Planet of the Q-Anon Shaman

[00:12]

Welcome to Maximum Power, the podcast that hopes you're feeling bucolic because we're heading to the island of Dr. Moore, you, where the wild things are really quite peeved this week.

And if anyone's got the wrong opinion, I'm going to make sure you sit in the magic chair of plot adjustments. so you have been warned.

We're joined for this experience by a panel of genetically engineered fluffy monstrosities that had better introduce ourselves.

I'm Pete.

I'm Mark.

I'm Nathan.

And I'm Peter with an R.

With a...

Now, Mark, you have just had the remarkable experience of watching animals for the 1st time quite recently.

To quote Justin, have you recovered, and do you need a stimulant?

Yeah, it's a really odd one, isn't it?

It's, um, I don't know where to start, actually.

That's why every review ever started on animals.

You mentioned Dr. Moreau.

I totally hadn't picked up on that.

I was kind of thinking, is just in, who is that his 1st name or his surname?

[01:14]

It's never...

He's like Madonna.

He's just got one name.

He's probably got his own font.

When the people at the Federation are looking him up, like the systems at my work, if someone said, look up Justin, it would be like, well, is that 1st name or a surname?

So they're obviously quite sophisticated systems, they can just find them based on that.

V.

Justin.

The scientist.

I was thinking he was maybe a bit inspired by Davros because he's sort of genetically engineering creatures to survive in a nuclear irradiated place.

So I thought maybe that was kind of, I don't, totally stupid, they hadn't thought about HE Wells.

So I was just thinking he was kind of just like a horny Davros.

And the creatures are horny as well.

Everybody's horny on buccle.

On a planet with no ladies.

I don't know how that's gonna pan out.

You love him, Dana.

Nathan, you were saying you're a bit more seasoned and appreciator of this episode.

[02:15]

Yes, it occurs to me that I'm in just a very few years time going to buy it for the 3rd time, having bought it on VHS back in the sort of early 1990s, and having seen it even before then, of course, when it 1st came out.

Um, it's really terrible, isn't it?

Like really quite an astonishing piece of work.

There's really nothing about it that works at all.

And poor old Mary Ridge, who normally does a good job.

I don't know she's just given up, I think, at this point.

And it's the rarest thing in Blake Seven, which is an embarrassing performance by Jassette Simon, who is.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

Like, in any measure, the best actor on the show at this point, but she can't make this work at all.

You know, I think the double whammy of this and Stardrive last week is what gives season 4, its relatively poorer reputation compared to the other three.

I think if you take these 2 woeful episodes out of a mix, you'd probably have a season that matches up to its predecessors.

[03:20]

So who knew that going to the writers of volcano and dawn of the gods and saying more, please, could possibly go wrong.

This is very probably the worst episode of Blake 7.

Just for all round ineptitude.

I mean, Nathan mentioned Mary Ridge, who usually does such a sterling job, but sort of, you know, mucks up some quite important bits in this episode.

I think the show's become a parody of itself, which it never was, sort of anyone would come to this and watch and go, these are dumb ideas and a boring script, poor production.

Um, poor design and costuming choices, which are just weird and OTT.

The main guest role is poorly cast.

It's just, it's pretty much unrecognisable as the series that gave us terminal or even rescue a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, it is, it is stunning that this is the same director as terminal.

I mean, but what can you do?

With, and and Gisette's performance is, one of the things I felt watching it in the early things, she's perfectly good at being, uh, you know, the discussed.

[04:27]

Her initial discussed is delivered so sincerely and convincingly that when the script then requires her to go, oh, actually, all right, then, later on, and she does, because that's what the script requires her to do, because it doesn't feel like it's based on much other than just hanging around with him and we'll have to talk about that.

Um, that when she flips from very convincingly being disgusted by the whole thing, to not being anymore, even before Servoland puts her in the magic chair.

Um, it, yeah, you've convinced me of one thing and now you're convincing me that you've changed, but nothing really made you change apart from the magic chair.

It wasn't clear what she was disgusted by because she's discussed before she knows that they experimented on humans.

It feels like, but then she seems to warm up to him when he said, I bitterly regret the fact that we experimented on humans because of the deserters, weren't they, from the war, I think.

Which I thought the war was like, it seems like the war, as described here, was this much longer conflict.

I thought it was like, it was when the aliens came through at the end of the 2nd series, is that right?

[05:31]

Yeah, that's the war they're talking about.

It's only a few weeks ago in episode, in terms of the hours of them that we've seen, but yeah, it feels like it was. like a day or something, it was like, because it's all over by the beginning of the next series.

Like how long was the conflict supposed to go on for?

Because the way they're talking about, they were setting up like places like this to develop, you know, weapons and things.

Was it a much longer conflict than I'd understood from the series?

Convincing timelines have never been late 7s thing.

So you had that massive gap that happens before Star one. where essentially the liberator heads off to Star one immediately.

And yet apparently in that gap between the keeper and Star one, Travis's contacted the Star one pizza monsters.

He's like put this whole, like this whole thing in train.

And then for some reason at the end of the episode, it only takes the Federation forces, like 4 hours to get there.

It's never been very good with playing around with kind of the time frame of what happens in this series.

And it's not very clear what even we're talking about.

[06:32]

I mean, there's clearly a character thing where Justin doesn't approve of Dana's guns.

And he is given a line saying that the galactic war was a terrible, terrible mistake.

And it's kind of like we were attacked by the contents of an entire kitchen drawer.

I mean, we didn't have the choice about whether to fight back or not.

You know, it wasn't like some bad political mistake.

It's as if no one really knows what happened at the end of series 2.

And it is very strange.

Yeah, it's like we saw World War 2 on screen and Dunkirk and everything.

And but then now they're talking about it as if it was World War one and it was all, what was it really for?

Well, it was to prevent you all being annihilated.

Yeah.

Tantalisingly through watching this.

I don't know, it's because I've been on too many podcasts, but you're seeing the draft scripts where there was a thing, surely there was a version of this in my mind's eye way, that was more rounded out.

[07:34]

Well they just put in a line about the age gap or something to clarify.

She had a crush on him. when she was young.

But they don't.

Any ideas?

I think it's useful to look at the production history of this episode because obviously this was written when Jan Chappel was still supposed to be part of the series D cast.

And so the original scripts were written for Callie, which would make more sense with Callie, sort of having a relationship with Justin's, with someone with just his age.

Not a whole lot more sense, still icky, but more sense.

And I think also the strange revisionist history that's put on to Dana, the fact that we thought that she was alone with her father on the planet, but now we find out that she had tutors coming to, um, you know, school her and things, and she suddenly has these really strong misgivings about genetic experimentation and things which have never been party to.

But I think that is something that would have been sounded more convincing coming from Cali.

Um, I think that's part of the problem, why Dana doesn't work in this episode and why, um, Josette Simon's performances off because she's being asked to do stuff which is out of character, but also which no one could really deliver because it's too overwrought and dramatic.

[08:51]

I think what the missed opportunity here was, was to not make it a Sulin episode.

So you really needed Su Lin to be part of this so you could showcase her, um, give her screen time and backstory.

That would have taken away the ickiness around Justin and Dana's relationship, although it would have cast dispersions on Swulin's taste in men following Dorian.

So, I mean, let's let's think about this.

Josette is 20 at this point.

She's 19 who plays justice.

He's 53.

And he spent 20 years in Dixon of Dot Green.

So he looks, I think he looks older than he really is.

Wow, even I would have been tired after.

But, but the, I mean, the thing is that we're told that he set up this thing 6 years before the galactic war.

The Galactic War is a year ago, let's say.

And so for 7 years, he's been on Buccol 2 doing this thing.

[09:54]

And so presumably he came to visit, um, uh, the Mellon Bee family when she was 13 or which is more likely no one gives a shit and everyone kind of thinks that Gisette looks older than she is because they're slightly racist and everyone thinks that about black people.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, it's just, there's just a sort of failure to care about the characters at all. here.

And you don't think that you could have revised it in some way to make it a crush or to make.

Yeah, yeah.

Or like it doesn't have to be love, love.

Like, he's an uncle or a relative or a friend of the father's, you know, like, it doesn't...

Because Blake went there with Inga, his cousin not too long ago.

It's kind of, it's getting into a... 2 nickels situation every time I'm being really weird about an age gap happened.

I didn't realise, yeah, just that Simon was that was that young.

It's like in reverse President Macaron, that, isn't it?

[10:57]

He was 15 when he met his wife.

She was 40 and she was a teacher.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's wrong both ways.

If the casting of Justin had have been a little bit more thinking about the script.

I am not saying it would have made the relationship right, but if you'd made him kind of a fair bit younger and, you know, very attractive, say, a Jeffrey Burridge, and Dorian, you could fully understand why Dana would have had a crush in him.

Pensteadi just comes across as this kind of like greying civil servant with a weird tiny Donald Trump mouth and you just think, oh, on all levels.

I'm trying to think what other actor he reminded me of.

And then I realised it's one of the extras from Thunderbirds just has those exact eyebrows and gin situations.

It reminds me of a puppet.

I don't mean these marriages.

Maybe they only had 2 faces for him, concerned, and then leering at Dana.

Yeah, and yeah, and he did, that was played, wasn't it?

That was not...

With that moment where he says, I don't think I'd want your group involved.

And Dana gives his back this long, lingering, smutty smile.

[11:59]

I almost threw up a Star one pizza monster on the floor.

It was disgusting.

Disgusting.

This is disgusting.

Yeah.

The way I thought of it was that she'd met very few men when she was living with her father.

That's it.

That's okay then.

But yeah, we could they could try and pin it on Miranda from The Tempest, but they don't try.

They don't even.

Yeah, they don't even bother, do they?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, she kisses Avon for the 1st time to kind of see what it's like back in aftermath.

She's clearly intended at that point. to have never met a man.

She was just intending to kiss someone who was a fool 10 years younger to see what that was like.

He's got his own teeth.

Look, we'll get we'll get to Servilan and Sleer as well, but I think also having Dana in this episode fucks up those scenes because, you know, you love him, Dana.

[13:01]

You love him. those scenes, which are just, you know, an issue all to themselves.

It's that you have two, you have scenes between 2 characters with a load of history.

And the last time that they came properly face to face, if you discount terminal and the brief moment in Chaser, was in Death Watch, where they had an entire scene about the history behind them.

And it was really important.

But here you get no sense of that.

It's just entirely plot driven and who cares?

Yeah, she wants to kill her, doesn't she?

But you wouldn't know him for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Zervlin is the most, the person she despises most in the whole universe.

But yeah, yeah, that's just not not included.

We have skipped over.

Of a Terence, a little bit of excitement at the start of the episode, kick things off with his battle.

I'm noticed I think this season, slave now tells them numbers to type into their computers to steer the ship.

The reversal of how it was in series one where Gan would often, Blake would give Gan instructions and just like Sigourney Weaver and Galaxy Quest, Gan had to relay the instructions to Zen to set the course.

[14:02]

There's now been a shift in that workload.

Are you equating the character of slave to the character of Gan?

Well, that sounds something.

Slave just needs a big cape.

I do like the fact that slave isn't certain of things.

So when Terrence says we need coordinates to get out of here.

Slave has to go, oh, hang on a sec.

Do you like that?

I mean, I actually quite like those scenes.

I think that the way that they do the model shots is just deplorably bad, uh, deciding to sort of do them against a green screen and sometimes to just move the camera instead of moving the model.

Like all of that stuff looks incredibly cheap.

There's a lot of shots where it just looks like an explosion is happening slightly behind the ship for the most surprising reasons.

And so all of that, it's a little bit crap.

Those panels, which sort of look-ish, sort of look okay.

Um, until you actually type on them, they're kind of like those horrible membrane keyboards on a ZX 81. you know, because they bend really badly.

[15:11]

You know, they don't really move.

Like there's one or 2 sort of fabulous chunky metal levers, but otherwise, they, it, you know, you're there typing buttons in.

There's nothing sort of fun or visceral or exciting about using those controls to move the ship.

And so none of that really works.

I mean, you know, again, um, Stephen Pacey is so much fun to watch, but I kind of don't care, and I was certainly enjoying that scene, uh, because of him.

But, uh, Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like they sent their 2 best guys off, uh, and then sort of separated them at the beginning, but uh, it's still not a great scene, is it?

The video effects continue to be a massive problem this season.

On the occasions that we see actual film footage of Scorpio.

Like when it's kind of in orbit with sort of the standard series D planet behind it and it's got the little winking light on it.

That's actually film footage, and it looks amazing.

It looks as good as anything else in the series.

But the mysterious decision to take the film footage and then superimpose it on video starfields and explosions.

[16:16]

It just makes it look diabolically cheap, like the worst children's program.

I felt like it didn't really fit with Terence character that he listened to Avon when even ordered him to come back for repairs and he was talking about rescuing Dana.

I think in the previous series, he was a bit more kind of headstrong and would, you know, kind of rail against Avon being in charge a little bit, where he seems to have accepted it a bit more here and just kind of, you know, heads back when he's ordered to.

Yeah, I mean, 2 weeks ago he disobeyed Avon and stayed behind on the planet to sort of save people.

Yeah, yeah.

To save Dana again.

Yeah, yeah.

That is, yeah, 2 weeks apart.

We having episodes with just those two.

And I, you know, was everyone else finishing off a theatre run or something and unavailable for shooting?

I don't know, but this episode, I'm the one, and Drater are both very heavily Dana Tarrant episodes.

I mean, I think what it probably is, is that Dana was the female character who they still had and they hadn't really established Su Lin. and so rather than foregrounding Su Lin, like they should have done in this episode, they just pushed Dana into female lead, generic female lead in every episode.

[17:28]

So in Stardrive, it's her and Villa.

This week it's her and Terence at the start.

Traitor, it's her and Tarrant.

It's a bit mystifying that Avon is pushed into the background for these 3 episodes.

And in fact, this episode in Stardrive, both feature Dana going off into kind of the villain's lair and then having Tarrant, Avon, and Sulin teleport down and traipse sort of really slowly through landscapes to come and find her. are really boring.

You know, they're in life's problem.

This should not have been Dana.

This should have been Zulin.

When you mentioned it was originally intended to be Cali, my mind went to the scene where Dana goes out to try and convince OG to come home and that would have made sense if she was using telepathy to try and calm him and influence him.

Because she's using that kind of almost like soothing his hypnotic kind of tone, isn't she, to try and get it.

But I thought that scene.

I kind of gasped a little bit when when he swept her off the cliff, it is quite a sudden dramatic thing, the way that's directed it.

[18:33]

I felt like that was quite effective.

And Joe said he's good in that scene.

I thought it was a good scene, but the dummy was just so, obviously, no, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of that.

I burst out, I laughed out loud, I'm afraid.

Because it is like, quick cut away.

They cut back and he's chucking a dummy up down the thing.

I put it, it was dramatic.

But I also, but like she's all, I'll go and talk to him.

Maybe he'll trust me.

I'm like, love, you met him 10 minutes ago and you shot one of his mates in the face. in the very 1st scene.

She meets him, she says hello. and then she turns around, there's another one behind her and she just goes, uh, and shoots it in the face.

And like, kills it.

And the lady says, oh, yeah, killed a couple of them.

Um, so it's like, why, why, yeah.

That idea would make sense, though, Callie might have think, well, okay, despite shooting one of you, uh, I might be able to, uh, yeah, to, Well, Kelly was always the thinker of the group.

And so it would have made sense, her sort of her objections to genetic experimentation and things like that.

I just think they must have been in such a hurry to get the series up and running again.

[19:38]

I don't know why Chris Boucher didn't do more to this script.

It seems almost unforgivable that he would let this script through with so many glaring issues when even just a rewrite of some scenes would have brought it further into line with the characters who we know.

I mean, there is a serious kind of production problem at this point, isn't it?

Which is why there is such a massive increase in quality in the 2nd recording block when everyone gets out of their stupid clothes.

When when Dana starts dressing up like slave, then everything suddenly gets really good.

She really does.

A purple version of slave.

All she needed was the collar to be moving round.

Even the name for the creature's animals is really weak, isn't it?

Like, I just, it, why not give them a name if you've created a new species?

Why would you not name it?

Why would you just call them animals?

It's so unimaginative and how would you differentiate that from the other animals on the planet?

[20:39]

Well, I mean, I, they should call them dodecimas because they can do 2 more things.

Don't you think?

I think that would be, yeah.

I think they all should be called OGs.

And in fact, there's a very low effort name as well.

One of my 1st conversations ever with Kate Orman back in like 1988 when we were talking about Blake 7.

She relayed the story that she'd been watching Animals the 1st time and her mother, who's a fabulous and very entertaining woman, walked into the room, watched for a few seconds and said, his name's not really Og, is it?

And then...

So, okay, to his credit, one thing that I like is that you do get a nice little explainer from Dana when she's, oh, that could be a thing, when she's, when she's finally, when she is with Juthen, and she turns around and gives him the whole, actually we're here for this drug thing, we wanted to recruit a genius.

[21:42]

We've kind of done, we have done a cold open with her and Tarrant on this mission and we don't know why.

And when she gets there and she explains it all, it's about that drug from a couple of weeks ago, which I was sceptical about, I thought, oh, they're never going to mention this again, and I've been proved wrong.

I'd forgotten that it does actually come back as a thing.

So, yeah, people have started doing stuff.

The dialogue is also, and if we get, should we move on to Serverland?

Because in this, uh, Servoland gets the most, some of the most perfunctory dialogues.

There's one scene where all of her lines.

I started writing them down.

The lines are just like, used for what?

anymore.

I mean, she was a bit like that in volcano as well.

She didn't have anything interesting to say.

I think there is one very, very good scene with her.

And that is where, um, Hang on, Nathan, I'll just interrupt you.

Is it the scene where she says, you love him, Dana?

You love him. said that's him. absolutely not.

It's where she gives artists.

She gives Kevin Stoney to the captain to sort of be taken off the bridge and then she calls Boar and says he never arrived.

[22:48]

And so that's how we find out that she's going to have him killed because she actually makes the phone call.

She FaceTimes a bore before she's actually killed him and said he never arrived.

And then she says, uh, you need to be careful because you didn't file a flight plan and uh, you could be blamed for this.

And I just thought, you know, that's her being absolutely as superb and fantastic as you would ever hope for.

That and the feathers, like the feather out there.

They're the 2 they're the 2 pluses in the serverland column.

Feathers are very unflattering to her arms, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tuck shop.

I have to say that scene with artists is the one good scene in the entire episode.

It's just, and you know, Kevin Stoney is always amazing, which she is here.

It's just it was a pity for me that they couldn't have found a way to make that character, Counsellor Joban, who is Kevin Stoney's character in hostage, also written by Alan Pryor.

[23:49]

I guess it doesn't really matter though at this point, does it?

Like no one's expecting that from Blake Salmon.

And when Van Glynde comes along later, he's going to press on beard and is played by someone completely different.

I mean, it might be the story of this episode. doesn't really matter.

I think also this is the episode which doesn't work for Commissioner Sleir.

So Traitor sets her up, but this is not a Sleer episode.

This is a Servolan episode.

Servoland in series C freelancers with her like private command army and intimidates officials and all that kind of thing because she's the president.

Whereas this version of Sleer doesn't work for what's been established for Sleer, apparently, in the 6 months since Servlan was deposed and took on this alias, she's found time to like, you know, right standing orders for the bureau and stuff like that.

And it just, it doesn't work at all, I think.

And that scene, the describer is a non-person.

[24:50]

It's like it felt like an allusion to 1984, isn't it?

They have un-person in 1984.

So it felt like it was a little tiny bit of world building about the way the Federation works and that it's a, you know, a bit kind of, you know, linking it to another totalitarian story like that.

It's pretty good, that scene, isn't it?

Where he clearly recognises her, but realises that it's absolutely, you know, likely to get him killed if he actually admits to it and he apologises and stuff.

Like all of that stuff is really good and that does kind of depend on her secret identity, however preposterous that is.

I think, because we haven't seen who's replaced her in the Federation as well, so we don't know what the, the thinking is and what the orders, how she became a non-person and and any of that stuff, have we?

So we don't know what the what the new power structure is or how she's managed to inveigle her way in.

But yeah, she hasn't changed her hairstyle.

She still talks in exactly the same way.

[25:51]

So even over, like a communicator or something, she talks in such an archway that a lot of people are just going to recognise that, aren't they?

unless everyone in the Federation's not like that.

I mean, she's literally blind.

You think she's got on every communication that she sends, she's got one of those things in Traitor, where they try to hide her identity very unsuccessfully. by making her sound really deep.

Everyone who receives communication from Slayer.

She sounds like that.

Yeah, I think she could have just like done a Yorkshire accent or something and that would...

All of which makes the question, why did they do it?

Why did they not make it that Serveland got off deliberator, radioed for help, was picked up by a Federation ship and was back as president?

Why go to all of this undercover stuff for no reason at all?

Because that this way she gets to have a lovely ship with its big beige regional newsroom kind of looking desk that does it behind, which is what she really wanted all along.

[26:53]

And it's got those... plastic gold trimming.

It's so it's like a hotel room in the 1980s.

It's like travelling an Emirates business class.

Yes.

It is like Emirates' business class.

And Surfland ship from the outside, the model.

It is an improvement on her shark ship from series C.

It's a flashlight.

The interior is so bland.

It's just like she's sitting in someone's living room.

It's awful And she's got the lamps.

Those lamps that are on the wall.

They're in Doctor Who throughout the 60s and 70s as well.

Someone's been cataloguing them, and I can't remember who, I'll try and track them down, because they don't think they're in power of the Daleks.

There's sort of Art Deco wall lamps.

Keep an eye out for that one watching.

But what about what about the new mutoids?

I didn't like there were mutoids until on our chat before this that that Pete mentioned there were mutoids.

Well, we're assuming they're mutants.

They do look like they've just sidled up to your desk and asked you if you're willing to sign Janet's birthday card.

[27:56]

You know what I mean?

Like, they're sort of middle-aged ladies with geometric bobs, and they don't move particularly quickly or gracefully or anything.

They haven't been chosen for their athletic ability.

Is there anything, are they called mutoids or credited me or is that us knowing, is that us bringing that?

I don't think they called it.

I don't think the words used, is it?

Is it?

They're probably mutoids mark 2.

Everyone knows mutoids have to have upturned pot plants on their head.

It's part of the ongoing design problems in series D. We mentioned it in rescue, how everything that was so special about Blake 7, like the incredible design for the liberated spaceship and the flight deck and the way that the Federation guards looked, you know, it all just had this incredible design ethos that worked and made it special.

And in series D when they've had to redesign everything from scratch.

It's all just been done with this kind of really unimaginative look.

And in the case of the mutoids, like just this bizarre kind of 80 star makeover.

They now look like toppler pops backing dancers, um, which sort of, actually, Justin's surname is probably Savile.

[29:04]

So Justin Savile, it fits in just earlier.

You must have started with men as well as animals, to get crossbreeds, is the great line from Dana, which paints, I'm not sure the picture they want to, because if they like, this was a breeding program, not just, not just the spiking of genes.

She's specifically talking about breeding, which, you know, yeah, and they're on no radio.

Maybe that's what turns Dana on, Justin's available for all comers.

What do we think of the animals?

Like, what, what, what's going on with that?

I mean, Pete, you mentioned that they look like the monsters from where the wild things are.

And they remind me of Animal from the Muppet Show as well.

I mean, there's clearly some of that.

Yeah.

With a sort of big shaggy heads.

Every time Dana comes here to see, she just needs to go menomena.

[30:07]

But what do they think they're doing?

It is Dr. Moreau as well too, isn't it?

As you said.

Yeah, I felt I fell down a rabbit hole watching watching a film, a thing about the making of the 1990s Dr. Moreau movie with Marlon Brando.

And that like the fact that Marlon Brando is in the Justin role, the very old...

Yeah, the anti-radiation horns, anti-radiation fur.

What did the animal that he crossbred?

you meant to believe him when he says all of his crew died or did he experiment on them and turn them into these creatures?

I thought it was going to go there.

But it didn't bother.

There's nothing about their appearance that indicates that they could go into radiation zones, like nothing that would lead you to believe that they were particularly suited for that.

They just look like odd animalistic creatures with big ruffs and horns.

And they're not disgusting in the way that they need to be.

Like they need to be sort of, like, they need to be like decimas. you know, like, like, like with human features and things, but somehow repellent.

[31:14]

But because they're sort of mammalian and they, they have hair and and stuff like that.

And because they just seem to be like, did someone chomp up a leopard at some point during creating them, like, like, like...

There's a lot of nylon involved in the pelt.

Do you know what I mean?

Like they just, they just don't work at all.

They just seem to be a massively dumb idea.

And, and like, kind of cute, though.

But, but you know, Doctor Who at the time is still coming up with really great monsters, you know, but they can't do it on Blake 7.

I mean, we can thank our lucky stars that they didn't just turn up as a bunch of sea devils.

Yeah, what can we come there?

That's also not just fact they look stupid.

They sound stupid.

It's the bellowing.

They don't roar.

They go, yeah, it's terrible.

The thing I thought about their appearance was, they looked a bit like the QAnon Shaman from the General Crips.

I wondered if he had been a fan of this story. inspiration to his look, you know.

[32:17]

You can really imagine all entering the capital having a poo on Nancy Pelosi's desk, can't you?

Oh, that's an insurrection.

There's something about his eyes that they do elicit a little bit of sympathy, I think, when you see the close for his face, actually looks quite good and his eyes look kind of pleading and everything. pleased that they didn't cover up the human eyes, you know.

I mean, it is just the decimas with the crying.

Yeah, but we're meant to pity them, aren't we?

Yeah, but that's quite easy.

Too easy.

When they roar, it sounds like they're saying no as well a bit, doesn't it?

Like they're going, no.

What is Dana's connection to them?

Why does she feel so bonded to these creatures?

Like at the end, rather than worrying about all the people firing at each other over her head?

She runs over to try and free Og, like she's really invested in him, and I just don't get where this comes from.

I thought it was because he was the leader, but because he's had one more brain operation than the rest of them, that he was slightly more advanced, uh, because he, he does seem to understand.

[33:24]

He shakes his head, doesn't he, when she says, you know, come back inside and we'll feed you and he sort of shakes. also threw her over a cliff.

Yeah.

But I thought he was key because there is a line in there, isn't there?

Something about, if you know, if you can get him to do to obey orders or whatever, the rest of them will follow because he's become the de facto leader because he's had one more brain augmentation.

Like anyone in the production.

Around this point, the rest of our cast do get a look in.

We go back to back to base and we've got Avon Avilla and Sulin trying to help Tarrant fix the ship.

A little bit of comedy band to act a little bit of comedy oboe music that recurs a few times in this.

I think even Dudley Simpson's kind of phoning it in this week. just a few little stabs here and there.

[34:27]

It is an incredibly low effort B plot, isn't it?

Like it is just there to eat up running time and give them something to do.

And like the, like the, like he goes down.

I just don't understand.

He's going down into the tank to manipulate a thing.

He's just reaching into the tank.

They just, he gets a little bit of a sort of schmear on his, on his new outfit and that's really it.

There's nothing funny.

It's just not funny.

There's one, one great bit.

I think, where I even looks at him, him impassively.

He looks at Villar impassively, and then we turn around and we see Sulin and she's just laughing at him already, which I think is, is okay.

Um, but gee, it's just dismal, isn't it?

So basically being said to clean up the slurry tanks.

I wasn't quite sure what was going on.

Basically, the toilet's blocked, Villa, you've got to climb it.

I don't know what that is.

Like what's happening?

And they're so, their scenes are so low rent.

They're just Blake 7 banter by numbers, which Alan Pryor was never really able to pull off.

[35:31]

A bit about half a glass of wine.

It's like...

It's almost funny. drunk all the wine in like 3 episodes because it was like the liberator, wasn't it?

It was like the liberator only with wine, you know, like before we had a room full of treasure.

We don't have that anymore, but we did at least have cupboards and cupboards full of Dorian's wine.

Now that's not there anymore.

So what have they got going for them?

Do you know what I mean?

They've got Dr. Braxton Star Drive.

And a sort of fairly crappy teleport.

And so he's drunk all the wine and like, why can't he just go and get himself wine?

Why, like, why?

Why does he have to?

Bargain with...

Yeah, he could nip off to earth on time distort 12 and be back by, you know, the same day.

Well, the ship's broken, though.

And of course, now it doesn't have self-repair.

That's why they've all got to walk around getting into, you know, slurry tanks and sort of pulling off panels on the wall and repairing it and or saying, oh, you know, 94% returned to guidance.

[36:33]

The liberator could unblock its own toilets.

Borak doesn't seem to have done very much this series so far.

In this one, he just sort of like he's he's project managing the repairs or something, isn't he?

But didn't, and I know that this thing doesn't get carried over these kind of things, but there was an episode previously where he, um, made another ship's weapons detonate or something.

Redemption.

Yeah, but he's never done that since.

So when they go in and say, we haven't got any weapons if there's a Federation patrol there, we're going to be helpless, but they've already established that Aurac can just sort of hack these things and...

So they forget.

Or X seems less useful than it used to be or they've forgotten the extent of his abilities and powers a little bit, maybe.

He will get a focus episode in a way that poor old Glinnis never does that's coming up. at some point.

One of Sumi's getting a few more lines this week, but still not that many, but one of her lines is when Villas being sent to do the dirty job.

[37:38]

She just says, typecasting, which is a very bold line to give anyone in a contrition series.

It is utterly strange, and we have to lay it at Chris Boucher's door and can only be because he was incredibly rushed or whatever, although I don't think the timeline for getting the series up and running was that compressed, but you introduce a new regular in Su Lin.

She's got a few lines which are obviously meant to be Calli's in rescue.

She's not even in power.

And then for the next 3 episodes, when you should be introducing her and, you know, integrating her into the hole.

She just has kind of this background C plot tagging along with the rest of the crew who are in a B plot.

What is up with that?

Why weren't they foregrounding her and actually, you know, showing what she could do.

We do get that next week in Headhunter, which is the 1st proper Sirillian episode.

And once they start giving her character and giving her lines, She's great.

She's as good as anybody else, but why didn't it happen earlier?

It's funny, given the care that went into introducing Tarant and Dana.

Yes. that we just have to have another woman.

[38:41]

Do you know what I mean?

There's a spare woman at the end of this episode, she can join the crew.

I think if my plan for series D had come off and we didn't have Su-Lin.

We could have had her in rescue maybe and then gotten eaten by the sea devil, but we didn't need anyone for power and traitor.

We could have had Dr. Paxton, who would be a perfect counterpoint to Avon and an interesting new spin on a regular, join them in Star Drive.

And then this could have been Dr. Paxton's episode with her old love, Justin, which would have been much more age appropriate.

Yeah.

So what do we think of Servoland's chair of hypnotism?

It's come from nowhere, hasn't it?

I've not missed something about that being developed.

Um, and and when you sit in it, like later, she says it's a version therapy, but basically you just sit in it and Jacqueline.

[39:42]

I mean, Jacqueline Pierce looked me in the eye and told me to hate someone, I would hate them.

I told me this.

I wouldn't dream 3 times.

I would believe it.

I don't need to be sat in a stupid chair with a little buzzer that goes off.

Could Jacqueline Pierce get you to fancy Justin?

Well, there's a test.

It's amazingly slow, isn't it the way that that chair reacts?

So we sit there.

Someone says something, we wait a couple of seconds for the lights to come on, the noise happens.

Like, all of those scenes are just sort of super slow and kind of super boring.

And clearly, you know, we've seen right from episode one that the Federation has the ability to implant memories to change people's attitudes to, you know, all of the stuff that's done to Blake.

And so that sort of stuff is not a 1000000 miles away from what the federation sort of able to do, but it really is the kind of shitty low rent version of that, the magic chair.

And it's embarrassing for both of them.

[40:42]

Like both of the actors just looks so awkward about what they're being forced to do.

And it's the point where Josette basically says, fuck it.

Do you know what I mean?

Seriously?

not coming back.

But don't you think that don't you think that she's just saying, well, you know, like whatever.

I have to do this, I'll just do it.

And like there is a bit of fun to be had where she goes down and she's sort of pissy with Justin and says, don't touch me and stuff.

Like all of that's pretty awesome.

But she's not bothering and she shouldn't be bothering.

You know, she's right about the bother.

There's just, there's just one nice moment in this scene, which is really undersold. built upright, but when they're in it, The realisation that it's not just a chair that automatically tortures you, if you tell a lie.

If you tell a lie, it goes bong and then Servoland decides whether to torture you or not like pressing a button.

And there's the bit where Dana says, no, I don't love him, and the bong goes off, which is, and sort of, it's like, you know, revealing to herself, forcing her to admit to herself that she does.

And then Servoline just looks and she doesn't need to press the button because I've caused you pain by revealing your true feelings to you.

[41:46]

Which is a nice moment and in a more elegantly built episode, it would be a point of something.

If only I believed the script was operating on that many levels.

I think it's just, it goes to the wider point of the show's presentation because when you have a similar thing in series A in the hands of directors like Michael Bryant and Via Lorimer, to get, to make an absolutely likeful like comparison.

It's bleak in that machine, which strobes and it's actually a shot in a terrifying way and looks really awful.

Um, and those scenes actually pack a dramatic punch, whereas here it's just relegated to being, you know, sitting in a chair with sort of, you know, a little bit of a, you know, a bit of a glow and sort of land saying, you love him, Dana.

You love him, and it's like they just haven't put in any effort to presenting the show on screen.

It's just as low rent as you can imagine.

Because I didn't know if then she loved him more than she originally did because it's like, would you not just undo the programming she did to make Dana hate Justin, to make him, to make her love him again.

[42:55]

Would you have to say you love him, you love him?

Or is it like a kind of a permanent change?

Yeah.

In which case, why didn't you use the chair on Kevin Stoney instead of killing him?

And wasting a spaceship?

Oh my god. love him, artist.

Yeah, but and as it all ends up, you know, with her, I think, or I took from it, that genuinely Dana is conflicted about her feelings for this guy, she does love him and she doesn't.

And then Servoland makes her hate him for plot reasons.

But then at the end, sort of out of spite makes her love for him.

Uh, She makes her love for him completely unambiguous.

She makes, so I don't, I don't think that I, I read it as that she was going further than just restoring data to where she was.

She was changing Dana to have completely un, unquestioned, completely uncomplicated love for him, uh at the end.

She did have that moment that you mentioned where she does realise that she loves him before the 1st round of hypnotism.

[44:01]

Oh, that's before.

Yeah, okay, yeah, I was getting mixed up where that fell in the order of it, yeah.

It felt like she loved him more afterwards, though, or more strongly or more demonstratively.

Well, we see that in the last scene where, you know, we've talked about the fact that normally lovely, completely reliable Josette can't save some of the scenes in this, that last scene where she's crying over Justin's body.

You know, 0 no.

Like that.

You just think what is going on here?

But maybe we, we, well, love is the real animal. she howling like the animals were howling at the start?

Maybe we went to go there.

And the repeated dialogue.

They can't even get Josette in a corner of the studio in a later episode just to say the words just in it.

They have to loop it.

So she goes, Justin, Justin, as she's approaching.

Don't you think?

It's supposed to sell the transition from film to when she runs up to, of course, Peter Byrne never fucking goes on location.

[45:02]

So he takes a studio set with him wherever he goes.

So she has to run up to him where he's dead in a studio set that he conveniently has with him.

It's so bad.

Dougie Canfield could have told Mary Ridge that you can never just shoot a couple of stray scenes with a CSO backdrop and have people believe it's on film.

And it's such a good shot of Serverland ship taking off as the camera sort of raises up.

There's the rather messy melee of a gunfight between them all where you're not really entirely sure of what's going on, or I wasn't, but then, and, but that...

Memorably described by Nathan as people jumping out from behind pylons to shoot other people jumping out from behind other pylons.

The mutoids are trying to shoot the animals.

The animals are trying to get away. and Blake's, sorry, Avon, and everyone's just shooting the mutoids, but do they even, they haven't seen the animals.

Does Avon know whether or not to shoot the animals are goodies or baddies?

He doesn't know yet.

He doesn't care.

[46:03]

I mean, is that ship bouncing on those 4 pylons that are all really close together?

Like wouldn't it fall over if there was a wind?

Like, what part of the ship is that?

Like, it's so bad.

And like there's a hole in the floor in that main room. like that just and you just drop out of that?

Like that, it's a dropping body sound of that you've shot.

Get rid of that.

In that scene, I did one, again, it's me doing the thing of, is there something lost in the draft here, and I'm just, but where, or have I just missed a line of dialogue, where Dana says, says to him, I love you, Silvilan presents Dana to him, and Dana says how much, you know, I love you, I love you, and she's, and she's clearly doing it, she's going completely over the top with the performance, which is like what's makes me think that's what Gisette is deciding.

I've been programmed to love this man to a ridiculous level that I didn't originally and rushes to him all girlishly and puts her head on his chest and he sort of does a little smirk at Servilan and I'm like, oh, is this them doing a deal?

[47:10]

Because that would have been a, that would have been really nasty bit of drama.

If, if Servolan had actually done a deal with Justin to hypnotise Dana to fall unambiguously and uncontrollably in love with him.

It would be a horrible serverland thing to do.

That would have happened if Ben Steed had written the script.

Yeah, yeah.

Because yeah, he just asks it, he says turn her back the way she was, I think, doesn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

The machine doesn't seem that subtle, doesn't seem.

Her chair only has 2 settings, love and hate.

She was doing that same way she was going, love him, but also be a bit conflicted about the things that he's done and the age that, but love him.

Too complicated.

Serve blankets horny on a long mission and just sits bore in the chair.

You love me, boy.

You love me.

As away with him, sits in back in the chair.

You hate me more.

You hate me.

Oh, we haven't mentioned Paul Darrow having not the biggest role in this episode, but he does a marvellous little slip as he runs into the into the studio.

[48:16]

He treads on a plastic tray that's on the floor or something and his foot slides and it doesn't derail him at all.

He, uh, he just marches straight through it with his gun on holstered.

Oh, well, they can't go again because they've got little explosives in the guns that have already fired.

So they've got one shot to do it, so he just has to do it.

But none of that makes any sense either because it's an underground base.

And so it's got the one door and then somehow it's got a back door on the same level, like on the other side of the hill or something, like or they've come down.

Maybe they've got sort of Servlad's map from Aurak, and they've come down a corridor or something like that.

And they've, and then they come in.

He kicks over a chair for no reason other than that he just wants to look really super butch and then he falls nearly falls over.

It's tremendous.

It's a great moment.

There's a great bit where Justin is like drinking and deleted drinking himself to ruin and deleting everything, and he picks up some of his files, and he angrily throws them in the direction of his computer monitor, but they miss and sort of land in the sink, but then his computer monitor explodes anyway. one take.

[49:24]

This is one take, love.

Where he also wakes up in the morning with like with his face on a desk full of safety glass, you know, like that sort of... in a farm where Patsy turns down the kitchen.

And she wakes up in the middle covered in ash and her face is the only thing that's not burnt to a grass.

He just sort of nodded off.

Yeah, I think that's Paul Darrow desperately trying to inject some drama into proceedings because this is such a low drama episode.

Like no one cares what's going on.

It's all just like the climax with the people jumping out from behind pillars.

It's all just bangs and flashes and it's not in service to any kind of interesting drama.

We would like to give you a balanced panel, but unfortunately, we could find that.

Brendan's strapped in a hypnochet for half an hour and he still does.

He said he could talk.

He wasn't defended.

[50:25]

I must check in with Simon, who specialises in contrary opinions.

He probably loves the episode.

When it gets to the end of series review, imbalances can be righted by anybody who feels we've done this and injustice.

Look, I so appreciate the start of the season for giving Dana so much to do.

It's just, it's, you know, at foreground stain a lot, and I'm on board for that.

Dana is, I love episodes where Dana is prominent.

It's just sad that this got it so wrong.

It should not have been that character because it ends up debasing the character and making her starring role this season in a terrible episode.

And so it was just better if they'd gone back to the drawing board, I think.

I mean, they basically said, well, look, this, this, this, this script, you wanted more, wanted more to do.

You've got lots to do this week.

Here's the script, but this week is definitely your party and you can cry if you want to, which is still at number one in the UK. 4 weeks.

[51:27]

Strangely, altered images with happy birthday was stuck at number two at the same time as it's my party and I'll cry if I want. don't know what was going on in October 81.

But songs about parties were all the rage in the UK chart that month.

Do you think possibly when they were trying to entice Chan Chapels to series D, they said we've got a really good script coming up for you, love, said this to her, she read it and went, no, not even a scene, not even a voiceover.

I drive an eye off screen in a bunker.

Thank you very much.

I suppose one thing I was thinking about was whether, whether they were going to recruit Justin, because, um, it doesn't seem likely that they would introduce a new character, but because the setup is that they're going to, um, they're trying to recruit people in the fight against the Federation, and they've got that base, but we've never been back to the base.

[52:29]

They only ever show you the ship in the hangar and then they're inside the ship.

So I did think it was plausible that he would survive and be recruited, and then they would just say, well, he's in the base working on a, a cure for the uh, for the mind control drug, and then they would deploy it later on.

You need never.

It's not like the liberator whereas if they recruit somebody, you'd have to be on the ship sort of thing.

Now that they've got the base.

So, whereas previously I would have thought, you know, when they try and recruit somebody, think, well, they're not going to be recruited, they're either going to die or be left behind.

I think now it's at least plausible that they, uh, that they, they might survive the episode.

I think I think once we've had Dr. Paxton and then Justin.

And Mueller next week.

I think we've really set up a pattern for what happens to the experts that they try and recruit their cores, no spoilers.

But the regular cast doesn't get any bigger, let's just say.

Also, saving us from a fate where Justin was a semi-regular character, I think is probably worth it. had a semi every time he was around.

[53:36]

Oh, yeah.

And on that bombshell.

I think it's... disgusting.

So this week, like Villa, our glass of wine has seemed more half empty than half full, but do join us again next time on maximum power.

I think we'll be head hunting next time, won't we?

Yep, things can only get better.

So thanks a lot for joining us. and we'll see you again on maximum power.

Bye bye for now.

Bye.

Bye.

Goodbye.

See you later.

You love him, Dana.

You love him.

Maximum power.

Go, go. 30 seconds stress for maximum power.

Switching to manual.

Maximum power on all drives.

Maximum power.

[54:40]

So, I think, when, when Pete, I think you said, about, um, they, they had short notice to get everything up and running again for this series, had they destroyed everything from the previous one then or sold it off?

Yes, because the production officer had actually closed and so they'd gotten rid of everything.

They only got Aurak out of the skip, apparently.

Wow.

Michael Keating got him out of the skip.

Still my very favourite scene in Blake 7.

Which serverlands click woman going, oh, right.