The Series C Retrospective

[00:06]

Maximal pound.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast that's very confident in saying, don't worry about those growths on the wall, the slime dripping down from them, or the fact that Siri has developed a sense of guilt.

Everything's totally fine.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Pete.

I'm Peter.

I'm Cy. and I'm Simon Hooray.

Well, Blake and Jenna have left us.

Tarrant and Dana have arrived, and Serverland continues to chase the liberator across the galaxy while attempting to rebuild the federation.

We've reached out for alliances, attempted heists, found love in a handful of crystals, and exercised ghosts from both the distant and recent past.

We visited more alien worlds than ever before, from the beaches of Saran to the volcanos of obsidian, the impossible land of Crandor inside a black hole, to Cali's home planet Auron, and from the harvest lands of Cairos to the waste lands of terminal.

[01:14]

But it's time to say goodbye to all that, and more, as we look back at what is definitely the final season of Blake 7 series C, because nothing can possibly change that.

Hello?

It's the BBC here.

We're recommissioning you for another series.

A telephone call from my mother's aunt and she says it's splendid.

So, yes, we have come to the end of Blake 7 series C, and I am pleased to say that we have had our biggest ever listener response to our end of series survey with over 100 responses.

We've, in fact, had 114 responses.

So even if you take out our regular team, we've still hit triple figures.

Yeah, several people in addition to all of our homes. 30 or 40 of those were me just down voting ultra world.

[02:16]

Another 5 or 10 was Joseph Simon multi-voting.

So I think the best place to start is with our listeners and our view of the episodes and the structure of the season overall.

And before we started this recording, I asked you all to consider which episodes you thought might have had the highest number of 5 out of 5s and which episodes you thought might have had the highest number of one out of 5s.

And I'm going to ask you first, Simon.

Well, I think Terminal will have had the highest number of 5 out of 5s because that's what people kind of do.

And I think the one with the most one out of fives is probably volcano.

Okay, great.

Pete?

Um, I'm also going to go with volcano, I think, for the one out of five, just kind of like.

I think it's placing the running order.

[03:18]

If this was Eurovision, you're on the 2nd or 3rd slot, you get...

Yeah, bad spot.

That's the same logic applies.

You've got to, yeah.

There are so many potential 5s to choose, though.

I think I think rumours of death might do it.

It just got a chance.

Great.

Nathan?

I think maybe aftermath gets the most fives, just because it's extremely good and it's, you know, 1st in the running order.

And my guess is that this metric probably surfaces things that we don't expect to be the best or the worst.

You know, things that kind of slip under the radar.

Aftermath is extremely good, but I'm not sure lots of people put it as their best of the season, but I'm almost certain it gets lots of fives, maybe more than any other.

And the most ones, I think, would, I think, the ultra world.

It's all your responses.

That's very interesting.

[04:19]

Peter?

I think I'm with Simon, I think terminal will get all of the fives because of its importance in the season and to Blake 7 and the fact that it's very, very good.

It's majestic terry nation.

I think maybe Moloch might get the highest number of ones because I think there's a certain subsection of fandom that can look past all of the bad things it does and, you know, enjoy the Servland Villa relationship, that kind of thing, but I think there's a lot of people out there who would just be disgusted by it and give it a one, including me.

Thank you.

And sorry.

Um, I think if it was me, it would be terminal, but I think Nathan is onto something and I think aftermath might be the one that gets the highest number of fives and I think it's definitely Moloch that is the stinker of the season, although Volcano is very close to being the stinker of the season.

I did recently declare Volcano my least favourite episode of Blake 7.

[05:22]

So who knows?

Let's see how that holds up in the aftermath of animals.

Well, they're picking up what Peter said.

I suppose, yes, the one thing is not necessarily how many people think something is bad, but which episode makes people the most angry for being bad.

I suppose Moloch probably does actually take that out.

Terrific.

Well, thank you all.

And we're all wrong.

Look, I'm pleased to say that almost everyone got one choice right.

So 4 out of the 5 of you got either the top story right or the bottom story right.

So I'm going to start from the bottom of our results.

So for everyone who said this episode got the highest amount of ones.

Its average score was 2.3 out of five.

[06:24]

And that is Molok.

Moloch was...

Yeah.

And out of 114 votes, it had 34 ones.

So there you are.

We then move up ever so slightly to 2.32 with volcanos.

So those of you who said volcano were not far off.

I'm calling that a tie.

I'm just calling that a tie.

A statistical tie.

A disco robot butler and a gun that makes everyone fall asleep.

What more could you want for the 3rd episode?

Yeah, you really can't imagine an animated discussion about which is better, Moloch or volcano.

Dawn of the gods comes in with 2.47.

Yeah, I can understand that.

Yeah, so it's just under average.

Kind of fond of that space nonsense.

Yeah, I am a bit too.

Yeah, you know, I reckon maybe, like, just if the Farn were perhaps better realised, there's more of a threat in some way.

[07:29]

Yeah, I mean, well, it's a good, it's a good example of one that isn't, there's nothing about it that really makes you go, oh, God, I hate it.

It's just or would make anyone do that.

I imagine.

It's just a bit, it's just under, under delivers.

It's just there.

Yeah, that's the thing.

I have to say that it was one of the 1st episodes of Blake 7 I ever saw.

I've seen it multiple times since.

I cannot now give you a plot synopsis.

It needs a plot for a plot synopsis.

There's a lot of atmospheric sort of nonsense at the beginning of it, and it does weird Blake 7 very well, and I'm a massive fan of weird Blake 7, you know, starting all the way back from the web.

And then it kind of falls to pieces and there's a fair amount of just standing around talking, which is a bit tiresome, I think.

Or X Home Alone moment.

[08:30]

So, Dawn of the Gods, Volcano and Moloch are very clear, bottom 3 of the season, because we then go up a full .4 to 2.87 average, so we are now above average for Ultraworld.

Nathan, your reaction.

It was worth all the time, I put into refreshing that page.

That's all I can say.

Yeah.

For those of you who can't see, Nathan's facial reaction can only be described as bulldog eating a wasp.

We then come up and I was surprised to see this one so low at 2.92 with the harvest of Chiros.

That doesn't surprise me much as I have.

It doesn't spice me either.

No. think that's about right.

Yeah.

No, I'm not saying it's right.

It just doesn't surprise me.

There's obviously not enough men voting in this poll.

Real men.

Yes, expressing their opinion. like this podcast.

[09:33]

Welcome back to maximum power.

Now we have quite a jump here.

After that.

So that was 2.92.

The next episode is 3.94.

So there is a very clear divide between the top 8 episodes of the season and the bottom five.

And this will be much harder to predict because these 8 episodes are all amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

And in order to prepare for the retrospective, I did look at the results when we were sitting at around 90 votes, and these next 2 stories did have an average of above four, but they've just dropped below the foremark with our last 30 votes.

And I'd like to give a shout out to friend of the podcast, Fraser Gregory, who did say, I haven't seen the last 2 episodes, but I gave them both a three.

So feel free to disregard.

I did actually adjust the results based on that and it didn't change the positioning or anything like that.

[10:34]

So, Fraser, don't worry.

You haven't ruined the poll.

It's it's fine.

So coming up next with 3.94 is children of our Ron.

Now that's my...

Yeah, much lower, I would have thought.

Yeah, children out.

So that means there must be some children of our on haters dragging it down a bit.

Yeah, well, let's have a look and see what the schools were like.

Children of Aaron got no ones.

So no one absolutely hates it. but it did get um 92s.

So...

But these are all people who don't like breakfast.

I should point out as well that while Moloch came in last and got the highest amount of ones, Volcano came in 2nd last and got the highest amount of twos, Ultraworld, which came in 4th last, got the highest amount of threes.

So there's an argument to say Ultraworld is the average episode.

[11:34]

Oh, no.

Are we doing medians or are we doing...?

I mean, outgraduates. can't remember.

So continuing on the doppelganger theme with 3.96 is Death Watch.

That is outrageously low.

I know.

I mean, let's qualify that by saying that these are all excellent.

And so we're quibbling around the edges.

But yes, that seems terribly low for both of those episodes.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I can tell you now that that bottom 5 had a spread of like 12% points, if you average these out of its percentages.

To get to these from a bottom five, we jumped 20% and the top 8 also have a range of 12%.

I'm actually looking at the top 8 now, and I think we would be outraged by any one of them getting 8th or 7th position.

It's true.

Well, you see, but you see, I have funny opinions about things like terminal, for instance, from something. and they are indeed funny, Simon.

[12:38]

I laugh at them all.

And rumours of death as well.

I sort of think both of those aren't nearly as good as people.

Yes, I know.

Just as well, we're all in different spaces.

The one that I'm surprised that we haven't hit yet is sarcophagus because I thought that that was a Marmite episode.

That is a good point, actually.

That's, yeah, so sarcophagus should be of, should have happened by now.

Death watch I can see if you're finding Tarrant annoying, having twice as many of him could be a thing that would mark it down, irrespective of the quality of the script and production.

I can see why that might turn people, make it diminish it for some people.

Is there a sort of a, I hate Stephen Pacey club that's got...

Stephen Pacy's lovely, I'm sure. but Tarrant.

I wonder whether Children of Aron suffers from the fact that it makes our own boring in a way where, you know, like it had been sort of weird and mystical, even as recently as Dawn of the Gods.

You know, there's something strange and mystical about our on it, then it just turns out to be like...

Yeah, it doesn't exactly do.

[13:39]

It doesn't exactly do to due to our what Arc of Infinity does to Gallifrey there.

Yeah, yeah.

All those times, Callie said, my people had a saying and it's like, there's a saying that they had around the water cooler in their boring office.

Yeah.

Yeah, as I said, many times on this podcast, it was very, very interesting take on hour on to reenvisage it as an airport control tower.

And not only an airport control tower.

Doctor Who's favourite air traffic controller, Ronald Lee Hunt. controller of airport one.

But can I say, because that, because Children of Arron was on that infamous four-hour tape that Peter gave me of the 1st 4 episodes of Black 7 I ever saw.

So this was my the famous idea.

But that was one that was my impression of our own.

So when I then go back to the beginning and have my people have a saying, blah, blah, blah.

I go, what the hell is this woman talking about?

So I came from the...

I suppose it's a bit like, you know, writing wharf in Star Trek, and he's this massively honourable Klingon, despite the fact he's never lived on Kronos, and it's et cetera, et cetera.

[14:47]

And then you find out as you go on, actually, no Klingons are kind of dicks.

And then they're like, how do we rectify this?

And it's just, actually, all Klingons are corrupt.

It's like, oh, whereas it's kind of like the wharf version is way more interesting.

Speaking of sarcophagus, psychophagus breaks the 4 barrier with 4.05.

That's a very high school.

That's amazing.

Now, with its marmite reputation.

It did get 51s.

Wow.

But that couldn't drag down its score when it gets 49 fives.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, and that's fascinating.

I mean, that's a good, really good example of pitcher out there.

Do your thing and not everyone's going to love it. but go for it. most people love it.

Well done, you 49 people.

I'm very crowded.

The people who aren't fans of interpretive dance and cryptic wafting costumes.

Fair enough.

[15:53]

Death Watch, by the way, which almost broke the 4 barrier, got the highest amount of 4s.

So it's the sort of quintessential 4 out of 5 episode this season.

Okay, we're now moving into the top 5 and with 4.16, we have power play.

Oh far too low.

But still very good.

No, it's about right.

Yeah, I mean, it goes to show how good this season is, where that's at 5 and, yeah, there's kind of a case to be made of, yeah.

Okay.

It's a whole lot better than a lot of series B. Yeah.

Helen Blatch from, of course, May My Bones Rot, Twin Dilemma fame has lesions of fans all over the world who are going to be out voting this one, quite understandably, for her role as receptionist.

Doesn't she just have one line?

Of course, very welcome or something like that.

[16:54]

Is she also the one who says ready to extinguish life?

Yes.

I mean, that was what she was saying to me subliminally when I was watching the twin dilemma.

It's also a good time when you've got John Hollis running around a forest and not very much, so, you know.

Nobody's bones rotted in that one for her.

Some organs did.

Now, just to give our listeners an update.

For the top four, what we have left in order of broadcast is Aftermath, City at the Edge of the World.

Rooms of Death and Terminal.

And I'm just warning you all now, I'm going to call it terminus at least once.

So moving on to number 4 with 4.29, Villa finds love in city at the edge of the world.

Spa.

Yeah.

I think this may have been my 1st proper episode of Blake 7 that I watched.

[17:56]

And yeah, I just remember, you know, it starts with like a gorgeous, that one of the few like gorgeous shots of the Liberator immediately tells us Villa and Tarrant don't like each other.

I know some people complain about the carol romance, but I actually find it quite sweet and believable, and I don't think it diminishes her as a character.

She has a wash.

What are people complaining about?

It's nice to see a couple of villa centric episodes doing well.

When I was a kid watching, this is the season where I was catching it occasionally, I think.

I thought it was a series all about him and his friends.

I mean, Valentine Dial in a tiny role and Colin Baker in a slightly bigger role.

There's a lot, there's a hell of a lot of Blake 7 in there.

Yeah.

So now we move into the top three.

4.34 is aftermath.

I was going to say aftermath.

It's bloody good, isn't it?

Yeah.

[18:57]

Yeah, it's probably the best season opener.

I think.

Suddenly the most confident season opener and it comes back and Paul Darrow makes the show his own in a way that he hasn't had a chance to do before.

So yeah, it's outstanding.

I'm going to put it out there.

I think it might be the most successful soft relaunch of a series in television history.

Be cool.

But yeah, replacing your titular lead character.

Completely, not even regenerating them into a new actor, just getting rid of him and making someone who was never supposed to be your lead character and just landing it so well, yeah.

Now, for the top two, I think there's a case to be made that this is a tie, but statistically speaking, the top episode did get the highest amount of fives.

The scores are 4.54 and 4.55.

There is point.

Wow, it's very close.

Yeah.

That translates to .35 of a percentage point between them.

[20:00]

So at number two, we have terminal.

You didn't ask us our highest ranked and lowest ranked episodes, but I'm telling you that I got them.

It's like, I thought it was going to be number one and Moloch was going to be the lowest ranked episode.

And I think because terminal is superb, but rumours of death is just all that federation shit that people lap up.

And it is a great episode, but it also just absolutely aims for the sort of Blake 7 fan, I think, in a way that terminus terminal in a way that terminal doesn't.

It's a difficult one, isn't it?

Because they're so different, but there is something about the atmosphere of terminal that just gets me every time that every, like we'll find at the end of the next season.

There is something that is just off right from the start and nothing is quite right and just the slow disintegration of the liberator, I find absolutely heartbreaking to watch, even though it's not realised the way it was in my imagination, reading the synopsis before I saw it.

[21:13]

I think it is, it's my favourite episode of Blake 7.

I think rumours of death might be a stronger script overall, but I think terminal is an incredible production.

I just think that kick.

There's a little kick that we get while we're down when we learn that we're all going to evolve into the Taran wood beast at some point in the future.

And so not only have our crew failed, but we've failed as a species, and I just think that's tremendous.

I mean, look, look, I think there's there's there's much good stuff about both those episodes, and I can completely understand why they're the top, but for me, they just don't, they're just not my favourite parts of Blake 7.

I'm not saying I don't care about anything when I'm watching them, but I sort of, as you sort of said, Nathan, the rumours of death is a lot of sort of federation-y stuff going on, and I think terminal is very well done, but I think it's just, I'm never as captivated by it as I feel I should be, or at least other people seem to be.

[22:15]

Sort of the same reaction I have to things like, you know, dual or yeah, or Project Avalon.

Like those ones I've never kind of been particularly wrapped in.

I'm much, I'd much rather have, you know, things like Death Watch or Aftermath or the Harvest of Cairo.

Right, so, um, of course, rumours of death comes in, number one.

I'm 100% behind this.

For me, it could be, it could be rumours of death.

It could be terminal.

It could be, um, I rated Death Watch very highly myself.

It's interesting how both of those top episodes start with Avon acting strangely, but in one of them, he's taken everyone into his confidence. it has disastrous personal results.

In the other one, he takes no one into his confidence and it has disastrous results for everyone.

I mean, I'd be totally on board with Rumours of Death as one of the best episodes of the series if it didn't grind to a fucking halt every time we came back to Grenville in his room.

[23:22]

Not to preempt it too much, but I will reveal that when we get to who should have been a regular character.

David Haig does get some love in those scenes.

But we'll come back to that later.

What about David David Hague as Pangol as regular?

Every actor who's in 70s BBC productions is always now bi-regenerated into every character they ever played in the universe.

Rottle T. David said it on a commentary track or something.

So we can absolutely do that now. and it's definitely Mr. Bronson in Vulcation.

Power play.

Yes.

Edit that to make me sound clever please.

You're ready to get, Pete.

So you both...

But what is brilliant about those top episodes is that you've arguably got the free greatest writers of Blake 7 that are Robert Holmes in that top.

[24:27]

So Taniffly, Chris Boucher and Terry Nation.

And we're not seeing Terry again.

So it is absolutely appropriate that all of his scripts for this series are within the top 5 episodes of the series.

They're all really really good.

Where's Robert Holmes this year?

He's not here?

He had one that fell through, didn't he?

And there was a late replacement episode, which was Moloch.

I heard it on a Blake 7 podcast.

Yeah, it won.

It was one of U-lock.

I can't remember who because I didn't know it.

I didn't know that.

Wasn't it supposed to be called sweetly dreaming softly dying?

Yeah, that sounds familiar, but no one knows much about it.

Yeah, I think it might have been one of those things where it was just, you know, do you want to do a script for us this year and it just never happened?

I mean, this was probably the year that he was writing The Nightmare Man, which went out early next year.

So he probably had a lot on his plate.

But, I mean, this is a reason why this series, Series C, is so amazing, is it actually has 3 top of his game scripts from Terry Nation and another 3 top of his game scripts from Chris Boucher.

[25:40]

And so whatever else is in the season, you're guaranteed that half it is going to be freaking amazing.

Yeah, and Terry is so refreshed.

He's come back in a way that we haven't seen him right since series A, really, I think, even though his series B episodes are good.

They're not on the level of these episodes we've got this year.

I think he's energised by opening the season and then closing it.

You know, he always said to Chris Boucher, write the opening episodes and the closing episodes because then if they only repeat a truncated season.

You always get the repeat fees because I have to show the beginning and the end.

Which, of course, is way.

Good old Perry.

Right, Rescue and Blake next year.

But I think, yeah, he was energised by that and he does just this superb job of reformatting the series that he created.

And then what he thought was going to be the end.

He ends it in such a powerful and apt way that you just think, where's this terry nation being?

[26:41]

I have great.

I think he's fantastic all the time.

But he just brings things to another level this year and it's one reason why I think this is an amazing season of science fiction TV.

Well, we're going to talk about the writers more in just a moment, but I'd like us to 1st go to our 1st snog, marry, avoid.

So I would like Cy, to pick a number between one and five.

Oh, like the number of crew members.

Yes.

I'm good to go for two, two.

Right.

Snog, marry, that is how I reasoned you would avoid.

Oh, God.

Your choices are a link.

How was Android, and Moloch.

[27:44]

Wow.

I picked well there.

I've saved the rest of you, haven't I?

Well, taking one for the team.

Well, Molok, at least, would give me to his men.

So...

The robot is shit, but, you know, it'll bring me drinks, so I'll snog him and I'm just avoiding the links.

I don't like little hairy men.

Why would you avoid a link?

They could do the little own sexual position, the deep Roy.

To be fair, he does get that with Moloch as well.

That's true.

Oh, God.

Okay.

Is it polygamy if you married both Moloch and a link?

Who knows?

Brandon is still recovering from your remark about short hairy men's eye, I have to say.

[28:51]

That's the thing, I was going to say something and then I'm like, no, Peter's joke is just so much better.

Right.

Moving in, moving more properly into the writers.

I was going to do this later, but as we were already discussing Terry Nation and what have you, we have 8 writers this season.

So Chris Boucher writes three.

Terry Nation writes three.

Ben Steed, unfortunately writes two.

And then we have one apiece from Tanethley, Roger Parks, Trevor Hoyle, James Folett, and Alan Pryor.

Now, 3 writers got no votes for favourite writer.

Who could they who could they possibly be?

Would any, I'm just going to go round the houses and I just want you to suggest one person you each think it could be.

I mean, one of them's got to be Trevor Hoyle because the only other credit he had was the Bleak 7 program guide.

Right?

[29:51]

So people say, Trevor Hoyle?

Pete?

Ben Steed, I imagine, has possibly struggled.

Ben Steed.

Si.

Alan Pryor.

Alan Pryor.

Simon.

Well, I'll go for James Follop then.

And Nathan?

I think Trevor Hoyle, absolutely.

I mean, Ben Steeds are playing on easy mode, isn't it?

But I think Trevor Hoyle absolutely deserves no votes for Favourite Ryder.

So I'm disgusted to say, unfortunately, the Ben Steed did get votes.

So what?

All of those votes were because of Harvest of Con.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, but Alan Pryor, James Fullerton, Trevor Hoyle and no one's favourite writers this season, unfortunately.

I think that's entirely understandable with the calibre episodes we have.

Yeah, it's kind of like if Ultra World were in series B, I think Trevor Hoyle might have got a vote or two.

It's just a mystery why Alan Pryor keeps coming back.

Everything that he turns out with the honourable exception of his 1st episode.

[30:54]

Why on earth did you invite him back for more of that shit?

You know, I think possibly, like, he turns in stuff that's meh, but not awful.

Maybe.

Who knows?

Maybe, maybe he was easy to work with and he gave in his, gave his scripts in time.

I think there might be something in that.

Yeah, 45 minutes of TV delivered on deadline. that didn't require much editing in terms of making sense or being written on the back of napkins or something.

The Peter Moffatt principle.

With 2 votes each, we have Ben Steed and Roger Parks.

Ooh, can I just do a shout out to Roger Parks?

Has there ever been an example of someone turning it around like he does?

Because voice from the past last year was just nonsensical, even though we liked it in many ways.

Whereas actually, children are on. is a really tight and good script, which I really like.

Yes.

It's like he's learned what happens in the show and has a better understanding of the characters and sort of incident and plot and everything.

[32:02]

He's really got a handle on the show.

And again, he'll show that next year as well, where he turns in a really good episode as well.

It's also the fact that you have to give credit to the director.

I note that Andrew Morgan does children of hour on, and, you know, a director can turn a script which in the hands of a lesser person will be will seem a bit confusing or a bit silly or a bit like boring and can give it life.

And likewise, a poor director can take a perfectly good script and destroy it by making it seem dull, boring cam, whatever.

And not saying that voice from the past is necessarily a good script, but certainly that children of Ireland is definitely brought to life by the director.

That's right.

Whether you get George Spenton, Foster or Andrew Morgan can make or break you.

Yeah.

Like, you know, I think at its heart, voice from the past is a more decent script than its direction and especially costume design work allows for.

You know, where, whereas children of our on, everyone's pulling in the same direction.

[33:06]

Everyone's going the same way. absolutely.

Whereas in voice from the past, they just don't really know what they're doing.

They don't really know why, why are we even, why are we just showed up to work today?

You know, it's they got that feel about it.

Yeah, yeah, say what you want about Ronald Lee Hunt.

He knows how to play sci-fi.

Absolutely.

The way that Frieda Nore has no idea what's...

Exactly, exactly.

That's a great comparison.

That is the fair comparison.

And yet, if you were to put their performances side by side, I can tell you which one I enjoy watching more.

Hey, I like both, but I...

Ron Lehand's got this wonderful comfort about him, the way he's just so comfortable.

You know, he says every line the way it needs to be said.

I think I think also something about Ronald Lee Hunt is in playing sci-fi, he plays it the same way he would play it if he were doing a modern day drama.

And I think there's something to be said for that.

I think some people come into sci-fi and think, I must be spicy.

[34:08]

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, which 100%.

It has its place.

No it doesn't.

I'm Miss Simon on this one.

Space people. hate them.

Okay.

But I would count, I would counter Ilsa Blair and Patsy Smart.

Oh, yeah, okay.

You know, that's the place for it, I would say.

Whereas, yeah, if you're running air traffic control, you have to make, you know, and you're sort of doing welcome to the world of tomorrow, it's like you're just doing air traffic control, which is a very tough job, but you don't have time for all the flourish.

Now, that leaves our top three. of Chris Boucher, Taneth Lee and Terry Nation.

Now, I don't think it's going to surprise anyone that Chris Boucher comes 1st with 63 votes.

I'm not surprised by and disgusted because if there was any season where Terry Nation should have taken the crown, it's this one.

I'll pay that actually.

Yeah.

I think, though, like, if you look at the 3 episodes they have, Boucher's got City Rumours of Death and Death Watch.

[35:15]

Terry's got aftermath power plan terminal.

Oh, absolutely.

But that means he has to set up and wrap up the season.

I think for some people they kind of go, we just want an adventure this week.

You know what I mean?

But Terry gets half of half of Boucher's votes.

He gets 31.

Is it just because Terry once wrote Bounty?

Is that the problem?

Which is a big plus mark for him.

I think we do undervalue Terry Nation a lot of the time, and I think we do underestimate him, and I think his reputation for writing Bad Blake 7 is often considered over his reputation for writing really good Blake 7.

I think it might actually be something to do with the fact that Terry, like you said, Brendan, he gets all the heavy lifting this season.

So he has to reformat the show.

He has to end the show in a satisfying fashion.

Whereas Boucher kind of gets to come in and play and do the things that he wants to do.

[36:17]

He gets to look at Avon's history, gets to give Villa a fun episode.

And in episodes like Death Watch.

He kind of, we'd be much poorer without those episodes because he gets to play a lot with the crew.

He gets scenes where he can have Dana and Servland face off against each other.

He can have the 1st meeting of the 1st face-to-face meeting between Servoland and Avon, where it's just the 2 of them since Aftermath.

And so he can return to that vibe.

And so he just gets to kind of move the chess pieces round and have a bit of a play.

So, you know, they've both got different remits, but maybe he gets to have more fun.

Yeah, if I can expand on that.

It's like Chris Boucher understands and explores what you might call the hidden strengths of Blake 7, whereas Terry Nation is exploring the obvious aspects of Black 7.

Now, you need both of them to make a successful series.

Absolutely right, Simon.

And that, of course, leads in 3rd place, Taneth Lee. who wrote sarcophagus.

She gets 16 votes, and that is 8 times as many votes as Ben Steed or Roger Parks.

[37:24]

And an infinity, an infinity more votes than who was it again?

Alan Pryor.

But yeah, 1st time writer for the series and, you know, proper sci-fi novelist as well comes in and as far as I'm concerned, even though that score is much lower than the 2 series regular writers.

That means she knocks it out of the park, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah. to come in that high as a guest, with an episode that is a left field episode, you know, shows that it really made its mark with the people who like it.

And she was doing the Chris Boucher thing, wasn't she?

She was coming in and focussing on the characters.

And so you have that gorgeous scene at the start of sarcophagus, which you talked about on the podcast where Avon comes to comfort Calli in her quarters, and it's a character beat and a scene just about the characters, which we hardly ever get in Blake 7, but that's what she homes in on.

I think she does a better job next year when she writes a more traditional Blake 7 episode.

[38:26]

Um, but I, you know, and I think, you know, sarcophagus has some obvious flaws, but I'm a big fan of that, like, weird Blake Seven.

Like I said before, like the web and this is one of the best kind of versions of that, I think.

And thank goodness, someone came in and gave Jan Chappell something to show off. absolutely how brilliant she is when she's allowed to have material written for her.

She is superb.

So, um, this sort of segues into a question I just made up on a whim and our listeners are really engaged with it quite heavily.

And that is what is the campus episode this season?

Now, I, instead of going round the houses, I just want to give us kind of a 321 countdown.

[39:29]

And I want us to go after one.

So I'll go three, two, one, and then wait a 2nd and then I want everyone to shout out what they think the campus episode is and we'll see what how much of a disaster this is.

So, three, two, one.

Rulers of Cairos.

Okay, I heard Harvest of Kyros.

I heard rumours of death, and I think I heard one other.

I was sarcophagus.

I went for it.

Okay.

Well, I mean, so many definitions because high camp low camp, like accidental camp intentionally arch camp, like several breaks 7 episodes do all of them in the space of 2 scenes sometimes.

Okay, well, I can say, um, rumours of death only got 5 votes for campus episodes.

It's really camp though.

It's not so bad.

She's got a bruise in her back.

It's torn and she's going, it's an old wall even.

[40:31]

It waits.

Like after showing everyone around her lovely stately home and things.

She's got a dress made out of pearls.

I mean, to be fair, this is Blake 7.

There's a strong argument you made for camp in every episode.

That's true.

That's true.

Sarcophagus is second with 13 votes.

However, with a whopping 38 votes.

It's the harvest of kiros.

It works on so many camp levels because I have a hunch that Ben Steed intended his script to be a hard and gritty examination of masculinity.

It just, it ends up being so much more.

It's interesting, though, that you can pay.

I mean, Harvest of Carross is the thing that's kind of consistently camp all throughout, and there's so much of it in it.

But some of the campus moments are actually in other episodes, like, for instance, Death Watch or, or, um, is an aftermath or power play where you've got the bitch session between Dana and Serverlay.

[41:39]

Aftermath.

It's after my team.

So it's those moments, though, because those work in a kind of a broader episode, whereas Harvest of Caros is just letting it all out water.

And I mean, most of the time it's Jacqueline Pierce, isn't it?

It's Jacqueline Pierce striding across a beach in silver high heels and her white dress, you know?

It's Jacqueline Pierce on the Bridge of the Liberator in her big white flamboyant dress in harvest of Cairos.

It's Jacqueline Pierce doing maximum power as she takes hold of the liberator.

It's all of those moments.

She is absolutely amazing this year and she skirts the high camp really, really well.

And even in an episode like Moloch, she still gets camp moments like the go on that she melts to Villa. and I didn't come out here out out of concern for your Peccadillo's section leader and things like that.

[42:41]

So, yeah.

So I think she's actually responsible for my favourite camp moment of the season, which is just after Java because captured the liberator for her and she teleports aboard with the very masculine Captain Shad.

And she takes time out from her victory to look at Kelly and say, ah, Kelly, how lovely to see you again.

Just amazing.

Carry on, Captain Shat.

What would we do without her?

So we will definitely be continuing with campus episode next season as well, dear listeners, but are there camp episodes next year?

The unintentional effect of this is campus episode, of course, implies the existence of butchers episode, and we have, and we have 2 episodes with no votes for camp, which means they must be Butch.

[43:46]

That's how it works, isn't that bias?

So we need to decide, what is the butcher episode?

Power play or volcano?

Oh, it can't be volcano.

Come on.

How can volcano be Butch with Milus and Nathan?

Yeah.

Clouncing about.

It just proves that not okay.

Yes, that, yeah, because we've gone for power camp and our electors here, all of us, have gone for the power camp, but we thought that, yeah, volcanos camp is the sort of wafty, well, shooting people with a gun that makes them fall asleep gently.

It is, it's, it's not, it's not a rough and tumble kind of episode, is it?

But power play has Michael Sheard being really hard and Butch.

So I think that has a good...

Yeah, that might that might just do it.

And you don't get that from Michael Sheard very often.

[44:48]

Also that very camp, the very camp soldier who beckons to the camera to come here and have a look.

Oh, He was murdering my friends.

It's also got those scenes of Servolan and Kelly bitching at each other on the hospital ship. you know, the camp factor goes up to 9 on those.

So I think we've come to the conclusion that Ben Steed tries to write Butch and fails miserably, whereas Boucher can write Butch in his sleep.

In fact, the lease camp episode, the season, might be Dawn of the Gods, because Dawn of the Gods sets out to be weird, but there's not actually very much entertaining campiness.

No, nothing heightened.

Heightened in Dawn of the Gods, is it?

Yes.

Yeah, Groff wants to be cap, not Groff.

Who's the other guy?

The guy with the top hat?

Or the caliph?

The Khalifa.

That's desperate to be camp, but fails.

It's not.

Yeah, Dawn of the Gods comes in equal 4th with 10 votes along with Ultraworld and Moloch.

[45:52]

Now, Ultra World's got campers.

Yeah.

Carry on bonking.

Has the bonding ceremony begun yet?

And for our listeners interested in the remainder of the scores, Terminal gets 9, City on the Edge of the World, 12, Rumours of Death, 5, Aftermath, 3, Children of Aron, and Death Watch, 2 each.

Now, in order to get some more camp into our lives, Peter, give me a number between one and four.

I'll go for one.

Oh, you lucky devil.

Snog, marry, quickly tire and dispose of.

Ginka, Darrow, Jarvik.

Oh, he's gotten the best one. so.

That's why I made it random with numbers.

[46:54]

I didn't want to I didn't want to show any fear or favour.

I mean, does this make me serve lamb?

Because they're all my lackeys.

Yes.

Okay, I would definitely marry Ginka because he's just fantastic.

And if I tired of him, I would have my Ginka kill switch to dispose of it any time and move on to a new model.

I would avoid Daryl because he's so boring and I would just have to turn around to him and he disappointed me and say Daryl.

Well...

Which means, unfortunately, I've left myself snogging Jarvic.

Would you very much like him to do it again?

It's the question.

I don't think so I would just keep zipping him down and down, down that never-ending zipper, which kind of goes all the way down to his ankles and we'd see what happened.

I'd be zipping it up.

[47:55]

I have to watch that chest hair.

Right, so we've talked about the episodes, we've talked about the writers.

It's time to talk about our crew.

Now, we have, at this point, Serverland is basically a regular, she's in, I think, 8 of the 13 episodes.

More nine, is it this season?

So we have, like last season, counted her in the regular votes.

So the options were Avon, Villa, Cali, Dana, Tarant serverland, Zen, and Aurak.

I mean, that is interesting though. and the promo picks from this series.

It's her and Avon at the centre and everyone else around them.

They're the male and female leads of this show and everyone else are the, you know what I mean?

She is not an occasional guest artist in this show, is she?

Yeah.

I love those promo picks with Avon and Survland, the middle.

It really looks like the most awkward bridal party ever.

Like 2 divorcees getting married and they've both invited their exes and it's all submit.

[49:00]

One of the variations of the shot has the other 4 members of the crew beside them all kind of like looking at them quizzically like you're doing watts now?

Yeah.

That's the picture I used for the survey.

Okay, I'm going to do that thing again where we all say something at the same time for who got the most amount of firsts because we did first, second, and 3rd for this.

Okay, so three, two, one, server land.

Wow, okay, I was expecting everyone to say Avon, which is the correct answer.

Revealing the bias of this podcast.

Avon got 68 firsts.

Wow.

I mean so much in it.

Serverland did come in behind that with 19.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay, what's wrong with all you people?

Well, it makes people just don't regular member of the crew.

She's not one of Blake's.

[50:02]

She was on the list.

She was on the literary, so more than once.

She had the biggest picture that I accompanied the thing because I had to include the arms.

Villa gets 11 first.

Oh nice.

Good for you.

Good.

Kelly gets nine.

Dana and Tarant get 2 each.

Aurak gets three.

Call Dana. poor Dana, yeah.

Si, poor Zen gets zero.

It's his final season and he gets...

He gets his finest scene in the whole of the show and the most moving death in the whole of the show and he doesn't even get a first.

That's right. 0 number ones.

He is sorry.

Yeah, we know you are, love.

So 321, who gets the highest amount of seconds.

So three, two, one.

Tarrant.

I didn't hear any correct answers there, so correct me if I'm wrong.

[51:06]

It's Villa.

Wow.

Villa gets 32.

Avon gets 29, so he comes...

He comes 2nd of the second.

I didn't guess it, but I approve entirely with that result because there are so many episodes where his everyman thing and his comic timing, but also his, he's not just there as a comedy clutch, a couple of times where it doesn't work, but the vast majority of times in this season, he's written really well, and especially sitting in the edge of the world, of course.

I can totally see why if you're a particularly if you're a villa fan anyway, then you're seeing him in his best light.

Perhaps in this season?

Although I know there's more plenty more to come.

Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly gets 10 seconds.

Tarrant gets seven.

Dana 3, Orac 3, Zen 2.

So Zen at least get some votes here.

I will say with Dana, when we look at recurring characters later on, there's going to be a trend that I think explains why Dana doesn't get as many votes here as perhaps we would think.

[52:08]

Okay, and finally, who do we think gets the highest amount of thirds?

32 one.

Three, two, one.

Dana.

Tarrant.

Silver.

I'm just saying Tarrant for everything.

Yeah, I'm saying 7 for everything.

It's Villa again.

So I'll just go through these scores quickly.

Villa 25, Serverland 23, Cali 23.

Um, Dana 15.

So Dana is quite a popular 3rd choice.

Avon 11, uh, Zen 8, Tarant 6, Aurak 3.

So what I've what I've been done is I have given points value.

So every 1st is worth 3 points.

Every 2nd is worth 2 points.

Every 3rd is worth one point.

So starting from the bottom of the list with 12 points, dozpois is Zen.

[53:09]

Listen.

And I think possibly, you know, aside from his very moving death scene, don't get me wrong, we don't really get the mystery of Zen this year.

He does get some remarkably sarcastic lines at times, which are always good fun.

But yeah, there's not he's just a comforting presence on the liberator and a bit forgotten about a lot of the time.

Yeah, I think in this, the vast majority of this season he spends just being the enterprise computer, they forget that the writers forget that he's a person.

I mean, that's made up for in terminal, obviously, which has some of Zen's very finest moments, but also I do think he gets some fun moments elsewhere in the season.

I'm thinking of when he works together with Aurak in Dawn of the Gods to stop the Liberator being cut up by the minions of the Than.

God, all of those names. pathan.

And also, I really, I really liked, I think I pointed out on a Harvest Chiros podcast.

[54:11]

I really like when Serverland comes aboard and she's interacting with Zen and she's basically like, how do you pilot the ship?

And he says, well, you know, you press go when it goes.

And she, uh, and she looks at him and she says, yes, I've heard of your impudence.

And we think at the time.

Who did she hear of that?

impudence.

Was it Travis who went to her and said, oh, yes, to have a very impulent flight computer server lad.

So speaking of saki and impudent computers, Aurak has 18 points.

And yeah, I think possibly part of the reason for the lower score for Zen is, yeah, Zen does have some snarky lines, but that's also Aurak's thing, you know.

And occasionally he does pull out a new talent of the week that we never hear of again.

No drinking this year.

I think Aurak has a really good role to play in aftermath.

So it's nice to see him being treated as a member of the crew.

You know, he goes with Avon and actually plays a significant role in the episode.

[55:14]

On 26, we have Tarrant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And look, not to preempt the who would you bring on board, and who would you write out too much, but yeah, a lot of people don't like Tarrant.

I think it's a shame because I think on any metric, the 2 new the 2 new cast members this year are better than the people that they replace.

Absolutely, they are.

Ooh, I don't.

I'd come to defence of Jenna.

I think Jenna is very good.

I agree.

I think Jenna's very good, but, you know, it's just set Simon.

Yeah, she's been...

Stephen Pacey is very likeable and has a gorgeous smile, but he's not written consistently.

He's made out to be a bit of a twat a lot of the time.

And anyone who takes on Villa and bullies Villa, you're not going to warm to him at all, are you?

Because everyone really loves Spinner.

So to do that twice in the season is, yeah, it's not great.

[56:19]

It's interesting that Tarrant is on the outer with most of the other crew members as well, especially in that episode, City at the Edge of the World, where both Avon and Cali, take him to task over bullying Villa.

And he has that great moment where he sits with Dana, who he views as kind of a natural ally because they came on board together and they had a couple of missions together and everything.

And he says, thanks for your support, Dana.

And she says, well, you know, you're lucky he didn't kill you.

That's what I would have done.

And it's just this incredible moment.

But yeah, it's funny, isn't it?

Because Stephen Pacy has a lot of charisma and the moments where Taryn isn't being a twat.

He's actually really likeable, but the characterisation is working against him.

Yeah, and it's the thing, you know, he's there to try and provide to replace the conflict between Avon and Blake that has been left that has been lost.

I get that. and it's the thing of, well, sometimes it is, and sometimes he isn't.

But I get that that's why it is when he is being annoying.

It is because they're supposed they need someone to do that.

[57:22]

But yeah, I'm not sure how I don't know. doesn't always land for me.

I just end up finding him annoying instead of enjoying booing him.

I guess it's more fun to have someone having conflict with Ivan from the right, in a sense, rather than from the left in series one and two.

And because, you know, Blake is supposed to be our revolutionary, but he's so posh and he's straight from the Isles of Waitrose, as Pete probably observed early on in maximum power.

He's a really terrible revolutionary, and so I'm kind of not sorry to see him gone, and I do like the conflict between him and between.

I do like the conflict between Avon and Tarrant much more than I like the conflict between Avon and Blake.

I think the series sets up the conflict between Avon and Blake better and then tries to replicate it with these two.

And like, well, maybe because Terrence's too young.

[58:23]

Yeah, maybe he's just being cast too young and so he looks like kind of a yapping puppy around Avon.

And I'm forced to wonder why they didn't actually go with one of their previous ideas and actually just bring Dell Grant on board.

Tom Chad Borden from Countdown because that had in-built conflict with Avon.

That would have been really interesting.

Yeah, well, Big Finish eventually do that when they were when Gisette Simon wouldn't reprise the role of Dana, but they weren't quite willing to recast yet.

And it is a really good dynamic because Tarant doesn't like him.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, those stories also set post-rumors of death.

So there's a few, it takes a few episodes for Avon to tell Dell what happened.

So it's a really interesting dynamic there.

Now, coming in just above Tarrant is Dana on 27.

She is great.

I voted for her up top.

I think I really love her.

Reading between the lines of some of the comments.

I think these lower scores are because she is not terribly well utilised after her 1st 2 episodes.

[59:31]

She doesn't get a focal episode this season.

Arguably aftermath, but that's also Avon and Serverland Focus, whereas everyone else gets a focus episode.

Well, fortunately, she gets a focus episode next year.

I'm starting to understand why Gisette doesn't want to talk...

Did she vote in this, Paul?

I get a strange insight on episodes through my somewhat obsessive work creating gifts for the website because a gift, a good gift moment is either a strong...

I mean, it's a good line, although that's kind of cheating because then that's the script.

But those ones are good.

But then there's a really good reaction or a good action.

Someone does something.

It's quick and punchy and it makes a funny little image to share.

And I'm surprised how few she gets.

And it's because she's so often sort of in the mix.

She's always there and she gets to go on the missions and everything and doing stuff.

[1:00:33]

But there aren't many moments where it's like, oh, Dana, she's doing something Dana-ish.

Uh, there's, there's a little cybermats for side calling him, didn't we?

Little bombs, but she produces from somewhere in her jumpsuit a couple of times.

But, yeah, I'm hoping next year we get more, I know there's something notorious coming up, but I hope we get a bit more of her being able to have a bit more impetus.

But she works really well as a, as a, she's supposed to be the teenage apprentice looking up to Avon and, and she's, she's great at that.

I love her sarcasm.

Yes, definitely.

Her sarcasm is brilliant.

She gives it with both barrels to everyone.

There's a scene.

I think it's in Death Watch, where Terrence doing something at the controls and she's just sitting in the foreground, berating him sarcastically, constantly.

So, um, here you say, oh, we should do this and we should do that.

She says, oh, I haven't seen you move that positively in weeks.

She's great.

She gives it to all of them.

And but at the point, she's always giving her all.

[1:01:36]

She's not worked out by episode 4 that oh, I'm only going to get the occasional line to throw in here.

She's always on form.

She's always giving it her rule.

And I think that's, you know, there's no such thing as small parts, only small actors, and I think she is taking that seriously.

Joe Set is so brilliant.

She is such a brilliant actress even at this early stage of her career.

Her talent is phenomenal and there's just such a shame it's not tapped into a bit more.

And anyone that she's given a little bit of banter with, she she clicks it with them.

Like, there's a, um, the, like, villa comes up to her and goes, oh, I'm bored and she goes, you're boring.

And it's funnier coming from her than it would be from anyone else as well because yeah, yeah, she just does it with her.

She doesn't with a smile on her face, doesn't she?

She's very charismatic when she does that.

I think we had a great missed opportunity.

Can you imagine if we'd had the episode where Dana, having lost her father to Serverland, and Callie, having lost her whole home world to Serveland, had teamed up to take down Serverland.

[1:02:45]

Can you imagine how amazing that episode would have been maybe in place of Moloch, just saying?

Exactly.

And sort of in the Moloch episodes of maximum power, we discussed how wouldn't it have been great if Callie and Dana had been the 2 characters who took down this male orientated civilisation, this planet.

And, you know, there's such a great script there, but obviously Ben Steed was never, ever, ever going to do that.

Yeah, part of me wanted them just to try giving Dana to their men just to see the mince Mitch you would have made out of those fuss.

Well, imagine the girl who killed Baban.

Maybe her best line this season.

So, moving up from the female crew member who was not given enough to do, we have Callie, who not only is given more to do this season, but also plays 3 parts over the course of the season.

Now, Kelly musters 70 points.

[1:03:48]

She's just solid and dependable, whatever you give her.

And even if it's not very much, She is so, I just really love Jan Chappel, and I think, I really wish we'd had more opportunity to show what she could do as well because things like sarcophagus and children of our on really show how brilliant an actress she was and is.

I actually think a lot of my love for this season is Cali flavoured, because Cali is different in each of the 1st 3 series.

She's a bit so she's a bit weird and lofty in the 1st season while also being a revolutionary.

Then she just disappears into the background.

Here, they strike the right mix, and I think Jan Chappell's performance is subtly different.

And when I think of series C of Blake 7, which, as I've said before as my favourite season of any television show ever, I sort of think of Jan Chappel being really good in it all through it.

And I think of that nuclear group of Avon Villa and Cali, who objectively are the best characters who run through Blake 7 aboard the Liberator.

[1:04:56]

And it just, it makes me happy thinking of the 3 of them relating together.

I don't know, it's difficult to put my finger on, but there's something about Jane Chalp's performance this season. really works.

She's the moral centre of this series, isn't she?

I think, in many cases, and I think that makes her really strong.

She calls out Avon, which nobody else really dares to do, and she calls out Tarrant, and she stands up for what she thinks is right in a, in many of the situations, which I think is really interesting writing from where she began.

That fantastic moment in rumours of death, you know, where they say of Shrinker, you know, he's an animal or something like that and she says, it's catching, isn't it?

So moving into our top three.

Now, despite getting the most seconds and most thirds, and um, the, pretty much the 3rds seem to weigh him down a bit.

[1:06:05]

It's villa with 122 points.

Now, I find this fascinating because, of course, Terry Nation wanted to write Villa out in series B, and here he is reliably the 3rd place.

I think writing Gan out is less dramatic because it's impossible to notice any difference on board the Liberator once he's gone.

It is like...

Do you know what I mean?

It's just like, yeah, okay, fine.

So so Killing Villa would have landed, I think.

But only because he really works as a character, which is essentially why it's a dumb idea, I guess.

Yeah.

And the series would be a lot less fun and funny without him.

Because, you know, we've said, you know, Dana gets some really funny lines and that's true, but half of those funny lines are related to Villa.

Yeah, you can't imagine the Avon Callian Gan show going very far, can you?

[1:07:13]

The thing about his performance, though, too, is that it's incredibly consistent and even. he's always, he's got, he knows how to deliver the lines in a way to make it sound like there's a consistent character there.

You don't get that effect where sometimes, oh, in this episode needs me to be more a character in this direction.

So I'll just nudge my performance here.

He is always you always feel like it's the same person.

So that means coming in 2nd place, of course, we have serverland with 136 points.

Yeah, that's an atrocity.

All of you listeners need to sit down and have a good solid think. about what you've done.

A serve lenses and shorter hour on, they'll have their narrow little minds and other things now.

I mean, look, to be fair, Serverland doesn't work without Avon.

Avon doesn't work without Serverland, so I think they're just they're equally fabulous and important and wonderful, and both actors give such a wonderful portrayal of what material they're given.

[1:08:15]

Without them, the series would be nothing.

Even with all the praise we've just given Villa.

But I mean, Silverland and Villa together in Moloch is that's the one good thing that happens in Moloch, and it is a really good thing.

It's magnificent.

Yeah.

I do think Servoland works better with an offsider.

And I think the lesson they've learned from Travis is slightly the wrong one, because I think they've learned the lesson with Travis, that if you have an offsider that she's constantly downed on, it doesn't work.

You need to somehow write an offsider who, yes, fails because our heroes need to get away, but is still competent.

And I think we could have had that with Ginka.

Oh, absolutely.

Um, who, you know, and Ginka's whole thing with sort of hubris of thinking he can double cross everyone, including server land, leads to his downfall, and it's completely logical.

But I think if you take that away, you have like a strong lieutenant that she can have by her side.

And I think possibly she would have been higher up if she'd had a constant person to bounce off.

[1:09:20]

Jarvic.

Well, we're coming up to best server lackey and it's going to be controversial.

I'll keep my power. my powder dry until...

I think also what you were saying, Brendan, about. her having a bit of a feckless offsider.

Villa fits that role in Moloch, but also one of my favourite bits of children of our on, where he's up on the Liberator and she's down on the planet.

She thinks for some reason he's the only crew member left on board Liberator.

And she, so she tries charming him.

She says, having a degree of personal regard for you, Villa.

And they're going, oh, it takes a day to tell you that's lies and bring him back down to her.

Now, I think I think surprising only, Nathan, we have Avon in 1st place with 273 points.

Well, I guess this is a mock of how much Paul Darrow has seized the show and made it his own right from those 1st moments in the Escape Pod Bay.

[1:10:29]

He is absolutely in control of this show and he doesn't let it go.

He is seizing.

Well, I think we said it before.

He seizes every moment that every opportunity he's given in the previous 2 seasons and then suddenly he is let loose here.

And as Pete said, he even Darrows an apple.

He doesn't eat an athlete, Darrows it.

But that final moment at the end of the end of Aftermath, the camera just zooms in on him, and the theme music starts, and it's Paul Darrow, top of the credits.

Yeah.

And right at the end of the season, it finishes on his smile as he walks off and he's the last one walking off. is his show.

And it's what ought to be, you know, in complete disaster.

And he, in the last, what could have been the last ever shot is him just smiling and walking off.

I'd like to also single out for praise in that in that last shot.

You know, Kelly, Tarrant and Villa sort of turned around with a resigned look at Avon.

[1:11:34]

Dana looks like she wants to murder.

Adam.

I'm just like, yep, thank you, Gisette.

You're not letting Paul be the only focus of this shot and I agree.

I mean, I think we're quibbling around the edges a little bit of like, you know, Avon got more votes in Serveland or whatever.

The fact is that this series, series C, is the finest moment of everyone involved.

And so it's very difficult to make a determination.

It's an incredible feat.

I mean, I guess you're right, Peter, about it being the best soft reboot ever.

We've lost our male and female leads, and Terry Nation comes back in and retools the show in one episode, which manages to be a proper functional entertaining episode, and then he just makes the show better.

It's astounding how well that starts.

Brendan, did anyone at any point, right in any of your boxes?

Bring back Blake.

Uh, no, quite the opposite.

[1:12:35]

Because any, you know, there's going to be someone out there who, at the end of when a Doctor Who actor has changed, The overriding response to the new one is bring back the old one.

But the time was right for the Daryl ascendency, wasn't it?

I think I think the time, I think the time was variety in Spacefall for the Derek. frankly.

It was just being patient. playing the long game.

There is a subsection of Blake 7 fandom who think that series B is better than series C, and I think that is a supportable position because they like the Avon and Blake dynamic.

They like Avon not being the central role, but being kind of the sidekick who gets to comment on all the stupid thing, the things that Blake's doing and sort of get all the most interesting bits.

But Siri C is just the characters are more interesting and coupled with the fact that I think you have series high episodes individually.

[1:13:37]

You can't go past it.

I almost feel like in series C, they're not needing to try.

Like, it all feels so natural and so comfortable in a good way, not in a lazy way.

I think that for me is why I see will win over B. I mean B's got great episodes in it, of course, like Horizon and Killer are my 2 favourites, but even so, they're not just, there's not the same as the retail series C version of the show.

It's just, it's almost different show.

Yeah, it just feels effortless, effortless. doesn't it?

It feels like everyone knows what they're doing.

They know how to make this show.

There's no huge behind the scenes, problems like we've had with all of the other series and everything is just good.

And at a base level, it's good.

And then, and it rises to really high heights when they have the opportunity.

Yeah, I think possibly what, what helps with that is there's a level of tension in every relationship aboard the ship.

[1:14:43]

Even with, so there's always been tension with Avon and Villa, with Avon and Cali, there's tension throughout, because as we were saying earlier, Cali sort of becomes the moral centre here and doesn't agree with everything Avon does, there's tension between Avon and Tarrant, of course, there's tension between Dana and Villa, there's tension between Dana and Avon at times.

There's tension between Dana and Tarant, even though they're the 2 newbies.

They don't always support each other.

There's tension between Taranton Villa.

So there is in-built tension that even if it's not scripted, the actors can do in looks, and it's kind of like it gives them something to do in the background, Gan never had tension with anyone.

Avon would occasionally put him down and Gam would just go, eh, whatever.

You know what I mean?

Gan does have a bit of a go at being the moral centre from time to time, I think.

Oh, totally.

I think I think that's good.

But again, everyone just shrugs that off because it's Gan. what are you going to do?

[1:15:43]

Have a headache at me?

Now, I was going to do this a bit later, but we've sort of started to touch on Ginka, Jarvik, Serverland.

So let's look at the server lackeys now.

I'm going to go through the bottom 4 very quickly because there's a big gulf between the top 2 and the bottom four.

So Maury comes in last with 4 votes.

And look, I think Maury's good, but he falls in a volcano.

Daster comes in with two.

I think that's understandable because he's up against Jarvik in the same episode.

Maury comes in with four.

Daryl comes in with 5 and I think he's very good, but again, he's up against Ginka and Jarvik.

Kostos, who I almost forgot about and didn't include, commands a respectable 17.

Costos is amazing if you want a lackey.

[1:16:44]

You want one who only communicates by clicking their fingers.

Yeah, there is a sort of bond henchman thing about him.

I really like Costos.

I think Costoff is really enjoying herself.

She's an independent character, so she's observing things.

You know, Servland will say something to Avon.

She has this little smile to herself and you think, wow, okay, you know, you've got an independent agenda going on here.

And she gets the continuity right.

Yes, that's right.

She gets the continuity, right?

And she gets a brilliant exit with the hydraulic floor, which will be back next season, spoiler alert.

And possibly the best line of every any dying character, which is...

She does the worst job of manipulating the liberator controls of anybody, and it's not necessarily her fault because Mary Ridge shouldn't have shot it from above, but it's very clear that when she says computed and laid in, she's just waving her fingers in the air rather than touching any actual controls.

That's how the woman in Day of the Darlings operates the control.

[1:17:47]

Same time, same time zone.

Now, that leaves us with our top 2 of Ginka and Jarvik.

Tell me that this went in the way it should be going.

Now, look, until the final votes were in, it was neck and neck, like every time I looked, it was equal.

Wow.

And I'm going to say we've ended up with a 44 and a 42.

So that is very close to Call It a Tie, but there is a 2nd place in a 1st place.

On 42, we have Ginka.

But madam.

Madam, he's up against a lot of structural racism, I think, basically.

And so it just, you know, a mediocre white man is clearly going to just top him.

He has to do it twice as hard in order to even get 2nd place.

[1:18:49]

And kudos to Dudley as well for reinforce those structural racism.

Bong.

Look, my 1st choice was Genka.

But with 44 points, I can see why people voted for Javik, even if he is a Ben Steed character.

Well, he's funny.

I mean, he's funny.

That's why people...

He's an artisan.

But it was it was Jarvik who stole the heart of young Janey Del Tarrant, according to that 1st ever slash fiction in this room.

I tell you what, on the Blake 7 scale of hotness, which, as we've established, is from Mova to Agorian, or Agorian to Nova, if you're that way inclined.

Charvik nearly displaces Agrarian.

If that zipper had been undone, it should have hit the rock.

[1:19:51]

I do think, though, he has he has like a 70s element of hotness.

Yeah.

He just needed the medallion, didn't he?

You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah, it's, yeah, exactly.

I mean, it's exactly what they thought a hot hunky man looked like in 1979 or just...

No, probably not.

The day before, Simon, but yeah, yes, probably.

They're bit behind.

It's old spice and well cooked steak.

And chips.

I think then, um, and I will say we want justice for Ginka, but we've already had his snug Mario void.

So Nathan, give me a number between one and three. 2 is the number between one and three.

Well done.

So, Nathan, Snog, marry, untimely demise for the insurance money, and your choices are Maury, Anna Grant, and your pick of the 3 ultras. perfect.

[1:21:05]

Yeah, well, like who's marrying Anna Grant?

Like, I'm not marrying Anna Grant.

Make your counsellor, Chescu.

Yeah.

So I'm avoiding her.

Um, is there, is there an, is there, um, like an ultra who I can snog while thinking of Neva from Face of Evil?

You can think who, you can think of whatever you want.

Okay, so let's do that.

I'll snog one of the Ultra and Maury.

Well, again, you know, he's he falls into a volcano in a sort of Empedoclean way.

So I will marry him and inherit whatever, I don't know, he's got a gun, probably.

I'd get that.

I don't know, uniform.

Imagine the blue pastrash you'd get from snogging an ultra.

Brilliant.

[1:22:07]

Okay, so we've talked a lot about what we've liked about characters, so let's talk about who we might write out and who we would introduce in their place.

So let's go one, two, three.

Who are we writing out?

Sorry, 321.

Three, two, one, Tarrant.

Tarant got 37 votes to write out.

And he is top of the list.

I'm just going to very quickly go through with the numbers and then we can have a general discussion.

With 15 votes, we have Callie, but also 15 votes for don't write anyone out.

That's what I have to say.

I found that question very difficult to answer because it's like, no, no, no, this is the perfect cruise.

So, well, I, you know.

Yeah.

Aurac got 10, Dana and Serverland and Villa all got 5 each.

Now, Villa, at least 2 of those votes were, let him have his happy ending.

So it was not, I hate Villa.

I actually really liked it. the ending in city at the edge of the world.

[1:23:10]

Despite the fact he's already gone, Blake got 3 votes.

Get rid of him again.

Yeah, which consists of the show doesn't need him.

Blake.

Oh, and Blake's gone. prayers were answered.

Zen got only 2 votes.

So that's something.

I'd just like to read out a couple of notable singular votes, which include any of the feds from Moloch.

Awful story.

Ben fucking Steed, because his scripts are fucking horrible.

But that person then also said, oh, all right, Tarrant.

Someone wanted to write Jarvik out of the show, send him to Femulus, the Planet of the Women, named in True Nation Ease, where he suffers a slow, ignominious death.

Everyone from Volcano, someone said, Moloch and the Ultras because they suck.

[1:24:16]

Um, people felt that Serverland has become a bit repetitive.

They still like her, but yep, I'm, I, you know, I'm just reading the comments.

I mean, I do think she's used badly a couple of times this year.

I mean, server line on screen is never a bad thing.

But what does she really do in Volcano?

we care?

No, I don't care.

She great.

Take screen time away from all the other characters in it, which is...

But this is why I think people say it's repetitive because she just turns up and does serverland things, which we think is great, but actually does happen episode after episode.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Exactly.

I don't understand. what have you done with the land turning up and doing serverland things is amazing in harvest of chiros and children are our on and those episodes are of a piece in that she's trying to get hold of the liberator.

She also trying to do that in volcano and it's a lesser episode and it's just another episode where she's trying to do that.

[1:25:16]

I see where people are coming from, even though you can never have enough Jackie Pierce.

No, but then you get that that last 10 minutes of terminal where she comes in and she steals the show from underneath everyone else and you've waited that time and she does not disappoint for those 10 minutes from the she gets a you fool, she gets a maximum power and she gets to best Avon one last time.

Also, it seems.

You know, it's, I think that that is incredible.

She brings that same intensity that she does to the scenes in Star One because Jess Pierce has that ability to ramp up her performance when it's an important part of the show.

And so that confrontation with Avon is incredible, where her eyes never leave him.

And she actually looks like there might be tears welling very slightly.

Also, have you noticed that when it gets really important, she never calls him Avon.

[1:26:16]

She calls him Avon.

She goes very French.

I would just like to read out some of our some of our listeners' reasonings with Server Lane because there is some some comments.

Oh, you know, she got a bit repetitive.

But there's also comments like her perishing along with the liberator would have been a fitting end.

So again, it's that appropriateness of writing out a character.

One interesting suggestion is have her missing for the season and then bring her back next year.

But of course, we don't know.

We're getting next year at this stage.

And that would have been more surprising.

Someone says they do think that she went down with the liberator and next year's serverland is a clone.

Clonemasters or our own either arguably that.

Well, they yeah, yeah, they can't be our on Avon.

Yeah, it's up to you.

The inclusion of that scene of her flinging herself into the teleport is an interesting choice, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's like taking Aurak off the ship, you know, like it's just in case, just in case we have the next view.

[1:27:22]

Can I please make a claim for that scene, the scene where Villa saves Aurak as being the best scene in all of Blake 7.

I have always loved that scene ever since I was a child and I was besotted by terminal when I saw it.

I thought it was the best thing ever.

I still do, really.

And it's just, it's so Blake 7.

I can't imagine that scene happening in any other show.

So right at the end where you've had all this drama and the villains got the ship and they're all going to be marooned, villas, the last character left aboard, and he's got Costos ready to teleport him down.

And in any other show, it would have been there would have been some elaborate ploy or something called they would have had to have glossed over it.

But no, here they say, oh, we've got to get Aurak off the ship or give Villa a bit.

And it's amazing.

Villagers plays, oh, just a second.

Let me take this.

It's a sculpture I built it.

He said, you're not going to make me leave it.

Cut back to Costos going, oh, all right. it goes.

And it's absolutely incredible.

[1:28:23]

It's a scene that sums up why Blake 7 is so great and so different from any other show for me.

Now, moving on to our listeners top pick, Tarrant, what do we think about introducing Tarrant and then writing him out in the same series?

No, that's madness.

And he's even better next year, so no.

Yeah, people are just there clutching at stores.

There's no one who you want to write out.

People, it's just Tarrant can be a little bit annoying sometimes.

What he needed to be was better characterised, not written out.

And even then, I think that this sort of tarantate that seems to be going on is I don't see is very justified at all.

I think he's great.

That's sort of surprising.

Is it just that he's mean to Villa and Avant, maybe.

I mean, maybe I maybe I just like him a lot because he's not Gareth Thomas.

And so I, I, that's where I'm coming from.

[1:29:25]

I've always likes Terence.

So according to our listeners, the word twat is mentioned about 5 times.

That's fair.

Hannah, how many times did Hannah vote?

I was supposed to say.

What?

Prick comes on. arrogant about talent, not us.

Death by perm.

They're definitely not talking about us.

Eaten by a Kyrosian ant.

Taryn, even though he's pretty.

Now, someone does say, I like Tarant as much as the next person, which, okay, about two-thirds.

About two-thirds of you, maybe.

I find the character somewhat lacking, I would have preferred him to have gone out in a different perspective finale with the liberator crew caught in an ambush in a large scale attack above terminal.

In the process, Tarrant would secretly allow federation troopers to board the liberator and then take over the ship from the inside, killing another member of the bridge cruise, such as Cali.

[1:30:31]

Wow, bloodthirsty.

So one of two, one of 2 things happens.

Tarantinabon, get into a scuffle.

Avon successfully manages to kill Tarrant for killing Callie in a spectacular way, like throwing him off the roof of a building.

Or fuelled by anger at Taron's betrayal, Avon leads a prison break, which causes absolute chaos on terminal, and then he finds Taron and kills him.

So this is going with the original idea that Tarrant would be a traitor.

This doesn't feel superior to terminal to me.

No, I'm so sad that we never got this season finale by Alan Pryor.

I think it's an interesting idea, but I also think having a traitor on board for 13 weeks kind of undermines the intelligence of the rest of the crew, even more, even more.

Even when Terry Nation toyed with the idea of replacing Gan with a traitor.

I think it was only a 3 or 4 episodes thing.

Wouldn't have been amazing to have had the Ginka miniarch, though, where Stoverland charged Ginka with going undercover and becoming a member of the crew.

[1:31:35]

You had had all these amazing scenes where Genka would have been pretending to be a good guy on the bridge for liberation and skulking away into a corridor to say, madam, I think I've got them this time.

It would been amazing.

I will say, I will say as well, that some people do think that Tarrant could have had a heroic death by saving his brother, and then we can bring Dieter on board as someone puts it.

That wig for a whole year.

Exchange regular Tarrant for British home stores, Tarrant. is what I meant.

And that brings us that brings us neatly into who would we have as a new regular?

And there are a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of nominees here.

So I'm just going to go through rapid fire, everyone who got one vote.

[1:32:35]

So someone, someone has got their episode counts a bit confused and voted for Dorian.

Someone else suggests...

He's on his way.

Yeah.

Someone else suggested an ultra who can their sort of mission aboard the ship can be trying to get people to have sex everywhere they go and groping in Aurac as a research assistant.

Or in other ways, through nothing.

Yeah.

Someone did suggest the alien. as you nominated earlier, Peter could be interesting.

Sherm or Noll from City on the City at the Edge of the World. someone suggested Vinnie to piss off Tarrant.

Max the newscaster because he's a sweetheart, dear, dearly Miss Stuart Bevan.

Yep.

Franton, to give Callie someone to bounce off.

Captain Shadd got a vote.

How about the very handsome Pater?

No?

[1:33:36]

No one suggested Paytar, unfortunately.

He and Franton are going to be busy.

What about Milas and his stupid brother?

No one suggest you'll be glad to know that no one suggested my listener's stupid brother.

I'm hopping the number of female characters who could have Z and Bar and Chazel and Pula.

Someone said Blake for obvious reasons, and I have no idea what those reasons could possibly be.

That was one.

I need to read this one verbatim.

Bring back Siobhan as a space tabloid talk show host so he can reveal Dita to be Dell's brother.

Zelda as Kelly's sister.

Too much thought went into that.

I suspect that might be Colin, but if that's you, please add us on one of our social media accounts because I laughed for 5 minutes.

Cool.

Getting into the twos, we have 2 people suggested Costos, Shrinker, Fores, who is David Haig.

[1:34:44]

Then we get into 5 people didn't want to add anyone.

Five people. and look, folks, I just want to talk.

I just want to talk.

I'm not judging.

I just want to talk.

Molok.

Here are the reasons.

To wind up Paul Darrow.

Because Deep Roy is brilliant.

Fair, because the show needs a regular shoddy puppet character to laugh at.

That's true.

What about Tarant?

For pure comedy value and that is who I reasoned it should be.

Now, we now get into some more interesting nominations.

So with 7 votes each.

We have Anna, section leader, Clegg, and Hal Melonby.

Oh, yes, Hal Mellonby.

That would have been a great dynamic.

So that's a better one, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, pretty much everyone who suggested how Mellonby said it was to help expand Dana's character.

He's a very, I thought, I was thinking about how, now, mate. a very series A character.

[1:35:49]

There's just something very straight down the line about him.

Understandable with deterrenation creation.

Um, I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah, that's as much as I've got to say.

I just can't actually now think how to back that up.

But it just he's just got a series A vibes.

Yeah, because he's got that federation-y backstory.

It's like Blake giving his backstory.

Yeah, he's from that world that has a dome.

Yeah, does that woman like Miriam Margoli sat around doing judgements?

That universe, which actually Blake's heaven has now drifted away from.

Alta Morag.

That's someone.

But I mean, he's an incredible actor giving a great performance.

It's a good choice.

Yes, he's incredibly well played, but also I think he's one of those rarities in the Blake 7 universe.

He an unambiguous good guy.

Another point I want to raise that a viewer brought in about it, and I think it's important to note is, you know, we're still at a time where we're talking about disability representation on television, and he is a character with a disability who has created a device to help himself live with that disability.

[1:36:57]

And this respondent says that something so rare on television at the time, and because we're in the future.

It's something to aspire to.

And I think also given that Dana being cast as a black character played by a black actor and mostly avoiding stereotyping, the show doesn't always avoid stereotyping her, but mostly avoiding it, especially compared to the shows at the time. modern day black actors, including Yasmin Bannerman, who now plays Dana, have cited, seeing Dana on television as an inspiration for getting her into acting.

And yeah, so I don't think it's something the show would have thought about in terms of Howell's blindness, but I think it's a really excellent point from one of our listeners.

So thank you.

I think it's another thing that we can loud this season for that.

Yeah, at a time when it was very rare to see faces that weren't Caucasian on British television.

You have Dana as lead character, which gives you the opportunity to have Hal Mellonby in a very strong role in an episode.

[1:38:03]

And also you've got an Asian actor. playing a very good role, which doesn't rely on him being Asian or, you know, taking pot shots at his ethnicity or whatever.

And I think that's something which is really good for the show.

Yeah.

The other 2 in that bracket are Anna Grant and section leader Clegg.

Now the votes for Clegg are split.

Half the people want him on the crew and the other half want him to replace Travis.

Now, that would be good.

I think it replaced Travis with Ginka.

You've got to.

Yep.

And for Anna, everyone wants her to join the crew who voted for her, one person has said, you can then leave Tarrant behind for the resistance on earth, you know, and that one person was me.

But also, people have pointed out, it adds a new dimension to the Avon Cali relationship.

[1:39:03]

Now, coming in with 12 points apiece, and for very different reasons, we have Carol and Ginka.

Hmm.

I mean, I just think Ginka possibly wouldn't have worked as a fully fledged member of the crew, but he could have, he could have been there in an undercover capacity, and that goes back to the original plan that they had for the season, which was to have had the captain, who was meant to be a federation officer, and it was very much, was he going to betray them to the federation?

I think a character like Ginker has just has so many levels and he's played so well that it could only have brought interest to scenes aboard the Liberator, which I'm not sure that Terence character does all that much beyond kind of bulk standard friction with the other characters.

I just, yeah, Genka would have just brightened up the season, I think.

Yeah, I think I was, I voted for, to be added, with that idea, and with it being him, you know, Servoland, I imagine Servoland stranding him on a space, on an asteroid or something, and then him fighting his way back and teaming up with them and his bitterness towards Servoland could then actually start getting them into peril by taking risks and that sort of thing.

[1:40:14]

I was actually just reading what I now know is your comment, Pete, because there's a bit at the end, which I forgot to mention earlier, that I will come back round to that for your suggestion.

Your other suggestion.

I won't spoil what it is now.

But yeah, I will, I will say though, Pete, that you were the outlier in in that of having him join the liberator.

Everyone else wanted to see him replace Travis who voted for him.

And yeah, I think that's a really, a really interesting idea, especially because it's made very clear that he has his own motivations.

And I mean, Travis had a motivation as well to kill Blake.

Ginka has a personal motivation to his own power.

So that would have been a very interesting dynamic with Serbaland.

Yeah, and you're going to have to come up with interesting reasons for him to fail as well.

Because we don't want him to kill so long because she's entertaining.

And compare how interesting he is in children of hour on every scene that he's in is entertaining with Maury in Volcano, who just makes no impact at all.

Yep.

Absolutely Yeah.

[1:41:15]

You're talking about my husband there, Peter.

Now, and then we have Carol.

I think that spoils the episode.

I think City at the Edge of the World is set in this sort of slightly different version of Blake 7 where Villa gets to be heroic.

It's like the Zeppo in Buffy.

You know, the, it's, and so it has to be contained.

Once you have someone who loves Villa kind of following him around all the time that just wrecks the character.

He has to be a bit of a loser, I think, for it to work.

I do like one comment from a listener here.

Um, which is she would sort of stick up for Villa against um, against Avon and Tarrant, and it just brought to mind that meme of, um, from one of the Raimi Spider-Man films where Peter Parker's looking very sort of sullen and Mary Jane is looking over her shoulder saying, he said he's this.

[1:42:15]

No, I think I agree with you there.

Yeah, part of Villa's charm is that he's a he's a bit of a loser, but it also means any viewer can feel like they can be on the ship.

You know what I mean?

It's a bit like people who think they're Rick from Rick and Morty are actually Jerry, whereas a lot of people, a lot of people would just accept that they're Jerry.

You know what I mean?

It's kind of like, if you think you're Avon, you're actually Villa.

And also, Carol's nothing that we haven't seen before, when she's in hard-nosed mode, she's Su Lin, when she's in insipid mode, she's Calli.

Moving up the list, 14 people wanted to bring in Dita.

But only about half of them wanted to write out Tarrant.

The other half actually wanted to either...

Or Stephen P All the time.

They wanted to they wanted to see like a brotherly dynamic.

They wanted to see Stephen Pacey, you know, stretch his acting wings a bit.

[1:43:17]

They also wanted to challenge and drive mad the production team of having that much split screen going on.

Well, how about, let's give them that for the first, I don't know, 5 minutes of terminal that it would have lasted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do we have a preference of Dieter or Del Tarrant?

Oh, the Wig rules Dieter out, the Wiggers.

And finally, with 15 votes, we have Bay Ban the Butcher.

Oh, and by the way, one special vote for Babe and the Butcher's hair.

His home counting hair.

So thank you for the person who wrote that in.

I think I would have preferred a stupid son of a slime crawler.

The show couldn't support Colin Baker as well.

No, no.

[1:44:17]

Mainly supports him for 50 minutes.

Yeah, I think some of our listeners are thinking we're all credins right now.

Oh, I love I love Colin.

I love Colin's era of Doctor Who, but I just think that his performance in that is why Paul Darrow does what he does in Time Lash.

Oh, absolutely.

Totally Look, I like to think that if Colin knew it was going to be a recurring role, he would have done a different performance, you know, it's a bit like Fraser Hines talks about when he started playing Jamie, he did one accent that he knew he could maintain for 4 weeks.

As soon as he knew he was going to be around longer, he changed the accent to something which was easier on the ear.

I think if Colin knew he was going to say do 6 episodes, he would have put he would have split that performance over 6 episodes and that power over success.

Brandon, I'm absolutely certain that he wouldn't have.

He'd have kept that energy up the whole time.

[1:45:21]

And again, Baban can't escape from that slight parallel universe that is sitting at the edge of the world.

He's our villain in that version of Blake 7.

That's where he belongs.

He wouldn't work in something like children of our Ron or sarcophagus at all.

He doesn't belong there, does he?

Look, again, our listeners are split as to whether he joined Servoland side or whether he's aboard the liberator.

I don't think I can't see Serverland putting up with him, though.

No, absolutely.

The kill switch would have been, the kill switch would have been activated very early.

She's already got Jarvik in a sort of dungeon downstairs on that stupid shit, like watching her do with Colin, but kill him all.

Yeah, even worse.

You can't imagine her saying to Bean, I should like you to do it again.

Oh, no, you wouldn't.

Yes, I don't need to know anything more about that share house.

[1:46:21]

Now, I'm just going to circle back around because there's another sort of low vote category.

I accidentally skipped over, and that is the alien.

The sarcophagus alien.

Someone said, and these exact words because I asked, who would you bring in and why?

They said Sexy Ginger Cali because Sexy Ginger Cali?

But also, I quite like Pete's idea.

This is what Pete wrote after after he came up with his area of Ginker joining the crew.

Also, have Kelly and the alien merge into Kalien.

Kalian. proud of that.

And he's even written a sample section of script.

Kalen, teleport us back up now.

What's keeping?

I'm reading a magazine.

She would have discovered Callie's stash of mags and things that she just reads while everyone else is not having adventure.

[1:47:23]

Just that visor from series A with the...

Yeah, I was the little warpman, yeah.

I mean, she's been in a void for squillion years.

She's going to love having a copy of woman's realm and a Walkman to listen to.

It's going to blow a mind.

Okay, now we're going to come back. to the Kalien in a moment to discuss doppelgangers, but it's time for Snog, marry, avoid.

Now, I am going to ask Pete. to give me a number between one and two.

Um I'm not going to be fedantic.

Like, like, Professor Nathan.

Give me a choice of one and two. six.

Give me an integer of one or two.

One did you say?

One.

Okay.

Actually, this is totally appropriate.

Snog, marry, haven't I seen you somewhere before?

[1:48:24]

The alien, Data Tarrant, or Blake with a beard.

Oh, Blake with a beard.

Yeah, I mean, plate with the beard is kind of hot.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm going to say, yeah, I'll snug Blake with a beard.

DJ Tarrant, the wig.

I think snogging Blake with a beard would be a drug induced and electronic dream, don't you?

Uh, yeah, um, avoid detail.

He's a crap assassin anyway.

And yeah, I'm going to marry that alien galley, it's going to be a wild ride.

Yeah, that's going to be, yeah.

Fantastic.

I'm just so relieved I've got characters whose names I remembered.

I was poised to Google anyone that you're any character. petrified by this segment.

Okay, Simon, I can guarantee you with the one I have left, you know who these people are.

[1:49:24]

Fantastic.

Okay.

You might be surprised as well.

Okay, okay.

Right, so, um, coming back, we have our doppelgangers segment, and we have a surprising amount of doppelgangers this season, half of whom are played by Jan Chappel.

So our choices were Zelda, in Children of Aron, played by Jan Chappell, the alien in sarcophagus, played by Jan Chappell.

The link Carrots.

Terminal, played by Chad Chappell.

Dita Tarrant. in Death Watch, played by Stephen Pacey.

And a drug induced hallucination Blake with a beard in Terminal, played by Gary...

On a break from the Royal Shakespeare company.

[1:50:25]

I'm going to do the three, two, one thing again, and I want you to shout out which of those four, you think, one, three, two, one, alien.

Alien.

It is the alien with 55 votes.

So, yeah, people thought that was the best performance, and I think we've already discussed, yeah, as well, that it's a great performance by Jan Chappell and a great concept.

And I think as people have touched on.

Whatever I say, it's the one that's the most different to their usual character.

It's the broadest stretch that someone's been allowed to go off and do. and that's always more because more with Zelda is, I mean, Zelda's not really any different Cali.

It's a bit wetter, isn't she?

Yeah, higher.

Yes, it's like, wow.

Yeah, yeah.

Even more insipient.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's that moment where Callie comes back at the end of sarcophagus and you think, oh yes, that's Jan Chapel, you know, because because the alien is so different and so brilliant.

[1:51:29]

So good.

Zilda's like Niles Crane to Frasier Crane and Cali.

Whereas the alien is a whole.

Yeah, a whole other thing.

Look, I think we can now just very quickly drive over the fact that Zelda got seven.

So Zelda lost.

But, you know, I think it's, I think it's just stiff competition.

Like it wasn't a bad performance, but it's, as you say, it's not as distinctive as the alien, who is a totally different character.

Is this a thing that happens very much and has forgotten?

I mean, we have like a duplicate Blake, don't we, in weapon and is that it?

Uh, yes, I think so.

Um, you know, I would, yeah, I was tempted to sort of include like the the avatars as well from sarcophagus, but really they don't have a character.

You know what I mean?

We've got robot Avalon.

[1:52:31]

Robot Avalon.

We do, yeah.

Yeah.

Ravelon.

One of the big finish audios does a very good story with a clone of Avon called Kerr, which is set around the time of weapon.

But yeah, I don't, yeah, we don't really doppelganger's twins, identical cousins on the show.

We just kiss our cousins, Blake.

So did John Chappell manage to come 1st and last in this race?

Yes.

Best doppelganger. can you say?

I think the takeaway from that is Stephen Pacy.

Meh.

Well, look, Stephen Pacey does command a respectable 30 votes for his performance as Dita Tarrant.

And, you know, I think it's very noticeable as well that almost half of those people, I presume, also vote for him to become a regular.

[1:53:32]

And that leaves us with Beardie Blake on a respectable 22 votes.

Not bad for a hallucination.

It's a very good scene and it's sort of really charged between him and Avon there and considering Gareth Thomas cannot move and is just lying down the whole time.

It's played really well.

So, and because it's designed as the last episode, it's only right really, he gets a moment there, I think, and it is good to see him at that point.

Yeah, and something I love about it is because it's an illusion, it leaves the mystery open.

Like, Servoland tells us he's dead, but...

No, I think we believe it at the end of Terminal.

I think that we definitely believe that she's telling the truth and that coming back next year and saying it was sort of a land lying all along is like Darth Vader being Luke's father at some bullshit thing they pull out of their arse for some reason that they have to do later.

[1:54:36]

She plays it like it's real.

Yeah, oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

A great moment from her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, so having cleared out our doppelgangers and um, the Kalian is sitting back reading a magazine, we're now going to go behind the scenes to talk about directors.

So I'm pleased to say going into this that every director got at least one vote.

Or even Desmond McCarthy.

Desmond McCarthy.

Got exactly one vote.

Good on you.

One of our listeners out there has the privilege of knowing you are the number one Desmond McCarthy fan.

Good for you.

Yeah.

So Gerald Blake comes up after that with the harvest of Kyros and Death Watch.

[1:55:36]

Then we have Andrew Morgan with Children of Aron with four.

We should be higher.

I think that should be higher as well.

Possibly it's because he only does one episode this season.

He was meant to come back and do terminal as well, but couldn't make the dates work.

Right.

Ah, I see.

Right.

Gerald Blake got three, by the way.

David Maloney, who is the producer of the show, and of course, directs at least one episode per season of the year's producer, he directs power play.

He got 9 votes. which is it is respectable once I reveal the top three.

So the top 3 are via Lorimer, who directs 4 episodes, Aftermath City at the Edge of the World, Ultra World, and Moloch, and I think those last 2 might have heard his score a bit.

20.

Mary Ridge, who directs Terminal, in place of Andrew Morgan, gets 24.

So that gives you an idea of Andrew Morgan's score might have picked up a bit, but also it explains why Mary Ridge is asked back next year as well.

[1:56:39]

She's just like half of next year, doesn't she?

Yeah, it's just a whole lot.

Yeah.

And speaking of half, with almost half the votes with 53 votes.

We have Fiona coming.

Wow.

Director of Rumours of Death and Sarcophagus.

Yeah, okay.

That's interesting because when we were talking about rumours of death.

We weren't very complimentary about a lot of her directing choices and not sure she was a great action director and she cut away from a few bits that we felt didn't quite work.

So it's interesting that other people have, I think she does really great work on sarcophagus, so maybe that is boosting it up and maybe it's just the quality of the script that she's got that are boosting her up because I'm going to stick up my hand up and say, I think David Maloney does a really fantastic job on PowerPlay.

And he does the 1st episode of the series and he, it's a really, really strong. episode.

[1:57:44]

Yeah, I completely agree with you, Si.

I think Fiona Cumming is benefitting from the fact that she helmed 2 really good episodes quite well, whereas actually what David Maloney does, he shows everyone else how it should be done.

Power play is expertly shot in just the confines of Blake 7.

And we know that he's the best director who ever worked on Blake 7 because he also did Star one last year.

And that's that's no accident.

Yes, PowerPlay would have been quite tedious without...

Because sarcophagus is a weird Blake 7 episode, the direction is more obvious.

You know, it's not just action.

It's not just space things. you know, unusual character things and stuff.

And so I think that it's just more obvious to people watching it, that there are choices being made, whereas David Maloney is doing sort of standard Blake 7 stuff but doing it exceptionally well.

And I'm going to say, I think via Lorimer never does any bad work on Blake 7.

Well, I think.

What about hostage?

[1:58:45]

All right, okay.

Oh, bam, now, talk about hostage.

Okay.

I'm going to stick up for him because he doesn't do a bad job of aftermath, which is really, really nicely done.

And I think the action shots and the stuff on location is really beautiful for that episode.

When he's on point, he's totally on point.

Yeah.

Actually writes the convict song from Moloch.

I'm going to fling some praises, Fiona Cummings away, though, because, yeah, I think in realising that the left field nature of sarcophagus, she does really interesting things with the lighting, and she's got, she's presented with a script that is a real challenge to try and present as a 45 minute action adventure out of space series when it's not written in the way that they are normally written, and the fact that it still has that sense of pace to it. that is, I mean, and yeah, rumours of death is so event-packed and action-packed.

[1:59:46]

You couldn't make that script boring, but that she delivers back-to-back 2 episodes that are stylistically so different.

I can completely see why she's so appreciated. to try and own it, yeah.

I think it just shows as well that on a show like Blake 7, the director is all important.

The director absolutely makes or breaks what you see on screen.

And so you'll have, you know, I've put the boot independent rob a couple of times from series A because he never really seems to get on screen.

Well, yes.

He never seems to really get on screen what the script was aiming for.

It all feels like it's been done in the studio, whereas then you get someone like David Maloney or Mary Rich on terminal.

And they really just transcend the parameters of how the show is made to present something that's good drama and really well put together.

And you think, well, you can do it.

Others can't.

Let's have more of you.

Yeah, there's a sense from those better directors that they're actually interpreting and developing the script as opposed to just shooting it.

And I think that's what Pennant Roberts does.

[2:00:48]

He just makes sure everyone's standing roughly in the same place, saying roughly the right lines, and it all gets edited together, and then he goes home.

Whereas I think the others are reading the script through, really thinking about it, thinking about what can I do with this, which makes it different, sets it apart from just being filming a script.

Absolutely.

And it's the series B comparison is Jonathan Wright Miller versus George Spenson Foster.

And you've got someone who absolutely elevates 2 scripts, 2 good scripts, but you've got George Spencer Foster who is given really good material often and throws it away.

Sabotage.

It's terrible.

Absolutely.

I think a lot of the time.

So, from directors to the worlds they create.

I'm going to ask each of you which of the planets from this season you'd like to live on.

Now, this time I've decided to rule out Earth.

[2:01:51]

Um, and I'm just, we have been to more planets than we've been to ever before.

So I'm just going to recap them for you quickly.

So we have Sarin, which is the world that the melon bees are living on.

We have Chenga, which is the can we have your liver planet?

Um, We have obsidian with the pasty ethereal, smug pacifists.

Thank you, Nathan.

We have Crandor, the world inside the black hole.

We have Kyros, which needs no introduction.

We have Kizan, which is the world that Valentine dial is protecting and is the only person who can speak.

And we also have Villa World from that same episode.

We have our Ron, of course.

We have Ultraworld.

We have the planet Sardos from Moloch, because it's great to be free, and we have terminal.

I've ruled out Teal and Vandor because we don't actually see them.

They have great telly on Teal and Vandor, though, don't they?

[2:02:53]

That's true.

That's true.

Look, assume that you can get satellite telly from Teal and Vandor wherever you choose to go.

So, Cy, out of those planets, where would you live and why?

Villa world.

Absolutely villa world.

Gorgeous.

It is a beautiful corner of Studio A, BBC TV Centre.

It's beautifully black.

It's got a wonderful moon in the background and it's got a little tinkling pool.

What more do you need?

I'm also a big fan of any planet where you can touch the horizon.

Exactly.

That was series B. Anyway, Peter.

Me?

I think I would like to live under the sea with Dana and Hal.

Yeah.

Lovely.

That's one vote for the planet Sarin.

Nathan.

I want to live with Crandall because none of your relatives are there.

[2:03:53]

I think that would be nice.

Do you think that Crantor from Gambit came from Crantor?

Crant Autumn, Crantle.

Thank you very much, Nathan.

Simon.

Well, I want to live on hour on, but before children of hour.

Yeah, fair enough.

The bit we didn't see on TV.

Simon, you would have had Ronald Lee Hunt turn around to you and say, oh, Simon, you young rebel.

I'd know, though.

Every day, everyone you say, oh, good morning.

You know, my people have a saying, yes, I'm I'm here.

I know.

I'm your people.

I'm your people.

A man whose rust can never be betrayed, he can only be mistaken.

He can be slapped if he keeps speaking in proverbs who doesn't just sell me my coffee.

Oh my god, can you imagine going into Starbucks on our on?

I was like, can you write the name on the cup?

Cali.

I've got an order for Callie.

No, the other Cali.

[2:04:54]

I think you'll find that in Blake 7, it's called Spacebox.

And it's called caffeineo instead of coffee.

And finally, Pete, where would you live?

Well, I'm torn.

I quite like the dystopian centre parks of Chenga.

I mean, at least it's got you've got nice foliage.

My internal organs are in no condition that anyone's going to want to harvest, so I'm probably quite a tape on that front.

But also, Keith Villa, when everyone buggers off to Villa World.

They leaving behind the perfectly nice planet.

There don't seem to be anything wrong with it.

They'll just bugger off.

So I might just go, this weather.

Yeah, it's a bit dreary, I suppose.

So yeah, no, yeah, I'm going with Chenga.

Return to check up.

Don't you think that Ultraworld is likely to have pretty good kind of, um, like Wi-Fi?

Yeah, Wi-Fi is good.

Lovely tunnel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're a torrent, all the TV that's produced on Teal and Vandor.

[2:05:57]

How about Shrinkers Man Cave, you can get away there for a while.

Forever.

I'm going to choose Ultraworld, but I'm not going to shave my beard because I know they can just paint over it.

So that's fine.

And I have very special talents to give them a show that I know they'll enjoy.

So there you are.

On that topic.

Simon.

Pick a number between one and one.

No, well, you don't have to pick.

So you get snog, marry, highly distracting legs.

And extracting legs.

With Sheety Gat, we're in this.

Your options are Kerol, Sherm or Babin the Butcher.

Which one's Sherm?

Sherm is.

It's not my fault, Captain.

[2:06:57]

John C.

Carney, who was Blood Axe in the Time Warrior.

Oh, God.

Well, sorry, what were those names again?

Carol, Sherm, and Babe and the Butcher.

Well, obviously I'm marrying Carroll, because, you know, that would be lovely, and I can see a long future there.

I think, oh, God.

I don't think I can marry.

No, I don't think I can snog Colin Baker.

Over quite quickly. be fine.

If you have it quite quickly, then I just sort of, you know, then I'd go through the, go through the little hole to the other, to the Tavilla world before he could follow me.

That would be my way.

Which means...

Which means I'm definitely distracted by the legs of Sherm.

I think you'd have to shag Carol, surely, because then she'd just turn around to you and say, are you bragging or complaining?

[2:08:02]

Actually, I might change that because that would actually probably get annoying after many years of marriage.

It's number one on my list.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Now, before we get into Choice for Favourite Villain, I just want to flag something in the results that I found deeply puzzling and disturbing.

Now, I messaged Nathan about this during the week, at which point there was one person who had given city at the edge of the world one out of five.

That has expanded to 3 people who have given city the edge of the world one out of five.

And look, folks, I just want to talk.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not attacking.

I'm not attacking, but I just I just want to point out.

Now, of course, I am not giving any identifying information for who you are, but one of these people then gave Moloch 4 out of five.

[2:09:12]

One of them gave Muloch one.

So they think city on the city at the edge of the world is the same as Moloch, and another one gave Harvest of Chiros and Moloch one and Volcano.

So they think city at the edge of the world is equivalent to all of them.

Well, you know.

Is it Fraser?

Him and his underdog.

I mean, there's there's really no accounting for taste.

Some people like things from Blake 7 that may be different from what we like about it.

In Simon, I was listening to Ultraworld and case in point. for God's sake.

You all went a bit crazy on that one.

There's one every year.

I stand by everything I say.

So, I think that's only because if you were going to be a Bleak 7 villain. you would be an ultra.

[2:10:16]

Look, I will I will just clear up.

It's definitely not Fraser, because Fraser did tell us that he voted 3 for the last 2 stories and none of those lines have both have a...

Fraser would let us down that badly.

Could there be tactical voting?

Could people be down voting an episode?

That's quite good, but they don't want it to win.

Yes, I think there's a lot of technical voting there, actually.

Yeah.

And look, it's perfectly fair.

It's all in good fun.

I'm not angry. angry at any of you listeners just slightly worried.

Disappointed.

Disappointed.

It does have the worst postcoital scene of any, you know, TV show ever where they're both just lying on slabs, like 3 or 4 metres apart from one another.

But it does have the phenomenal scene where they start and it just goes to the close-up of the Liberator Prong, which is amazing.

That makes me laugh every single time.

[2:11:19]

Via Lorrimer knew what he was doing there.

I will also say that one of these people did give us the wonderful idea of bringing back Siobhan.

So they're off the hook.

Right.

So heading into our favourite non-servoland villain, I will start again by just rapidly going through the options who got fewer than 10 votes.

So this is actually the category where someone gave a special shout out to Babe and the Butcher's Home County's Hair as a villain for one vote.

The Ultra's also got one vote.

The fan got two.

Vinnie got three.

Moloch got four.

Shrinker got four.

So that's our that's our bottom 6 plus babe in the butcher's hair.

[2:12:19]

Now, in order of appearance, that leaves our top four, as section leader Clegg, Babe and the Butcher, Anna slash Bartholomew from Rubens of Death and the Alien from Sarcophagus.

Right.

Do we want to find out who came 4th or who came first?

Let's go in ascending order, but clearly number one should be Clegg from PowerPoint.

Yeah, I know.

Right?

So Peter's saying, Clegg, who else is wishing for Clegg for number one?

Yeah, me too.

Well, I voted for Clegg, so okay.

So, Simon, who are you wishing for for number one?

I'd be wishing for Clegg as well, but I think it might be the alien from sarcophagus.

That wouldn't be a bad outcome.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

And Pete, who are you wishing for for number one?

I can't remember now.

I was torn between Clegg and the alien, actually, so I can't remember which one I put.

Did you pay for bollock?

Who was it on that episode who observed how did he put the bracelet on?

[2:13:22]

I can make a bloody picture.

It's the kind of thing Colin.

So very well, let's do it.

With 14 votes, it's the alien from sarcophagus.

Okay.

You see?

Okay.

With 18 votes.

It's section leader Clegg.

And I think what may have done him in is, you know, he was also a semi-popular choice for keeping him on the show and having him join the crew.

So perhaps people don't see him so much as a villain.

Perhaps I don't know because this section didn't have a comments. area.

So that leaves our top 2 in no particular order as Baban and Anna.

So I'm going to ask you all again with the knowledge that those are our top two.

I'm going to go around and say, who do you want to be number one Pete?

Who do I want to be number one?

I should think Anna, and I feel disloyal, just saying that because I love Colin Baker, but Anna.

[2:14:24]

Okay?

Simon?

I'm going to have to say Anna as well because I think Cal Colin Bakers performance there will be too divisive to have him at number one.

Okay.

Nathan.

Yeah, I think for the same reason that I thought Rumours of Death would poll the best.

I think it would be Anna because, like, I like Colin's performances, Babin, I think it's really fun and I think it works in the tone of that episode, but Anna is, you know, what passes for a sophisticated and sort of well-motivated villain on Blake 7.

So I think it'll be her.

Great.

Cy?

Yeah, I think he's going to be Anna as well of the two.

But I think there are a lot of Babe and fans out there.

So it could still go that way.

And Peter.

Moloch.

Shock twist.

Magnificent.

Well, I can tell you, the 1st place got 38 votes to 2nd place is 29.

[2:15:28]

So it is a decisive victory.

And it's not a decisive victory for this panel.

It's Baban the Butcher in 1st place.

Maybe they recognise him from that other show.

Maybe that's it.

Brothers?

Brothers.

Oh, I'm so sorry. mispronounced that.

Bravo.

He is very good.

I don't really understand people who don't think he gives a good performance.

I think he gives a perfectly apt performance.

Oh no.

You say, I've never understood you, Simon.

He does what the script tells him.

Yeah, I think that's what the part wants.

No, but basically I see him acting.

I see him deciding how he is going to deliver alive.

Yeah.

I never feel.

I never feel, a proper performance is one where it feels like the actor is making up the lines as they...

[2:16:28]

That's mid-80s Doctor Who before, Simon.

No, but the best no, but the better performances, the better performances are the ones where, which is also linked with better scripts.

But I mean, look at the way sort of, you know, thinking of, you know, Black 70 type, people, the way Jackie Pierce delivers those lines is, as Justini, for instance, they feel like she's just making them up like Desari does as well.

So I'm telling you.

It just, I Collins performance is in this, it just does not feel real at all.

It feels like knowing, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Everything's too planned.

She used to call me babe thing where you can see him switching register. all that stuff and stuff like that.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you see it on his face.

It's just bad.

It's just bad.

Sorry, Colin.

Do we have any comments about Anna?

[2:17:29]

So, yeah, she's like a real character in a thriller.

You know?

That's what actually, you forget sometimes that if you're writing a tort thriller about some rebels who are going to a place to do some stuff and things like that.

That's exactly the kind of character that sits at the heart of it all.

Um, and like, uh, yeah, so I sort of really like that.

It's extraordinary, the lengths to which she goes, that character, you know, that she fakes an entire relationship with Avon and with Chescu.

You know, it's a really, really, like she's a big deal as a character and we spend the beginning of that episode making her a big deal with all those scenes with Shrinker and stuff.

It's like it is a pretty major character and a lot of the episode goes towards making her that big villain, I think.

Yeah, she's someone it's worth Avon being obsessed over.

If Avon, if Avon had had that obsession with her and she turned out to be a sort of fairly boring person.

If she'd been Z or bar.

[2:18:30]

Yeah.

And the fact that she's actually given a name like Anna, it's like, it's an very unterminational name.

Not a space name.

And she gets the other postcoital scene in this season, really, doesn't she?

postcoital hair.

I think you'll find Dana and Tarrant also...

It's overblast.

No, no, the earth moves for them.

It's not necessarily post...

Is this the human bonding ritual?

Yeah, I was kind of worried about putting Anna in there at all because I think, you know, there's a reading where she's not a villain.

Like, she's she's like Avon.

She's done what she has had to do to keep herself alive. and to resist, you know, and but so I'm actually very pleased to see that she's done as well as she has done because I think a lot of our listeners might just go, oh, I don't really feel comfortable calling her a villain, but it's kind of like she is when she isn't.

[2:19:31]

And it would have felt wrong not including her, in my opinion.

Now, we go on to the final question of the survey and the most important one, you know, the one that is going to determine the entire course of how we remember Blake 7 series C.

I cannot overestimate the importance.

You know, this could even destroy relationships within the podcast, I think.

Certainly, properly relations.

Yes, that's right.

It's not which one of us is the audience favourite.

No.

No.

Oscar that at the end of series D. So we asked our listeners, and this was a question where they could choose more than one option, and 9 listeners actually did. choose more than one option.

Milas, Nathan, or is Nathan feeling okay?

[2:20:32]

Because Nathan wanted to pose the question.

Milas or his stupid fucking brother.

Now, I can tell you that one of these got 72 votes.

Yeah, no I'm fine.

Was that it?

Oh, no, it's asking you.

I am fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So is Nathan feeling okay?

So, Nathan, our listeners really care about your welfare.

But I still fucking hate Milas and his stupid brother and I'm glad they're dead.

Yeah, we've actually, we've actually had a GoFundMe to send you to a nice place.

It's not a rehab centre. says that on the brochure.

Is it near a volcano?

It is near a volcano.

And they give you a lovely one jacket with straps that go on the back. then they take out your organs.

So one last whip around before I reveal the results of Milis or Nathan.

[2:21:36]

So Simon, who do you think?

Is the audience's preference out of Milas or Nathan?

I thought it was the, is Nathan feeling all that?

Oh, well, we know that's far and away.

So we're now talking about 2nd place.

Nealless.

Milas, thank you, Si.

Nathan.

Nathan, Peter.

I think Nadine, because I think he wafted in and out of shot more effectively than Milas.

Nathan, thank you.

Nathan.

Well, yeah, I mean, at least we don't have to listen to Nathan delivering lines.

I guess.

So he...

Are you sure that he's not your brother, Nathan?

Nathan, Nathan.

Thank you, Anne Pete.

I think, yeah, Nathan adds a sinister layer to the performance that, you know, the casual observer might not pick up at 1st watch, but...

It's afterworthy.

It's a shame they had to get rid of that art because the actor wasn't available for terminal.

[2:22:39]

Yeah, who do they?

You should have added to the crew, Milas and his brother.

Funnily enough, no one wrote that in.

So with a score of 19 votes, It's Nathan.

Yay.

And Milas on a respectable 13.

So there we are.

So there only remains to be asked.

The question, and you know, bear in mind that Mark and Fraser, who haven't seen series D, are going to be listening to this, what are our hopes for the future?

And I'll start with you, Peter.

I would like to see a script from Ben Steed about why women are inferior to men, but I don't think we'll get that.

[2:23:40]

I'd like to hear Aurak say, join us, Sulin.

We can fulfil your every desire.

I'm not sure that will happen.

And I'd probably like a character called Og.

Let's hope that happens.

This all seems very unlikely.

Nathan.

I'd like everyone to change clothes a bit less often.

You never tell who anyone is in this show.

I'd like them all to wear variations on blue and gray, so in long shot, you know, who the hell are you looking at?

Thank you very much Sorry.

Oh, I think definitely a light entertainment version of the end theme tune code down the sport.

And if there are words and we could get Stephen Pacey to sing it, I think that would go down a treat that will absolutely fit the feel of this next series absolutely perfectly.

[2:24:47]

You realise you're giving Fraser an aneurism right now and mine.

Pete.

I will, I think it is going to be exciting.

Should there be another series that they've not got the best spaceship in the bloody universe anymore?

How on earth are they going to cope?

That will be a very interesting challenge for them to have to rise to.

Yeah, and I just think I love...

Perhaps.

And I think it's just great that throughout it all, Avon and Villa, they know that they've always really got each other's backs, and amongst everything, we know, there's a character, the villa knows he can always trust and rely on Avon when maybe not everyone else can, and I'm sure that's always going to be the case.

Thank you very much.

And Simon.

What I think they should do is redesign the logo of the program because, you know, we haven't had that yet.

We've had a new opening credits without Paul Darrow's face in it, so he missed out there.

[2:25:52]

No, I'm also looking forward to them not having the best spaceship in the universe, but somehow they still have a spaceship which has teleport capacity.

So obviously that was a that was a deal breaker if they didn't get a teleporter.

I think my hopes for the future is that Tarant is less antagonistic.

Like he, you know, he can still, he can still have opinions that he can still voice dissent, but I think, um, they've tried a little bit too hard to make him a foil for Avon.

I think the idea of them having less sophisticated technology is great and some drama can come out of that instead.

I also really want to see Dana, um, more effectively used and more proactive because I think whatever Skerrick of it she's given, um, Gisette Simon does so well with it, you know, it's like those directors we talk about, who elevates scripts, Gisette Simon elevates whatever Dana is given.

[2:26:53]

So if you actually proactively give her good stuff, it's going to be pretty fantastic.

And yeah, I, after 3 seasons of really elaborate sets and really elaborate design, I would actually like to see the design be a little bit more industrial for where we're going.

And, you know, also an episode with a really questionable age gap.

Yeah.

Why not?

The golf running season-long story arc for Calli.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Lots more for Callie to do.

And you know what?

Why don't why don't we like bring in some really big guest stars?

but have them recur throughout the season and have that be able to happen?

I mean, I think the real question for the show is where do you go from here?

Because you've just had a season containing, I think, 8 episodes of the best science fantasy I've ever seen on TV and 5 episodes which weren't, you know, 8 episodes which were.

[2:27:55]

Just written by 2 undisputed masters of the show, writing 6 fantastic scripts between them.

How do you go up from that?

Well, in fact, we go up.

Let's see.

Well, that's all the time we have for our series C retrospective, as ever.

Thank you all very much for listening, and we know these episodes are among our longer ones, so I just want to give a shout out.

Also right now to Pete, who's going to be editing this in the next 10 minutes to get it out.

And doing nothing else.

Yes, that's right.

But I think with some month's work, she could be made spaceworthy.

Just about.

Also, a very special thank you to our guest panellists who we've had this series.

[2:28:55]

James Corray Smith, Adam Richard, Una McCormack, Hannah Cooper, Rob Valentine, and Zoe Thompson, thank you all very much for joining us on our journey.

You will hear some of those voices again.

Next series as well as some new ones as we embark on series D. We'll be taking a bit of a break.

In the meantime, you can find our back catalogue on our website, maximumpowerpodcast.com.

We will also find links to our other podcasts, Trap One, Flight Through Entirety, Jody Indeterra, Startling Barbara Bain, Bondfinger, a hamster with a blunt penknife, the BJBJ game show, untitled Star Trek project, and the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.

Until next time, if you encounter some space fungus, see your doctor right away.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Bye bye.

They were mine.

I felt them die.

[2:30:00]

Switching to manual.

Maximum power on all drives.

Maximal power.

Oh, that was fun.

That was fantastic, Bob.

Yes.

There we go.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

It was me.

We could have watched.

We could have watched aftermath to Dawn of the gods.

Okay, I'm hitting done on my recording. as well.

Same.

Yep.

So we can absolutely do that now, and it's definitely Mr. Bronson in Volcano.

Who is it?

Oh, yeah, yeah, you're not.

Yeah.

It's Michael Goff.

Sorry, Michael Goffin volcano.

Yes.

Edit that to make me sound clever, please.

You're ready to get Pete.

So you made yourself.