Maximum power.
Hello and welcome back to Maximum Power, the Blake 7 podcast that can't find that piece of paper where we wrote down the address for Groff's wife and kids.
I suppose it matters.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Adam.
I'm James.
And I'm Peter, and I'm in hell, and it's full of dawn of the gods.
Are you telling us you don't like this episode, Peter?
So many dogs.
I'm not telling you that.
So few gods.
So I think this is really incredibly weird.
And one of the things that I was doing the whole time was just checking the clock and not because I was bored, but I just wanted to see how completely lopsided it is.
It's kind of got an A plot and then a B plot, basically.
It's very odd.
And it's like a bottle episode and then, oh, no, we'll go to a different studio.
We'll do it all in the one studio in the week.
No, we'll do another one.
Then get someone to paint weird flowers all over the black walls.
It's super bizarre.
When where do we go?
Where do we go for the film?
Is it healing or something?
we know?
Some kind of warehouse.
Yeah, it's very strange.
Wherever they could fit in the dodger, basically.
But I have to say that I have a very strong memory of watching this for the 1st time, and I don't think it was when, like, we were watching it as kids.
I think it might have been just before they started all coming out on video and I had a friend who had them all and stuff.
And I remember this episode being quite scary and I've never actually shaken that and I know it seems ridiculous.
But I actually really quite like this one.
And it's like 25 minutes of kind of space cramp, space non-spatials, and then spatials. and then 20 minutes of growff and that guy and then 20 minutes of playing dress-ups in the BBC historical cupboard.
Great, too.
I mean yeah, yeah.
And like, I like the space stuff.
I think that you can't really be a Blake 7 fan and not like just ludicrous space stuff that goes on for hours and hours.
And we talked about that last week, didn't we, in volcano where the space stuff was there and was more successful than the rest of everything else.
I think those early scenes, which start off with the space monopolies and then sort of the gathering tension.
Why the liberators going off course.
They're really pretty good, I think.
You get a sense that this crew has a bit more fun than they had when that martinet Blake was around.
I know.
I do love that they've given Terrence all Blake's old shirts.
So we at least think he's like, if you weren't paying close attention.
It's like, he seems to have lost weight.
But anyway.
They've all been taken in.
So Blake used to keep the space monopoly lock. so that they would concentrate.
No adrenaline and so my cocktails for them.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, it looks pretty great.
I like to think of his spemnopoly.
Bemopoly.
Yeah.
I like those early things.
I think they work pretty well, actually.
In fact, I watched Dawn of the Gods last night, followed by Schindler's list.
So it was a night of soj drama.
Wow.
But you know, I don't dislike this.
It's not very good, but it's unusual enough to be diverting.
And I don't think I don't generally mind when Blake 7 goes into fantasy rather than sci-fi.
So I like the web.
I don't mind Gambit sarcophagus, so it's not a problem for me, really.
I just, I'm quite tired of Blake 7 having an ending which is like, oh, we'll probably see that monster again.
No, you wouldn't, you won't.
No.
This is a 3 series we've had of this, and none of them have come back.
It's like all of those people who Blake promised to come back and help.
How did that work out?
It's like stop putting that in the script. wondering what the fuck happened and sitting on morphenial going, where is everyone?
So I think the space stuff is sort of properly tense.
It does rely on the computers being stupid, which, like whatever, this is Blake 7.
And so, you know, he, it's acting as normal if there's a big ass black hole nearby, but we don't mention that bit.
You know, we just say it's acting as normal and all of that.
And it sort of implied that what Aurak, as usual, is kind of getting them into this scrape so that he can analyse.
He gets data and stuff.
Isn't that kind of what they're terrified that AI is going to destroy the world with by just not being upfront with what it's doing because you haven't asked the right questions.
It's going to be writing substandard science fiction television scripts at the press of a button.
It's Orac GPT.
Or activity.
Yes, whatever AI does.
I think it's going to steer the earth into a black hole.
Good dry.
Anyway, or I didn't steer it into a black hole.
They just went in a slingshot.
Yes.
And they were fine.
But I, do you know, one of the things that I love too.
And I don't think Blake's ever gets enough credit for this.
But all of the sort of yell, the nonsense that they yell, like the commands, you know, they clear the neutron blasters for firing and put up the radiation flare shields.
Which Dana doesn't do.
And so Zen has to step in and do it for her.
I love all that.
And the force wall and like all of that stuff is so superb.
Like just the words that are chosen.
But she's also pushing lots of buttons whilst telling him what to do.
It's like either push the buttons or tell the ship to do it for you.
But why are you pushing buttons whilst the ship is, is, doing the auto, the auto sort of attack thing?
It's bizarre.
Is it a game of breakout that she's got going on the console or something?
Like what?
Yeah, I think she's she's still in the middle of the space Monopoly game.
Totally making her move while no one else is looking.
But also, have you noticed that when they do put up the, put up the force wall, they no longer have to go round to that little bit at the front and press the button, like Avon used to.
It's just something which is done.
Oh, you could have voice control it.
They created a Siri shortcunt and it just sort of operated.
Oh, forgotten.
When they instructed Sen to recognise all of their voice prints at the end of Star one before they evacuated.
They said, also, can you do this little thing so that we don't have to walk around the front and turn on the force wall all the time?
Yeah.
We have to keep pressing buttons going over to places and pressing buttons like a fucking animal.
Like, just do it. climb across a couch to get to the button for the force wall.
So they invented they invented Siri like 35 years early.
Yeah.
Well, the talking computer, I guess that's in Star Trek, but the genius of Blake 70s, that it has a sort of stupid character, which is really terrifying.
I just think that's awesome.
Actually, the genius of Blake 7 has not one, but 2 talking characters.
And so in an episode like this, they can talk to each other and it's really great.
It'll be much better.
It'll be much better than in series D where spoilers.
They just bitch at each other.
And are they still all played by the same people in series D?
Yeah, they are.
I like those early scenes.
I think they're pretty good and I like the way the mystery develops and I like all the technobabble that's being thrown about.
I like the fact that Terrence started to be an asshole, which he hasn't really been up to this point.
I think we need to create some frames of reference here because I know there's a black hole that's part of the story, but we also need to, you know, make sure we're not talking about the black holes in the plot.
And the personality that Tarrant seems to have developed.
He's doing a little minor Blake, and it's this very, very strange scene where I don't know what's going on.
So we, we're flinging around what we, we think, we're slingshotting around what we think is a black hole, but isn't.
And even putting on a space suit because he thinks that will protect him from the effects of gravity, perhaps.
Like, I don't know.
I think he can... pop out of dealership or something?
don't know And why why does Terrence kill the need to lie on him, like a man blanket?
We all go.
We're all going.
Like, it's just the most kind of limp and pathetic excuse to get some drama happening.
And then we just sort of shrug it off because we're mad and we forget about it.
They have a little bit of a laugh with each other about it afterwards.
But I mean, is Terrence Motto really, if not everyone can be saved, then no one should be saved.
I mean, I can see why he flunked out of officer training.
And like eventually we just say, I'll leave Cal.
Just leave her.
It's too slow.
So like it's clearly not a very firmly held principle.
I don't quite know what's going on One of the things about these early scenes, which I like is that they don't trust each other.
The dynamics have not been set yet. and so Tarrant and Dana both have a go at Cali and everyone's having a go at Tarrant.
It's quite interesting.
I like this new diamond.
I love them being suspicious of Kelly because, you know, we do see her using her powers not for good.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, you should have been suspicious of her for at least 3 seasons now.
Like, why just now?
They should have been, they should have been suspicious of us since she clunked Villa over their head with that spanner in the web.
Yeah, they forgave that pretty quickly.
So are we on our way to Aron?
Because children of Aron's coming up sometime soon.
And it sounded like we were on our way to our own, but that was just because we have an hour on thing happening kind of later.
And it seemed to me that that children of our on effect of the dialogue here, because you remember, like when they're in the, when we hear the uh, backstory for whatever the farm is and it's a sort of fairy tale.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like 7 gods came and then they came back and they liked everything.
Then there were 1000000s of years and yes, and whatever.
It just felt like 1000000s of years.
Not just a really dull backstory, but all told in MCU by Jane Chapel, who looks like she's about to fall asleep, sorry.
Wearing an ostie frog.
It's great.
I love the outfit.
It's so good But she, she, um, she says, and telepathy was promised, and because then, of course, we're going to get children of our own, which radically alters the kind of backstory.
And so that, I think, has affected that dialogue.
Like the voucher's gone, actually we need to change that.
It's quite weird, I think, because one of the things that I like about this episode is the fun.
I mean, it's not very artfully done, but it adds to the mystery of our and it feels like it comes from the same backstory that gave us Kelly's alien origins and those pithy little proverbs that she kept coming out with.
But it's another example of how this season, which is my favourite season. doesn't really stay very focussed because then you get children of our on, and this does not square at all with that kind of airport control tower clones from that story.
It's quite it's quite odd.
I mean, we've observed before that the show can't get a kind of consistent take on the Federation and that's the chief feeling.
So it's unsurprising.
But I agree with you, Peter.
I did like, like, I don't think Terry Nation quite knows what he's doing when he says we can have an alien character and stuff like that and she's an alien.
Like why?
And she just looks like everyone else and she can sort of talk inside people's heads.
And like that, that's a sort of high concept thing that they actually rarely use and probably didn't actually need.
Um, But as we said last week, like as a child, it was kind of like, oh, that's right.
They've made Kelly do her voices on that thing that's so exciting because we know she can do that.
And, you know, it kind of spoils it a little bit because then, you know, we have, 0 my god, there are actual aliens at the end of series 2 and they kind of beat the shit out of us.
And then in series 3, we just find out they're not really aliens after all, but they're just another group of people in kind of white...
Yeah, like humans that have been in space for a long, long, long, long time.
I mean, that's the weird sort of setting of these stories, isn't it?
It's like, what is it?
the 3rd calendar or something like that.
Second century, but...
Yes, undefined kind of future time, which, you know, might be, you know, might be sort of 200 years in the future, might be next Thursday. 10,000 years in the future.
On a week next Thursday.
It's, yeah, I found the whole thing a little too, I don't know, too bitsy, like, it's, it's kind of like you're like, oh, cool, we've got a momentum going on and then it's like, oh, no, we're going to drop that.
Like, you know, there's the whole thing with Avon putting on the spacesuit and you're like, ooh, this is a dramatic moment and then it's like, oh, let's have a little funny scene about how Villa won't ever put on a space set, oh, now he's in the space.
It's like, was it just like, oh, it's a space story.
I better have spacesuit, and then I'll just pop another spacesuit referencing.
They can chop one out.
It's really kind of badly done, isn't it?
Because that joke, that fucking joke that has, you know, needs to be done.
I think they need to be kind of international treaties of some kind because it's really been done quite a lot even by kind of 19.
Oh, look, it's a huge, like, I feel like it's a staple of the Marvel cinematic universe, that joke, isn't it?
But you have to do a quick cut.
The thing is that he just blathers on and then kind of fades out and we crossfade slowly to him in the like there's no surprise.
Yeah, no one understands that it's supposed to be a surprise.
It's an analogue for the momentum of the episode, yeah, being aware. over the top of him putting on the helmet.
They haven't mixed the sound properly.
Oh, wow, this is, how did you mess that joke up?
So it's poor old Des from last week.
It's Desmond McCarthy, who directed Volcano and nothing else, apart from this.
Didn't even direct Volcan.
Well, no.
And then this is by James Follett, who will come back next year to write Star Drive.
Hooray.
We have a massive soft spot for because it's so terrible.
Has anyone ever heard of search?
Oh, yeah, he did that.
Isn't James Follett?
Oh, but doesn't didn't he write like airport novels or something or did I dream that?
I think if you're thinking the other followed.
There's another one. follow it did.
Yeah, followed it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ultra World.
Yeah, no, that's James Follett.
This is James Folly based off. his kicks and work.
He actually changes his name by deed pole.
He's so embarrassed by this episode and comes back as Jim follows in Star Drive.
So this is the sort of, this is the sort of backstory that you don't get in the Blake 7 fandom.
Because we made it up like chat GPT.
There's also a point there where you've got to wonder whether anyone was doing the Foley.
But maybe they got confused and so nobody did the additional sound because there's there's bits where there should be like footsteps and, you know, dropping of equipment, which is just blank, blank, dead sound.
Even in the ship, even in the ship.
I think it's deliberate because there's, there is actually a really good moment where he's hanging from the, the ship and he goes, I don't know how far I have to fall, and then he drops a spanner, which just stops immediately.
Like, it just, you know, demonstrates that he's, and then he just sort of drops to the ground. don't even see that.
And there's no sound because I think that we're supposed to think there's no air.
And they think that there's no air.
So it's cheating, right?
But, you know, you can see why they're doing it.
Yeah.
I was following logical progression there.
I love that Tarrant has to tell him to drop something.
I'd love to know which bit the Liberator landed on.
Is it actually sitting on its bottom themselves, in which case, where does Villa drop from?
Is it sitting on its end?
Is it sitting on the prongs?
Who knows?
Yeah, that is weird.
Or does black space grow out at angles to the ship?
Maybe it's balanced on the green orb at the end, which does Kelly's hair.
We sometimes see, because we sometimes see it, like, isn't it in, like, in a thing in redemption, like, in that space station thing.
Isn't it like held by, there's some episode where it's held by Prong.
It's in Ultra World.
Oh, it's in Ultraworld.
Of course it is.
Looking forward to that. awesome.
Don't, Nathan.
Yeah, so yeah.
I mean, that's the cool thing about it is that it is an like an undefined space that looks just like an unlit film studio.
And like, and I'm loving that.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, no, that is absolutely the right way to go.
This episode could only have been made worse by having Villa CSO onto that. of the liberator in the background.
Do you remember the drawing in voice from the past?
brought the drawing back.
No, I think that's fantastic.
And I think the thing with the lights.
The thing with the pulsing lights, like it's cheesy, but you don't know what it is and you've got...
Until you do it, then it's stupid.
And then and then and then that fabulous bit too, where something like a, it looks like something quickly bites the scanner, you know, and and again, you don't see what it is properly.
And like all of that, I thought, was really striking.
Maybe like I was, I don't know.
I just think that's pretty cool.
And I like Blake 7 like you said, Peter, when it goes weird.
And now that the Federation is destroyed.
I think they've decided they're just going to do that a little bit more.
There's going to be a little bit less going to centero or phosphoron or whatever and, you know, getting a new kind of communicator thing.
We'll just go to kind of weird places and see weird things happen.
And I think that's really great.
I mean, when the thing comes in, it's got a painted mouth with lips and things on it.
Like later, that's just a little bit.
I love that too.
And the little, the little, the little sort of um, yellow antenna on top, fix it, special quick one, those are deep, deep sea fish to connect to the little, the, you know, the grid of electricity on the top of the door.
The dodger.
Nathan, I think you're right.
I think they're sort of doing adventure of the week at this point, which is a bit of an odd decision because they had such a strong and confident start to the season with aftermath and power place.
So to quickly fall into this is a bit like, what are you doing?
And they will come good.
The season starts to get a really good through line as you go on.
But I'm with you.
I think those images are actually pretty arresting and I'm not sold on Desmond McCarthy's direction in general.
I think whatever the script is going for, it's more weird and oddball than what we get on screen.
Um, but I think some of those images pretty good and they are, they are interesting.
They're kind of like the stuff of nightmares for kids.
I'm concerned about the costuming issues.
Have you watched Blake's side?
I have seen many weird costumes in Black 7 and I'm more than happy for them.
But it just, like, there was, it's almost like there's nothing in the script that says, this is why the caliph should be dressed like this.
And also, I don't know if it was a choice on the actor's behalf, but Groff being dressed like an accountant from, you know, gringots or somewhere.
Why has he chosen to do that accent?
It feels like the most weirdly anti-Semitic moment in the history of Blake 7.
Oh, dear.
Who's the guy?
He's Terry Scully.
He's from the seats of death.
Yeah, he's Fuchsia.
Yeah, yeah.
Seeds of Death.
Oh, my God.
Also, so he is doing the accent.
Adam, can you call him by his proper name, Jonathan?
Jonathan Groff.
Space, John.
I mean, he's the space travel thing.
Yeah, it is, like, so we get, like, we turn up and we decide that we're going wacky for this, um, space.
And I mean, it's a pretty limited, the script has 3 guest parts and one of them's a voice for most of the time.
And then there's...
Turns up in baggy pants and shoelaces.
Which is meant to be terrifying.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I don't know what's going on there, but there is something that I like about it, but I think I preferred him in Star Trek is the cage.
Yeah, he's a bum headed alien.
I preferred him as the creature in colony in space.
I mean, speaking of Star Trek, for good or for badge.
You can't imagine Star Trek ever attempting something.
I'll make you 60s.
I'm not sure about that.
Yeah, because I think both 60 Star Trek and some of the modern stuff, like I think 90 Star Trek is determined to look more.
But like the other versions will do silly things.
I have, you know, President Lincoln in space and and the big hand that Graham's the Enterprise.
And you know, actually, now that I think about it, the Thor in Voyager.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
So this, I mean, we don't I don't know what this is.
It's pretty undercooked.
But it looks like the Than is taking Herculaneum from ships because he needs it to do a thing.
What's the thing?
I don't know what the thing is.
He wants to be president of the universe and everyone has been promised spoils and riches, apparently.
Okay, but the Herculaneum, we need that for one.
Well, there is a line where he says, I'm going to build a new unit.
Oh, that's right.
Okay, good luck.
Out of Herculaneum.
It's an indoor universe.
It's like one of those indoor farms. like an indoor pig unit.
And it's the hardest substance in the universe, which I like.
I love a somethingist substance.
I'm worried about the subtext of this, that they've gone into a black hole to find the hardest universe in the... substance in the universe.
It just, I'm just, you know, just write, write your poem somewhere else, James Folland.
So so it's super undercooked, but I have to say that I really like the caliph and his stupid hat.
His punishment.
He's a magician.
Yeah, his punishment wand. his neuronic whip.
Yeah, it's so great.
It's not a whip, but we don't give a shit because we can't do a whip anyway.
And so it's just a lot... all really great. that's right.
And also, Adam, going back to what you were saying, what is the hardest substance in the universe in a black hole unless you have a whip.
That's it.
So, but I love how he just sort of sidles in when Dana's in there.
Like he meets them on film and it's kind of like, oh, he's an on film kind of guy.
And then suddenly he's in the in the fly.
That's a really great scene.
Yes, really good.
It's really good.
And actually, it's one of the clever points of this episode that that clever thing where Dana and then Tarrant keep avoiding saying what all that is. actually quite neat.
Yeah, I liked that stuff and I loved the, you know, oh, no, there's no such person as already.
A ball should be hard to try.
Unfortunately, we're then into a whole bunch of scenes about dynamic flux mathematics, which doesn't matter.
On paper.
Yeah.
Yeah, what's what's that?
Like, I don't know what's happening there.
And that is all sort of super boring, but it is over quite quickly.
Like, there's not, we don't spend a lot of time on it, to be fair, because we did have sort of 25 minutes of faffing about before we even got here, and that stuff was sort of fun.
And then we got some top quality exposition from Jan in the in the prison cell.
And so the whittering, like, and everyone remembers the the line about this is a finger.
It's for pressing buttons.
It's not for holy pencil.
Like, I just remember that.
I think we, you know, like that was the most memorable thing when I was a kid, I think.
The dialogue between them is all spectacular.
Like, you know, the moment where Terrence says he's going to kill Avon is like, no, yeah, many have tried.
Like they have such lovely bitchy dialogue with one another.
That's so great.
I mean, nothing can possibly beat.
I mean, hell, it's all about events, but so good.
That is so good.
But yeah.
Chris Boucher can take his pay home. satisfied, but he's earned it on that.
So delightful.
But yes, you were saying people...
I really like the fact that this follows Bleak 7101.
So it's like redemption in that you have all of a setup on board ship.
Then you arrive at the place where you're heading to, and everyone gets split up and most of the crew gets put in a cell while someone else is taken off to meet the owners of that world.
So it says, you know, he's obviously seen redemption.
He's obviously seen space fall with the with the greater flight.
The return of that thing.
Yeah, the defence.
Yeah, yeah.
That's pretty great.
And look, I also think it gives us a wonderful moment where the BBC tries to realise lightsabers.
Oh, man, which is so great.
Because it's like 980. of we can do those on our budget.
You look and it's like a stick that they've paid us blue and that they're sewing things onto.
It's so cool.
It's so tremendous.
Does it not kind of hurt to see them cutting up the concept?
I was like, stop, stop.
But yes, that is pretty great.
That blob thing and the blob thing is back and it was pretty good in space fall because, I mean, the fun thing about space fall was that we'd only just met the liberator and there was a real kind of attempt to make it weird and alien rather than just the sort of tasteless light fitting that we've since grown to love.
And, um, yeah, yeah.
So that's back to that sort of weirdness again.
And that's what Follett's going for in the script generally, I think.
Do you think that Farnworld Guard one saw his brother and Thineworld Guard 2 saw his mother?
Again, they had a handy, unlit film studio just with black walls to have all of those little flashbacks happening, just nearby.
I like to think that James Follett, all he'd seen of Blake 7 was obviously redemption and Spacefall and Time Squad.
So how do you get a through line from Space Fall to this?
I'm not quite sure.
Well, he did a better job of whoever wrote Voice from the Past who clearly just watched the way back.
Watch Parks.
I'm surprised we didn't end up with the people in the black hole wearing nappies.
He's always watched his Times Squad Space 4.
Oh, yes, of course.
Top quality.
Blake 7, Abby. bit.
So I guess we should talk about the Than.
But before we do that, I so I talked last week about that particular type of mid-blake 7 era set where it's sort of kind of it's shiny walls and and like, do you remember the cave that Shrinker is in and the cave that Dana takes, um, even into in, in um, aftermath.
And what was it last week in Volcano, just under the volcano.
They had, it was sort of vaguely reminiscent of the, um, the houses of the kids. you know, like the kids from school and you would go to their house and that they would have like shag carpet and conversation pits. conversation pit.
Yeah, all of that, all of that sort of stuff. 70s man cave.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mary Tyler Moore's apartment.
She had a conversation.
I've always watched a conversation.
You should have taken that job on the sandmark.
So, so, um, I loved seeing Callie lying flat on her back in that fabulous outfit on what my uncle used to line the back of his van when I was watching this as a child.
So it seems to me that you loving Callie flat on a back on some shagpile carpet is playing into all of Adam's... from earlier.
It's so great.
And somehow makes you even gayer, Nathan.
I'm telling you, that was probably a very specific direction in the script in between the hardest substance in the universe.
Also, one of those weird like little draperies.
I like just like, we'll just have some wall hanging.
With the flowers painted on them.
Yes.
It's really good because it's complete, like it's dark. and so you can only sort of vaguely see the details of the walls apart from the screens. and the screens are just CSOed on, aren't they?
They're not.
That's just a thing.
It's like everyone compares it to, you know, Zoan on at the end of Face of Evil, part three.
But I think it is different and there is some nonsense going on in the walls, but it's all kind of underlit.
So again, it's like lots of negative space and stuff.
And I just think that's memorably weird.
It's not like the usual science.
It's not like our on, the planet our on, you know, which is a, what is it?
It's a is it an air traffic control tower?
Yeah, and like a dam in Leeds or something, isn't it?
I think it was just...
I'm I'm sad that this, you know, black hole has not been decorated in the way that the uh, the offices were in uh, the last time I did this show, Weapon, which was with dust and upturned tables.
That's not a very nice way to talk about.
Who is it, John Bennett?
I have to say that I do think that it's the little things in Blake 7 that always matter because those 3 screens, those 3 face of evil screens behind actually make that set work.
Without them, it would just be negative space and a dais with some plush carpet on it.
But they kind of add that element that you need and they've got the images CSO'd onto it.
It kind of sells it for me.
Although, Nathan, I have to say that with some assuredness, when Chris Boucher received this script and read it, he would not be comparing it to the face of evil.
He'd already cribbed bits of it for early in the season.
Maybe Follett was sucking up to him.
Power play rips off bits, basically.
But so there's that.
And then, and like it's the usual thing where he's lonely or something.
Oh, yeah.
Like, and he's been speaking to her throughout the episode.
And so he's lonely and he needs a woman.
If he got off his chair and did anything, he might not be so bored.
So it's really funny, isn't it?
I don't know what's meant to happen.
I tell you what I think, though.
I like that final shot and it's absurd.
It's ridiculous.
And I can't imagine what the script was actually asking for or why we were doing this, but we see him and he's like the direct. goes, like increasing, like jump cuts closer and closer in, which is so cheesy and so ridiculous.
And then what we see is so absurd.
Like, it's his alien with tiny ears.
And like, well, I don't know why his ears are so tiny, but he has very tiny ears.
That's very sensitive.
That's very insensitive of you.
Nathan. actor did have very small ears.
Very small ears, yeah.
I think in the in the American remake of Blake 7, he would absolutely have to be played by Karen's nemesis from Will and Greys.
Yes, Beverly Leslie.
I really like the film.
I think he's another in those long line of bleak 7 villains, which includes Moloch coming up and Samon of the Decimas Planet, which are just kind of these weird small aliens.
I think it needed to be like more gross or something.
Yeah, because I don't know why Kelly then says...
Oh no, I never saw the thumb.
I never saw him.
No, because she's she actually, she's wandering around with a gun and she's going to kill him and she says, I'm here to kill you.
And then she sees him and is so horrified that not only does she let him go and we see that he goes away on that reciprocal course.
And, um, so and then she denies ever having seen him.
And I and that thing, the price is high.
I mean, everyone gets kind of bald and shrivelled and...
I was I wasn't sure. balls have dropped to the ground.
That's it.
My cats have got so bad.
He's so baggy.
I can barely look at these sneakers.
I wasn't sure whether we were supposed to read that as, you know, he used his mind powers to blank out that she'd seen him.
Oh.
Oh, no, I think I, because what I like, because she doesn't kill him.
Does she decide not to kill him?
When she sees him?
Yeah.
We don't see.
Because what I assumed.
So what my brain filled in was that she saw him and had pity for him for some reason because we have survived, but the price has been high.
And so she kind of goes, yeah, I'm letting him go and then she lies about having seen him.
But yes, maybe you're right.
Maybe he's made her forget using his enormous mind bound.
Or maybe you're just supposed it's supposed to be vague.
Or it's badly directed.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's that thing, like, should he be like, should he have a bigger head?
Should he have like brains going everywhere?
Should it be more gross than that?
It's a bit like the Mekon from Dan Dare.
It does look like the meat on.
Right.
He needs to be sitting on a little floating chair.
Like, oh, the rest of me so withered away.
Mikon had the big dome head because he had mental powers as well.
He was really brainy, but he had no physical strength.
Like his little arms and legs like, oh, I can't get up.
What is it?
What is about people who have been, uh, ostracised by by the hour and hour having big heads and little bodies.
Like Kelly.
Wow, that's really weird.
Love seeing that dress.
Big hair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love that this entire episode, like the thrust of the plot all turns on Kelly just going, oh, how do I know it's not happening unless you turn it all off?
He's like, all right, I'll turn it all off and everyone's like, quick, everyone, get out.
He's so paranoid, he won't let me use computers.
They have to use graphite writing sticks.
But he's falling, turning off the power.
So she could shoot him.
Well, but he hasn't been laid in like ages like 1000000s of years, right?
And a woman comes along and she says lies on his shag pile carpet.
Yeah, if you won't turn the things off, how will I ever trust you?
And I actually thought I liked that line because I thought it was actually a clever thing to say to sort of weird mind powers guy.
Yeah, there's a whole Murdoch, Jerry Hall thing.
We are a few on from her.
It sounds like someone trying to talk you into having sex without a condom.
It's like, oh, how will I know you love me if I can't actually touch you inside?
I have to say, I didn't mind that.
I sort of bought the fact that the Than Trust Callie and Kelly kind of lets the Than go just because of that long association between the hour and hour and the Than. buy that.
Yeah, I just think there's pity too, but I think that it would be clear.
Like if, do you know what I mean?
Like, he just looks like sort of my grandfather, really.
And, you know, we're just kind of a terrifying portent of things to come.
Nathan grandson.
He doesn't look he doesn't look gross enough, I think, is the problem.
I think you're right. not gross enough.
He does need to be horrific.
Yeah, more like Samon.
You absolutely needed Callie to draw back those curtains and say, yes, that is...
But like, think about sarcophagus and like how the thing that dies and ends up having horrible teeth and is sort of scary and stuff.
Like, psychophagus is sort of comparable in that it's another one where, you know, having Kelly on boards are massive liability because, you know, aliens like shadow again, you know, like they speak in ahead and everyone gets in trouble.
I guess that's why...
But, yeah, like that's done, that's obviously written by someone vastly better. and is done better, but I think, you know, there's like Blake 7 will show weird and gross.
It's not that it doesn't shy away from it at all. can't do that for no.
But it never really delivers on its aliens.
They're always kind of men in blue suits with old heads or sea devils or whatever.
And the one time that it does deliver on it is Star one.
But also one of the times it doesn't manage that is Star one with all the spaceships at the end.
No, but the pizza.
Oh, they're great.
Yeah.
And they're properly alien.
And did you notice actually in the scene with the mathematics flux equations or whatever they were working on?
There's actually an alien looking extra.
Like it looks like a fogan mask on and you think, okay.
Oh, I wondered what that was.
I thought, yeah, I thought, like, maybe it was like a burn victim.
Yeah, I thought Terry Terry Walsh should let himself go or something.
Maybe we were meant to think he was secretly the Than hiding in plain sight the whole time.
Who knows?
Maybe.
There's some weird things like that happen that you go, do they explain this?
Like I've watched it twice and gone, I don't think we ever find out why Villa's the only one that's hypnotised by the Dodgem car?
I think he's dumb.
Like, is that what the script's saying?
He's like just...
Kelly's a primitive life, Paul.
You can always from danger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he's, yeah, he's under instructions from Taryn.
Meet him run.
Oh, okay then.
Yeah, you can always tell the quality of a Bleak 7 script by if it makes Villa clever, it makes him just stupid.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's stupid drunk villa. that's the problem isn't it?
Like, because that's someone who hasn't really got what the characters about or hasn't watched enough of the show.
And he does scull a bottle of something suspicious.
Tabasco, isn't it?
Tabasco sauce.
I thought it was Tabasco as well.
I thought that it was very definitely he was getting into it.
Chilli sauce.
I thought it was a tomato sauce bottle, but then the liquid wasn't viscous enough.
Put me in mind of Pat's...
Charles Mortry just judging himself on the neck and then having a sweak. carry on a brook.
When are we doing the carry-on podcast?
Oh, don't even.
I'm here for Bernard Wrestler and drag as a nurse anytime.
I'll talk you after the podcast, actually.
So does anyone have any final statements?
This is the Shawfire way of killing an episode. putting it.
Well, speaking of putting it to sleep gently.
I watched it twice in the daytime and I'm still convinced I noted off, but times and dreamed a lot of it.
I'm like, did that really?
I think the best Blake 70s like that, though.
You know?
Yeah.
You're not sure if you've slept through it and you've dreamed it or whether it really happened. like animals, yeah.
You know, at the end of the day, I like this.
I don't think it's very good.
But it touches on a lot of bleak setting things like Kelly's hour on heritage and there are vague stabs at kind of vouchery, quippiness.
But it's just the tone, which I think is odd and nicely odd sometimes, but also... at odds with the rest of the series.
It feels like it feels like it's written by someone who's been told about the show rather than having watched it.
So it just it doesn't quite land.
But for all of that, I quite like it.
You say something, James.
Say something nice I just finished watching season now, series eight.
Yeah, my...
Don't tell me finish that.
Don't tell me.
You did sleep and dream it.
Yeah, I think you, this is the problem.
I think actually summed up the episode quite well.
Just then.
I think that we I think we end here.
I think, but I do think that these following things need me.
Here is my list position coma from Callie.
We get an exposition coma.
Basil tied into the X. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The exposition black hole.
We get...
Yeah, she's her exposition is kind of like horse tranquilliser.
I went into a full K hole.
I was like, oh, I'm in a Cali hole.
The K-hole was what they ended up in when they got pulled off course.
Like the rest of the episode, just the okay hold.
We have we have the hatch space welded shut.
Space welding that's new.
That's completely.
Avon is wearing the lobster outfit again, but he doesn't put the top on until later, so it actually the pants are quite good.
They're quite flattering.
But the moment he puts the thing on, he's suddenly all pigeon chested and deeply unattractive.
Also, I love that everyone's wearing space clothes on the ship except Avon, who's just wearing blacks because he's taken the lobster shirt pop off, you see.
That is the lobster.
That's the lobster.
Tarant didn't need to stop him putting on that spacesuit.
He just could put on the lobster anyway.
It was too hot in the studio.
Now, I've been to Herculaneum.
I've been to Herculaneum, but I haven't been to Cobar, so I don't know what a 1000 cubic cobars of Herculaneum.
But you've never...
When you went to Herculaneum, when you went to Herculaneum, when it was all flimsy because Herculaneum, it'd been drained out of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They crumbled at a touch.
I love Herculaneum.
It's up there with unattainment, actually.
It is really great.
And I also thought interspiral space was a nicely weird place.
So, like, it's not the edge of the galaxy, but it's a bit in the middle of the galaxy, which is between the spiral alarm, so there's nothing there.
And I thought that was kind of like super new and weird.
Yeah, it must be in the 5th quadrant.
Yeah, the 8th quadrant.
I'm I'm just, I feel like we have to kind of take some points off for some quite blatant anti-Semitism.
Like it was, we have to go, oh, that would, that's a bad call on that action.
It's not sort of Horns of Nimon bad, but it is kind of bad.
All right.
Well, in that case, I think we're done.
That's all we have time for this week, and we'll be back next week to annoy Clive James in Harvest of Kyros.
Until then, good night.
Ta-ta.
Bye. good night You can find us online at maximumpowerpodcast.com, where there are our bios and attractive photos of us and links to our other podcasts.
You can always star or review us on iTunes, and we're very grateful for that, even though I don't think I've ever seen.
Oh, no, they were really mean about me.
Let's not do that.
Why don't just plug the other podcast?
Anyway.
Don't encourage... horrible about Nathan iTunes. really mean about me.
Nice, I like the show.
Like what?
Shut up.
No, no, no, no, no, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's it.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.
Did Marcus Powell have a career?
Before or after?
Well, at any point.
Not really.
Even during.
At all, ever.
Oh, he played a decima in the web.
Oh, there you go, little alien.
Also, his brother ended up as controller BBC One.
That's true.
Yeah, that's also... another thing that you don't, like, Pixley wouldn't know that.
Because it's false.
Yeah