interested in some examples of things that we know that David Maloney bought through the process of directing.
Oh, go on.
For example, seeing the spear in shot when Villa is accosted by the primitives for the 1st time, that's not scripted.
It's the idea that the audience sees the spear and Villa doesn't and he's looking at us and then he looks down and then you come back.
What's written is that they kind of come up behind him and the audience see them, but he doesn't.
But doing it with the spear is a much kind of wittier way of implementing the same, the same physical, um, thing.
I think that's a that's a really good example.
Um, none of the point of view shots are scripted.
Oh, yeah. that we have in the, in the liberator, um, you know, in the liberator, murder mystery.
Well, they're creeping up on the guard outside Avon and Dana's room.
Yeah.
The other thing I think is quite interesting is that Villa being spoon fed by Zian Barr.
That's not in the scratch.
Lovely fried rice I think you'll find.
But I think, you know, you talk about villa or, you know, I was only going to be interested by a pretty girl, that sort of slight infantilising of him and making him more helpless and in the script he's just given some food and he sits and eats it with his hands whilst they, whilst they talk to him, which I think is really nice.
Um, Also, amazingly, for possibly the 1st time in the history of Blake 7 or Doctor Who, uh, nation asks for 4 extras as troopers, and David Baloni has five.
They actually get, they actually get more bodies than they ask for. which means that at the end, in the last scene.
It's 3, well, in the last scene of the murder story.
It's 3 against three, whereas if you'd gone with what was scripted, it would be 3 against two, it sort of raises the stakes to do it that way.
And also, it's the beginning of the season.
They can push the boat out a little bit.
Yeah, they've still got, they've still got money in the, uh, in the Nicker elastic fund, as JNT used to call it.
Something on one of those POV shots.
I was curious about because the 1st guard, of course, is Pat Gorman. famous Doctor Who Monster actor.
And I thought, okay, here comes a stunt.
Um, and it's like, no, they just walk out.
He's in a chair, he's got the knife, he falls on the ground.
And of course, Max Faulkner, who turns up later, gets thrown across the room because there's Max Faulkner twice, I think.
So is I was wondering, James, is there anything in the script about the death of that 1st guard that isn't on screen?
Like, does the POV shot continue and someone?
No, interesting.
Okay, fair enough.
Transitionally relevant.
Did you know Pat Gorman is in more episodes of Old Dot 2 than anybody who isn't William Harton or Patrick Trout and John Perby, Tom Baker or Fraser Hines?
Wow.
I don't I don't know.
The only difference there is that it's not a, it's not a POV shot. the only difference.
There's nothing kind of elaborate or exciting.
I mean, Gorman did want to do more acting work, so maybe David Maloney was being nice.
Maybe he was saying here's a little, here's a little acting part and you won't have to leap around. will get Max to do the tricky stuff and you can have a higher paid and less strenuous week.
The other thing we get in this episode is an actual space dome.
Uh, I have no idea.
Where is that?
Uh, I know they filmed it up.
I think it was in York, Yorkshire, something like that up north, but I assumed it was a gasometer.
Right.
There's not a location list in the script, but there's a list of dates filming at Ripon.
So that's nature, so it would be.
I really like the fact that when we go inside, they've made a token effort of painting the backdrop, so it looks a little bit like the dome.
Very token.
I'd never noticed that before this time.
I'm watching this time.
I was like, that's really good.
I was actually really impressed by that.
So obviously I'm he pleased.
I was going to say, and speaking of dorms, Servland's found a brass since last week and managed to find a way off the planet.
Do we think it's the same planet that Dana came from, but the weather's turned a bit inclement that she's rescued from?
That's a good question.
It does look completely different, doesn't it, in the model footage.
Although it's really nice model work, so I don't mind.
I mean, I can only assume that the model work was done before location work, but yeah, it's really quite glaring, isn't it?
She could be in a different part of the planet.
A network of tunnels from the bunker that's, yeah, that she's able to.
I mean, it is a terrination script.
It's pretty likely.
Yeah, she just turned her travel dial and found herself in the wings of madness or whatever.
I mean, that 3rd plus at the episode, the Callian Serveland plot, I think, is even more enjoyable than the plot with Villa.
It's great that she gets to be bitchy with Servlan. and like we said earlier, establishing that personal relationship between them that never existed.
And that comedy sting when Kelly turns her head away to avoid being noticed is...
To nudge fashion script again.
I did notice this week that nation asks for 6 beds in that hospital room and he gets two.
And he asked for quite a lot of extras and he gets none.
And he said, can I have a poorly acted nurse and said they have an amazingly acted nurse who says things like I gave the captain your message, but I'm afraid he does have more pressing priorities. face Angela Rippon.
Well, it is filmed in Rippon.
Exactly.
To go back to your thing about Servoland's, I'm president and supreme commander of the Terran Federation, I want to see a commanding officer, I want to see him here and I want to see him now.
Well done.
A friend of mine, when it was on UK gold in the 19s, missed a phone call because his phone was ringing and he felt obligated as that scene was on the television to stand there and recite the line with her and do the hand gestures.
And then the phone stopped ringing and he was like, ah. on the Kelly plot.
I realised at the end of the episode, it's like Jan gets a great week.
She only has one scene where she's not sitting or lying down.
Like when she sees Villa and reception and goes over and gives him a hug.
That's the only scene where she's on her feet.
I really love that moment.
It's genuinely heartwarming.
We don't know that the space ambulance is going to the same planet for quite a while, do we, that Villa's on, so the way those 2 seemingly separate storylines come together is really, really nice.
It's gorgeous, though.
I mean, it's slightly undermined by the fact that when Villa and Kelly are prepared for surgery.
They leave their teleport bracelets on them.
It doesn't quite make sense, but I actually really like that organ bank scenario.
It's quite grim, even for Blake 7.
Each to your own, you know.
It's, again, it's another twist, right?
It's another reveal and suddenly they can't move and but you're absolutely right.
It's like they've still got the teleport bracelets on, and Servolin has never seen a teleport bracelet before, and so wouldn't gone, by the way, guys, you probably want to remove those, but um, yeah, it's got a really strong A-plot and a really strong A-plot.
Yeah.
And another strong A-plot.
And actually, Servline is really, when she comes to gloat and like, catches on the villa's there as well.
She's really loving the fact that they're going to be chopped up into organs.
It's really venomous.
I came to say goodbye.
She really, really enjoys it, doesn't she?
Yeah, and it's just like, I'm not even going to do it myself.
I'm just going to leave them to do this to you.
Yeah, because I was thinking that Servilan having managed to talk a way out of it through sort of bribery or anything like that.
Why didn't they try that?
Because the liberators got all these, all these kind of riches aboard hasn't it?
which it reminds you of in this episode when one of the guards sort of steals something, but they don't know the liberators coming, do they?
So they can't sort of rely on that.
But you maybe have expected Villa to sort of, you know, then start try and spin his way out of it in some way.
Yeah, well, Servan's kind of relying on, don't provoke an intergalactic diplomatic incident by chopping up the ruler of a nearby space empire because that's going to happen very, very badly for you.
President, supreme commander and chop Siri of the Federation.
Do you notice how, again, like without spoilers, her every time, pretty much every time she appears in this series, her title gets longer.
She adds, she adds more things.
So, like, I mean, without saying, but, like, keep an eye as you go through this season, guys, you will see that she she keeps adding extra bits onto the end of her titles.
It gets more and more grandiose, so she's sort of consolidating herself in that position to which she's been elevated at the end of Star one.
Doesn't Tarrant read out the string of them at some and it takes about half an episode.
Holder of the sacred channel of reeks.
Yeah, yeah, and Defender of Death. 7 out of Spatershead. of the 13 year olds and Battle Queen of the Shrats.
Well, the other thing is, we just talked about everyone's full name being announced like Villa Restal and Kerr Avon.
Is Servolan her 1st name or her 2nd name?
Isn't she like Jane Servile?
I think she is...
All right.
Or Servoland, Servoland. sort of full name.
Okay.
She's like Madonna, isn't she?
It's just one name.
Yeah, it's like the long running debate over whether meatloaf's name was meatloaf something, meatloaf or meat loaf.
And a friend of mine, a friend of mine proposed that his name was actually Meetle O. Something I wondered, and it's never occurred to me before and I don't know why.
Is it ever actually established why the liberator has that strong vault?
Because it has it from like Cygnus Alpha because Jenna comes in and she's like, look, Ruby's, BBC plastic rubies.
Like, the only thing I can come up with in universe, because outside of universe, it's just Terry Nation going, well, they have to pay for things.
These, you know, these criminals and outlaws can't just go around stealing stuff.
But the only thing I can think of is when Zen reads their minds.
He's like, oh, rubies.
Yeah, got a shitload of hours out of the back.
Here you go.
I think you'll find the reason is that Space Betan and Space Castia were accustomed to a certain lifestyle and they weren't going to give it up.
I would also like to point out that Cali was badly burned in a space accident.
A space accident.
I think you'll find they were space burns in a space accident.
I mean, we talked about the whole crew like picking them up.
I do find it a little bit odd that Blake and Jenner's situations are given so much specific info when there's no follow-up.
So it sort of dropped after this with just a couple of mentions.
But did they just give up looking for Jenna?
They know she's on a neutral cargo thruster in transit to the planet more finial.
They know exactly where to find her and yet she's never mentioned again until one time.
Yeah, I'm really fascinated, but by the way, they keep mentioning Blake and Jenner, uh, and we were sort of 2 episodes into the new series, but, uh, you know, we talked in the warship episode about how, you know, the characters have left, but there's no definitive, yes, they're gone from the ship.
It's, you know, they're still actively looking for them and checking up on themselves.
It's a really, really interesting way of doing it. you know, for viewers at the time.
Uh, you know, I don't know if, you know, how much it was announced in the press or whatever, that the actors were leaving.
But yeah, it must have been, I suppose, kept you guessing at the time if you were watching these as they went out.
I mean, at the start of next week's episode, Volcano will have a fairly fleeting mention of looking for Blake.
And that's the last we ever hear about it.
It's just curious that they put so much emphasis on it and then drop it like a hot potato.
Do you think it's a terry thing that Chris isn't so keen on?
Yeah, could possibly be.
And I know also there was early plans in the season. that the search for Blake was going to take up more of the story and they're actually going to find his grave halfway through the season.
So it could have been something to do with that and then they just went in a different direction.
But actually, I do quite like it.
I like the fact that we have such specific info about the fact that Blake and Jenner are in a certain place and they are traceable rather than them just sort of disappearing from the season whether we haven't heard from them.
But it's just that thing that, they tease John Sim and his character so much in ashes to ashes, and then never, ever deliver it.
And it becomes incredibly frustrating.
And I do think there's a danger that, you know, unless you've got somebody contracted to come back at a certain point or you've got a handshake agreement, that an actor will come back and do a thing, to tease something that you probably won't be able to deliver or that you have no intention of delivering, can really derail your show, and, you know, really derails those those shows, I think, and maybe they were just... really keen to not wind up in a situation like that.
We had it quite recently, didn't we, in the 3rd season of Star Trek Picard, which is an extremely good season of that, where they keep mentioning Admiral Janeway.
And then she doesn't turn up and you have the same kind of thing where you think, oh, don't keep talking about her if she's not actually going to put in an appearance.
There's probably way they could do it with Blake, and I say, I don't know where it goes, is, is you could just hear about his still fermenting rebellion, you know, sort of elsewhere in the galaxy or whatever, and, uh, and they're just kind of, you know, supporting it on the uh, on the liberator.
His rebellion being organised from the waitress car park.
Yeah.
Gareth Thomas was married to Sheila Wells, who was the makeup designer on Blake 7.
Oh, and there is actually, he was actually on location for one of the mid-season episodes he wasn't in because he wasn't, he wasn't working and she had to go around in makeup location. and I can't remember which episode it is, but there are photographs of him on location for a season C episode.
Or is he playing Tarantin Longshot or something?
But it's just it's just kind of Gareth in a jumper with a cigarette. surrounded by surrounded by a version of the program that he's not in.
Better version.
In the days of Twitter had been around then, it would have gone crazy, wouldn't it, with speculation?
The Blake 7 Liberator Chronicles volume 6 is set early in this series and attempts to explain why they stopped looking for Blake and Jenner.
So there's one story, which is a Avon Tarrant story.
Another story which is Jenna's story, and that's what it's called, and the final one is Blake's story.
And they're very good and they offer the most canonical explanation we're going to get.
The universal reason should have been that Avon didn't want to.
He didn't want to find Blake, and that could have been dealt with, and it could have been an interesting character beat.
But they sort of shy away from that maybe as part of trying to make even a more heroic figure, but it would have been interesting.
But it's quite interesting actually, again, to go back to the script, is that one of the lines that is cut, I even has a line where, you know, when he says we need to get on and rescue the others.
Except Blake.
Well, and Dana says why?
And he says, because I might need their help to take back this ship.
Right.
So maybe having taken back the ship, and already being on course to pick up Villa and Cali, he no longer is going to find them because he doesn't need the help to take back the ship because he doesn't want Blake on his ship anyway.
So maybe that's Terry's glimmering explanation, which just, you know, isn't in the finished episode.
It's just, um, it's just not there.
And you can believe from a character point of view that Avon would have quite liked to have Callie around and Villa just happened to be with her.
But I also think from a character point of view, he didn't yet know that Tarrant was a pilot, and so maybe he would have gone after Jenner as well.
I mean, it's all a little bit muddy, but it gives a reasonable explanation for why he just stops looking.
Yeah, and he does say about Villa in another episode, doesn't he?
As a talented thief is always useful.
Yeah.
So, Villa has his uses to Ava always. is always able to make use of Villa, isn't he?
And do we think, Darren, does enough to earn Avon's trust in this episode to be inducted into, you know, into Zen's sort of command programs at the end?
I was a little bit surprised by that.
With Dana, I think you can see that they've had 2 episodes of adventures together.
Um, whereas you say, say there was Tarrant was still a little bit, um, you know, a bit murky in his origins and whether he was telling the truth.
But when they're, when Avan and Tarrant are together alone in the cell, Terrence got a gun and Avan hasn't.
And at that point, Tarrant could shoot Avon and take the ship himself.
And what he does is hands-avon, the gunner says, you're going to need that.
So, I mean, I think that's the moment that he earns a measure of trust because I think Aden is aware that at that point, it's all over for him in less Tarrant makes that decision. if he goes the other way.
He's completely lost.
So there's an element of trust there from that, I think.
Doesn't he still need Avan to access Zen at that point, though.
Yeah, you're right. right.
He needs him alive to...
And also, there are 5 positions on the bridge.
You can't just have four.
Yeah, putting Aurac up in Gan's position. doing more than gather for this.
I have heard an interview with Paul Darrow, where he talks about, you know, of course, as Paul Darrow, I love Stephen and I love Gisette, but as Avon, I complained about that scene.
Paul Darrow said, Avon would not program them into the computer.
He's just he's just, you know, whittled down his competition, basically, for commanding the ship to another 2 people aside from himself. putting them in there.
And David Moloney pretty much said, Paul, we've written the next 6 scripts and they give Zen orders and we're not doing the thing where they give you the order and you give it to Zen.
Do you want more line flirt, Paul?
Because that's what will happen.
And he's kind of right though, yeah.
Yeah.
And the way Darrow tells it is, you know, he just he just kind of laughed it off, but he's like, he's like, you know, it's bothered me for 30 years that A Voden wouldn't do that, but I understand.
It's a show with more than one person in it.
I don't I don't think he always understands that.
He might have taken the opportunity to have wiped Villa's voice print just for fun.
Maybe they could have held it back, couldn't they?
They could have said you're not getting that yet.
Yeah.
And they was getting it in 3 or 4 episodes time just to add a kind of little crest.
Can we just have a round of applause for that really beautiful sweeping pan across the Liberator flight deck when we 1st encounter it in this episode?
It's clearly been all polished up and repaired between seasons and it looks absolutely gorgeous.
It looks the same.
Which is absolutely good.
You're right.
Thank you very much for joining us to talk about PowerPlay.
We'll be back next week, getting ourselves into a lava, discussing volcano.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and keep up with us on the maximum power website, maximumpowerpodcast.com, where you'll find links to our Twitter account as well as links to our other podcasts.
Bondfinger, Flight Through Entirety, Jody Into Terror, Trap One, Untitled Star Trek Project, and BJBJ Game Show.
Thank you very much for listening.
Goodbye.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.
Thank you very much for listening.
Goodbye.
Bye.
Goodbye.
What is the PJPJ?
That took my gaming.
That was your makeup.
Oh, yeah, of course it is.
Sorry, I thought it was the ones we said we were gonna make up.
That was brilliant.
Sorry.