Space Canapés

[00:03]

Maximum power.

Hello and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast that's not a major violation.

Let me introduce the team.

We have.

I'm Mark.

I'm Pete.

I'm Simon.

And I'm Dita.

Sorry, Peter.

What am I saying everyone knows?

Dita Tarrant is dead.

Spoiler.

Yes, spoiler, exactly, spoiler alert.

So let's jump right into this most bleak 70 of Blake 7 episodes.

What time?

Well, that was my line, Peter.

I think it's the most Blake 70 of Blake 7 episodes.

You can't possibly think that as well, can you?

Take it away, Simon.

I love this episode.

Whilst Harvest of Chiros is my sentimental favourite, even though I acknowledge it, it's a little bit rubbish.

This is the one that I think is the best Blake 7 episode because it is all 4 seasons because it is, it's got, it's got the right amount of camp.

[01:11]

It's got the right amount of seriousness.

It's got the right amount of action.

It's by Chris Boucher.

The dialogue is flawless, it's well made.

I am just, I just love, love, love this episode.

One might almost say it's the most crisp Bauchery episode, and by default, that is the most Blake 70 episode. episode.

Exactly.

It's got all that great character work you get with him.

Um, and it's got Servoland and Avon.

It's got dialogue over action, it's drama with touches of camp.

I really love it.

I think it's really clever and really well done.

Pete.

I think, I think it's got 2 Terrence in it, and and that, that's just enough, that's just Tarrant, uh, Tarrant overload in, I can't cope.

I can't cope with.

I think the wig is amazing.

The wig just, Dieter's wig just basically, monopolises the screen of every single scene that it's in, and I find it hard to take in anything other than the enormity of that wig.

Also, Madonna at the start of erotica saying, my name is Dita, I'll be your mistress tonight.

[02:13]

I think she obviously was watching this, and that's obviously what got her going on that front.

I want to know how Serverland ended up as a neutral arbiter.

I wonder know what the selection process was.

How many people did they interview?

How did they decide?

We're having this, this, this fight to be death. someone we can trust, someone who's, you know, someone impartial.

I think clearly Servline must have ended up as neutral arbiter by being the mistress of Dita.

It all joins up.

It all joins up.

Mark, what did you think?

Yeah, I really enjoyed it as well.

I think what I found quite satisfying was that there was something for all of the crew, they were together for a lot of the time.

It wasn't a case of a couple of people stay on the Liberator while everyone else teleports down.

So they spent a lot of time together, so you got all that really great interplay and interactions.

And then they, maybe apart from Villa, they all had an important part to play in the story as well.

So they all got something to do with the resolution.

So I really like that.

I also liked the Deters Elvis Wig, thought that was absolutely fantastic.

[03:18]

It just, yeah, because it's the wig and it's the sideboard.

It really had an Elvis vibe to me.

I just wish that we'd have seen Dita and Dell together.

That's what felt at the end, like it was missing for me.

Yeah, the only one that needed... dodgy split screen.

Exactly.

Where they pass something to each other.

They put the glass on a table in the middle and then there's this inordinate pause until the other one picks up the glass.

Just enough time for a wipe to move across.

Wipe to move across, yeah.

Well, I mean, let's make up on that because the reason that the crew is used so well is that it's Chris Belcher.

He knows entirely what to do with Blake 7. a master at it.

And you look at like that opening scene with Dita and the would-be assassin on the deck of the flight of the spaceship.

And I'm just in awe of Chris Boucher's ability to kind of sketch an entire world and a backstory in just those few lines of dialogue.

It's absolutely incredible.

Yes, exactly.

[04:19]

And the other thing is that with the Chris Boucher dialogue is that it's always so clever and witty, but yet in the main, so it seems so effortless, like it feels like it can be something that someone might realistically say, at least in a heightened multicam drama kind of environment, whereas sometimes when other risers try and mimic that, it all sounds like, well, come on, no one would really actually say that.

Yes, there's people sparring with each other rather than having banter.

Yes exactly.

I think it was brilliant about the opening is you've no idea what's going on and you think that it is Dell in disguise on an undercover mission on this on this ship initially.

I did anyway.

But yeah, because the performance is are virtually identical.

And maybe, you know, if they had been on screen together in the same room, we might have detected it, subtle differences in the performances, but there's very, very little difference.

So yeah, I was immediately with that 1st scene I immediately thought, oh, they're undercover.

You immediately get all that great dialogue, like the would-be assassin who is just in that one scene and is really well played and has that great dialogue where she like switches on a dime from being all, oh, why is fashion never practical to suddenly being, oh, you really think of me as a major threat, don't you?

[05:32]

It's amazing We get a lovely little classic, lovely little classic villa line quite near the start as well.

I hate to see a man, a man cry, especially when it's me. which is just perfect for it.

Well, you know, that's part of the reason why I think this episode is so great because it's such a light, playful tone.

It's almost like this, the regulars are on holiday.

And so it's written like that.

They're sort of, they're involved themselves in Servelance machinations, but it's not her trying to steal a liberator or anything.

And so you get all those great scenes at the start, like Villa and Cali teasing and chasing each other and drinking their green drinks and essentially just sitting around watching TV on the liberator, which is amazing.

It's good to see, actually, like Morlock, um, to see Servoline, you know, kind of with some plans that don't directly affect trying to get hold of the liberator or anything, that she does have other stuff going on as well.

I like that.

So we were talking about Stephen Pacey, um, doing the dual role.

[06:36]

It's interesting what you said then, Mark, because I think that actually he does do a good job of differentiating between Dita and Dell, because Dell is all kind of like dashing and animated, whereas Dita has this kind of laconic centred quality.

Um, and I think he does a really good job.

And it's curious, I think, that Stephen Pacey was always meant to play this role.

So the script is structured, like we said, with the 2 of them never meeting.

And so it was never something like you were going to get another actor, an older actor to play his brother.

He was always meant to be there.

I think he does a really great job Am I alone in that?

No, I agree.

I, I sort of feel that he's, he, he's, it's supposed to be an older brother and I think he does come across as an older, It comes across as an old performance and maybe the wig helps that, but it's a bit more world where it's a bit more I've seen all this before and, you know, you don't impress me kind of thing, whereas Adele is more the kind of the excitable puppy dog in comparison.

[07:37]

Yeah, I suppose it is an option.

But it's a difficult call on him as an actor because as brothers, we're supposed to be emphasising that they're similar, but then he doesn't need to, because obviously they look the same.

It is a bit weird that he's not his twin brother.

He just his identical older brother, but maybe there was cloning, cloning factory thing involved in that.

But yeah, he somehow looks, he does, he does look older.

He also looks a little bit chubier.

I don't know how he's done that maybe just with different stuff on his face.

But it's not he's not getting to go the full Callian sarcophagus of giving as a proper far out.

This is the opposite end of my range kind of performance.

Or indeed, Cali and Children of our on.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Um, yeah.

So, yeah, obviously, there's a family theme to this season. seems to be.

A lot of people meeting family members or likenesses cropping up.

Or long lost loves.

They're the, yeah, the...

It's a small universe.

I found it interesting in the fiction of the universe, that Dita is said to have left Earth because we know that you're not really allowed to leave the federation.

[08:43]

And so the fact that he was able to leave Earth and then go and settle on a planet that's actually outside the Federation, I thought was quite interesting.

Yeah, I mean, was it just a bit of a contrivance?

That's how we need the world to work this week.

Rather than, um, uh, but, but you roll with it.

Yeah, it's fine.

Yeah.

But there's a suggestion that Dell and Dieter haven't seen each other since they were kids.

Am I the anyone reading that?

8 years, he says.

Oh, is that?

Oh, he says that years.

Oh, right.

Okay, right, okay.

Well, I mean, in Terrence case, that would have been kids, because Terrence meant to be, what, 21, 22?

Is he?

That's how old the actor is.

Well, Stephen Pacy is, yeah. don't know.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Yeah.

It's all the curl hair weighing down on him in the wrinkles.

But it's why he looks so remarkably well preserved now is because he was actually younger than almost.

A child, practically, is.

I think him and Josette Simon were both, and I was still noticing this season, if you noticing, I don't know if someone's commented on a previous episode, but the stacking of in the end credits of the principles.

[09:43]

It's um, uh, it's Paul Darrowjang, Chappel, Michael Keating, then it's uh, Jacqueline Pierce, if she's in it, then it's the, then it's the new, the new lot.

And then it's the voices.

So yeah, Jacqueline Pierce is between the, the, the, what do you call them, the Leeds versus the, uh, juniors?

That not the word.

The juvenile leads.

Juvenile leads. theatrical terms.

Well, the newbies, the diamond of being jucular.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a shame that the series didn't take its cue from that because if Jan Chappel is considered to be the leading lady.

I wish they would treat her as the leading lady because in a lot of episodes, even though this season does better than last season, certainly it does.

Tarrant is definitely the 2nd lead and it would have been nice for Kelly to be the 2nd lead.

Yeah, she gets her moments this year, but yeah, it's still uneven.

But I do wonder if losing Sally, at the end of the previous year, finally made them pay attention to the fact we've got to give these talented actors something to get their teeth into this time.

Maybe it was a promise to Jan Chappell.

[10:46]

It's like, we promise we will give you more to do next year because from about weapon through to the keeper last year, she did nothing but sit around in the teleport.

Yeah.

And you know what?

If I was in her shoes, my list would have been precisely would have been right, I want an evil twin.

Sorry, no, no, or an evil alien and actually a twin who's even lovelier than me.

One of those two, or both.

Maybe she was one upping.

She was like, well, if Terrence's getting an older identical brother.

I want an actual twin.

So talking about that, I think Chris Boucher really does a lot of the heavy lifting this season with helping those characters long and drawing them deeper than they otherwise would have been.

So he uses a lot of callbacks to their established histories, um, you get that bit where Villa mentions that serve land's idea of chivalry is never to shoot a blind man in the back, which references Dana's father, and then he pivots off that to get Villa, to make an absolute heartfelt apology to Dana for putting his foot in his mouth.

There's nothing, there's nothing heightened about that scene.

[11:47]

It's genuine apology.

And then Dana herself gets the chance to menace Serviland later in the episode is payback for that.

So it weaves this kind of tapestry and it adds texture and world building that was kind of lacking in this era of episodic television and certainly in sci-fi.

There's even a throwaway reference to Servilan trying to buy Aurak all the way back in series A. I love that kind of thing.

Yes, yes.

What is it well worth the price you almost paid for him?

Is that what it was That's right.

She was going to pay the price for it.

But then she was going to steal it.

But then Blake stole it.

What a great line that is though.

It's a great line, and it made me think that, that sort of Avon is pretending that Aurak is, Aurak is a really useful machine, but he leaves out all the sort of pettiness and snark and sort of obstructiveness that he get from Aurak.

And he did make me think I would actually like to see Servilan tried to use Aurak in a reeval schemes.

And for him just to sort of complain about it and yeah, he'd be as unhelpful as possible.

[12:50]

I think that that is maybe, I don't know if that's going to happen in the future, obviously, but that is a pairing I'd like to see in the series, I think.

Periodically, you get these episodes where Servlin remembers that they've got Aurak and that she really wants it.

So there's numerous scenes in this episode, which I just think are the epitome of Blake 7, and it's all based on the character work and the dialogue.

Can we talk about the one scene between Avon and Servilan?

Oh, yes.

I'm not familiar with Blake 7 fandom, but is there a name for this ship?

Is it Avalan?

Oh, checked avalad.

Devil Avon doesn't sound right.

That's too antiseptic.

Shave on But that's why I think one of this is one of the most Blake 70 of Blake 7 episodes is because that it's like we've been waiting 3 years for a sequence like this where, you know, he kisses her and, you know, then backs away and teleports off and she gives a little quip, which is almost to the camera, but I think it's not quite delivered straight down the barrel of the camera, but it is practically that way.

[14:08]

It is just so, such perfection and not, and yet also feels like it works.

It doesn't feel like it's just a one big in joke or one big bit of fun that they're having.

It is, obviously, but it also completely works within the tone of the episode and the tone of the series.

What do you think?

Yeah, it works on its own 2 feet.

It would also work with a laughter track.

It's a physical power. hit both of those tones at the same time.

But but Avons, um, Cali, I'm ready to come up now.

It looked like they both were by that point.

It's not a major violation.

Violation.

There's just so many good lines in that one scene.

The way that she looks at him says, oh, Avon.

I haven't gone and given myself away again, have I?

She's definitely enjoying getting to play a much bigger range in this season than the previous season.

And we'll see it, we'll see it, particularly in Children of Aron earlier.

But the way that, yeah, she's not just having to be icily aloof and always in control of everything.

[15:15]

You can tell Jackie is enjoying. the other moments.

Yes, we've come a long way from seek to locate destroy, haven't we?

And as you mentioned, callbacks as well, Peter, because they did kiss at the very beginning of this season as well, didn't they?

In Dana's dad's bunker as well.

So yeah, it feels like that's another, you know, kind of reference to their ongoing stories and things.

I actually thought Avon was trying to kidnap her because he's still got his arms around her when he speaks into the teleport bracelet.

I thought that was him, he was going to take her up to the liberator as a prisoner.

So I thought, yeah, that was quite a kind of a bald movie he was making there.

I mean, it was a bold move, but not to, but not politically.

Yeah.

You have to have a bracelet on to be teleported, don't you?

You can't grab hold of someone and take them with you just by holding them.

Because I was wondering that at that scene too.

I couldn't remember what the law was.

Whether you, I think you need one bracelet per person.

But that's for plot reasons, so that, oh, no, we've not got enough bracelets.

You have to go back and get some more.

You can't just grab hold of someone.

[16:16]

And also established law.

Blake 7 has really never been very big on that hazard.

I mean, it's really interesting what you said there, Mark, because this that scene is absolutely following up on that dynamic that is established in aftermath with quite a cosy relationship between Avon and Servland that almost exists outside of the bigger story of the series.

Whenever they get together, they just have these nice little moments where you think, actually, there's truth in what Servland says, it just sound all wanky for a moment.

There is truth in the scene, when she says to Avon, I don't view you as an enemy, I view you as a future friend.

You can absolutely believe that between them.

They're both very pragmatic, aren't they?

They would ally themselves with each other if, yeah, if the situation demanded it.

But I didn't know whether that was foreshadowing as well, whether that is something that's going to happen.

Oh, wait till you get to the wedding episode mark.

Yes exactly.

Oh, sorry, spoiled.

Yeah, but the risk of sort of saying a plot that actually doesn't happen, which is a shame, is that you need, you did.

[17:20]

It's a shame you didn't have an episode where the 2 of them are find themselves stranded on a planet and they need to actually actively work together to save both their lives and then have to go their separate ways at the end.

I think that is probably a series E plot so that we've missed out on, perhaps.

So, I mean, are you familiar with the episode Sand in series D?

Yes.

So if you substitute Tarrant for Avon in that situation.

Yeah, yes, there you go.

Well, there you go.

Okay, fair, fair, fair.

Yeah, fair.

That is a strange thing about sand.

Very strange.

That's and it was such a perfect Avon Servilon 2-handed that's got that's got Tarant in it instead.

Got well-ayed.

That's for another episode.

Sorry, Mark, spoilers.

Spoilers.

Very interesting that Chris Boucher writes this scene.

And I mean, I do think it's in the best way possible, hammed up a little bit by Jacqueline Pierce and Paul Darrow, because come series D, he contrives.

Chris Bouch contrives to keep them apart because he says that he didn't like the very cosy dynamic that developed between them and yet he is mostly responsible for it here, I think.

[18:23]

Wow.

Yeah, it's a fine line to wait.

I guess he's trying to age that line, isn't he?

And he doesn't want to, um, uh, like, Avon.

He doesn't want to cross.

He doesn't want this show to become a romance, you know, to become a romance in the in the bland sense of, you know, I guess.

Instead, he wants there to be those, always have those undertones, and occasionally bring him into the lights with these 2 on a little bit of a little bit of a bondage tip, which has always been a bit of a Blake 7s, a little ethos on the outskirts of Blake 7.

But, um, doesn't want it to be ever be foregrounded as this was the tale of their, you know, a man and a woman divided whatever.

Obviously it couldn't be.

Yeah.

Hammed up a little bit by Jacqueline Tierce and Paul Darrow, you said there, Peter.

That the sentence.

No one has ever used the word a little bit in that sentence before.

But you're dead right.

You're dead, right.

They are actually keeping a lid on it and giving it and not going hell for leather as they easily could have done and had an absolute hoot if they had.

They are going for it, but they're keeping it tight.

[19:26]

Yeah.

There's that weird, that weird thing between Avon and Servland, where they will enjoy each other's companies to a certain extent, but they will absolutely resume trying to kill each other the next scene.

And so you actually get that moment in this episode after Avon has been to see his sick friend, which is another hilarious line. he comes back on board the liberator.

How is your sick friend as sick as ever?

Which is sick as ever.

Do you see that when Dana says that not killing Serviland was a purely temporary oversight, Avon gets this big happy grin on his face at the prospect that he's going to kill her.

It's really crazy.

And then I think it felt like another callback, as you're saying, to the character's history, I think in volcano, they talk about villa fancying Dana.

And then in this one when he says, uh, all right, which I assume I'm reading that correctly, that it's a clumsy attempt to seduce her when he says, like, I want, I want a thrill, uh, anyway or something, and he looks at her and goes, would you like a drink?

[20:27]

And she says, uh, you're uh, the most attracting about you is how obvious you are or something like that.

So that seems to be like an ongoing thread as well from early in the series that, yeah, he's quite interested in Dana.

I mean, I think the thrust is that Villa is quite desperate, and so he's sort of equal opportunity.

He would take whoever was there and he could get drunk, be it Dana Kelly, or maybe Aurak. will never know.

But yeah, that sort of that comes up quite a lot, doesn't it?

There's a scene in a future episode, Mark, slight spoilers where Villa puts his arm around Dana's waist and says, would you rather be snuggling up to those snakes and she sort of unwraps him from her and says, oh, can I think about it and let you know?

It's just great character work all around, isn't it?

Every character. gets really amazing scenes, even if they're not part of the A-plot that's happening at the moment.

And I mean, name another writer, maybe Terry Nation, but name another writer recently who has used the regular cast so well.

[21:28]

But it also painting the, the, the minor characters as well.

Like, the guy who's, like, you know, Dita Terence 2nd, effectively, the guy that kind of helps him get ready for the battle, you know, is that really how I look?

Like, it's, there's just some wonderful kind of, like, I get, I get a sense, like, he's actually very consistently written for the for the few scenes that he's in.

It's almost like the kind of English public schoolboy sort of sort of Is that Stuart Bevan?

our Stuart Bevan of Green Deathface. that?

No, that's Professor.

I did not notice that was stupid.

Well, I was missing the Welsh accent, evidently.

Because he's very posh in this.

Yeah, and he's a little bit older, but also he looks older because he's got a short haircut instead of his hippie.

Right.

That's why that's why he seemed oddly familiar.

Sorry, Simon, did you say he was very hot in this?

No, I did not say that.

Sorry.

I thought you were losting after Professor Clifford Jones.

Sorry.

I didn't recognise him either, but yeah, I thought he was that rare thing, like a nice person in the Blake 7 universe.

[22:33]

He was just sort of quite decent and caring and they don't show up very often, but I think it showed that these these planets outside of, well, apart from the side that tries to assassinate Dieter, the side that Dieter actually works for, they actually seem sort of, you know, sort of fairly nice, sort of decent kind of civilisation.

But yeah, the other the other side character being the news presenter, who is absolutely brilliant, kind of one scene character, and I really wanted him to come back later on in the episode for them to bump into it or something or for them to elicit his help.

It's such a shame he's only in that one bit.

Yeah, he gives runs to ball the fatuous, so ran for his man.

It's funny because Chris Boucher is straight.

Chris Boucher was a straight writer and yet he writes camp so well.

And that scene between David, which is another camp name and his producer.

He's so catty.

They played like a bitchy married couple.

Ridiculous, really.

But it's all, it all just works.

Like it just is, yeah.

[23:34]

In a different episode you'd think it was ridiculous.

Yeah, I want him and Alistair Fergus from the demons to have their own big finish box.

They go around the trying to present arts documentaries, but everywhere they go, there's chaos and murder.

I mean, the way that they, I think they've been directed to play it as is to BBC lovies.

Because even when he says, you know, can I give you control of the remotes and he says, you've got it. incredibly funny.

I wonder, I wonder if they were based by Chris Boucher on Vier Lorimar and his PA, Jeffrey Mantle, who were apparently hysterically funny and bitchy together.

So Sally and Yvette, when I interviewed her, Jenna told me all about what a hilarious double act they were, and that was just the kind of thing that a writer would store in his mind and then regurgitate on screen.

Exactly the kind of thing, exactly.

[24:36]

So what do we think about the assassin?

The robot, the alleged robot assassin?

It's a really good performance.

Yeah, no, I think he's good.

But that's the thing.

Everyone's good.

Like, there's no, there's no one who looks like they're reading a queue card or no one who looks like they, they, you know, they're straight out of, they finished drama school last week and they really shouldn't have gotten into the industry in the 1st place.

Yeah, I mean, he didn't make much impact on me.

But this is such a central caste centred episode that no one else has really given all that much room to do more than be a little vignette or a little thing for them to interact with.

But yeah.

Um, and is he playing it?

Are they meant to be clues in his performance that he might be an Android?

Spoilers.

I don't think there are, really, are they?

Because he's supposed to be a real twist.

Yeah.

And because, you know, he's supposed to, he's not supposed to think he's an Android, so they kind of get away with that.

I think there are clues because I think the main reason he's been cast is those weird ICIs of his.

[25:37]

There's a couple of scenes where he's in close-up, and he's got very pale blue eyes, and he's just doing the staring acting, and that, I think, is the slight clue that you need, and that's probably why Mark Elliott was cast. very good, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other thing I really like is it's interesting, the way, even though we talk about the regular cast being so good in it, in some respects, the other cast are kind of in it more or at least as much, but I love the way they're on the liberator and there's never really a sense that the liberator is under any kind of threat at all.

Like, it's not like Serverland discovers that the liberator is there and goes, ooh, right, now I'm going to also try and capture the liberator back and all that.

It's just there and they're all just relaxing with their multicoloured drinks and their cheeseboards and whatever the hell it is that they've got there.

They're sort of their space canapes.

And, you know, they're just...

The beginning of the board game at the start.

Oh, another board game at the start?

Yes, that's true.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, it's definitely 2 for one cocktails hour on the Liberator today.

Yes exactly.

Because there are more cocktails than there are people, aren't there?

[26:40]

So, I mean, do you remember that we had a university lecturer whose one memory of Blake 7 consisted of that green drink that Villa spoons the powder into, which makes it go all kind of murky?

Oh, really?

which lecture was that?

Gosh, what was her name?

She took us...

It was Jody, yes.

How hilarious.

No, that completely.

Look, that sounds like the kind of thing that you'd have absorbed more than me at that particular...

My ears would have creaked up at the mention of Blake 7.

I can tell you that. what?

Although extraordinary to think that, of course, when we're at university, you know, the series had only finished like 10 years prior, whereas, you know, still, it was still in living memory, if I can put it that way.

And also it's a very bleak 70 thing that your takeaway from the series would have been that.

Yes, yes, exactly.

My my takeaway from this episode is that Servolan is not in the habit of waiting for couriers, which is one of the 1st time, but my favourite bit of server and dialogue since somebody put her on hold when she tried to phone Federation Supreme Command in that last series.

[27:47]

I went, hold, please, and you've just got a look of her face.

It also makes you wonder if everyone actually teleported around the corner if we'd gone through a whole rigmarole of pretending to her attache that he was a courier just for fun.

I was leaving it behind the bed.

Yes.

We've been talking a lot about all the sort of the camp and all the fun, but it, I think one of the reasons why this episode works is because it's not, it's not all that.

And the fact that you've got these fight sequences, which are played completely straight.

And the preparation scene, as with, you know, what's his face from the Green Death, Stuart Bevan from the Green Death, is again played.

It's all played quite, quite seriously and, you know, not earnestly, just, just straight.

And and also when Dita is killed and the other Stephen Pacy, the Adele Tarrant, is, you know, obviously incredibly cut up by this and even Villa is affected and others are affected.

It's a great juxtaposition for the kind of the fun that the rest of the episode is.

And so I think having them both in the same episode is one of the reasons why it works so strongly.

[28:50]

The tone is rise.

This is the 2nd of 2 episodes that Gerald Blake, Erstwhile, Doctor Who director does.

And I would argue...

Invasion of Time and the Abominable Snowman.

Yes.

But I would think that on his on his 1st episode, he also got the tone right, and that was the harvest of Chiros, which has similar kind of tampness and drama happening at the same time.

I think, although I don't wish to dredge up bad memories.

If this had been in the hands of George Spenton Foster, I think it would have been a mess because I think he would have, he would have misjudged the tone, he would have gotten the campness right, but everything else wrong.

And so it just wouldn't have had that great balance that it does.

I'd come up a bit more.

The one thing that's missing is tinsel.

Interestingly too, it's the 2nd last episode of the season.

Is it actually shot 2nd last Peter?

Do you happen to know?

I believe it was.

Okay.

Because it's so unusual for something which is in that slot to look as good as it does.

[29:52]

And I wonder that is that the director making sure that he gets what he needs out of the sets or is it just the fact that he's shooting the sets right or is it just written so that they don't need too many sets?

Because that that 1st class, you know, spaceship loungy thing, which is then reused, obviously, for the 2nd battle sequence.

It looks really good.

It sort of reminded me a bit of terror of the Vilbois, actually, with the way the space was kind of behind it.

I mean, the 2 tiers as well.

And the 2 tiers as well.

A little bit of CSO fringing around Tarot.

Oh, you know, CSFringing, yeah.

Just like Colin, just like Colin got on the Hyperion three.

Exactly.

Just squeak your eyes a bit more and then you don't notice it.

Not as much fringing as it would have been Dell because of all the curls.

Yes, exactly.

Maybe that's why they chose that wig.

But that's so well done.

And that kind of, I think all those sets are, and when I think now that they think about it, they're all quite small, aren't they?

Like the set where obviously Dieter and Stuart Bevan are chatting before is just a tiny room and Servoland and the other adjudicators, whatever they are, who don't speak, I think, do they?

[30:57]

That, again, is quite a small space and, and, and then you've, of course, you've got the standing liberator set.

So maybe it's a cheaper episode apart from that film stuff in that abandoned factory or whatever it is, is it maybe was it relatively cheap episode to make?

I mean, yes, I think it was, but also Chris Boucher, a script editor, knows what he's writing for.

He knows the resources he's got and he uses them effectively.

So I don't think he was down to write this episode.

I think another episode fell through at quite a late stage, which is why he supplied this episode at the 11th hour.

And he just knows what he's doing.

And so it's a small scale intelligent script and he does things like inferring that there's joyous multitudes, which are mentioned quite a number of times, but you never even hear them over the voice link with Villa.

It's just Villa talking about them.

Exactly.

Yeah, just on that, yeah, I've noted when we have our little narrator saying 1000s of cheering spectators. and then, and you don't hear them, and then it cuts to him being bitchy with the cameraman, and it's clever.

[31:58]

Yeah, they're playing with the fact that obviously there aren't really.

And the characters know there aren't really.

It's like the even the characters within it know that they can't afford the extras.

Yes, there's 1000s of joyous multitudes out there.

Yes, we don't have that pirate planet sequence where it's kind of like wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and 4 people going, yay.

So, Director Wise, there's a really good shot from inside Aurak, when Aurak is telling, uh, even that, uh, that the opponent had been an android, and it really struck me as a really cool shot, because it's, it's all really delivering some important information. and doing it from inside there.

And yeah, I think the, you know, we're saying about the action is pretty well shot on everything.

[33:01]

I think, particularly stuff on film in the abandoned warehouse is really good.

The fact that they're using not laser guns that just sort of make people fall over, but proper kind of guns with bullets or whatever you call them, projectiles or whatever, you know, so there's a harshness to that as well, isn't it more of a brutality as well?

Yeah, I think it's maybe only their costumes that sort of let that bit down because they talk earlier about giving the costumes, so help them to survive or whatever in the environment that they go into and instead, oh, it could be like open space or it could be.

It could be anywhere.

I don't know why they had a really shiny spacesuits with big shoulder pads and things for that environment rather.

Yeah, instead of something that would help them help them, you know, if they wanted to hide, to blend in a little bit more.

I was going to say, because what's the idea is that it's like it's space, what used to be called the final frontier?

Well, sorry, Space the Final Frontier is what was once known.

They're supposed to be they're supposed to be going into what like is effectively a void that's been like artificially generated by computers.

Is that what's supposed to have happened?

[34:02]

I thought that there was, I could have picked this up wrong, that space was one of the potential arenas that they could be in.

So they could have been in space suits and, you know, maybe like at the end of Moonraker when the space Marines are fighting or something.

And is there a more bleak 70 moment than the fact that it could have chosen anywhere, it could have chosen a sprawling desert or a jungle somewhere, but instead it chose a corner of the street.

No, it show, it show, it didn't show.

At the end.

Oh, the end.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Well, we spent it all on location in the in the in the factory.

Could have chosen out.

Space could have chosen the planetary surface, could have chosen going underground, which is what the jam were doing at number one in the hip parade this very week in 1980.

Fantastic.

I've brought my fact and I'm going to use it.

You're going to use it.

You know what I appreciate about appreciate about you, Pete?

Your subtlety.

I whack that subtlety up to 12.

[35:07]

I mean, the studio work is really great in this episode, I think, there's lots of really good close-ups, but it's that film work that really shows off Gerald Blake's skill, I think.

It's beautiful.

It shot and cut like a film series, and it's got great sound design with the echo of the blasts of the gun, and it's got Dudley Simpson, the immortal Dudley Simpson doing really great work as well.

No, no, I was just asking about Gerald Blake because it's interesting because this is good. halves of cars is well directed.

Abominable snowmen, from what we can see, is well directed, but invasion of time is just...

It's like the odd one now.

And I don't know whether that's just because he can't he can't deal with the fact that they haven't got any money and so the sets are all rubbish and, you know, half of it was shot inside a disused hospital somewhere in Red Hill as well.

Totally. and a totally inappropriate setting.

It felt like the only misstep was at the start when Dieter pulls the gun on the woman on the flight deck and she has to step back because his arms are sort of too long and she has to sort of stepped back to stand in front of the gun.

[36:09]

But yeah, it was just like a time thing they couldn't really shoot it.

She was a one scene character actor.

You couldn't expect it to hit a mark, could you?

But it almost like the story's almost prefigures both reality TV and those sort of like golden eye style games where, you know, you have 2 opponents and and, you know, the computer generates uh, uh, location for them to to track each other in, you know, sort of like versus mode in golden eye and things like that. the hunger games, yeah.

Yeah, and the hunger games.

Yeah, of course, yeah.

Yeah, I did wonder if in an earlier draft, this had a heavier leaning towards Roman amphitheatres and stuff like that.

Um, because you've got, and mainly because of what the character being called Vinnie, as in, maybe immediately it made me think Vinnie Vidy Vicci, um, which, like Donna Noble, that's, that's the full extent of my Latin.

But there's motives on that.

And there's a bit where Villa uses the, what is still an everyday expression here.

[37:09]

What did your last slave die of, meaning somebody's bullying you?

Um, which, but that, that is more of, and that's an illusion to, to, to Roman uh, things rather than uh, crimes of, of the previous century, I think the origin of that phrase.

But, yeah, so I just wondered if originally it had a lot more of that kind of motif in it and they turned it down a bit awkward of all the props and went for a more a little bit drier rather than that, yeah.

Yeah, and gladiators would have seconds and that kind of thing.

Well, the seconds, the seconds thing is more related to like the old style kind of 18th, 19th century duel, isn't it?

where you'd have the one helper who'd go with you to, you know, hand your pistol or whatever.

Yeah.

I mean, Chris Boucher always draws on a variety of sources, and in fact, when I interviewed him, the infamous interview where we sat in the pub talking about this.

He said that he loved Blake 7 because it gave him an opportunity to dabble in all kinds of genres.

[38:10]

And so this is clearly his Western.

This is this, like, the gunfight at the okay corral, um, in the same way as something like rumours of death was his big romance episode and tragedy, and something like trial was his legal episode.

And so every time, and Shadow was his mafia thriller.

So he, every episode that he does, he chooses a slightly different genre, and I'm really glad that he did this because he does such a good job of transposing that kind of slight western theme to outer space in the same way that something like firefly will do later on.

I still prefer gambit.

There you go.

There's a minority report.

Now I prefer these.

I could tell I'm a minority, but because, yeah, but I mean, and in a way, they're examples of the breadth of Blake 7, this is doing it properly, whereas Gambler is doing it ludicrously over the top. whereas this is doing it, unludicrously, a little bit over the top.

And there is that sense that when you get outside of the Federation, there is that sort of, as it says in the episode, final frontier kind of thing.

[39:14]

The fact that it's a little bit lawless, although Teal and Vandor seem to be working very well within their laws.

And the cheekiness of quoting Star Trek.

That's cheeky.

I like it.

And it's, but again, it, it's a real board line thing because it could make some, somebody could roll their eyes at that.

But no, I think it lands just right.

They just get away with it because they breathe it through.

And they must still be watching Star Trek, and this is like 3000 years in the future.

So there must be like loads of spin off. by then.

And possibly the only example of a superior series referring to an inferior series, just saying.

Quality of quantity.

Is there anything else that anyone wanted to bring up independently?

Just what you're saying there about being like a Western?

I suppose it's like a Western or a war movie thing when Dieter does go for the fight?

He says, oh, we'll all have a drink when I get back.

Like, as in Max, him and Max and Dell, and at that point, I thought he's not coming back.

[40:17]

That's, you know, it's like the, that's kind of a war movie thing, isn't it?

I don't know, I'm going to marry this girl or whatever when I get back and, you know, yeah, it's not going to make it.

So yeah, that was the point where I actually thought he was he was going to die.

And yeah, as I think said, he's quite powerful when he does because they all experience it through the that kind of empathy disk thing.

And yeah, it's and the way it's shot as well from the point of view of of D to dying.

It's really well done.

I'm interested in tea, your perspective on that, Mark, because all of Blake 7 has been goal to me by endless repeated viewings.

But when you're watching an episode like this 1st up, is it a bit of a gut punch?

Does it carry something because of the importance to the characters?

Yeah, I think with him, because we've spent a bit of time with him and, yeah, and because, yeah, because of his link to Dell, it was.

Yeah, it was quite a good punch.

And because I really wanted to meet Dell as well with it within the story.

But yeah, particularly, well, particularly Villa and Dell's reactions to experiencing it through those psychic discs was, yeah, really added to the emotion of it, I think.

[41:27]

So cycling back to what we were saying at the start that this is the most Blake 70 of Blake 7 episodes following our discussion.

Do we stand by that and is that the really good thing that it feels like being?

Yeah, I completely stand by that.

I think I think it's almost like what Chris Boucher, at least, has always wanted this series to be, and this is this for me is kind of the pinnacle of where they get everything right.

The tone's right.

I mean, I love the more serious episodes like Horizon and Killer.

I mean, I've sort of waxed lyrical about those.

I also love the sort of the camper ones like Harvest of Car, or Orbit next year, for instance. and certainly things like that.

And voice from the past.

I love those sorts of things.

And, you know, I loved the one when we recorded Ultraworld too.

But I think this is the one where I think I just, I hope that everybody involved with it, they think about this one as being the one they are most proud of, in that everyone's, everyone's so relaxed.

Like everyone's giving a confident performance.

The dialogue is got the right, as I was saying before, has got the right level of cleverness without being ridiculous.

[42:34]

And you've got enough campering villainy from Villainy from Serverland to add the extra spice without it looking cheesy.

Yeah, I just think it is, everything has, everything has gone right.

And the fact that it's obviously well made. there's no bit that you look at apart from, you know, there's a whole bit of CSA fringing, all that kind of stuff, but there's nothing that you look at that you go, oh, God, that didn't work. you know, that's a bit dodgy. allowing for the fact that it's a multicamera, BBC drama for about 1980.

It really feels like a series that's hit its confident height, doesn't it?

And just before it was meant to bow out with its last episode, which turned out not to be its last episode. a really good point.

We've talked.

Yeah, this is filmed to be the penultimate episode of Blake 7, isn't it?

I get the time that did they know the time they're making it, the decision had been taken, hadn't it?

That's it.

Next week's?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's China.

Which makes the fact that they detour into an episode like this, which is very character-based and kind of low key, all the more delicious.

[43:37]

It's interesting you say character-based and low-key, because going back to what I was saying about it, like that slot of that spot of being the 2nd last episode of the season.

You expect something which is a lot more rubbish than what this is, um, or something. would you know what I mean?

Like, for all sorts of, like, you expect the keeper.

You were going to say the US...

I'd say... to turn up and do a turn and everyone else to just rattle around them.

Yeah, which is what exactly what the keeper is.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think that the more I think about it, I wonder whether, yes, it started life as that episode.

It started life as something that we're just going to keep this one really small because, you know, we got to save our powder for the last episode, but somehow it just all came to, came to fruition.

I think it was quite Blake 7 about it as well, is that I feel like if it was Doctor Who or Star Trek, they would have tried to put a stop to this to these death matches.

Whereas Blake 7 is just kind of a more brutal universe and they just go along and say, well, we'll just, if we follow the rules, we're safe.

We don't care that we're going to see 2 men kind of slug it out to the death.

[44:40]

So that feels, like you say, as the most Blake 70 Blake 7, it feels in keeping with the universe and the morality of the universe and of our heroes as well that, you know, although they try and stop the Federation getting more powerful through Serverland's plot, that's mainly for their own survival.

It's not, you know, out of altruism or anything.

It's interesting you say that, Mark, because the, it's, they do touch on the fact, though, that, that, um, you know, it's, if 2 planets are going to go to war, isn't it just much better that 2 guys try and kill each other rather than 1000000s of people be killed.

So they do actually touch on the morality a little bit, whilst at the same time saying, well, it's not a thing to do with us.

We're just going to have our cocktails and space canapes and put the disc.

Adrenaline.

Exactly.

It does have one of the most abrupt endings of the, let's all have a chuckle.

Oh, your brother's dead, but let's have a cocktail.

Look on the bride.

I was looking for another scene, actually.

[45:40]

I was actually even I've seen it several times.

I was a bit surprised this afternoon where Oh my god, is that it?

Like it just suddenly stopped.

I expecting another 2 scenes.

Yeah, yeah.

It really does just rub that off.

Yes.

Oh, out of time.

That it.

The end.

I suppose I'm quite interested to see going forward as well because now Servolan has been, I suppose, well, more or less directly responsible for Dell's brother's death, whether that, you know, kind of, you know, changes their dynamic, uh, next, you know, next time the meet, whether he's out for revenge or whatever.

I think the next time that Dell and Servoland meet, they might shag each other, so let's see how...

Spoilers indeed.

On that bombshell?

Well.

[46:41]

Thank you very much, everybody.

We've been advised by our legal advisor, Aurak, to leave it there.

So thank you very much for joining us.

This has been Maximum Power, the only podcastcasters who don't view our listeners as enemies.

We view you as our future friends.

We have a whole bunch of other podcasts, including Flight Through Entirety, Trap one and Untitled Star Trek project.

I don't have those links to hand, but you should be able to find them on the website, I think.

And doubtless if you tune in for next episode terminal, there'll be a couple of links in that as well.

So until then, goodbye from all of us.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Bye for now.

Switching to manual.

Maximum power on all drives.

Maximum power.

[47:43]

Was that okay, guys?

Sorry, I was really doing that all the time.

No, yeah, honestly, yeah.

Exactly. because that's what I was saying. the best one.

You're the best one to be able to come up with like a sort of a spontaneous quip for the beginning and the end, whereas the rest of us would have had to think about.

So, like, so I have instantaneous recall of everybody. like 7 line.

Exactly.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yes, exactly Is that was good?

was good discussion.

Yeah, yeah, it was good fun.

Yeah, and yeah, we didn't fall into the trap of just all saying, yeah, it's brilliant. and then running out of things to say.

In fact, that's always the ones that don't have massive flaws, sometimes the hardest.

You realise you've not got as much to talk about sometimes.