WEBVTT

NOTE
This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 22:07:54

1
00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:06.299
Maximal power.

2
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:26.940
Hello and welcome back to Maximum Power, the Blake 7 podcast that consists of a group of archetypes personifying the plot functions and relationship roles of our major characters in the form of an interpretive dance.

3
00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:28.440
I'm Nathan.

4
00:00:28.500 --> 00:00:29.640
I'm Hannah.

5
00:00:29.699 --> 00:00:30.780
I'm James.

6
00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:31.679
I'm Pete.

7
00:00:31.739 --> 00:00:32.759
And I'm Cy.

8
00:00:35.820 --> 00:00:40.859
So we are on episode 9 of series 3 of Blake 7.

9
00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:42.840
See...

10
00:00:42.840 --> 00:00:46.259
I tried so hard.

11
00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:50.159
And we are doing an episode written by a woman.

12
00:00:50.219 --> 00:00:53.520
I think it may be the 1st Blake 7 episode written by a woman.

13
00:00:53.579 --> 00:00:54.060
Am I right?

14
00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:54.960
You are?

15
00:00:54.960 --> 00:01:08.819
Sci-fi author Taneth Lee, who is bringing the sort of a very literary take to the show, and Fiona Cumming, who debuted last week in Rumours of Death. that true?

16
00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:09.959
That's true.

17
00:01:10.019 --> 00:01:10.200
Yeah.

18
00:01:10.260 --> 00:01:14.400
Yeah, she is the 1st female director of Blake 7 as well.

19
00:01:14.459 --> 00:01:16.680
So, yeah, we're on a bit of a role here.

20
00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:40.019
And it seems it does seem like a little bit of a kind of stereotype, but what we have here is we stop for a minute, there is some great action and stuff, but for the 1st time properly, I think, we get to see, we get a real handle on what these characters, what our series 3 characters are like.

21
00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:47.700
And which Power Ranger they'd be, because I love that intro, that intro sends you off.

22
00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:57.060
It's, it's such a, um, unusual, totally oddly, way of starting, starting an episode of Blade 7 and leaves you pondering through to the end.

23
00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:03.180
But yeah, it gives them all, it really takes that approach of who are these jigsaw puzzle pieces.

24
00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:04.920
And now are they going to interact?

25
00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:09.300
And there's a little bit of shoe horning involved at some point for pot reasons, but that's okay.

26
00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:11.460
You've only got 45 minutes and you've got to tell your story.

27
00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:24.840
But yeah, it really treats the connectedness of the people as being the because that's all it's got when it's a... is it right to call it a bottle episode where the only actors are the main cast or am I getting my tropes mixed up?

28
00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:27.900
Yeah, so I don't know.

29
00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:34.020
Does the woman who is running the show at the beginning, the sort of 5 minute dance number?

30
00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:37.560
I mean, she doesn't get any lines, but she certainly acts.

31
00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:38.759
That's true.

32
00:02:38.819 --> 00:02:40.139
That's true.

33
00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:40.680
Yes.

34
00:02:40.740 --> 00:02:46.800
But yeah, so it's not quite, it's not quite an edge of destruction situation, but it's, but it's a, it's a real, here are your pieces.

35
00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:47.400
What can they do?

36
00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:49.199
and are they behaving strangely or not?

37
00:02:49.259 --> 00:02:53.580
She's hard to tell sometimes because like I always kind of hate Tarrant when he's being arrogant.

38
00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:56.280
And when he's just being, like, Taron's being really arrogant.

39
00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:57.780
Is that an alien influence?

40
00:03:00.659 --> 00:03:04.319
I could have just said I always really hate Tarrant and stop there.

41
00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:09.120
Throughout this and throughout the entire of series C.

42
00:03:09.180 --> 00:03:11.340
It's paragon.

43
00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:13.379
Yeah.

44
00:03:13.379 --> 00:03:15.780
Oh, it's just such a...

45
00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:25.139
Well, let's start at the beginning because we'd start with a 5 minute, longer than 5 minute sequence. with no dialogue.

46
00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:26.099
Yeah.

47
00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:31.259
And it set 1000s or 1000000s of years in the past, possibly.

48
00:03:31.319 --> 00:03:39.719
And it, these people are aliens, although they just look like English people sort of lightly painted silver.

49
00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:48.960
And it is one of the things that I think Blake 7 does every so often, which I'm absolutely here for, which is just bringing the weird.

50
00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:50.699
It's really weird.

51
00:03:50.819 --> 00:03:53.159
It's such an odd style.

52
00:03:53.219 --> 00:03:57.060
I mean, this, bizarrely, because I watched Blake 7 in such a random order.

53
00:03:57.120 --> 00:04:00.060
This was the 1st episode of series C that I ever saw.

54
00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:09.659
So, and it was just so utterly different to any Blake 7 I'd seen at this point.

55
00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:12.599
I mean, it's so utterly different to any Blake 7 ever anyway.

56
00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:14.219
Anything ever.

57
00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:14.879
Yeah.

58
00:04:14.939 --> 00:04:35.399
And just that start, I was just, I remember I was 15 and just absolutely just blown away by the strangeness of it, but also sort of, but gripped by it as well because it gives Dudley Simpson a great chance to show off all his musical chops.

59
00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:37.980
It's strange.

60
00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:48.899
It's got weird some weird sound effects of music that I can't quite tell if that's Dudley Simpson or if that's Liz Parker sort of filling in with sort of atmospheres and things like that.

61
00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:54.120
And you just can't get help but be intrigued by this.

62
00:04:54.180 --> 00:04:55.740
And why is this?

63
00:04:55.800 --> 00:04:57.060
Why is this in Blake 7?

64
00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.279
Blake 7 doesn't do fantasy, really?

65
00:04:59.339 --> 00:05:01.319
and doesn't really do aliens.

66
00:05:01.379 --> 00:05:03.779
So this is this is really unexpected start.

67
00:05:04.379 --> 00:05:10.920
I think maybe the closest that we've come to this is the beginning of duel. don't you think?

68
00:05:12.300 --> 00:05:17.100
I think it's really brave to do such a long sequence without dialogue.

69
00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:20.819
Well, there's no clue really what is going on.

70
00:05:20.879 --> 00:05:25.620
And so I says, it's all about the sound and the visuals for me as well.

71
00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:33.180
Um, there's some really sort of um, great like camera angles, like the sort of aerial ones looking down, they cut too as well.

72
00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:41.879
Um, I like, um, and I'm presuming it's shot on Charlotte Ealing, um, and it's a really interesting, um, set.

73
00:05:41.939 --> 00:05:52.439
We get all the sort of nice weirdness there and then it's quite nice when they go back to it later that you've just got it more or less in silence and it makes it a bit more eerie having seen it with the soundscapes before.

74
00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:55.920
And even that sort of very opening scene.

75
00:05:55.980 --> 00:06:20.339
So even before we get on board that thing, we see a group of people who are on videotape kind of CSO'd onto, onto film footage of the miniatures, and the miniatures are sort of strange and weird, and again, it's that sort of strange expanse of statues or whatever it is in dual, and, and, you know, Blake 7 occasionally does this.

76
00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:25.439
It hints at this, even in killer, which is a very straightforward, you know, Blake versus the Federation.

77
00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:34.500
There's the aliens who are giving us all the terran ague and trying to confine us to our home planet and all of that sort of thing.

78
00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:40.439
You know, that the universe of Blake 7 is empty.

79
00:06:40.500 --> 00:06:48.660
It only has people in it, but there's this sort of strange echos of weirder things happening.

80
00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:50.100
And I think that's great.

81
00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:51.240
That's brilliant.

82
00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:53.339
It's something that is unique.

83
00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:58.079
Maybe it's unique to Blake 7, but it is, it is particular to Blake 7.

84
00:06:58.139 --> 00:07:00.000
I think it's one of the best things about it.

85
00:07:00.060 --> 00:07:08.519
It sort of makes the, uh, the alien and the unknown... kind of dangerous and unknowable.

86
00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:10.439
You know what I mean?

87
00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:16.740
Like, it's, you know, this universe, that these characters inhabit it is, you know, like you know how it works.

88
00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:23.459
Well, sometimes, depending on who's writing the script and which version of the Federation we're talking about.

89
00:07:23.519 --> 00:07:33.180
But when you get aliens coming to it, they are truly alien to the concept of the show in a way that they just don't fit.

90
00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:43.199
Yeah, because it's not a sort of meet the alien race of the week who will epitomise a particular human attribute, which is a sort of standard type, I think.

91
00:07:43.259 --> 00:07:43.920
Only foreheads.

92
00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:46.500
Yeah, yeah, these ones are like samurai.

93
00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:57.839
These ones are, you know, it's more, there's much more, uh, I don't know, it's much more left field than that and they aren't just there to be a particular type of thing.

94
00:07:57.899 --> 00:07:59.339
They're there to be confusing.

95
00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:00.480
That's nice.

96
00:08:00.540 --> 00:08:05.459
Or to confront the reality, the sort of standard-lived reality of the characters.

97
00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:22.019
Yeah, like they introduce some sort of, you know, threat most of the time, either, you know, like a virus or an alien invasion or, you know, this sort of weird body snatcher, possession kind of concept.

98
00:08:22.259 --> 00:08:27.300
I'm thinking about Dawn of the Gods as well, where that's one that it just starts off.

99
00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:34.980
I really like for the opening where it's just so mysterious and you're drawn into that.

100
00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:43.019
It does seem to sort of play on stuff a bit more psychological with their aliens rather than anything sort of physical.

101
00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:51.960
I think it's why, like, something like um, the spider and harvest of Kyra, sort of jars so much because it will be, we don't do physical aid liens here.

102
00:08:52.019 --> 00:08:52.679
Yeah.

103
00:08:52.679 --> 00:08:53.039
Mm.

104
00:08:53.100 --> 00:09:07.379
Yeah, I think, like, and what it seems to be doing, because Tanethley's a writer and because she's interested in the characters and how they function both as people and as plot devices.

105
00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:16.860
So we see her associating our 5 leads with 5 kind of archetypes.

106
00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:22.860
So there's a sort of mystic woman and there's a trickster and there's a...

107
00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:24.539
Joey and a Phoebe.

108
00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:26.220
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

109
00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:26.759
Yeah.

110
00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:29.639
The trickster was the moment where it clicked.

111
00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:35.100
I remember the 1st time I watched it, the trickstory one appears doing magic trick and I immediately got, oh, that's villa.

112
00:09:35.220 --> 00:09:36.600
They're doing something here with that.

113
00:09:37.259 --> 00:09:39.720
And it's pretty clear, isn't it?

114
00:09:39.779 --> 00:09:52.379
Then you get, you know, in red, you get Tarrant, who's like the hero, finds a guy, and then you get Ivan, who just kind of fucks you up. at the end.

115
00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:56.100
Well, he's the cowboy in black, of course.

116
00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:57.120
Yeah.

117
00:09:57.419 --> 00:10:01.440
Yeah, and so he sort of appears unexpectedly as well.

118
00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:06.059
It seems like something goes wrong in the ritual or something.

119
00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:07.200
So this is a ritual.

120
00:10:07.259 --> 00:10:08.399
It's a burial.

121
00:10:08.460 --> 00:10:11.460
We later discover, but I think we know that already.

122
00:10:11.580 --> 00:10:17.519
Well, we see we see the body of the whoever it is and the ring.

123
00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:20.580
So I think we know this is a funeral or something like that.

124
00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:27.299
But he appears to kind of disrupt it and she banishes him, but he's not expected, I think.

125
00:10:27.659 --> 00:10:34.019
Yeah, and it's like, it's like from, from her point of view, the, the, the internee.

126
00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:36.659
Is it is this her just, is this a premonition?

127
00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:47.399
Is this a reflection of what's going to happen or is this an actual ceremony that actually took place where people on that planet put those costumes on in order to perform the ritual that would then...

128
00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:52.080
Yeah, it's, it teases you, but, yeah.

129
00:10:52.080 --> 00:11:09.299
She does, like, she does say, and we're getting ahead of ourselves later in the episode. the alien possessing Cali does say, you know, your coming was foretold, like that that ceremony is actually a premonition of the future.

130
00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:16.440
Like it's, they are seeing future events and interpreting them in, you know, modern dance.

131
00:11:24.179 --> 00:11:42.779
And then, of course, we get back to the Liberator, and everyone is wearing outfits that they only wear for this episode, and they do that because they're colour coded, so they wear the same outfits as the archetypes do in the ritual.

132
00:11:42.840 --> 00:11:50.580
And I think probably the costumes are terrible, but they're cheap and design only for this episode.

133
00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:54.539
To me, we meet them. sitting around playing games.

134
00:11:54.600 --> 00:11:59.220
Like, I just thought like, oh, they're in their, like, joggers in their comfyers, like, lading around the liberator.

135
00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:04.019
There's only really Avon, who's dressed up a bit, and I thought, this is how they should be.

136
00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:06.659
You know, it's like you're not going anyway. not seeing anyone.

137
00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:08.279
I'll just put some bottoms on.

138
00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:11.039
No, no, no, no, no.

139
00:12:11.100 --> 00:12:12.240
I want them looking glamorous.

140
00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:14.580
I want...

141
00:12:14.580 --> 00:12:16.019
No, no terrytelling.

142
00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:19.980
The gray rom pursuits are a low.

143
00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:25.080
Avon's setting the standards that they should all be aspiring to.

144
00:12:26.340 --> 00:12:32.220
And so Fiona Cumming, of course, is like doing weird things with the direction as well.

145
00:12:32.279 --> 00:12:40.740
So this gives her the chance to do things like you said before, Anna, where, you know, we're in a film studio, presumably Ealing, and we can shoot down from above.

146
00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:53.279
And then we get this sort of, we get, we fade between the liberator, we, no, the, this ship thing that they launch and then the ring and then Callie's eye.

147
00:12:53.340 --> 00:12:56.820
Yeah, so it's like they're stylish for Blake 7.

148
00:12:56.879 --> 00:12:58.139
We don't get things like this.

149
00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:01.259
No, and it's telling the story, isn't it?

150
00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:06.720
You know, that ship will go, you know, like heads off, the ring is on board it.

151
00:13:06.779 --> 00:13:09.419
The ring is what will take Calli over.

152
00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:18.899
And then we get that scene, which I think is one of the best scenes in Blake 7 as far as 2 characters interacting goes.

153
00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:20.700
I think it's magnificent.

154
00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:25.559
Yeah, I mean, I'm Chan if Lee will come back to sort of dealing with grief again in sand.

155
00:13:25.620 --> 00:13:55.200
So there's obviously something that's in her wheelhouse, but for a series that doesn't often acknowledge what's happened sort of 2 episodes ago, this is this is really good stuff that Callie is mourning the death of her race and the planet that she grew up on, and she's there sketching it, and she's detached herself from the rest of the crew to do this, and it's Avon, of all people who comes to see her, which is just amazing.

156
00:13:55.259 --> 00:13:59.700
But then, of course, Avon is damaged after what's happened in rumours of death as well.

157
00:13:59.759 --> 00:14:09.240
So we've got all this layer of grief on these characters that they've, they've been through really, really bad experiences.

158
00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:12.720
Even then, Boucher can't help himself.

159
00:14:12.779 --> 00:14:16.620
I mean, you have to assume it's Boucher making a joke out of that scene.

160
00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:18.240
What's this?

161
00:14:18.299 --> 00:14:20.340
It's a it's a door, Kelly.

162
00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:21.120
It appears to be closed.

163
00:14:22.139 --> 00:14:34.740
But I think that's, I mean, like, I just don't know how much Tanneth Lee knows about what's going to happen in series C before she writes it.

164
00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:51.360
And I did think that the stuff that she says about our on is generic enough that you could imagine her saying that in series 2 and Tanneth Lee is the 1st person to even care about the fact that she can't go back to our on because that's how it seems to be framed, doesn't it?

165
00:14:51.480 --> 00:15:06.720
Like she can't go back to Aaron and she's been hiding her room and maybe that's something that she's been doing all along because, you know, we were too busy shooting people and fleeing pursuit ships and stuff to care about that and she wants to kind of bring that in.

166
00:15:06.779 --> 00:15:09.899
But like the dialogue is really great.

167
00:15:10.139 --> 00:15:16.139
Like, there's that, you know, like, I wish I could say that the, what is it, the witty banter on the flight.

168
00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:20.580
The sparkling champagne on the flight deck was going to take you out of yourself.

169
00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:26.940
Like all of that stuff is really good and it has that thing, you know, are you all right?

170
00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:34.139
No, I'm not all right, you know, you will be and and like that's even, you know, showing concern.

171
00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:43.919
I really like Paul Darrow's performance here because although you've got still the kind of normal, like slightly sarky Avon lines, He delivers them so much more gently.

172
00:15:43.980 --> 00:15:47.159
It's not the sort of biting snark he normally has.

173
00:15:47.220 --> 00:15:54.539
And it is my favourite line delivery, I think, at all in the series is him saying demonstrably.

174
00:15:54.659 --> 00:15:57.539
That is really funny, isn't it?

175
00:15:57.659 --> 00:16:00.240
Because it's a joke at his own expense.

176
00:16:00.299 --> 00:16:01.799
Yeah, it does deprecating.

177
00:16:01.860 --> 00:16:03.600
He does not do that on the bridge.

178
00:16:03.659 --> 00:16:27.360
There's also genuine... genuine emotion from that character that he's imbuing that scene. his genuine care for that character, where he's, yeah, like he's smiling encouragingly, like, you know, you will get through this. like you can actually read that these 2 care about each other in a way that you don't often get in the show.

179
00:16:27.419 --> 00:16:32.100
Which is all such a great setup for the denimon, between the same 2 actors.

180
00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:32.519
Yeah.

181
00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:38.820
I think it's interesting you get everyone actually acknowledging a bit of a weakness, even if only slightly.

182
00:16:38.879 --> 00:16:51.000
And I think this all could really only it, it works so much better after rumours because it's, it's, it's a moment when he's had to sort of be confronted with the, the, in fact that, you know, he's, he's not always right.

183
00:16:51.059 --> 00:16:51.840
Yeah.

184
00:16:52.740 --> 00:17:18.599
And then there's this thing where as she walks past him to go out of her room, she touches him on the chest and then just walks off and again, you know, it's all bitchy Boucher dialogue, which is the reason that we watch the show, but we so rarely get just any kind of human moment between the characters, that that's really properly striking.

185
00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:24.119
And I think that this is, is this Jan Chappel's best episode?

186
00:17:24.180 --> 00:17:25.440
Oh, for sure.

187
00:17:25.500 --> 00:17:28.440
She just seems to be responding to it.

188
00:17:28.500 --> 00:17:33.779
You know, it's like, oh, crap, you know, I'm not having another week sitting at the desk flicking switches.

189
00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:42.119
But yeah, I'm not having to look at the, the, the, um, Chiros monster and thinking about my life choices.

190
00:17:42.180 --> 00:17:51.480
No, she is absolutely spectacular here and particularly when she gets to play the dual role as well and she will come into her own.

191
00:17:51.539 --> 00:18:04.500
I'm sure we'll be covering that later, but she does so many great and interesting things with Cali in this episode and the way that she's not quite the normal Cali, she's a bit detached from everything.

192
00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:16.019
She's at one step removed from the rest of the crew and she's not joining in with the banter the way that she normally would and putting villa down or whatever.

193
00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:19.380
She's just, she's there, but she's not quite there.

194
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:24.539
And it's just a remarkable performance.

195
00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:36.720
I think she is, we don't often give her a lot of credit because she doesn't get a lot of material to work with, but she's always really solid and a great, great presence, but this is definitely her finest moment in the show.

196
00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:41.099
And I think it's just she's responding to the quality of the material.

197
00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:43.980
Like, that's just, yeah. clearly what's happening.

198
00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:46.079
Because just all the way through.

199
00:18:46.140 --> 00:19:07.799
Like the, the, so, so we get the ship thing, the, the Christmas bauble that sort of turns up and parks itself next to them and they want to sort of go and do it and there's some discussion about whether we should go and um, and go on board and possibly lead to peril like it has done every other time that we've done.

200
00:19:07.799 --> 00:19:08.519
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

201
00:19:08.579 --> 00:19:09.779
We still have to wake up.

202
00:19:09.839 --> 00:19:15.779
There's a fabulous entramp, my favourite Indian restaurant that looks just like that.

203
00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:20.460
Complete with the little cone, the top and everything.

204
00:19:20.579 --> 00:19:24.480
I do like how Taryn refers to it as the ship as she.

205
00:19:24.539 --> 00:19:40.500
She's coming alongside or something the line, something like that. sort of reminding us he's supposed to be this down there, old timer, spaceman person rather than just weird. podcast because he had the same hair as Gareth Jones.

206
00:19:41.339 --> 00:19:53.160
Yeah, but we get that sort of weird thing where Callie reacts to something on the ship and we spot it and she denies it.

207
00:19:53.160 --> 00:20:00.960
And you kind of think it's going to be one of those sort of stupid Blake 7 things where everyone that fails to notice, even though it's been sort of hugely obvious to the audience.

208
00:20:01.019 --> 00:20:06.779
But both Tarant and then Avon kind of call her on it.

209
00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:27.420
And so when they when they get to the ship, like Callie is able to analyse Avon's motivation and saying, you know, you cut Tarant out, you told us a lie about why you left Tarant here, you left Tarant here because he'd had the same thought as you, but he'd made no secret of it.

210
00:20:27.480 --> 00:20:41.700
And just having a character analyse the motivations of another character, like even having characters with sort of kind of complicated enough motivations on this show where you could have a discussion about them, it's so refreshing.

211
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:44.279
She gets her Deanna Troy on.

212
00:20:44.339 --> 00:20:45.900
Yeah, yeah.

213
00:20:46.259 --> 00:20:47.880
Discussions.

214
00:20:47.940 --> 00:20:51.180
We should just glare at each other. uniqueness.

215
00:20:52.500 --> 00:21:08.099
I like how the line, um, the phrase something else to chase crops up, again, like from from, from there, from Avon on Kelly's initial private conversation, and then he says it on the bridge. a nice bit of awareness. don't think he quite lands it.

216
00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:09.900
I don't think he quite lands that line.

217
00:21:09.960 --> 00:21:14.880
Like, you know, like, uh, as if the actor hadn't quite kind of, he's too subtle.

218
00:21:14.940 --> 00:21:15.720
God, God.

219
00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:16.500
You're accusing him?

220
00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:17.160
Yeah, maybe.

221
00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:18.779
Possibly.

222
00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:20.519
It does he not?

223
00:21:20.579 --> 00:21:21.359
show you're watching.

224
00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:29.940
So we bored the thing.

225
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:31.680
So we board the space thing.

226
00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:33.119
The space urchin.

227
00:21:33.180 --> 00:21:36.299
The space urchin, the space cophagus.

228
00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:49.259
So psychophagus, by the way, does mean obviously, as we all know, a coffin, but it does also, it's from ancient Greek words that mean the eater of flesh.

229
00:21:49.559 --> 00:21:53.279
And I think it's deliberately chosen.

230
00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:57.180
So it is clearly a sarcophagus and they discover it very quickly.

231
00:21:57.240 --> 00:22:06.119
I think Cali suspiciously decides it's a sarcophagus quite early and as if she's in sort of tune with it.

232
00:22:06.180 --> 00:22:10.680
Um, how do we feel that goes?

233
00:22:10.740 --> 00:22:16.079
Because that's just about our only kind of spacy action sequence that we get this episode.

234
00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:17.819
I think it's fine.

235
00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:49.200
I think this, I love the way the set has degraded since we saw it, sort of 6 minutes in, and that sort of decay that's happened, and it's like turning up to a party 10 years too late, and something is full of dust, but everything is still a bit shiny, and just, um, it's, things that are a bit unsettling, like Cali arriving, teleporting in before the upper 2 arrive, and things like that, but everything is not quite right here.

236
00:22:49.259 --> 00:22:52.859
And so it sort of is setting up a bit of a mystery.

237
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:53.579
What's going wrong?

238
00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:55.019
Why is this happening?

239
00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:57.480
This doesn't happen. everyone always arrives together.

240
00:22:57.539 --> 00:23:03.000
So everything's just a bit strange and slightly off, which is a great feeling.

241
00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:09.900
Why does even say Villa landed on his head when he clearly landed on his arse?

242
00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:13.980
Because they couldn't say, oh, probably.

243
00:23:15.539 --> 00:23:27.000
I like how as this scene goes on, it garbage feels like Avon and Cali are mob and dad. to Villa being the child there who is just excitedly peering at Steph and like, nope, I'll back away.

244
00:23:27.180 --> 00:23:44.700
That, that fantastic moment where um, Taron asks whether they have tripped any wires and, and even, and Villa's just in the background of the shot with tinsel kind of going, even, look, I've been pulling at the tinsel for like the last 5 minutes.

245
00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:47.400
We may we may have touched one.

246
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:48.720
That's right.

247
00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:49.859
Then he covers for him.

248
00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:59.579
I do like we get a little like insight into sort of villas level of morals here in that he won't take the ring off the corpse.

249
00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:04.680
But don't you think it's more him being spooked by being a corpse?

250
00:24:04.740 --> 00:24:11.579
Like he, he, he doesn't want to see the corpse initially, and then when he hears there's jewellery, he's straight over there.

251
00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:14.279
And then he kind of goes, actually, maybe not.

252
00:24:14.339 --> 00:24:16.019
This is like super creepy.

253
00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:18.240
That was kind of I read it.

254
00:24:18.299 --> 00:24:18.480
Yeah.

255
00:24:19.079 --> 00:24:24.960
But it's that whole thing, isn't it, of Cali being like 2 steps ahead of everyone.

256
00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:27.000
And again, you don't quite know why.

257
00:24:27.059 --> 00:24:41.279
She's obviously got some kind of attachment going on that she's felt since the ship arrived next to the liberator and you get that little sound every so often that that little sound effect where it's like she's receiving something telepathically maybe.

258
00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:43.619
Yeah, like a burst of static or something.

259
00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:47.940
You've got to wonder why these people kept this woman on the ship.

260
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.440
She's always getting taken over putting their lives into like in jeopardy.

261
00:24:52.500 --> 00:24:54.839
They got to meet the Than a few weeks ago.

262
00:24:54.900 --> 00:24:56.220
He was great.

263
00:24:56.279 --> 00:24:58.619
I think I can understand.

264
00:24:59.220 --> 00:25:07.140
But, and so what happens then we start to get static electricity and we quickly sort of heading, you know, bringing them out of there.

265
00:25:07.140 --> 00:25:18.240
And again, we get that sort of weird thing where she appears and they don't and that interference with the teleport, as you said, size, like super kind of weird and unsettling.

266
00:25:18.299 --> 00:25:21.660
I love the bit where Villa just turns around and said, oh, that was smooth Dana.

267
00:25:22.259 --> 00:25:24.119
We have a movie.

268
00:25:24.180 --> 00:25:25.680
That's just great.

269
00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:41.579
And yeah, and that's a good example of Fiona coming playing with the the established grammar of the of the shooting, you know, keep it we'll keep a close-up on him and then we'll play a trick on the audience by by reviewing that.

270
00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:42.299
Yeah, that's nice.

271
00:25:42.359 --> 00:25:51.779
Avon gets her, what the hell in this scene, which still, I've watched so much Doctor Who that I do not think that people are allowed to say words like that in the 70s, early 80s TV.

272
00:25:52.140 --> 00:25:59.460
Oh, I thought that was interesting in that we had, it was in Pressure Point last year where they don't seem to really have much knowledge about religion.

273
00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:04.019
And so that made me kind of wonder how that phrase has sort of carried on down.

274
00:26:04.140 --> 00:26:05.039
And I've noticed it.

275
00:26:05.099 --> 00:26:11.279
We don't really get stuff like, 0 my God, and what the hell, like even in, they always kind of sort of changed sort of something slightly different.

276
00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:15.660
So I thought sort of that was sort of a curious little in universe thing to have on.

277
00:26:15.720 --> 00:26:22.200
Does hell mean something different by that endpoint that it's still just a phrase and they don't actually know the connotations of it originally anymore.

278
00:26:22.259 --> 00:26:23.400
What the frack?

279
00:26:23.460 --> 00:26:44.640
Well, I think, I think last week, last week there's some reference to even looking like hell, and there, there has been dialogue where he suggests that that's where he'll probably be, like, I, I do think that they, they do use it sometimes, and what's shocking is that it was just allowed to be used at all, I think.

280
00:26:44.759 --> 00:26:47.099
But it's very adult.

281
00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:49.980
A lady had no clothes on in last week's episode, James.

282
00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:52.259
Yeah, lying on some silver pillows.

283
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:57.720
I know what was more shocking than the naked lady with silver pillows. was the silver pillows.

284
00:27:04.859 --> 00:27:13.200
So once we get back, we do have that big conflict between Tarrant and Avery.

285
00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:16.559
How did you find that, Hannah?

286
00:27:16.619 --> 00:27:17.099
I love it.

287
00:27:18.059 --> 00:27:20.099
Oh, I love it.

288
00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:23.279
I just, it all sees in hating Darren.

289
00:27:23.339 --> 00:27:36.480
But it's one where I'm really kind of struck how he seems so harsh and hostile to like Cali, where contrasting to sort of Avon, who is being sort of a bit more quiet and watching, it is that sort of experience thing come in.

290
00:27:36.539 --> 00:27:39.000
But even their dialogue between them is great.

291
00:27:39.119 --> 00:27:40.740
But they like their sort of delivery.

292
00:27:40.859 --> 00:28:05.880
Tarrant is quite tight pitched, um, and Paul Darrow seems to go extra deep, which makes him sound older, therefore, um, and compared to this sort of lightness and it really emphasises that sort of young, enthusiastic, we keep saying arrogant, but he is really arrogant, is, oh, he comes across like that, know it all teenager who thinks like they're set for the world and he's clearly not.

293
00:28:05.940 --> 00:28:12.119
Um, he, I, I, it's there's some things he touches on that feel like they are a bit kind of close to the truth.

294
00:28:12.180 --> 00:28:17.339
Yes, we all know that everyone wanted to have the ship with Blake Gondley thought he'd have it fine.

295
00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:19.980
But the bit where he's going, oh, I win it live.

296
00:28:20.039 --> 00:28:23.099
Well, in what measure?

297
00:28:23.160 --> 00:28:26.220
You both ended up here on the Liberator.

298
00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:29.400
You were both in the same shitty situation now.

299
00:28:29.460 --> 00:28:30.779
How is this a win?

300
00:28:30.839 --> 00:28:33.599
Don't be managed anymore than anyone.

301
00:28:33.660 --> 00:28:39.420
It just feels like he's just trying to turn the screw there and oh, I'm just egging the munch.

302
00:28:39.480 --> 00:28:40.740
Oh, punch, just have a pipe.

303
00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:44.220
Just get it out the way and like, oh, punch his goody lights out.

304
00:28:44.279 --> 00:28:46.019
It's nearly that, isn't it?

305
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:51.000
It's the, well, you know, you're saying you can do something else, you know, other than talk.

306
00:28:51.059 --> 00:28:57.180
I love how you're reading him is high pitched, but he was putting on a deep voice.

307
00:28:57.240 --> 00:28:59.940
Like, because, because, you know, he's 21.

308
00:28:59.940 --> 00:29:02.400
Yeah, he's very young.

309
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:06.660
And he had to pitch his voice down because he sounded too young and squeaky.

310
00:29:06.779 --> 00:29:21.420
It's just, but it's just brilliant how Paul Darrow brings his voice right, as you said, right down and his performance is very calm at this and it's just the way he turns around at the end and says, you also talk too much.

311
00:29:22.259 --> 00:29:29.640
It's just so great that he just undercuts that whole conversation and he's not having, he's not going to play along.

312
00:29:29.700 --> 00:29:31.859
He's almost not listening.

313
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:37.980
I didn't, I didn't hear anything worth listening to or something along those...

314
00:29:37.980 --> 00:29:42.119
Oh, yeah, that's at the end. yeah Tarant says, forget it. and I even said it wasn't memorable.

315
00:29:42.180 --> 00:29:42.960
Oh yeah.

316
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:45.000
Yeah, that's it.

317
00:29:45.059 --> 00:29:55.799
But yeah, it comes just like Andrew Tate crossed with Andrick or someone who's just been on an alpha male course and probably tried some supplements that aren't doing him. doing his bone.

318
00:29:57.660 --> 00:30:03.059
I mean, it does seem like a bit of a rightly speech.

319
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:04.500
Do you know what I mean?

320
00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:09.299
And she's writing it without much sense of who Tarrant is.

321
00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:16.559
Like she seems to kind of know the one, you know, the one paragraph kind of summary of who the character is and where he's come from.

322
00:30:16.619 --> 00:30:19.440
And so she is sort of reaching a little bit.

323
00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:32.700
And so I think perhaps that's why the speech ends so limply with that absurd, that absurd claim that he's doing better at life than Avon is.

324
00:30:33.059 --> 00:30:49.140
But still, it is an attempt with very, very little evidence to try and make sort of bit of bricks out of straw, to try and make a character moment for a character who is sort of fairly underwritten and basically relies for its existence on Stephen Pacey's performance.

325
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:56.460
But it's sort of interesting, isn't it, that if things are different in the morning, then you can see you're on the wrong ship.

326
00:30:56.460 --> 00:30:59.579
And then in the morning, the ship is completely different.

327
00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:03.240
That's a great, great moment.

328
00:31:03.299 --> 00:31:04.380
I really like that.

329
00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:06.779
And I'm, and I'm not sure.

330
00:31:06.839 --> 00:31:20.819
So we, sorry, so this is the point where I'm not sure whether we're supposed to be seeing them becoming exaggerations of themselves and it is deliberately being really over-egged by the script as they all start to become these archetypes.

331
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:25.140
But it's kind of hard when your characters, when you kind of is an archetype anyway.

332
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.000
Yeah, yeah.

333
00:31:27.059 --> 00:31:29.940
I think I think we do find the characters doing sort of odd things.

334
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:56.220
So, for instance, the knight is narrated to us by having the exterior shot of the ship and Dana singing, and I'm not quite sure why Dana sings because she hasn't done it before, and I think it is Taneth Lee trying to shoehorn her into a particular archetype based on very little knowledge of who she is.

335
00:31:56.279 --> 00:32:05.579
So she knows that she's young, you know, like, uh, there's dialogue about it, you know, um, Joe said herself is like 19 years old.

336
00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:09.000
I have this sort of sneaking suspicion.

337
00:32:09.059 --> 00:32:12.779
I think that she sings because Ahura sings on Star Trek.

338
00:32:12.839 --> 00:32:19.259
Um, and Tanniff doesn't have anything else to to kind of hang on to.

339
00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:46.799
So, yeah, so Tennethley wrote the music and the lyrics, and they're pretty good, and obviously Joe Set sang it, which makes me wonder why we were going to get Stephen Pacey to sing the closing credits of Blake 7 in series D, and not Josette.

340
00:32:46.859 --> 00:32:53.339
Maybe just that, I don't know, contract modified, so they said no more bloody thing for me. not singing again.

341
00:32:54.779 --> 00:33:03.599
I have to, it's one of the moments that I'm not, I, is slightly weak and otherwise I, I quite like that we, we, we, we praise the directing in this.

342
00:33:03.660 --> 00:33:08.460
We've had stills of the liberator before, but I think because we spend so long cutting and lingering on them.

343
00:33:08.519 --> 00:33:10.619
It's very obvious that like they're stills.

344
00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:13.559
You run through the photocopy of Fudgeball.

345
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:15.059
Yeah.

346
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:16.500
The song.

347
00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:24.539
So because we don't actually ever see like Dana in person singing, she is just sort of, it feels like something the alien is forcing, putting through her.

348
00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:34.859
And as we start cutting back and forth between Cali, It felt like another like element of drawing them in and drawing them towards the alien, yeah.

349
00:33:34.920 --> 00:33:38.759
Yeah, you see, I've never read it like that, and I think it is a plausible reading.

350
00:33:38.819 --> 00:34:09.539
The idea that these characters are becoming more and more like the archetypes as the creature gains in strength seems like a possible thing and does explain, I think, in universe, like in story, gives an in-story explanation for these things, which I'm just basically attributing to Taneth Lee not knowing that much about a couple of the characters and, you know, struggling a little bit, to kind of shoehorn the characters into these archetypes.

351
00:34:09.539 --> 00:34:25.980
And And I think next year when she comes back, she writes another magnificent episode, I think, and manages to get the characters, you know, get a better handle on what the characters are doing.

352
00:34:26.039 --> 00:34:38.940
Yeah, well, putting it that way, it is actually, it's a really clever thing for a new to the show, right, to do, to create these archetypes at the start, because then the, the, the, the, the characters who are there already in the show can be bled into them.

353
00:34:39.780 --> 00:34:47.460
So without her having had to do a, come up with a reason why each of those people would be doing that thing.

354
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:50.219
It's because they're being consumed by these archetypes.

355
00:34:50.400 --> 00:35:01.619
But, uh, it's almost as if she had this this high concept sci-fi fantasy idea that maybe had been stewing in her brain for a while.

356
00:35:01.619 --> 00:35:06.000
May, you know, maybe, you know, could have been a novel.

357
00:35:06.059 --> 00:35:21.480
Um, and and, and she, and she went, oh, I've got this idea, doesn't quite fit, but I could do something really sort of strange and bizarre and, you know, unsettling with these established characters by forcing them into this narrative.

358
00:35:21.539 --> 00:35:22.199
Yeah.

359
00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:39.300
So I think that she is keen to investigate these characters and to try and flesh them out and to try and give them the opportunity to do things that they haven't maybe had time to do because there was a lot of spacing and stuff to be getting on with.

360
00:35:47.099 --> 00:35:49.679
So can we talk props?

361
00:35:49.739 --> 00:35:55.559
I have this sort of terrible feeling that Blake 7 is essentially people sort of standing around in studios talking to one another.

362
00:35:55.679 --> 00:36:03.960
This has a very, very impressive central prop though, and it's that egg, the blue egg.

363
00:36:04.619 --> 00:36:07.260
Yeah, it's really impressive, isn't it?

364
00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:17.340
I love the way that it glows and then it stops glowing and it crumples and I don't know how they did it, whether it's the same prop or it's the, it's a different one.

365
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:19.320
It's really quite nicely done.

366
00:36:19.679 --> 00:36:27.719
So I think they have a bunch of props, and I think the last one is built around a balloon, and they sort of...

367
00:36:27.719 --> 00:36:37.559
And then it all sort of goes to pieces and stuff, but it is sort of ingenious, and it's the thing that kind of releases not Cali into the world, I guess.

368
00:36:37.619 --> 00:36:48.599
It would have been a much shorter episode if Gareth Thomas was still on board with his Welsh rugby playing skills because he could have just tested that thing straight into the teleporter and it would have been no problem.

369
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:53.940
A little, just a rugby golf, but, um, yeah, Taren, Taren's not going to be able to do that.

370
00:36:54.179 --> 00:36:56.699
No, for God's sake.

371
00:36:56.760 --> 00:36:59.400
He's a lacrosse player, it was one.

372
00:37:00.960 --> 00:37:03.480
Badminton, squash.

373
00:37:03.539 --> 00:37:04.380
I can't thank you.

374
00:37:04.440 --> 00:37:05.219
Polo, probably.

375
00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:05.940
Squash.

376
00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:09.900
Oh my god, squash is absolutely the right period too.

377
00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:10.440
Yes.

378
00:37:10.500 --> 00:37:16.139
And he's got the tracksuit ready in this episode ready to go off to playoffs. straight off to the episode's not.

379
00:37:16.199 --> 00:37:18.119
And he has the physique for it as well.

380
00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:21.420
Gareth Thomas did not.

381
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:24.780
He's definitely a back, isn't he?

382
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:40.739
And during this whole sequence, Zen's voice starts to go wonky, and that's always unsettling, because Zen is the height of, well, Zen like, in some ways.

383
00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:45.420
And so to have him getting all his voice going intruder.

384
00:37:45.659 --> 00:37:48.000
Although, no, he doesn't say intruder, does he?

385
00:37:48.059 --> 00:37:48.300
Does he?

386
00:37:48.360 --> 00:37:49.800
Well, they think there's an intruder anyway.

387
00:37:49.860 --> 00:37:51.480
It's very unnerving.

388
00:37:51.539 --> 00:37:53.519
I think sends voice in this.

389
00:37:53.579 --> 00:38:08.039
It's very kind of this slow wind down and like, despite Zen being quite untrustful, like in series A. It's kind of just been okay throughout series B and series C and we've sort of kind of got to rely on setting a bit more.

390
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:21.539
And I think it's also the fact that the sound effect goes wobbly as well, which is always the most calm part of, I mean, if ever you wanted to be on a spaceship and be on the liberator.

391
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:29.340
You'd want Zen because that's just a beautiful little is the wobbly bit under his voice and the bong.

392
00:38:29.460 --> 00:38:29.940
Yeah, exactly.

393
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:31.320
It's reassuring.

394
00:38:31.380 --> 00:38:38.519
So when that goes wrong, something instantly feels like, yeah, off, exactly.

395
00:38:38.579 --> 00:38:43.260
And then and then all the lights go down.

396
00:38:43.320 --> 00:38:46.260
And we never see the lights go down on the liberator.

397
00:38:46.500 --> 00:38:49.559
That looks great in low lighting.

398
00:38:50.099 --> 00:38:52.679
I love the lighting on this episode.

399
00:38:52.739 --> 00:38:53.639
Yeah.

400
00:38:53.699 --> 00:38:56.159
Is this a Fiona coming trademark?

401
00:38:56.280 --> 00:38:59.159
Because she does the same thing on Enlightenment when she gets with Doctor Who?

402
00:38:59.219 --> 00:38:59.820
She makes the tart.

403
00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:07.199
She even makes the Davies and TARDIS look spooky and creepy, which it's fabulous in many ways, but it's not normally spooky and creepy, but she manages it.

404
00:39:07.260 --> 00:39:10.980
So, ironically, she turned the lighting down on enlightenment.

405
00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:18.239
But I mean, this is, apart from the film sequences, I guess.

406
00:39:18.300 --> 00:39:20.820
This is like a bottle show.

407
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:21.900
We are just here.

408
00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:31.440
And as so often everything is being done with sound and lighting and just the very, very simple things that you can do in a TV studio.

409
00:39:31.500 --> 00:39:34.139
And so it's not sort of massively flashy.

410
00:39:34.199 --> 00:39:41.820
I, I, the lighting in particular at the very, very end where, you know, Avon is confronting not Cali.

411
00:39:41.940 --> 00:39:43.679
I think is tremendous.

412
00:39:43.739 --> 00:39:45.000
It's super memorable.

413
00:39:45.059 --> 00:39:47.519
I think all the sort of greens and yellows and things.

414
00:39:47.579 --> 00:39:48.599
It's very very good.

415
00:39:48.659 --> 00:39:51.179
You get it when there's the wind machine on her.

416
00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:57.659
And just in the background, they're changing the lighting behind her as well, like along with the wind machine.

417
00:39:57.719 --> 00:40:00.539
It's almost like waving along with the wind, I notice.

418
00:40:00.599 --> 00:40:01.980
Definitely.

419
00:40:02.039 --> 00:40:07.139
And I, the greens and the reds are not colours that you get on the liberator.

420
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:09.960
So it immediately makes it feel alien and different.

421
00:40:10.019 --> 00:40:16.920
And there's so many great use of shadows around the ship as well, because we don't get the lights turned down on this ship very often.

422
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:24.840
So it just makes it feel really eerie and alien again, which it hasn't done since Spaceful, really.

423
00:40:24.900 --> 00:40:27.059
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?

424
00:40:27.119 --> 00:40:34.380
It is extraordinary because you think about a studio set and what we aren't getting is just the studio set.

425
00:40:34.619 --> 00:40:38.340
We getting the standard lighting, the standard background, all of that sort of stuff.

426
00:40:38.460 --> 00:40:44.760
And so changing it up really, really does substantially, you know, it makes things different and changes the atmosphere.

427
00:40:44.820 --> 00:40:53.820
And so this is happening as suddenly the sort of personalities or something of not Kelly's, I don't know, what are we calling her?

428
00:40:53.880 --> 00:40:54.480
What do we call it?

429
00:40:54.840 --> 00:40:57.119
I just called it either it.

430
00:40:57.239 --> 00:40:58.559
It's just it in my notes.

431
00:40:58.619 --> 00:41:00.659
The sarcophagus.

432
00:41:00.780 --> 00:41:02.099
The flesh eater.

433
00:41:03.119 --> 00:41:11.940
You know, that not Callie's minions from her previous life are kind of brought back with her.

434
00:41:11.940 --> 00:41:20.760
And, you know, we were talking about Dana singing before and how she's never done that, but now she's doing it.

435
00:41:20.820 --> 00:41:24.000
And then we get this extraordinary sequence with Villa, I think.

436
00:41:24.119 --> 00:41:25.079
Yeah.

437
00:41:25.139 --> 00:41:39.840
And it's really hard to know whether he's, is he hearing the cheering and the clapping or is it in his head and we're hearing what he's, or is this sort of part of the management station?

438
00:41:39.900 --> 00:41:51.719
It's a really interesting and uncomfortable scene by the end, and Dudley Simpson starts by making it sort of funny with a bit of music, and then the music turns eerie and strange.

439
00:41:51.780 --> 00:41:54.719
And yeah, the whole sequence is really, really odd.

440
00:41:55.019 --> 00:42:03.239
It's an interesting choice on the editing there because they cut from that when you've got this dramatic music and it's quite an abrupt silence.

441
00:42:03.300 --> 00:42:08.940
You cut to then sort of Dana going into Cali's room and then we cut back like and it picks up immediately again.

442
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:11.219
And I'm not totally sure how I feel about it.

443
00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:24.420
It is, it is unnerving, but I, I, part of his wonders about that decision whether it would have been better to just maintain the sort of full scene altogether because it's a sort of buildup. to then villa crashing like to the floor.

444
00:42:25.139 --> 00:42:30.539
There is something very television-y, though, about it and very period television.

445
00:42:30.599 --> 00:42:35.280
You know, like if you think of this as us seeing what's happening on the flight deck of a spaceship.

446
00:42:35.340 --> 00:42:36.599
It doesn't quite work.

447
00:42:36.659 --> 00:42:50.099
But as a piece of television, like as a way of telling the story, you know, using BBC sound effects records, doing what you might do in a studio for another type of program entirely.

448
00:42:50.159 --> 00:42:58.679
Like it shifts it away from reality and into the realm of television, it's a kind of special effect and a kind of direction that you could only ever do on television.

449
00:42:58.739 --> 00:43:01.199
And that's one of Blake 7's great strengths, I think.

450
00:43:01.260 --> 00:43:16.260
A lot of its weirdness comes from the weirdness of television in the period, you know, and the fact that it's shot on videotape and the fact that it's so heavily shot in the studio means that its special effects are very, very televisionual.

451
00:43:16.260 --> 00:43:19.440
And that, I think, is very sort of televisionual storytelling.

452
00:43:19.500 --> 00:43:30.239
And I think, you know, the question arises, is Villa like this normally, or is this him being kind of shifted into the minion role?

453
00:43:30.300 --> 00:43:46.860
This is what I've always tried to work out with this episode, whether all of their behaviour is being coded by the alien wanting to recreate all the people or whether it's exacerbating natural parts of their personalities.

454
00:43:46.920 --> 00:43:52.619
And I've never quite worked out the answer because there isn't an answer sort of on screen.

455
00:43:52.679 --> 00:43:54.480
So if you're going on the way.

456
00:43:54.539 --> 00:43:55.079
Yeah.

457
00:43:55.079 --> 00:44:10.380
Yeah, I'd always interpreted it as that, they, that it had picked the characters that most represented its archetypes and imbued them with that and accentuated them.

458
00:44:10.440 --> 00:44:17.639
Like, I mean, you know, Tarrant as the warrior kind of does make sense as the full makes sense.

459
00:44:17.699 --> 00:44:20.280
And we've seen Villa do magic tricks before.

460
00:44:20.340 --> 00:44:22.739
So that's nothing new.

461
00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:26.400
How do we square that with Dana?

462
00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:30.539
Because it's the one that, because you touched on it earlier.

463
00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:33.119
It's not entirely matched up in the same way.

464
00:44:33.179 --> 00:44:34.920
No, she could have been the warrior.

465
00:44:35.099 --> 00:44:37.500
She should have been the Warrior, actually.

466
00:44:37.559 --> 00:44:39.179
Yeah, made Stephen Pacy sing.

467
00:44:43.260 --> 00:44:51.239
It's interesting that, yeah, the entity has that that line says a villain, you know, he has a very high IQ, yet he acts like an imbecile.

468
00:44:51.300 --> 00:44:56.159
When a lot of episodes in this season actually just really make him out to be an imbecile.

469
00:44:56.219 --> 00:44:58.139
But I'm just...

470
00:44:58.139 --> 00:45:05.159
He's one of the, in a way, it's inconsistent writing, I suppose, but or it's a character that can just be happily deployed either way.

471
00:45:05.219 --> 00:45:08.219
But, um, that's that's the thing throughout this episode.

472
00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:09.539
Some weeks he is an idiot.

473
00:45:09.599 --> 00:45:16.260
Other weeks, he's actually too canny. particularly in the final episode of the season.

474
00:45:16.320 --> 00:45:21.420
But, um, yeah, there's that, she, it's like she's seeing something in him that the other people aren't.

475
00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:26.460
Perhaps the argument that being the fool is often the safest role to play.

476
00:45:26.699 --> 00:45:30.480
And he, you know, will do that later, won't he?

477
00:45:30.539 --> 00:45:33.360
pretending to be drunk and things so that he doesn't get asked to do stuff.

478
00:45:33.360 --> 00:45:49.500
And, um, I guess, I guess too, what's happening here is that, um, is that Taneth Lee has come upon a group of characters who are a little bit undercharacterized and she wants to do something with them.

479
00:45:49.559 --> 00:45:53.219
And so she's kind of forced to shoehorn some of this stuff in.

480
00:45:53.400 --> 00:46:02.219
And when she comes back the following year, I think she is less inclined to do that because she knows the characters well.

481
00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:10.320
She's seen them on screen and has written for them before because presumably she's coming in not having seen Dana or Tarrant in action at all.

482
00:46:10.380 --> 00:46:15.659
Or no, be writing from the character briefs and they're probably very slight.

483
00:46:19.320 --> 00:46:28.559
Yeah, so she is finding herself at having to do not quite a rescue job, but something like that.

484
00:46:28.679 --> 00:46:48.119
And so and I guess that ambiguity about whether they're being possessed or controlled or whether they're showing their real characters allows us enough kind of wiggle room for her to kind of do whatever she wants with them.

485
00:46:48.179 --> 00:46:54.900
But certainly that thing with Villa, because it's Michael Keating and because he's fantastic, he's still very villa-y, isn't it?

486
00:46:54.960 --> 00:47:05.639
And the uh, the applause thing seems to be something that he, uh, he responds to well and would enjoy hearing a lot more than he generally does on a sort of day-to-day basis, I think.

487
00:47:06.599 --> 00:47:08.880
And then we get that home.

488
00:47:08.940 --> 00:47:29.760
We get that amazing sort of almost jump cut where the alien Callie appears behind Villa where he turns around and she's not there and then suddenly she is and it's a really shocking moment because it doesn't follow the grammar of TV like we're we're supposed to because we're in a strange mystical kind of story.

489
00:47:30.840 --> 00:47:34.739
Yeah, she doesn't disappear or reappear.

490
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:37.079
She's just in shot and not in shot.

491
00:47:37.139 --> 00:47:40.320
You know, they've just chosen shots with her in it and stuff again.

492
00:47:40.380 --> 00:47:44.219
It's a sort of telly style thing, I think.

493
00:47:44.280 --> 00:47:46.500
She doesn't pop into shot or anything.

494
00:47:46.559 --> 00:47:47.940
What do you think of her look?

495
00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.639
The way that styling.

496
00:47:50.940 --> 00:47:57.059
I think she looks a lot different from, um, Callie.

497
00:47:57.119 --> 00:47:58.079
Don't you?

498
00:47:58.139 --> 00:48:15.420
And certainly, I remember, I remember when Callie reappears at the end and there's a shot of her in sort of close-up and stuff with her makeup and her hair and things that she was strikingly different from what we'd just seen Jan Chappell doing.

499
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:19.860
I think the hair is, you know, a bit overteased.

500
00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:21.780
A bit nylon, isn't it?

501
00:48:22.679 --> 00:48:24.659
Her hair is beautiful.

502
00:48:24.719 --> 00:48:29.760
It's possibly even atomic, as Blondie was saying at number one in the charts that very week.

503
00:48:31.320 --> 00:48:33.300
Oh, Pete.

504
00:48:33.300 --> 00:48:34.559
I was wondering.

505
00:48:34.559 --> 00:48:37.019
I was wondering when there was an issue on here.

506
00:48:37.079 --> 00:48:46.619
But I mean, but for, I think is this, yeah, this is Operation Try and Persuade her to do another season because, because, because Johan clearly she gets her full face.

507
00:48:46.679 --> 00:48:48.000
You know, she's not in a mask.

508
00:48:48.059 --> 00:48:50.639
She's not having to do a silly voice.

509
00:48:50.699 --> 00:48:53.219
I mean, she's doing a bit of a thought, she's doing a voice, but you know what I mean?

510
00:48:53.280 --> 00:48:56.219
Yeah, it's it's not her, she's not in a monster costume or anything.

511
00:48:56.280 --> 00:48:58.980
So it is it's a good double role for her to get her teeth into.

512
00:48:59.039 --> 00:49:08.219
Um, which she's had not, the 1st time, um, just had that, but it's a much clearer role than being a own clone in terms of getting a bit of range.

513
00:49:08.400 --> 00:49:14.639
And she gets a beautiful dress and who, as an actress, doesn't want a beautiful dress.

514
00:49:14.699 --> 00:49:15.119
She looked.

515
00:49:15.179 --> 00:49:27.360
I think she looks really cool, and it's quite spectacular, that 1st shot of her, and then later the shots of her sort of standing at the top of the stairs in the flight deck and confronting Avon.

516
00:49:27.420 --> 00:49:33.119
She is just magnificent and she holds herself differently to the way that Callie does and things like that.

517
00:49:33.179 --> 00:49:38.219
So Jan Chappell has fought this through and it's no wonder, really, that this was her favourite episode of the show.

518
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:51.300
Yeah, and we get that and that long final showdown, denouement scene with her and Avon, uh, is, it's very Blake 7 and very, just very, well, is it very Blake 7?

519
00:49:51.360 --> 00:49:58.199
Would somebody who doesn't follow Blake 7 closely, I expect it to be, say that, why aren't they running up and down corridors shooting each other?

520
00:49:58.260 --> 00:50:10.980
But it, but it is, it's very talking out the plot and real psychological character. fighting with words rather than just spaceships.

521
00:50:11.280 --> 00:50:14.460
It's my highlight of the episode, that bit.

522
00:50:14.519 --> 00:50:16.800
I think it's quite tense as well.

523
00:50:16.860 --> 00:50:21.900
There's, it's quite, you've just sort of got like the, like humming of the ship and that's kind of it.

524
00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:27.000
It's good sort of 10 minutes, this ramping up in between them.

525
00:50:27.059 --> 00:50:31.739
That's a long time really to have what is essentially a 2 hander where it edges the others in the background.

526
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:36.059
Yeah, I wonder if it was even a, I wonder if it was a single take, you know, through that whole thing.

527
00:50:36.119 --> 00:50:36.780
It was a really long scene.

528
00:50:36.840 --> 00:50:53.760
I would just, I would say no in some ways because you've got that shot where everyone's taken the ring and you sort of, it's merging between him and the sort of robed figure and they do the merge and they've got it perfectly lined up.

529
00:50:53.820 --> 00:50:56.699
I love what they've got the eyes lined up, which makes such a difference.

530
00:50:56.760 --> 00:51:04.500
And then it sort of goes in and sort of pans around and into there, it feels like that sort of a moment where they probably had to stop and set up a shot.

531
00:51:05.820 --> 00:51:19.559
It's just so fascinating, the bits where, um, the alien Callie says, um, oh, since um, when Tarant tries to say all of the crew were there and she says, no, don't try to trick me.

532
00:51:19.619 --> 00:51:22.800
She said, I'd know, particularly if it's Avon.

533
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:30.900
And just the, yeah, and then a, and then um, then when she says, I like you.

534
00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:40.559
Callie liked you. and it's just all those little, oh, it gives you sort of prickles up the arms because you have to sort of think, oh, it's that, it's that actually a little bit of a relationship here?

535
00:51:40.619 --> 00:51:44.699
And there's an extra connection between them, isn't there?

536
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:53.099
Which has always, which has been there since Mission to Destiny, really, sort of the 1st time they're sort of paired off and they're always a really fascinating pairing.

537
00:51:53.159 --> 00:51:56.639
And certainly this episode sets them up as the 2 grown-ups.

538
00:51:56.699 --> 00:52:02.460
I mean, Villa's useless, and the other 2 are new and, you know, ridiculously young.

539
00:52:02.579 --> 00:52:05.400
And so they are the 2 grown-ups on board the ship.

540
00:52:05.460 --> 00:52:07.619
They're space mum and dad, aren't they, really?

541
00:52:07.679 --> 00:52:12.179
And so they do have this sort of incredible connection.

542
00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:16.679
But just, it's like, you've just blunted it now like Shirley Valentine or something.

543
00:52:16.679 --> 00:52:23.639
Callie's done an night class and she's come back completely changed and had a holiday.

544
00:52:23.699 --> 00:52:26.940
I don't like us on a holiday in Spain and she's not the woman she used to be.

545
00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:54.719
But all of that stuff, you know, like Dana comes in and and not Callie realises that um, Avon must be in the corridor and and she says, you know, um, he tried to stop you coming and he just strolls in.

546
00:52:54.780 --> 00:52:55.739
Did I dream this?

547
00:52:55.800 --> 00:52:56.460
No.

548
00:52:56.519 --> 00:53:01.920
And he just strolls in and says... and stop them. didn't get in the way.

549
00:53:01.980 --> 00:53:03.840
I just didn't get in the way.

550
00:53:03.960 --> 00:53:04.619
It's terrific.

551
00:53:04.739 --> 00:53:09.780
It's even giving much less of a shit than we even expect him to.

552
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:10.380
It's wonderful.

553
00:53:10.440 --> 00:53:21.659
He does say something to, uh, Tarrant, just before he sort of runs off, is he, saying something like, it would be foolish to just barge in there, and Taryn's got his determined look in his face.

554
00:53:21.719 --> 00:53:23.340
Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do then.

555
00:53:23.579 --> 00:53:26.760
Can't please swans off down the corridor.

556
00:53:28.139 --> 00:53:40.619
You could have really done with with Blake's flappy leather number from series B. You get the billowing red robes behind him.

557
00:53:40.739 --> 00:53:41.460
Yeah.

558
00:53:41.460 --> 00:53:43.619
Pew leather.

559
00:53:45.420 --> 00:53:52.139
There's also his wonderful line about something about pets, you know, that she was talking about having servants.

560
00:53:52.139 --> 00:53:54.719
And he just says, I didn't hear anything.

561
00:53:54.780 --> 00:53:59.519
Perhaps you said something about pets or something, which is just absolutely superb.

562
00:53:59.639 --> 00:54:01.380
It is magnificent. isn't he?

563
00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:03.599
He is so cool in the standoff.

564
00:54:03.659 --> 00:54:10.260
He is not giving a 2nd and this is, I think this is one of Paul Darrow's very best moments.

565
00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:14.460
I love the bit where he just turns to her and says, make me die.

566
00:54:14.519 --> 00:54:16.559
There's nothing else you can make me do.

567
00:54:16.619 --> 00:54:18.480
It's really good.

568
00:54:18.539 --> 00:54:24.840
I mean, it's such a sort of, you know, it's a very Blake 70 and very Paul Darrow line, but it's also just really properly good.

569
00:54:24.900 --> 00:54:29.460
And like she, he's standing as close as possible to...

570
00:54:29.460 --> 00:54:32.039
And it is this thing.

571
00:54:32.099 --> 00:54:33.179
I'm not going to obey you.

572
00:54:33.239 --> 00:54:36.719
I am literally not going to be involved in any of your shit.

573
00:54:36.780 --> 00:54:41.280
You can't make this happen because if I die, none of this works.

574
00:54:41.340 --> 00:54:42.480
This isn't what you want.

575
00:54:42.539 --> 00:54:43.739
This isn't what you're after.

576
00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:47.039
And that's the only degree to which I'm willing to participate.

577
00:54:47.099 --> 00:54:51.659
So it's not just sort of the usual kind of macho bullshit that he sort of comes up with.

578
00:54:51.719 --> 00:54:55.320
It's a proper line that works really well in context.

579
00:54:55.380 --> 00:54:56.820
It just tremendous.

580
00:54:57.000 --> 00:55:01.500
I love that we throughout that scene go from her flattering him.

581
00:55:01.800 --> 00:55:04.500
I wouldn't make a slave of you, Avon.

582
00:55:04.500 --> 00:55:07.380
Well, not that sort of slave at least.

583
00:55:08.880 --> 00:55:17.940
Well, at the end, he just then got her this almost becoming this quite pitiful figure, really, when she says that like, oh, don't send me back into the dark.

584
00:55:17.940 --> 00:55:20.699
And it's such a vivid image.

585
00:55:20.760 --> 00:55:29.519
She paints as well of this idea of being a sentient being, but and, you know, just unable to like do anything about it, just waiting.

586
00:55:29.639 --> 00:55:32.460
It's actually a bit enlightenment, isn't it?

587
00:55:32.519 --> 00:55:36.480
Apparently, yeah, the parallels are there, yeah. not just stylistic parallels, yeah.

588
00:55:36.539 --> 00:55:46.860
And when she's when she's doing that thing, it's not just like, like, you know, there's the thing where sort of a vampire or a zombie will be saying, don't kill me, I remind you of your family member.

589
00:55:46.920 --> 00:55:51.119
With that, it's actually not that. everyone has actually connected with this this entity.

590
00:55:51.179 --> 00:55:53.400
It's not, she's not just saying, don't kill me.

591
00:55:53.460 --> 00:55:54.360
I'm a bit like Callie.

592
00:55:54.420 --> 00:55:56.639
She's saying, don't send me back there.

593
00:55:56.699 --> 00:55:58.619
It's quite a bit sapphire and steel as well, then.

594
00:55:58.679 --> 00:56:04.739
Do establish because I, I kind of take it that she is eternal, but like she doesn't die.

595
00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:07.739
It is just this ongoing darkness.

596
00:56:07.800 --> 00:56:15.420
So she says that that's how her race or species experiences death.

597
00:56:15.480 --> 00:56:18.599
But that's the death that we're afraid of.

598
00:56:18.659 --> 00:56:23.219
We can't imagine death because we always imagine ourselves there.

599
00:56:23.340 --> 00:56:30.599
You know, like death is something happening to us rather than, you know, the end of our existence.

600
00:56:30.599 --> 00:56:36.420
And so what's death, if it happens to you, It's that, isn't it?

601
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:47.940
It's like the inability to act, no sensory input, nothing, no other people, no things, nothing to see, nothing to do, just nothing.

602
00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:51.300
And that's what's terrifying about death.

603
00:56:51.360 --> 00:56:57.119
And death isn't really like that, but that's how that's the sort of death that we're terrified of.

604
00:56:57.179 --> 00:56:58.800
It's just that line, isn't it?

605
00:56:58.860 --> 00:57:03.119
I want to breathe and feel and see and know.

606
00:57:03.179 --> 00:57:07.320
It's that don't send me back into the dark, Avon.

607
00:57:07.380 --> 00:57:12.480
It's it's that primal fear of the dark that we all have, that that's it.

608
00:57:12.539 --> 00:57:14.639
You can't, you can't function.

609
00:57:14.699 --> 00:57:18.719
It's, it's tapping into all of those things and that's why it works so well.

610
00:57:18.960 --> 00:57:28.739
And and the appeal is not to um, someone, as you said, Pete, it's not because she's like Callie that um, she's trying to get him to do it.

611
00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:36.059
It's because it's so terrible, that she's just saying, please, you know, don't let me experience this.

612
00:57:36.119 --> 00:57:40.199
Like it's nothing more than, you know, don't let me experience this horror.

613
00:57:40.260 --> 00:57:41.760
It doesn't matter who I am.

614
00:57:41.880 --> 00:57:53.820
I'm completely no one as far as you're concerned, but this is, this is terrifying and and, you know, just pity or something will, you know, prevent him from allowing it to happen.

615
00:57:53.880 --> 00:57:55.860
Yeah, it's even though.

616
00:57:55.920 --> 00:57:56.579
He does give a shit.

617
00:57:56.699 --> 00:57:58.260
Yeah, but he...

618
00:57:58.260 --> 00:58:02.820
But he gets a kiss before he gets to do all of that.

619
00:58:02.820 --> 00:58:04.260
It's such a good smooch.

620
00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:05.219
It is.

621
00:58:06.480 --> 00:58:13.139
I always remember sort of watching Noel Edmond's teleaddicts back in the in the late 80s.

622
00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:19.980
And he said, there was every week he said someone would write in and say, um, I want to see a clip from Blake 7.

623
00:58:19.980 --> 00:58:26.400
And the clip they chose was the, you look so beautiful when your angry scene from this episode.

624
00:58:26.460 --> 00:58:33.659
And it's just, yeah, and you just heard all the audience laughing at it at the end because it's taken out of context.

625
00:58:33.719 --> 00:58:39.360
And actually, it's a really great moment that this whole episode has been building up to.

626
00:58:39.420 --> 00:58:47.579
It's Avon being cool and taking down the alien in the most fabulous way he can he can do it.

627
00:58:54.780 --> 00:59:13.800
So after that, of course, we have, for some reason, and I don't know who's responsible for this, but let's blame Chris Boucher, because we tell him how great he is all the time, but it's that scene at the end, which is just the, but, um, Dana, there's just one thing I don't understand seen.

628
00:59:13.800 --> 00:59:21.360
And it just seemed to me like to have been written for people who aren't used to watching television or something.

629
00:59:21.420 --> 00:59:24.179
I don't quite know exactly what's going on.

630
00:59:24.239 --> 00:59:29.340
It's like the scene at the end of shadow where obviously something weird has happened.

631
00:59:29.400 --> 00:59:35.280
And so just to make sure that everyone's got it, we're getting another plain man's guide to alien invasion.

632
00:59:36.840 --> 00:59:45.719
So just in case you haven't paid attention or haven't quite worked this all out, just, yeah, we're just, just, um, knot it up and it's all fine.

633
00:59:45.780 --> 00:59:47.280
But it's a bit clunky.

634
00:59:47.699 --> 00:59:49.500
It's a shame.

635
00:59:49.559 --> 01:00:02.760
It's really, really astoundingly bad, particularly given that the dialogue has been so good all episode and, you know, it's got to be Chris Boucher, if it's the script editor, and his dialogue is really great.

636
01:00:02.820 --> 01:00:06.239
Maybe he was told he had to do it and just thought, oh, well, fuck it, I'm going to do this.

637
01:00:06.300 --> 01:00:18.539
But the shame is that I think Blake 7 is, and it's absolute best when it's weird, like shadow, like this, like duel.

638
01:00:18.659 --> 01:00:20.219
Like culture world?

639
01:00:20.280 --> 01:00:22.199
Well, maybe not.

640
01:00:23.460 --> 01:00:25.260
But maybe the web, though.

641
01:00:25.320 --> 01:00:27.900
Maybe the web is the 1st episode that does this.

642
01:00:27.960 --> 01:00:35.099
And, you know, these things don't always succeed visually or whatever, but that's because they're trying to do something weird and unusual.

643
01:00:35.159 --> 01:00:42.960
And like in shadow, you know, the special effects are very television, we've got cameras looking at TV screens and stuff.

644
01:00:43.019 --> 01:00:44.699
Like it's absolutely that.

645
01:00:44.760 --> 01:00:54.900
That's Blake Seven at its best. and the fact that they feel like they have to apologise to it, apologise for it, or kind of explain it to the dim people at the back of the room.

646
01:00:54.960 --> 01:00:59.940
I think he's a bit of a shame because that's awesome when they do that.

647
01:01:00.119 --> 01:01:04.440
I think they're sometimes struggling to decide how to end episodes.

648
01:01:04.500 --> 01:01:06.780
How do you like feed into that.

649
01:01:06.840 --> 01:01:11.699
And you mentioned those episodes where we've got weird stuff going on and we end up having to end on a laugh.

650
01:01:11.699 --> 01:01:19.440
And I'm really glad they didn't do that for this one, but it's cleared like, well, we want to see you into this nice little exchange of glances between Abra and Cali.

651
01:01:19.500 --> 01:01:23.639
We need something before it and very briefly and we don't really know what it's going to be.

652
01:01:23.699 --> 01:01:41.159
And it's such a shame because those glances across the flight deck are so subtle and the subtle way of telling the, the, the relationship between Avon and Cali, and they know something has happened here that's that's big and has impacted both of them, and they don't have to say it.

653
01:01:41.219 --> 01:01:42.840
They just do it in that look.

654
01:01:43.079 --> 01:01:57.719
Yeah, it's funny because Callie is just as involved, you know, in defeating not Callie as Avon is, but of course we don't see that what we see is the incredible confrontation between the 2 actors and sort of we're told Callie's doing it in the background.

655
01:01:57.780 --> 01:02:08.099
Um, I guess we get that shot that I mentioned before where Jan turns up at the end looking tired because she's battling the...

656
01:02:08.099 --> 01:02:10.079
Yeah, it's really good, isn't it?

657
01:02:10.139 --> 01:02:11.099
She's so good.

658
01:02:11.159 --> 01:02:13.019
It's like a real close-up.

659
01:02:13.079 --> 01:02:16.440
Yeah, much closer than we had of the, of not Carling.

660
01:02:16.500 --> 01:02:23.820
Imagine if they'd ended it on that moment, her kind of just coming out with a tear in her eye. crashing turn tight.

661
01:02:24.239 --> 01:02:26.340
Yeah, but they just don't do that.

662
01:02:26.400 --> 01:02:27.239
Do they?

663
01:02:27.300 --> 01:02:30.539
They do the, they do the beginning in media arrays.

664
01:02:30.599 --> 01:02:50.159
Like they do throwing throwing us in at the beginning, particularly boucher, you know, but we haven't yet worked out that we can end before everyone's sat down and had a drink of adrenaline and soma and played a few rounds of space monopoly. and then explain the plot of the script to one another.

665
01:02:50.219 --> 01:02:51.659
Like you can just leave.

666
01:02:51.960 --> 01:02:55.079
Another lives, I hate in this.

667
01:02:55.139 --> 01:02:59.099
We have Villa going even Aurax back on his feet in 10 years.

668
01:02:59.159 --> 01:03:00.840
What a revolting foot.

669
01:03:00.900 --> 01:03:02.460
You should be used to those.

670
01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:05.039
Where's that come from?

671
01:03:05.099 --> 01:03:06.059
What?

672
01:03:07.440 --> 01:03:16.019
Well, I think that he knew that about her and Justin already, you see.

673
01:03:16.079 --> 01:03:19.440
Those are the revolting thoughts that he's thinking of.

674
01:03:28.500 --> 01:03:38.639
All right, so now, let's have a scene where we all sit around and explain to one another what happened on the podcast. over the last 50 minutes.

675
01:03:38.820 --> 01:03:41.280
Can I explain the plot to you?

676
01:03:41.340 --> 01:03:45.900
If only the alien had just asked nicely and offered them all some jewellery or something.

677
01:03:45.960 --> 01:03:47.519
They might have all...

678
01:03:47.519 --> 01:03:48.900
No, they've got all the jewellery.

679
01:03:48.900 --> 01:03:53.159
They've spent that... 3 or something.

680
01:03:53.159 --> 01:03:57.360
When'd you pick A4's getting his new leather clothes from?

681
01:03:59.099 --> 01:04:08.699
In the same way, the villa works through all the wine in series D, he works through all the jewellery in the ship over these in 3 series.

682
01:04:09.119 --> 01:04:12.960
Every time they drop off somewhere, he's exchanging it for something.

683
01:04:13.019 --> 01:04:14.400
Alcohol and dry.

684
01:04:14.400 --> 01:04:23.159
I just remember those carafes and the and the like the carafe and the glasses that he's drinking wine from in series D. I want them.

685
01:04:23.219 --> 01:04:27.539
I really want them I would drink wine from them every night, I reckon.

686
01:04:36.659 --> 01:04:44.940
I just love it because it's so different from everything else that they're trying to do, particularly this season where they're trying all sorts of different stories.

687
01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:50.340
And yeah, this comes out of the blue and is just magnificent.

688
01:04:50.400 --> 01:04:54.539
It's a, I mean, we've been on such a strong run of episodes.

689
01:04:54.539 --> 01:05:03.539
And this sort of finishes that that little mini run where there's a story going through sort of 3 or 4 episodes for the 1st time.

690
01:05:03.659 --> 01:05:13.920
Well, not the 1st time we did that in series B, but it really feels like there are consequences to all of the actions that have happened in children of our on and then rumours of death.

691
01:05:13.920 --> 01:05:19.139
And then, um, yeah, it's, it's really great work from Teniff Lee.

692
01:05:19.199 --> 01:05:20.699
And I hope she comes back.

693
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:28.440
When she comes back next time she doesn't get to be quite so weird and I think it's because she's more confident with the show.

694
01:05:28.739 --> 01:05:32.699
And I like that she does something different next time.

695
01:05:32.699 --> 01:05:43.980
And I think it's equally good, if not in that, you know, entirely inhabiting that strange mode that Blake 7 sometimes has.

696
01:05:44.039 --> 01:05:55.260
It is there a little bit, the sand, you know, sand is a vampire, that's kind of weird, but, but, you know, this is properly weird in a way that that isn't.

697
01:05:55.320 --> 01:06:05.400
And those are my favourites, I think, those episodes, even when they don't work, just the oddness of them and the TVness of them and stuff.

698
01:06:05.460 --> 01:06:07.139
I think that just trophy.

699
01:06:10.619 --> 01:06:19.199
So it's all the time we have for this week, and we'll be back next time to learn about the human concept of boning in Ultraworld.

700
01:06:19.260 --> 01:06:21.480
Until then, good night.

701
01:06:21.539 --> 01:06:22.860
Goodbye.

702
01:06:22.920 --> 01:06:23.880
Ta-ta.

703
01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:24.900
Bye.

704
01:06:24.900 --> 01:06:25.619
Bye.

705
01:06:25.739 --> 01:06:29.519
Oh my god, it's hard to imagine what we recorded last time was worse.

706
01:06:29.579 --> 01:06:31.079
Let's do it again, then.

707
01:06:32.400 --> 01:06:34.440
Switching to manual.

708
01:06:34.500 --> 01:06:36.599
Maximum power on all drives.

709
01:06:39.659 --> 01:06:41.760
Maximal power.

710
01:06:53.940 --> 01:06:59.039
I was gonna say, and you should, you're gonna have to cut this even with the explicit tag.

711
01:06:59.099 --> 01:07:03.119
He leans in for a snog whilst her .

712
01:07:04.920 --> 01:07:06.360
Yeah.

713
01:07:06.719 --> 01:07:09.840
Wash your mouth out and leave now.

714
01:07:11.519 --> 01:07:13.500
Don't leave it in.

715
01:07:15.300 --> 01:07:16.860
Tag.