Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast who knows it's not a good weekend unless you're getting smashed right in the asteroid.
I'm Brendan.
Conrad.
I'm James And I'm Mark.
Well, Avon's disastrous decision to dance with a space rock leads everyone to tell him, I told you so, before heading to Casper, the friendly space planet, home to a gang of space bikers and their scientific space advisor, Dr. Paxton, the one previous careful owner of the Star Drive.
Now, Conrad, as this is your 1st time joining us, Would you mind giving us and the listener at home, a quick crash course in your experience of Blake 7?
Just bearing in mind that Mark has not seen the rest of the series from this point.
That's fine.
I won't talk about the big song and dance number at the end where Stephen Pacey finally does sing the theme tune.
So I was 7 years old. when Blake's haven't started and I watched every single episode until right until the end of it.
And I think I've probably watched the series over the years.
Like once a decade, I'll watch the whole thing through.
So, you know, I'm probably on my 4th or 5th, you know, rewatch. and that's as far as it goes.
I have very, I was very excited about the Blue Peter teleport bracelets and bracelet make, but not quite enough to actually make the thing that had a friend at school that was mad about it.
I remember he had the magazines and had posters on his walls that I was very fascinated by.
But that's it, apart from a couple of, a couple of, I did meet and work with a couple of the cast members later on, but yeah, I'm, so I'm a, I'm a fan, but not a, not a Doctor Who fan, but uh, sort of level fan.
But when I think it was during lockdown when we used to have a little Zoom group, Colin Neil 1st suggested doing, oh, we should do a Blake 7 podcast, and I don't know why.
But the 1st thing I said is, oh, I'll do the space rats.
So presumably that that was an image that had stuck into my 10 year old brain.
So it was the 1st thing I said, so that's why I'm here.
Right.
Fantastic.
So this is the episode with the space rats, but before we get to them, we start with a very tense scene aboard Scorpio.
And for me, this is a big highlight of the episode.
It's kind of set up as, you know, this is the 1st time that all 5 of them are sort of working in simpatico since Sulin kind of threw a lot in with them at the end of episode two.
Mark, what do you think of this scene?
Yeah, I really liked it.
I do like episodes where all the crew are involved, you know, which is I liked last weeks.
There was some of the crews left on the ship and kind of not as involved.
So yeah, I like it when they're all together.
I did worry a little bit once the ship had hit the asteroid and it was damaged and there was no power.
I was a bit worried it was going to be a bottle episode because I'm not really very excited about bottle episodes of TV shows and I thought it was going to be them sort of drifting for an hour, working together to solve various problems and avoid federation patrol ships and that kind of thing.
So I was quite pleased when that was resolved relatively quickly.
In a way, it is a bottle episode.
Because Villa at least pretends to hit the bottle. to get out of repairing the ship.
Yeah, I think I think it's something Michael Keating sort of says about the character is that, you know, a lot of people are remembering this, being a drunk, but at least half the time when he's being a drunk, he's not actually drunk, and it is just this ploy of, I want people to underestimate me.
And yeah, I was reading a reference book for this episode and it's like, oh yeah, and Villa's drunk because it's the 4th season.
So of course he's drunk. but he's not actually.
No.
And that was very clever.
It was a very clever.
It caught me out, it caught us all out, and it's it's terribly funny, and there's the, you know, there's a lot of tension, but there's a lot of energy, and it was, I was very impressed with how funny this episode was.
I mean, I loved the bit where Avon is just like, initiate the backup system and slave is like, I'm very sorry about this, but that was the backup system.
It's really funny.
There was lots of zingers.
It was terribly funny.
Everybody has a lot of great business in this episode.
Villa, like, for example, has some fabulous kind of weaselies, sort of villa moments, and also all that sort of villas, sort of cowardice, but, you know, it's based in experience.
Like he's experienced what the space rats are like.
And he's, you know, like he's, he's tried to say, no, we shouldn't go there.
These guys are maniacs, but also it's, it's kind of delivered in that sort of fabulous Michael Keating kind of, he's not quite serious about what he's saying.
It's kind of like rye and tongue in cheek.
It's, it's really, um, it's really quite enjoyable to watch.
A bit of an indictment.
I thought, the time that it was made that when he's trying to sell to his crewmates that he's drunk, the 1st thing he does is sleaze on one of the female characters.
He does that.
He goes to that 1st before he then, you know, starts to start to talk about the other stuff, which suppose he's more of a 70s, maybe affectation of a drunk character.
But then they forgive him.
When it turns out he's not drunk, he was just being sleazy for effect to trick Avon and Tarrant into going and repairing the preparing the hole in the hole.
As soon as he's sort of like, no, I was just drinking water, they're like, oh, yay.
And they just let him get away with it.
They don't call him out on it.
They don't take the piss out of him.
They just like, actually yeah, we'll pay that.
It's such a, it's such a good episode for him and like he's, he's really on absolute, amazing form.
He's so funny.
Like, it does, it takes a lot for me to actually laugh out loud at something, but he did actually make me laugh out loud, as you say, James Wiz.
He was describing, you know, the danger on the planet and he's that joke.
You know, all they live for is sex and violence, booze and speed.
And the fellows are just as bad.
And I just laughed out loud.
A little bit of a gated joke, but that is a perfectly constructed and perfectly executed joke.
And also, when we later on get down and see the space rats, there are women, you know, very, very often in Blake 7, it's like, we'll get, we'll get to a planet and they're men, men, men, men, men, and maybe a woman.
And if it's Ben Steed, someone hits them in the face, you know.
And tells them that they are, you know, they're a woman.
They should know their place.
Okay.
Power's gone now he can't hurt us anymore.
I'm on power.
Oh, you were.
You were.
Now, something I particularly love about that scene is I think it's very, very cleverly shot.
We've got David Sullivan Proudfoot directing.
He directs 3 episodes this season, so he directed Traitor last week.
And he's directing Star Drive now, and I think he really knows how to get the best out of this flight deck set.
It's very long and narrow, and he shoots it from the side and sort of Darrow is between the consoles, giving the orders and what have you.
And then when everything goes wrong, and Dana, Villa, and Tarrant are all saying to him, I told you so, they all sort of pass him.
It's very theatrical and very Shakespearean, and they turn the lights down to sell this problem.
Uh, yeah, I think the studio bits on Scorpio are incredibly well directed in this episode.
It's the 1st time we see the front viewscreen, if not the real one as well.
So you get more of a sense of what the space is like and what they're looking at when they're flying and manipulating the controls and things like that.
Yeah, I've got a problem with this set hugely.
I think with the liberator is obviously such a beautiful design, you know, outside and inside.
It's very distinctive, but it's also very 70s.
So I can see why they want to update it and this is very, very 80s.
Um, the models, like uh, Ron Thornton's model work is just amazing.
I think everybody would agree that the, the, just the way they shoot it, the actual models themselves, the Xenon base, it's all absolutely beautiful, but the interior, and I'm, you know, I'm sure maybe people have picked up on this in the 1st episode, but the interior is just very, It's it's just very flat.
There's no levels to it.
There's no depth to it.
There is no colour to it.
There's no detail to it. very blank.
You know, they are frequently in shots.
They're just like just lots of blank boring spaces.
At one point, Avon turns away to kind of brood on his own.
And it's a bit ridiculous because he's brooding to completely blank wall.
It is very of the time, that colour scheme of gray and yellow.
I remember that in the 80s in clothes and design.
And I understand it was, it was designed to sort of make it easier to direct.
And I'm like, well, yeah, David does really kind of bring it to life.
But also I don't think it's doing what they want it to do because in the descriptions of it.
Villoromos said that it would like post-alien, they want to make it darker, more cramped, obsolete and functional.
I'm like it's functional, but it's none of those other things at all.
It looks like a radiator show room.
Terribly unexciting.
It's not quite flat.
It's corrugated.
There was a building when I was at Sydney University, there's a building at the university called the transient building, which was basically, uh, corrugated fibre board, maybe, or fibreglass, sorry, that reminds me.
It was this sort of gray gray building.
It was built in the, I believe in the 1950s.
It was still there when I was at university in the 1990s.
And it was called the transient building.
But that always reminded me of the inside of Scorpio.
It looks like, it looks to me, Scorpio looks like collarbond roof.
Yeah, yeah.
But he does direct it well in that, but he has to cheat it in order to get that nice shot of the five.
They all just have to come back and come forward and stand behind the other people's chairs.
It's like, come on.
This isn't framing your main people.
I mean, this is the design.
I was like, you know, I just wanted to know who's designed it.
It's Roger Cann, did it with Mary Ridge, but he also designed Nightmare of Eden from Doctor Who, which was one of my absolute favourite stories, but there is also a flatness. and sort of blankness to us.
It does feel like a studio.
Grey and yellow and brownness as well.
There is, yeah.
On the direction.
The other influence maybe Star Wars.
I noticed there was a Star Wars style wipe transition as the as the ship is coming back into land in the base.
It goes from top to bottom, which I think I'd never noticed in Blake 7 before, but it felt like it's probably influenced by that as well as, they say, alien and other things.
Well, then so is Scorpio, really.
I mean, Scorpio looks like it could be some sort of uh, baby star destroyer, painted brown, orange.
You know, another thing is the lighting of the set.
When, you know, everything goes wrong, we get the dim lighting.
We get dim lighting in some other episodes, but it just means it looks like the lighting designer, Warwick Fielding, who handles all bar one episode this season.
It looks like his default is, you know, the typical BBC default of light the hell out of everything.
Let no shadow shine.
Yeah, it's it's a bit of a shame.
But, you know, it is kind of what we're seeing in Doctor Who at the time. when you said Nightmare of Eden, Conrad, I did just have a quick look and no, he doesn't do the lighting of Nightmare of Eden.
But he does do the lighting on stones of blood, which, of course, has what?
A gray spaceship and power of Kroll, which has what?
A bolterwood refinery.
It's also great.
Ocean gray and military gray.
Moving on from there.
We do get a nice little bit of lighting for a particularly boring scene where Orex scene of the week is just to say, I'm far too bored with you all to explain what's happening.
Watch this video that you've shot at 10,000 frames a second, frame by frame, and then maybe we can talk.
Thoughts.
He does get more and more like his creator.
Yes, as the show goes on, he literally just starts behaving like an irascible old bastard more and more and more.
I mean, he's a rascal, he's a rascal bastard to start with.
But at least he actually does his job by by now, he's just like, no, you're stupid.
I'm not, I don't have time for this.
Go off.
Watch this video 10,000 frames a 2nd seems like a lot as well.
I was looking at like 4 K is 60 frames a second, is that right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, I think the highest frames per 2nd I've worked with on a show.
I think we shot something and we had to do a special camera for it.
I think we shot something at 6000 frames a second. for one show, and that was for a Japanese swordmaster slicing a baseball being fired at him from a from a baseball firing machine.
So the idea that Scorpio with its clapped out engine, it's weapons that can't handle any federation ship.
It's just had a teleporter fixed last week.
It's like, yeah, but you know what?
Dorian, he liked a bit of photography, you know what I mean?
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
And yeah, so he's fitted the front of the ship.
Or is it the, actually, is it the back of the ship?
Where they, he's fitted somewhere on the ship?
They're literally looking out of their asses. exploding the ships.
And of course, Avon there does zoom, enhance, zoom, enhance.
I want to see that little thing on his helmet, if you'll pardon the expression.
But I kind of love how they they they undermine that. with, you know, it's like, it'll take hours, and we get a few seconds of Dana looking at it, and then a wipe, and then a few seconds of soon, then looking at it.
Oh, there it is.
I hadn't realised until this episode that they kept Dorian's bass, because they were desperately trying to escape from it in the 1st episode, and then they've never been back or mentioned it, I don't think.
And then they went, although they didn't get out of the ship.
Well, they did to get Aurak, but he didn't get out of the ship.
So I never had any sense that they weren't just living aboard the new ship at all.
Yeah, you did kind of get a sense of that not really being quite clear.
Um, because at the end of power, They basically, you know, like you assume they're going, they're leaving.
They're taking the ship and they're going.
And then in the next episode, there's no mention of the base, really.
And so it's not really clear that this is their base now.
But then, I think that probably ties in with the, the, the way we don't really know how the ship works or how big the ship is or, I mean, does it, does it have bunk beds?
Is there a sleeping quarters, is there?
Or is it just a sort of something that they hoon around in, um, trying to overthrow the Federation?
I think now you say, look, I remember being confused at the time, as in, oh, they've got their new spaceship.
I've got my head around that, but then occasionally they'd pop back somewhere.
So I often kind of got a bit confused about where, where they, what this base is for or where they, where they, where they live exactly.
It was confusing to me at the time and it still is a little bit, to be honest.
I'm still not really sure.
Yeah, I mean, like maybe these episodes were supposed to be in a different order.
Or maybe there was some dialogue that was cut out of some of the other episodes.
In episode one, they are talking about needing a base of operations.
So, um, you know, like it's seeded there, but then in the 2nd episode they're desperately trying to escape it.
Why wouldn't they just always take Aurac with them?
I know he's a pain in the ass, but like he would be useful.
You just really pissed them off.
Fusel to help them.
So they just went, oh, screw you.
We're going to leave you behind on the base.
So we then do find out. that, oh, they must have a star drive, and it must be designed by Dr. Paxton, and, you know, we know who Dr. Paxton is, thanks to Aurak.
But we also get a little bit of world building because Aurak's like, okay, this tells us that the Federation have been rebuilding their shipyards, but they've lost their top designer, which is a funny line as well as being exposition.
But we do now head to the planet Casper to look for Dr. Paxton.
So I would like to talk about Dr. Paxton as played by Barbara Shelley.
What are our thoughts?
Mark, let's start with you.
Yeah, I thought she was very good.
I wasn't familiar with the actor, but having looked her up.
She obviously has an incredible pedigree of kind of vintage and genre TV.
Yes.
She was a she was a screen queen.
Yes, yeah.
So it's a bit like getting Ingrid Pitt.
Yes.
And she's kind of playing it in a similar way, in a way, to in Group Hit in Warriors of the Deep.
So like underplaying it quite a lot.
Yeah, which is probably what you want from this character, but not what you expect from, Barbara Shelley.
It's a good contrast, isn't it, with the space rats?
And, um, she Yeah, she obviously comes across that she's very long suffering.
All she wants to do. is make engines for spaceships and just be left in peace to do it.
And then the space rights are just quite an unusual bunch, aren't they?
that have employer or keep a prisoner or whatever.
Because a couple of things that aren't answered here, and maybe maybe we got onto this, but I think Villa says the space rats are based on an ancient earth cult.
And normally when they say things like that in science fiction, it's something we can relate to in the present day, but I didn't get what they, what they were supposed to be, whether it was like punk rockers or whatever, whatever kind of, I suppose, moral panic was going on.
Hell's Angels.
Yeah.
And then the leader says, as you well know, I'm not a space rat, but then we don't learn what he was.
So I was wondering whether he's supposed to be another person who was part of the Federation and fled it and was kind of in hiding and decided to become a space rat.
It seems to have been lost somewhere in the in the script. editing process.
That's what it doesn't really kind of explain why he's involved who he is.
Because he certainly looks like a space rat.
Yeah.
Also, Dr. Paxton's assistant just disappears between scenes, he just, he's just gone. nobody cares.
She's escaped with the crew.
And he's never mentioned again.
I imagine him getting back from his tea break and everything's just gone to shit and everyone's a big hole in the wall.
The engine's missing.
Everybody's dead.
I was like, they're way 2 minutes.
Heating up this fish in the microwave.
I think just to go back to what you're saying, Mark, about the space rats, because this was something, this was the hook that made my brain just, it was the 1st thing my brain pulled out when you, when they said they were going to do a Blake 7 podcast, I just went space routes, because it was obviously something that stuck in my head.
And actually, when they sort of zoomed in and saw the emblem on, on, on his helmet.
I was just like, and the way they talk about them.
They do give them they do talk, talk them up, a really good game.
So, and I remember as a kid thinking, wow, this lot really are sort of terrifying.
And unlike you, Mark, I was a little bit, it's not immediately obvious.
They said an earth sect of unbelievable viciousness and I was a bit like, um, it, it's got to be the Hell's Angels.
Yeah, I mean, that's the closest thing we've got.
Also, when they mention space chopper, you know, a chopper is that motor, that sort of easy rider motorbike, like, which is, you know, a Harley Davidson, but they look, well, here's the thing.
You sort of say they sort of look like punks with the mohawks and stuff, but it's, they look like a BBC version of punks, which would, this is now, it's now trickled down to the mainstream and now a punk is just a sort of comedy figure.
I think a couple of months after, in fact, a month after this, I think.
Kenny Everett's television show had Gizzard puke, who was a very loveable, uh, you know, easygoing punk that would just come on and tell some jokes and wander off in a sort of that punk wig.
It was a very, it was a sort of comedy character, but they don't actually look like punks.
I was just like, what do they remind me of?
And they reminded me of a band who were coming up the following year, Sieg Sieg Sputnik, who were new wave.
So this is a sort of, It doesn't quite land as anything specific because it sort of Hell's Angels sort of via BBC punk and actually sort of, they look like highlighter pens.
They wear bike leathers.
You can see it under their costumes, but they are just so.
They look more like they should be in Doctor Who than Blake 7 a bit.
And, you know, Mad Max would have happened, you know, so instead you can see in 2000 AD, you can sort of see what they're shooting for, you know, Doctor Who would later do Nord, uh, Vandal of the Roads, you know, a few years later, but then again, that's really, really sort of watered down by that time.
But they, they just suffer from that same problem as they should be sort of young, rough and dirty, how I like them.
But they're, of course, of just, they're just, they're older.
They're clean.
They.
I mean, you know, they sort of chew gum and are a bit cockney, but they're just sort of immaculate and so it doesn't quite realise when they're inside.
But when they're outside, they are very exciting and obviously there's some good action sequences.
But I think that's where, I think that's what they were shooting for and I think that's where we ended up.
Hmm.
I just have to wonder if maybe like one of writer Jim Follett's neighbours had got a motorcycle and it was really loud and he was just really, really annoyed with this sort of thing.
So he's doing, right, my neighbours are hell's angel, and you know, his neighbour's like a retired teacher from Kettering or something who's just decided, I'm retired.
I want my bike now.
It also doesn't like because Hail's Angels in the US were known as a sort of, you know, a sort of quite a criminal organisation.
But actually in the UK.
You know, occasionally every village had like occasionally some Hell's Angels thing would, and they were sort of, they, they were just men who tinkered with their bikes and like real ale.
You know, they were just like, it's like seeing the salvation army or an Avon lady.
They were just sort of... they're fairly harmless.
So again, it doesn't have that punch here.
I suppose the other thing we've had in Doctor Who, in terms of being flamboyantly dressed and enjoying speed and different vehicles and a bit of violence is pert we.
So maybe there's some sort of inspiration there.
And they share a similar taste for the same vehicle, which I've learned isn't a quad bike.
It's an 80 be an all-terrain vehicle.
Oh, there you go.
Three wheel things, which I Googled about 5 minutes before we got on this show.
Well, speaking of, the space buggy that they're driving is actually one of the space buggies from space 1999.
Of course.
An amazing fact.
Was this a buggy they would draw?
I don't know Space 99 is all of it.
It would be one they regularly...
Yeah.
So Barbara Bain may have sat in the exact spot that Barbara Shelley didn't because that's not Barbara Shelley on location.
No, which is...
Which is why they give it the massive cloak.
Look, for the hell of it, let's just say it's Stuart Fell.
Why not?
I wonder why they did that.
Yeah.
It was to avoid paying her a location fee, and that's also why the space rats have helmets so you can have different artists on location compared to with the studio.
I must confess, I did love the space rats lair.
Like it has a pile in the middle, like you would expect rats to have.
It's made of those couches that keep turning up.
However, instead of just putting them against the wall, they've actually gone. put them in the middle of the room.
We put some blankets over them.
We'll make the room look lived in.
I think that's the one thing that's really successful about the space rats.
And Conrad.
I know you're a huge Batman 66 fan.
This feels like a Batman villain lair, just without the camera tilt.
Do you know what?
That's exactly right.
That is exactly right.
And they've, but, and those, those, the trattza sofas.
It was great to see those because you couldn't not have those, but like you said, the way they've arranged it and just covered it in space pillows means that you can get a bit of rough and tumble on them.
So it's quite good. you can do some lounging.
And that was quite exciting.
At one point, I think they looked like they were biting their head off something.
That was quite exciting.
Yeah, they were eating something that looked alike.
That was quite tough.
Aren't those quite expensive sofas?
How did the BBC afford them?
Because they would just keep spray painting them to use them on other productions.
There's only one to use the entire budget of same cars. one year on that sofa.
Caldor, Carfell, you know, you just use these things wherever there's space luxury or decadence.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, it is the same ones every time.
We don't find out what the space rats mean when they say bend them.
Yeah, you're right.
That feels like it's missing.
Yeah.
I just took it to me in a sort of torture.
Like, yeah, bend them till they break.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no, no. nothing sexual.
I was gonna say.
Oh, shame.
Yeah, such...
Calling people gooks just sounds horrifically offensive as well.
Yeah.
Actually, that's, Mark, that, that caught my ear too, because I, I, the 1st time I ever heard that was when I saw Apocalypse now in, you know, university and it's, you know, it's American slang for typically Asian people, but basically anyone who isn't white.
And it comes from the word gobbledygook, as in talking gobbledygook, which came from, I think it comes from, like, an America, US senator a while ago who just used it.
It sounds a bit like a turkey gobble, like gobbledygook.
It just means sort of nonsense.
And then they extrapolated that to mean gook, as in somebody talks differently.
But it is an, it is a racial sort of slur.
I mean, it still is now in use by people as racial slower.
I mean, it's not as common, but it's like...
I mean, how did they think that was appropriate?
And I say, like, they were clearly making a point that these people are racists.
Um, No, it's just, it's just one of those, it's one of those space words.
Like, why not a space word?
Like, a destiny, they don't call them geeks like something.
Like a snoop.
I really sort of see it with the Vietnam War from movies, but maybe, I suppose, in Britain, maybe there hadn't been that many Vietnam war films at that point.
I don't think it hits on English ears as vividly.
It doesn't.
So I think I think to them perhaps it is just a bit more of a vague word.
So it doesn't have that weight here, I don't think.
Yeah, more like kook maybe is what they were aiming for.
Like, but I wanted something spacey, so they added a G, either sort of K. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this episode.
I had always remembered it. as much like a lot of series D. as being kind of pants.
Um, you know, like the ship had been destroyed at the end of the last season.
Uh, you know, the set's not great on the new ship.
Um, It all feels a bit like, oh, we cancelled it and then we wanted to renew it for another 13 episodes.
So it had enough episodes for syndication in the US.
And it kind of just felt like maybe they should have stopped it at the end of series C.
But, I actually think there's a lot going for this episode.
It's a bit paddy.
It lacks a B plot, which probably makes it feel a bit loose.
Um, flabby, maybe, like, you know, they're like, they're trying to pad it out because there's not quite enough script, but the ideas in it.
I really quite enjoy.
Uh, like it, it has, it has some interesting ideas, but then, you know, it's, it's a, it's a Jim Follett script.
And Jim Follett.
Whatever you think of his writing, comes up with some really interesting ideas.
Look at Dawn of the Gods.
Look at his own sort of original works.
They are quite interesting, bizarre sci-fi concepts.
Yeah.
This episode is fun.
Like it's really fun.
Like I said, it's very much appeal to 10 year old me.
This was terribly exciting.
And as you said earlier, Mark, there is a lot of, I mean, we've mentioned a couple of alien things in the design, but like there's a lot of Star Wars in here.
A lot.
You know, they it starts off with a Scorpio doing the overhead show.
I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so let me just get this out the way.
So 1st of all, there's a huge overhead shot of a spaceship going overhead, using a giant asteroid to hide behind, you know, Empire came out the year before.
The wipes, the use of the wipes are just so Star Wars.
It's ridiculous.
The shot of Scorpio going into the Xenon base, you know, left to right, going through that sort of letterbox slots exactly the same shot as a millennium falcon going into the Death Star thing.
I mean, and just even the visual, just like being on a sandy planet with your binoculars while another alien is out, they're about to get you.
Those are the ones I've got for now.
Thank you very much.
Though I did, I did notice the, like, the cheat on the, on the ship coming back to the Zenon base.
The angles are not quite right. sort of coming towards the slot and then they cut because it's evidently going to crash into the side of the mountain just above above the opening.
But, um, yeah, no, I, I, I, I agree with you, Conrad. it's this whole season. though is very much influenced by Star Wars.
Um, You know, Star Wars had come out, what, sort of during the making of or the broadcast of series B?
Yeah.
So, It's surprised that it takes the mental series D to really be influenced by that.
But I think they do quite a good job on a BBC budget of trying to match that sort of style and direction when they don't have, you know, emotionally controlled cameras.
I wonder if, like, it took so long to get there because way back in series A, we talked about the fact that, you know, David Maloney had these model shots specially done to be featured across the season and the directors complained.
I wonder if now Vera Lorimer's come along and, you know, Star Wars with Empire coming out in 1980 has proved it's not just a flash in the pan.
People do go to the cinema to see these gorgeous effects, and I wonder if the alorimer was able to leverage that in the 18 months we've had between seasons to say, no, we are going to shoot models as their own thing.
The Scorpio is its own character in the show.
You know, I wonder if he really pushed for that because, yeah, we do have this element that we've had to bring back this series from the dead.
And I think Villorimer has pushed the boat out in saying, okay, rather than just do more of the same.
What can we do differently?
And one of those things he does differently is it's kind of weird in that we do have this sort of flattened drab set and design going on, but at the same time, there's a uniformity to it.
There's a style to it different to what came before.
And in terms of this particular episode.
Like, I can easily look at it and go, this is very slight.
This is quite padded, but the bad Epps.
Actually, bad is not even the right word.
The less satisfying episode series D, don't plunge the depths of the less satisfying episodes of the 1st 3 series. for me.
Now, whether this episode is padded or not brings me to the next thing I'd like to talk about, which is we get the crew split on 2 missions.
Villa and Dana are sent down as bait.
And because we are still in the part of the season where Su Lin's part is originally written for Cali, Su Lin has this big moral objection to sending them down as bait where Avon and Tarrant are like practically giggling at the idea.
And then Avon, Sulin, and Tarrant go down for their own mission.
And I think possibly the funniest part of this episode is Avon running into the front of a shot and standing and posing and in the in the background, Terrence looking at the tracker and standing and posing. and Su Lin's facing another direction and standing opposing and then Avon waves his arm and they run up behind him and they flank him.
And there's just some beautiful choreography in the quarry work this week.
Marvellous.
Yeah.
They wasted a whole day on that.
What we think about splitting splitting the crew up in this way.
I think it's a great setup, showing the ruthlessness of Avon to use people he's known for a number of years, at least, yeah.
As an actor, at least.
Yeah, they know each other relatively well.
Okay, you know, they've none of them have ever really trust each other that way because there's always been that sort of weird.
Um, dynamic, um, that's so great about Blake 7 is that they've been thrown together.
They don't quite trust each other, but they're comrades in some way.
Um, but it shows how ruthless he is that he's using um, Villa and Dana as bait.
And that's great setup for his actions at the end of the episode.
It kind of says, you know, he's willing to do this to his friends in inverted commas.
I mean, he's going a bit too far putting the entire ship in danger at the beginning of the episode by wanting to get within 50 yards of an asteroid to try and sneak through a system.
Um, and then he doesn't take any responsibility for that.
He just kind of moves from one crisis to another, kind of just pushing people into situations and throwing his weight around.
And then, um, you know, yeah, in the denim of the episode, like he does something which is just horrific.
And we will come back to that.
Mark?
Yeah, I agree with this stuff about even though.
And it reminded me a bit of Blake when the episode where Gand dies and you realise that he's just single-mindedness and the mission comes before everything and, you know, in that season, Blake had to then take stock a little bit, didn't he?
Because he'd had one of his crew killed, whereas you get a sense that Avon just isn't going to really kind of think twice about everything that's happened.
He nearly destroyed the ship and the crew, nearly sacrificed 2 of them, and then, uh, you know, as we say, what happens at the end with Dr. Plaxton.
He's really just kind of implacable, isn't he?
He's still such a magnetic character that you, you can't stop watching, but you realise that he's, He's not really trustworthy at all.
You can you can see the absence of Cali in this series. especially in this episode, uh, that, yeah, Kelly was the moral centre of the show.
Yeah, she has has principles and often is the one calling other characters out of their behaviour.
She certainly does that to Blake and Avon throughout this, throughout the series.
And her being gone.
And maybe that's a conscious decision on the part of the writers, or the script debtors, saying, This is what happens. when he doesn't have a moral compass.
And so when he doesn't have that person there, reining him in.
Like, that's an interesting place to go with the character.
I don't think.
You know, like, I don't know whether you can come back from that, though.
The Blake 7 program guy by Tony Atwood features an interview with Via Lorimer about the development of this series.
And this is what he says about the development of Avon.
The development of Avon's personality came through discussion of the scripts because we knew from the very start how it was going to end, and it became clear to me that we needed to make Avon gradually become hypertense, years and years of fighting, fighting, fighting with his life on the line, had produced symptoms of paranoia.
And I think Darrow plays that really well.
But if you don't know, that's what he's going for.
It seems a big leap from last series.
But after what he goes through at the end of terminal, it's entirely understandable.
To be honest, I think with my Star Wars head-on, and also just that, this episode's got a very comic book feel.
You know, someone, someone literally goes, talked about the gun, it goes bang, you go splat.
Um, you know, and there was one shot on the planet, which is, you know, it's a very common shot, but it's like, they're captured by space people.
I was like, oh, there's an identical shot in the original Buster Krab Flash Gordon.
It's like, this is, it just, it's, so basically, I was very caught up on the in the fun of it.
So Avon risking the, you know, the asteroid gambit.
It's very hand solo thing to do.
Sending Dana and Villa down to the space rats thing.
I was just like, oh, this is going to be gorgeous.
How fun.
So I'm not really worried about the moral complexity of it, until, of course, the end was Dr. Plaxton when you, like this is actually quite hard to get your head around.
Um, but the, the dynamic between them is, is, they're, they're perfect.
That is just very simply as 2 characters, you know, someone who's terribly like brave, terribly, you know, physically agile, with a coward is just a lovely combination.
So I just very much enjoy that contrast really.
So, for me, it's just fairly, fairly broad.
I'm just enjoying these characters, sort of interacting like this.
For a 2nd, when they teleported down, they're in different places, and Villa said he was stuck.
I thought, like, his arm was going to be in the rock, you know, like he'd, um, he'd sort of teleported, and, you know, the rock and his arm were kind of occupying the same space or something like that.
And I thought, oh, how are they going to, how are they going to get out of that?
That's, uh, that's a horrific thing to happen and it's, uh, but yeah, it's obviously kind of, it's just kind of a bit of comedy thing in the end, isn't it, that he's, he's stuck between the, uh, in the gap in the rock.
But then when he fumbles his gun as well, that is that's a proper kind of funny comedy moment, I thought.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a nice little touch that as well because, you know, Sulin does say that the teleport's inaccurate on this ship and they have only just installed it.
So the fact that they do come down sort of in separate locations, it goes, it goes back to way, way back to Cygnus Alpha when the 1st time Blake is sent down with the teleport, he sort of lands halfway up a slope and trips down because they haven't quite got it right yet.
I really love Dana and Villa together.
And I especially like when, you know, Villa, Villa is a coward, but I like it when he's also written as having some intelligence, even though he's getting stuff wrong.
Like saying, oh, you know, I love the whole thing with, oh, no, no, no, no one's watching on that camera and you cut to the screen.
Oh no, we're alone.
We cut to someone with binoculars.
It's it's kind of rocky horror-esque, really, isn't it?
And it kind of goes back to how Barbara Shelley is playing Dr. Paxton in that.
I think everyone's sort of seen the design for the space rats and the idea for the space rats and gone, okay, we have to play this completely seriously and reel because we have this weird fantastical element.
And I, and yeah, I don't just mean uh, Dr. Paxton's assistant just disappearing from the plot.
What's his name?
Napier.
Like Napier gets 2 or 3 lines and then as you say, Mark goes off for his lunch break.
He just napered out for a snack.
Don't say sorry.
Nice.
There is a bit where Atlam, the space rat, who isn't a space rat. does, you know, gives, gives Dr. Paxton a really sort of violent kiss and Napier looks very disgusted and disdainful.
I think perhaps that's when he just walks off and decides not to be on this program, I think.
He's like, oh, no, I'm not being in this.
It was like, oh, God, it's the speed of wishing by Ben Steen and stormed offset.
Speaking of the writing, look, I think this story is pretty well written. but there's a couple of bits of dialogue that unintentionally funny.
Or just don't make sense.
There's where Dana and Villa pretend to be her old students, which is amazingly great.
It actually gives Gisette Simon a chance to do a bit of comedy, which is they'd normally give that to Villa, but it's great that they give that to Gisette Simon, who's wonderful.
But there's a bit where Dr. Paxton says, I do not know these people, and Atlant says, do not or will not.
And she should be like, the 1st one?
It's supposed to be a threat, yeah.
I will not know these people.
It's supposed to be like, as in, you'll be dead.
Or is it you're refusing to know that?
Yeah, I always yeah, I always interpreted this.
Yeah, you will not know them.
You're choosing not to know them because you are trying to, yeah. doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
I will not know them.
You know, I guess is a disconnect between the script and the direction is that in what sense are those entrances concealed?
Yes.
I'm not concealed.
There's giant metal boxes, clearly sticking out of the side of a sand dune.
Yeah, 1st there was going to be sort of a hologram or perception filter type thing where the binoculars could see through it, but they're just there, aren't they?
It's just that you don't need the binoculars to see them.
It seemed like maybe the idea in the script was that they would be a bit more hidden.
Yeah, yeah, it's like concealed, concealed doorway and the designer's just gone, oh, doorway.
Okay, got you.
Yep, all right.
Speaking of concealed, maybe this is the planet of the concealed doorway because, like, maybe like, doors are invisible to people, because when they, when Avon and the gang are making a huge, great, big mammoth hole in the wall with so much noise, like a construction site, there's smud smoke, there's a light and it's literally right behind him and he's like, oh, where did you come from?
Like, dude.
Dude.
On that note, I think we can talk about the ending, which is one of the most sort of quoted moments of this series, and that is Dr. Paxton's, I hesitate to use the word sacrifice.
Dr. Plexen is sacrificed.
Yes, yes.
Wow, it's, it's kind of this weird thing in that, you know, the initial conception for the season is, okay, we've got a ship.
We've got a base.
We can accumulate scientists and allies, accept with the way BBC contracts work, we can't know that they're going to be around in 3 months to film a scene for the finale.
So we'll just kill them.
Or render them somehow, you know, unavailable.
And yeah, so we, we, we do get this incredible, these incredible scenes at the end, but wow.
Mark, you watch this for the 1st time.
So what was your big reaction here?
Yeah, I thought it was it was brutal.
Absolutely.
And I think, you know, as I said, before building what Avon had done earlier in this story, I do think, as James said, it sets that up really nicely.
Um, yeah, it was it was surprising.
I think whenever anybody comes on board the ship, I'm kind of thinking, are they going to join because they're not at 7 at the moment.
So I'm always kind of wondering whether they're going to hit the sort of crew of seven.
I suppose if you count the 2 computers, there's 7 people, isn't it?
I think that's what that's what you have.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
I wasn't I wasn't thinking about that.
I was thinking maybe they're going to have a kind of an engineer kind of character.
Because it seems like they're kind of building back towards what they had, so they're having the fastest ship, the teleports and all the kind of stuff that's going to allow them to kind of run rings around the Federation a little bit.
So yeah, I, for me, it was, it was plausible that she was going to join because it's kind of early enough in the season.
But yeah, it was, it was very shocking.
The way it's directed, the way her dying scream is then overlaid with the ship escaping.
So you've got sort of moment of triumph.
Uh, for the crew, but with, with her, let's say, sacrifice.
It was very effectively directed.
I think it did hit home like that.
And then they don't dwell on it.
You just get Avon saying, who?
And then they go, so presumably, and I guess probably Villa is going to get the job of dragging a corpse out of there and disposing of it if she wasn't vaporised.
They missed a trick there, though.
They could have, they could have been.
But what about the doctor?
Who?
Yes.
Allegedly in the original script.
It's, what about Dr. Paxton, Doctor Who?
and apparently Paul Darrow said that's a bit on the nose.
And also, I'm not having anything to do with dog too.
I never, I never did. will never appear on Doctor Who.
It was, it's quite, it's interesting what happens at the end.
There's a couple of things.
Well, 1st of all, this is another one of these dialogue things that just tickled me, whereas they're like, you've got to, she goes, I can install this drive now and we can escape these, you know, these ships.
And and then it's just like, she's like, how long will it take?
And she goes, 50 minutes.
I was like, well, that's way too long.
They're clearly on our tails.
But like it's very specific.
It's 50 minutes.
And then Dana goes, make it 45. what?
It's very specific. like normally when you sort of, you know, Davros or Darth Vader has to ratch up the time, the tension, I said, you've got to do it in half the time, double your efforts.
But it's like, I'll do it in 50, do it in 45.
I'm like, it just seems so odd because it's because it's quite a long, like it should be, you know, a bit more tension would be like, oh, it'll take me 10 minutes. like, you've got three.
You know, just that's like, oh, God.
But it's quite a long time.
And there's some odd direction bits going on.
Because it was so interesting because there was a sense where I was like, she knows she's going to cop it.
Maybe there was a moment where she sort of goes a bit slowly putting together some of those leads because I was like, you're in a hurry and there's a moment where she's a bit pensive and she's kind of slowly putting together these leads.
I was like, does she know?
And then clearly, clearly she doesn't.
And also I was a bit confused because I was like, what can she see after that?
I still a bit unsure about the geography of this?
And obviously we've seen, um, we saw Tarrant and Avon sort of, uh, fix the ship with a big hole in the wall.
And then it's like, what, can she sort of see the ships behind her?
I wondered if perhaps she was breaking the force wall?
I'm really sorry.
I had to get that.
I just thought, Mark might say that, so I'm just going to find that.
It's a little confusing.
And then it is odd.
And then everyone just sort of saying, who?
And you're like, oh, wow, you really just let her do that.
It's it's, it doesn't quite work.
Yeah, look, I think either she's playing it that way.
I mean, I got the impression on the 1st time I watched this many years ago, I kind of went, why is she going so slowly?
Why does she keep looking up?
Why is she's being so hesitant about making these final connections?
I always read it as, she, she knows there's not enough time and she, like she's a scientist.
She's worked out that there's not enough time.
And the only way they are going to escape is if they've already switched the drive on.
I don't think it quite lands, but maybe that's...
It's being directed.
Yeah, and I think I think also it's directed that when Avon makes his decision. he cuts off the communication to her.
Like, he's halfway through giving her a time call and then press the button and that's when he explains what he's doing.
And I do wonder if maybe after he's cut off the communication, if she'd looked up and said, There's not enough time, you're going to have to activate as soon as I put this together.
So if she had figured it out and realised she needed to sacrifice herself.
But Avon doesn't know she figured it out.
So he's still doing the bastard thing.
But for us as the audience.
Oh, it's okay.
She's figured it out.
And, you know, she's sticking one in the eye to the Federation because she's helping Avon.
She sticking one in the eye to the space rats because she's free.
But yeah, it is strange and it's kind of like, you know, the engines at the back are open to space, but even I was confused because I'm like, they repaired that wall earlier.
It's like, oh, no, this is this is the other wall that's open to space.
So why bother repairing that one?
Yeah, why are you preparing the whole, the hull?
Yeah, like, I mean, I think it's getting back to that point that we were making earlier about the way that the ship is filmed and we don't yet know how the ship's laid out.
Um, it's not quite clear that what she's doing is in the same room that they were in earlier.
The repair to the hole is nowhere near the engine, that breach in the hull is kind of 2 thirds of the way along.
How big is this ship?
Like we can't really tell.
And so if she's looking out the back over the jets for want of a better word at the back of the ship.
Where is she?
Is it a tiny, tiny, tiny ship, but we just don't realise that yet?
Like, how big is it?
And when Mark said earlier, there were front face, there were screens at the front.
I actually don't, I kind of couldn't remember that because I just, I was just obsessed with these ones at the back.
I was like, why are these screens behind them?
I don't know what's going on.
Yeah, look out the rear window.
Oh, right.
Okay, good.
So they can see who they're blasting out of the back.
I don't know what's going on with that.
If you could have just seen this little doll floating away.
Yeah, it's interesting that a show made multi-camera.
The directors and writers then have the thought that you need to have a screen facing in the direction of the camera.
So instead of just having a camera on the front, a camera on the back, linked to the same screen, like we actually make this show on.
No, in 700 years time, we're going to need one screen per camera.
But something I only just realised is, I think, the gun Tarrant uses to burn through the wall is intended to be the same thing that Avon repairs the hull with at the beginning.
So it's, it's, it's like a make or repair hole in wall gun.
Chekhov's make or repair.
Is there anything else anyone wanted to mention?
Actually, I do.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have to, this is a flight through entirety family podcast, therefore, I am contractually obliged to tell some peripheral Zedless showbiz story.
And I um, so I have two.
I worked with Michael Keating on an audio, uh, doctor audio, uh, and that was just, I, was wonderful.
He was obviously very, very lovely, but one of the nicest things about working with him is there was, I vividly remember a moment.
Where that was so villa like.
It really just slapped me around the chops.
He was talking about his wife, and he said his wife had been ill, and he goes, oh yes, she's got schizophrenia, and then he just looked off to the distance rather wistfully and raised his eyebrows and said, but then you're never alone with schizophrenia.
And I thought, oh my god, you're villa.
Oh my god, it's actually.
So that was rather lovely.
And that's unbelievable.
As if life couldn't get any more exciting.
A couple of years later, this is mad.
I was going to say Paul Darrow played my dad.
I played Paul Darrow's son in an audio.
So they cast Paul Darrow as my father in an audio.
Now this is insanity.
He turned upon the day and the director, Gary said, said, oh, Paul, this is Conrad.
He's playing your son.
And he looked me up and down and said, he's too old to be my son.
And I was like, 0 shit, we are in for.
We are in for one of the worst days of my life.
I'm about to get torn apart by Avon.
So I thought, okay.
But for some reason they did photo, you know, they do photos for publicity.
And I said, right, we're going to do it before.
We're going to do the before the recording.
So, like, instantly I'm going, like, walking to have my photograph taping with Paul Darrow, and I'm sort of vibrating with the excitement, but very, quite scared.
So I just sort of said to him, like, Paul, I'm just going to say, absolutely love you, Blake Seven.
And I'm literally walking down a corridor with it, but I said, I've got to get this out.
So I said, I really love you.
You amazing, Blake 7.
And I was like, and my mum, because I act, this is true.
I told my mum I was working with Paul Darrow.
And her response, thank you, Jennifer West, was, oh, we can put his slippers under my bed any day.
Um, like mother-like son.
So I told him this.
I told him this and I was like, I'm really risking it.
I'm babbling.
I love you, Blake.
By the way, I told my mum this morning, and she said, did you put her slippers under her bed any day?
And he went, ha, ha, ha.
Send her my love.
And I was like, oh, there he is.
There he is, smooth as.
He was obviously delightful to work with his voice in my ear all day.
I just can't even say that.
I think I've even got a photograph of me, me and him back to back.
So that's just, I had to blow that out as my peripheral story.
The only last thing I want to say on a much more mundane note, is that I've done it.
I found a piece of research and it's a Blake 7 fact.
And I, I, I, I was trying to find out where this, the, this, this, the location was.
And it's in, a quarry in Dunstable, and I was like, I bet it's a Doctor Who one.
They did film tear of the autons and macraterra in some quarries.
Not quite sure.
But basically on every Blake 7 wiki site, it says unknown quarry.
And in Gumi, I found the quarry, it's Kensworth chalk pit.
So any real Blake 7 fans, please update Blake 7 wiki that this film was filmed at Kensworth chalk pit.
Thank you.
Well, as we jet off to the stars and try and ignore the screams coming out the back, that's all the time we have for this week.
Come back next week when the production team desperately wants us not to remember Dana's age or how to do basic maths in animals.
Conrad, where can people find you?
Sorry, I'm still slightly stunned, stunned by the content.
You can find me on Twitter at Head of the Hound underscore or at Kensworth Chalk Pit.
Loitering behind the concealed entrance.
Sorry, that was that came out a lot a lot ruder than I thought.
Find James in jail.
Oh, dear.
Until next time, no matter what the man says, Alton Towers is not named after him.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Ta-ta.
Who?
Oh, I can tell you.
That was your fat.
That took me right back to a studio in Barrow, you've got the job.
My God.
Back to my power.
Go, go. 30 seconds rush to the maximum power.
Switching to my animal.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximal power.
Actually, speaking of that, I watched this with Rod halfway through the Avon and Tarrant repairing the whole scene.
He's like, You can see which way he's dressed.
So if you want to go back and look at Stephen Pacey.
Those are some tight trousers he's wearing.
Being in that.
He was like, oh, God, this has been, we shouldn't buy John Steed.
John Steed?
Oh, God.
Shall I say that again?
Yes, go ahead.
I got a blank to his name now.
Ben Steed, thank you.
I think it goes back to the conversation we were having earlier about the way the shit...
Wow.
It's orange.
It's not brown. it's orange.
Decentery orange.