Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast that has this great idea for a perpetual motion machine that you might want to buy.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm James And I'm Simon.
Well, we're not far from the end of the series now, so it's off to the planet, Mecron, too, to do a bunch of generic space things until a black hole explodes or something.
Let's see how all of that goes as we discuss games.
All right, so I'm going to put my cards on the table straight away.
I think this might be the most boring episode of Blake 7.
I think that's a very unfair state in the run.
I have assignment on that, I don't know.
I don't think it's boring at all.
I don't think it's boring.
I think it's brilliant, but it's not.
I was going to ask you all, is this fabulously terrible or terribly fabulous?
Well, all I can say is that I was having fond memories of animals as I was watching it.
Wow.
I'm going to go with fabulously terrible.
I don't think it's fabulously terrible.
I think probably the reason you think it's terrible is because it's not fabulous enough.
That might be what the problem is.
Well, it does have server lad in it, so.
Yeah, yeah.
She's terribly fabulous.
I mean, obviously that goes without saying, but I think there's something very generic about it.
So this is by Bill Lyons, who doesn't write any other episodes for the show.
That would be why.
But he does play the young man who guards Denesh in The Enemy of the World.
Oh does he?
Yeah.
We have wine tonight.
Wow.
In fact, according to Peter, the writer of last week's episode was in the web of fear.
So it seems to be a thing.
He imagines a nearby parallel universe in which Victor Pemberton plays a glorian, actually.
But yes, yeah, so he has a huge career, both as a writer and as an actor.
But this is the only kind of genre thing that he writes.
And for me, what it seemed to be was that he just threw all of the genre things that he could possibly imagine in there.
So we have orbits and black holes and a tribe of macronians who murder people and have, you know, plain song chanting and stuff like that.
Just a whole heap of things that we'd seen before that all seem to be sort of thrown in together.
And then a kind of thing about video games and this is Brendan's area of expertise.
But video games were pretty boring in 1985, weren't they?
How dare you?
I was about to say, I think these video games somewhat predate Brendan's video games. fact, I think they predate Brendan.
But I did look up a little because I'm interested in video game history.
And look, the 1st sort of shooting gallery games date back to the 1930s using sort of electrostatic screens and that sort of thing and projection stuff.
But, you know, we really see 2 video games, you know, we also see computer chess kind of thing.
But, you know, so we see what we would now call a light gun game, which were in our caves in the late 70s and even in the home.
Now, I want you at home or the gym or in the bath, wherever you are, to look up the Kaliko Telstar Arcade, which is a 1977 triangular game system that comes with a light gun, a steering wheel and a pong console.
Is that for home use?
That is for home use, but the cartridges are also triangles.
Triangles, like the macronian knives.
I was getting more trilogic game crossed with my 1st car from Fisher Prize. little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
But yeah, so you know, the games we see here are sort of an extrapolation of what's in arcades at the time, what is in some homes at the time.
And then Terrence flight simulator.
Um, I tried to look into the history of flight simulators and I couldn't quite find, you know, if they used film at any point or what have you.
But these kind of machines were using filmed footage with very minor inputs.
And if I say laser disk games, if I say space ace, if I say dragon's lair, that's the kind of thing they're going for with Terrence.
So the video game stuff here is right up to the minute, surprisingly.
I think this must predate Dragon's Lair, though.
Yes, it has to.
Yeah.
So the animated laser disc games come along a few years.
Yeah.
So what it reminded me of is the Star Wars one where you're in the cocktail.
Yeah, the vector graphics one.
Yeah, speaking of that, that graphic there.
It's actually pretty cool for the era.
The flight planets flying towards the screen.
Yeah, it did look like just putting a camera sort of pointing up on the ground and dropping a lot of tennis balls.
Drop dropping a lot of balls. yes Yeah.
But that works. what it was.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it works really well.
Yeah.
I mean, we'll obviously get to the games again at the end because they play an important part of what this episode likes to think of as its resolution.
All right, so I guess the big deal in this episode is, I mean, we have 2 guests stars.
We have the president, obviously, from the Caves of Andrazani. with his fabulous posh voice.
Yes.
But the big name guest star is obviously Stratford Johns, Peter's already told the anecdote on the podcast in the last couple of weeks about his outfit, and he is clearly the best thing going for the episode, I think.
Absolutely, because what actors of his class do is they deliver all the lines or attempt to deliver all the lines as if they're Shakespeare, as if they're really, really good lines.
He doesn't try to make any of the lines extra spacey, which is what I think bad actors do in these programs.
He just delivers them as if it's all straight drama.
And yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why he's so good.
I actually might be a voice of dissent here in that.
I cannot tell.
If Belkov is meant to be confecting this slightly dodtery image, or if Stratford is genuinely stammering through the dialogue, and maybe that's a sign of a good actor, but I've seen Stratford in other things and enjoyed him in other things, but here, I actually feel like he's quite a bit disconnected from what's going on around him a lot of the time, and I, as I say, maybe that's his performance.
There's one, one bit where I particularly love him where he oh, let's have a look in this silo here.
Oh, there's blast walls.
And then he just turns around and walks out again.
That's wonderful.
Yes, he plays that brilliantly.
And also the scene where he's saying goodbye to Gambit. he plays brilliantly.
So maybe I'm being too hard on him and if I can't tell if it's bad acting or a character trying to convince people that he's less than he is to underestimate him.
Maybe it's maybe it is a good performance.
Or he's been there basically, you know, going slowly mad for the last, what, 20 years?
on a computer.
Look, I don't get the stammering as, like, you know how sometimes you can tell when stammering is an affectation as opposed to a, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here.
I don't get the impression it's the latter, but I can possibly see what you're talking about there.
Another moment where I think he's really great is the introductory scenes where he's playing chess against Gambit while Guerin's invading the orbiter or whatever, and he's not interested in what's going on in the orbiter.
He just interested in the game.
And he preemptively kind of declares victory and says, I've definitely won.
And then she comes back at him having won the game basically and says the same line and he laughs.
He's been criticising her performance.
He says, you're not on the attack enough, you're too defensive or something, you're not playing well.
And then when she beats him, he laughs.
And then there's just a moment before we go out where he suddenly looks angrily at the board again because he's sort of actually really genuinely annoyed at being beaten.
And like, it's a shame that the script doesn't really give us anything.
Like if the episode's called games.
It can't just be called games because it's topped and tailed with the games on the orbiter.
It has to be about the games the characters are playing with each other.
And he's super kind of devious, apparently, and we get all this characterisation stuff where he doesn't trust anyone, and so he develops these automated systems to defend his property.
But we never find out anything.
Like, where are the Felden crystals that he's stolen?
We don't know.
Like we, at the end of the episode, we don't know, we don't know what's going on.
No, we do.
Like, they find out at the very end of the episode that there are no Felton, Chris.
Oh, there are no failed and crystals.
No, well, I believe I believe they're meant to be on his ship because that's what does the whole black hole thing at the end.
Yeah, they're not.
Yeah, they're not in the orbiter.
Yes, they're not.
No, we know they're not on the orbiter. just like we never told where they actually are.
And so we don't know what game he's been playing.
I think that's what just that's just guilty of the fact that they run out of time and the last the resolution is told in basically about 3 minutes.
And I think that's something that does, as James sort of implies, just gets swallowed up in a whole lot of sudden exposition, which isn't entirely effective.
I think the worst part of the episode, because I still don't know precisely how it ends.
No, I don't know what happens.
We'll get there.
I don't quite follow it. anyway, sorry.
I will say one thing that confuses me about Belkov's plan is, you know, he reported that this planet had, like, say, 2000000000 tons and it's like it's got a quarter of that.
It's like, why oversell it in the 1st place?
And the answer is kind of to get money, but sooner or later, someone's going to come and collect.
Well, it's that kind of thing.
You say, yeah, you need to overstate it so that they'll give you the contract, basically.
But then he probably is assuming that they won't actually keep track of exactly how much stuff they get.
And oh, and he'll be gone before they work out.
They've only got half as much.
Servolade explicitly says that's fraud.
Either it's fraud or embezzlement either way.
It's a capital crime.
So, you know, the idea that he's overstating it in order to get investment in the thing is entertained as a possibility in the script.
But so he's abstracted half of the Felden Crystals, and we think the entire time they're in the orbiter, but they aren't, and we don't know how Ava knows that.
And then they're somewhere else.
Avon knows that because Aurak has got dirt on Geren.
Yeah, okay.
And so Avon, sort of the, the rest of the Scorpio Crew.
Well, I think Dana even says, so who is this person?
We didn't know we were making a deal with Navon's like, well, it's not exactly a deal.
And Tara's like, oh, so you're extorting him.
Of course I am.
That being said, Geren is then terribly friendly towards...
What's the little blackmail the twin friends?
He also seems to get fatally shot twice, which seems to be very unlucky for him.
He's 2 rather attractive associates, Zach.
Rather convincingly in those opening sequence and then he manages to just get clipped in the shoulder, I guess, is what the idea is.
That it's a different shoulder, depending on which scene.
Yeah, much annuity.
He gets shot in the left shoulder and his holding is right.
Yes, yes.
It's it's spectroc's keeping him alive.
But, you know, if I had a dollar for every time David Neal played an authority figure in a 1980s British science fiction series where his character is tied to the most rare and valuable substance in the universe and it gets him killed, I'd only have $2, I was about to say.
But it's kind of weird that it happened twice.
Yeah, twice in quick succession.
Yes.
So the previous hardest substance in the universe is, am I right?
Herculaneum, which is what Liberator's hull was made out of.
And as Doctor Who fans, we are aware of Bob Holmes's propensity for inventing new most valuable substances in the universe.
We've already mentioned spectros, but he is also responsible for Jethric.
So, yeah, yeah.
Mac and I. Imagine that one fun.
No, that's that's an adult.
Yes, that's right.
But look, my problem with it, though, is I don't care how many hardest, largest, most powerful substances of the event.
I love it.
The more the better.
More the better.
The universe is a big place, for goodness sake.
But I do worry about how either any of them, really.
What are they going to do with this material once they've gossip, because it is the kind of stuff that you can only in practice sell to like, you know, governments and large corporations.
So it's not like you can kind of sell it on the black market.
Well, that's a point Tarrant raises.
Terrence's like, we can't sell this stuff because he's like, it could make its way back to the Federation and also will get caught.
So what's the point in having it?
So Terrence's idea is we just stop the Federation from having it.
Yeah.
Whereas, you know, this season they have a base, which they presumably have to keep stock.
I feel like every story does also have the vestige of that idea of we're going to build an alliance, but of course, we can't guarantee that David Neil's going to be available in 2 months for the finale, so we'll kill him off.
Yeah.
Doctor Who.
Yeah.
Oh, and we were all talking last week about, you know, who is Rada Cancer?
Yeah.
Um, he, um, very shortly after this plays Eric Krieger, the blonde skier henchman of Christatos in for Euros only.
Yes.
Look, judging from the nature of your introduction, I think you have an issue with the idea of it giving infinite energy. which is a bit silly because if it gives infinite energy, surely you just need one crystal for the entire...
Well, you would think so, yeah.
So we speculate that you could run a whole planet on it using energy just from the light of distant stars.
So the small amount of energy that comes from a distant star would be enough to create an infinite amount of energy.
And then there's still a finite amount of light from the distance.
But it infinitely amplifies it, and I'm using that word accurately.
So you get infinite energy just from that.
And then later on, we have the black hole, obviously, which provides an infinite energy source, which is then multiplied infinitely by the felden crystals.
Like there's energy coming out the...
Yeah, wazoo.
It's a whole thing.
So like that's kind of like whatever, that's our McGuffin or something like that.
But yes, it is kind of silly, I think.
And also it's kind of like, we have a sort of high concept in the beginning of, you know, the games aboard the orbiter. this computer that plays games, et cetera, et cetera.
And we have the high concept in the end.
And in the middle is just a lot of running around windspit quarry looking for Daleks.
Yeah, it's that's amazingly boring, that whole section.
It mighty rocks and everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I do love how as they're escaping, they they teleport up basically from the same place.
Tatus arrives in destiny.
And, you know, it's not the same director.
So I have to wonder if Vivian Cousins watched Doctor Who a couple of years ago or maybe watched Destiny of the Daleks knowing she was going to the same location and kind of went, oh, that's a cool shot through that archway.
No, I think it's probably just the fact that, you know, the people in the BBC know that there are 3 quarries that we have permission.
They've given us permission before, which one do you want to use for this show?
I was surprised, though, which we don't see in Destiny of the Daleks, is that it's obviously not as far from the ocean because, you see, at one point, you can see, 0 my god, there's water out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Scaro has oceans.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
And there's all that abandoned mining equipment as well, which actually really kind of works to sell it.
And it does give us the funniest line of the episode, I think, which is when that guy gets pushed into the refinery thing and all that's left of him is dust and Villa gets to say, oh, you know, bad way to go, all that dust very bad for the chest or something, which is really good.
If you wear to go, all that does very bad.
Yeah, yeah, wonderful.
In my book, whoever's been thrown into that pulverizer.
One thing I absolutely love about the location sequences is 2 sequences open with Garon, Villa and Tarrant sneaking around and you're like, where's Dana?
It's like, Dana has gone somewhere else to save their asses when they invariably get discovered.
Great shelf cliff thing that she's standing up on in one of those scenes.
But there isn't even a line to cover that saying, I'll try to check on the back way or whatever it is, you know, I'll come back.
You know, it's just like she's just suddenly not there.
She literally just says, oh, these guys are going to get themselves into trouble.
I'm just going to sneak off and watch over them.
Yeah.
And you want to know something.
Like, the chemistry between the main cast is really well written in this.
Like Villa says, why deal when you can steal?
And Avon has a genuine smile at that.
Avon and Sulin get some great banter scenes again, like after Dana shoots the garb that's already dead, Terrence's like, well, if he had been alive, you would have saved our lives. like, do I get a prize?
There's no venom in any of those exchanges.
They're actually just getting along.
In fact, I just couldn't help thinking how posh and middle class they were in that exchange.
It's just really something. you know?
Five go hunting the Federation.
Even Tarrant telling Villa to stay outside is funny rather than bullying and Villa does end up coming to their rescue.
I actually think, though, that Ivan and Su Lin stuff up on the ship while everyone else is down below.
Like, that's something that we've done to death, I think, where we go off station and suddenly everyone's isolated.
Like that's super boring.
But also what you get is Avon really, really desperately trying to make some very tedious dialogue about how the computer works interesting by just delivering it like a terrifying threat.
You know what I mean?
Like everything that Avon says is this sort of scenery chewing thing.
And like, I appreciate that he's trying to enliven some pretty tedious dialogue, but it starts to seem a bit stupid, I think.
I just wanted him at the beginning after the explosions to turn around and say, switch it off.
The one thing I do like is where, or access to him, you know, you told me not to bore you with the technical details and he goes, oh, you know, I was busy.
A bit more time now.
Like, I thought that was actually pretty good.
But otherwise he's just sort of gnashing his teeth and and then, you know, because Glynis Barber takes her lead from him, it's just the 2 of them doing that at each other upstairs and I just didn't think that that was all that much fun to watch.
Jumping wildly.
Yeah.
Can we talk about Serverland this week?
Why is she here?
Yeah, so that's interesting, isn't it?
She's obviously here because this would be much, much more boring if she wasn't, and she is magnificent.
She loves up every episode.
Yeah, yeah, she does. contracted for 6 episodes of season or something like that, yes.
Eight, yeah.
But you see, I then think that's a problem because famously, there is an episode later this season where in later years, Jackie Pierce was asked, why weren't you in this very important episode?
And she said, because I'd done my 8 and they didn't want to pay me more.
And you have to kind of go, I wish Chris Boucher had gone.
You know what?
It's always lovely to have Jackie in, but this isn't a serverland part.
Let's save her because I know she's not contracted.
Let's keep one up our sleeve and introduce someone else or even the Federation can just be on their way because Belkov's plan doesn't really change.
Like, you know?
Yeah.
I mean, so Jackie is famously kind of confused and upset by the sleer role.
Like she's now no longer the supreme empress or the supreme commander of the Terran Federation or whatever.
And she thinks that's a dumb idea and of course she's right.
But, you know, just the way that she's fabulous in any role and the way she orders around those, you know, young men who fly her hotel room around the character in this season.
You know?
Like she's awesome.
It doesn't matter what role she is.
Pastry shed, you know, police commissioner.
It really doesn't matter at all.
But here she is super wasted.
She never interacts with any of the regulars.
She only interacts with Stratford Johns.
That's great, but, you know, why is she here?
It's odd that, yeah, she doesn't even get to interact with the regulars, which is does feel like a wasted opportunity.
It's interesting what you're saying there, Brendan.
I mean, we're, what, halfway through the season by now?
It's eight, I think. more than halfway through the season and they haven't yet worked out even a sketchy idea of how they want the season to conclude.
Now, fine, they don't maybe don't know still whether it's this is it or whether they're going to keep going on for a 5th season.
And I think the episode, in its entirety, you've kind of touched on this, Nathan, where there's a bit of this, there's a bit of that and we'll have this, none of it kind of makes sense.
It is kind of all a bit thrown together without a lot of care.
And I think it's that is reflective of the fact that they don't then have her for the last episode.
I mean, do we know for sure that it wasn't a deliberate decision not to have her in the final episode?
I, you know, I wonder if it might be, if she was in the final episode, it probably just would have been, she was in the last scene, and maybe they're like, no, no, no, we won't just get her in and pay her a full episode for one scene.
We'll get her in for a full episode and it's like, okay, but at the same time, Yeah that was done in modern television, you would just film those scenes with the other episodes.
Yes, they don't.
Yeah.
That's not the way time it's worked back then.
And not just the filming, but the contracting.
Yeah, exactly very different.
Exactly.
Because, you know, I was thinking with this, you know, we don't see serverlands flying hotel rumours who put it there.
But we will see it next week.
And of course, she's paired up with Stephen Yardley next week, which is great casting.
And, you know, wouldn't have been great to have a scene or 2 with him that they could have done back to back.
But as you say, Simon, that's not the way they did contracts back then.
Whereas now it can be done that way.
And to use Doctor Who was an example, the upcoming Sea Devil spinoff, Russell C.
Davies has said it's being filmed as one production block.
So he's like, I've got a character who's in episode one and episode five, he shot all his scenes in 3 days.
Yeah.
And that's how television has moved.
But that's also because of the way they pay people is completely different.
Whereas, you know, in the modern era, Jacqueline Pierce would have been paid an astonishing amount of money to be used whenever we need you.
Yes.
That's basically the way it works now.
How can they not have come up with that as an idea where they've got Jacqueline Pierce right in front of you?
It's like, yes, give her all the money.
Surely should have been the originator of that concert.
Exactly.
Yeah, so I mean, are we actually even saying that perhaps this is Serverland's weakest appearance in the entire series?
She does get to playoffs.
A necessary appearance, man.
Which is okay.
Do you know what I mean?
She's that's okay.
There's some fun bits in it. don't know.
I think it may seem so weak because of what she's become, because if you look back, say, to seek locate, destroy, she's kind of just there to give Travis orders before she becomes...
Yeah, before she becomes who she became in Project Avalon and Beyond.
But yeah, I think it's maybe maybe not her weakest just because Jackie Pierce at her weakest is still fabulously entertaining.
We're not saying her week is we're saying the characters use the weakest use of the character.
Okay, yes, I'm not talking about her at all.
Yeah, okay, I would never say that.
I think I would agree with you.
And coming back to the point about her not liking Sleir, it's a real kind of weakening of that character.
That character used to be the supreme power of this federation.
Now she's in hiding, she's assumed a different identity.
She's reduced to going around to various planets with nefarious schemes.
Which probably would have worked if there had been a 5th series where she then regains all the power and can come out again at Severland and Wahaha.
Is that just so Hugh Fraser can play the president?
Yes, for a big finish. that's right I mean, what, you know, it doesn't affect her performance.
She's still playing it as if she's supreme commander, you know, like who I don't think she needs to put in much effort.
No, no, she's just, but this is very low rent for her, isn't it?
And it kind of diminishes our characters a little bit too, that they're just being chased by a policeman rather than by the supreme commander or the galactic emperor.
Well, because it was fine in whichever one it was, Traitor. where, yes, she's commissioner Sleer, but kind of everybody knows she's serverland, whereas I suppose this is the only instance, is it, or one of the few instances where everyone's still calling her commissioner Sleer.
As opposed to, well, we actually know who you really are.
Yeah.
She's slearing animals, I think.
They share, yeah.
So, I mean, that is kind of thing to rewatch that.
Did you?
I thought I'd give that one a miss.
It's actually astoundingly entertaining, even though it's atrocious, like... the worst episode of the run of the show, but gee whiz, it's so much more fun to watch than this.
Molar.
There is some competition there down the bottom, isn't there?
Yeah, you know, I might go as far as to say, I was about to say season one doesn't have a worst episode, but maybe Time Squad.
No, that's fine.
But the thing is, Times Squad has the Cali plot.
It's kind of like Time Squad has the Cali plot.
Webb has like, you know, some interesting discussions about sci-fi concepts, you know?
Yeah, actually, it's, 0 my god.
Is season one the most reliable?
Sorry.
A, Series 8.
Series eight.
It's not what the Blu-ray boxer calls it.
Yeah, yeah.
Despite sleep binding, yeah.
And despite how tall Siheart is, he does not have the wingspan to hit me from the UK for calling it season one.
It's interesting with the game stuff.
I mean, because computer chess has probably always been the computer game.
It's always been, you know, can we build a computer that will beat the world champion at chess?
And so having...
Spoiler alert.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
But that was always the thing.
But so but chess is not something you play on a computer so much anymore.
And in fact, it wasn't by the time you even get to the early 90s, I think.
So it's very much of its time.
But all of the, I love, because I think this is the 1st time you see it done in television properly.
I love all the player one player 2 game over stuff that you get on the space station and also later on.
It's the 1st time that kind of language, which is suddenly common, appears on screen.
Yeah, in fact, I think that that lands more boringly now, because game over is just a normal thing that people say. any expressions, but it's a little bit kind of surprising to see it turn up in Blake's ever, and where you've got that terrible, you know, with the computer font thing that says, you know.
What was that BBC computer that they used to have?
Oh, the BBC micro, yeah.
No, but I mean the light that says game over that lights up with game over the door.
I was just disappointed it wasn't speed chess.
Yes.
The very 1st computer chess.
I think that we see on the show is in weapon. where Carnell has that computer which we identified as the 1st ever home computer sold that could play chess.
Right.
So computer chess is obviously a thing.
And I think that adds a fair amount of visual interest to the set.
Like, I think the set that Belkov lives in is pretty great, and that the point of presence for the gambit computer looks really good, like much better than Aurac does, I think.
It's more than a box of flashing light.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Boy, who's an actress?
So she is mostly a stage actress.
She is a proper actress.
I did kind of look her up.
Her name is Rosalind Bailey.
I think she's really actually quite good.
She's great.
There's this wonderful melancholy in her voice, which I think really sues.
Whereas Peter Tottenham's got this, you know, very excitable voice, you know, where hers is this not sort of like low key, but it's got a sort of understated melancholy to it, which I think really suits it all.
And actually, I think she delivers a flat enough performance throughout it, that it's not like you feel the computer's getting emotional when she's having to self-destruct.
Yeah, although you do a little bit, don't you?
Well, maybe, yes. subtle, but it's subtle. subtle. yeah, yeah.
Because there's stuff said in the dialogue about how the computer has taken on aspects of Belkov's personality and Aurak rejects the idea that it has any kind of relationship with Belkov.
But I think the performance is on the edge of that.
And I do actually think that, you know, like I said, I think Stratford John's performance is maybe the highlight of this thing.
When he comes in and says goodbye to her.
But also that great moment where she kind of almost murders him.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, no, yeah, please, you know, like, give me give me control.
No.
No, she says unable to comply and then she says unwilling to comply.
That's true, yeah.
So there is some kind of agency that she sort of has.
But when he says goodbye to her.
She does kind of play it as if she's a little bit sort of upset or disappointed.
And he's certainly playing it that way.
Oh, yeah.
He's certainly sorry to leave her.
You know, we don't get a lot of computers in Blake Seven, really.
We see a lot of the computers we do get, like Zen and Slave and Aurac, but the concept of the computer taking on aspects of the personality of the user has been around since the 1st series.
And, you know, Aurac, of course, is modelled on Ensor, but I would argue also when Zen 1st boots up, you know, Zen talks about, oh, okay, yeah, I'll take your language from you.
I take the image from Jenna's mind and this is Liberator.
I give you a visual reference point as you require it.
It's a fascinating atypical view of computers in the science fiction of the time.
It's sort of you've got Hal in 2001 and the whole problem with Hal is he can't take on human ideas and human personality and that creates a conflict.
You've got the computer in Star Trek, which had that horror strident voice, Major Barrett did, and the one time it had a personality, Kirk threatened to dismantle it with an axe. you know.
And it's something that Big Finish then picks up and runs with.
And I think possibly that's why the computers of Blake 7 are so fondly remembered.
I don't know if I've told this story on maximum power.
I've told it on FTE.
My parents, both trained as scientists, and somewhere my mum was working.
They had 3 very early mainframes in the 1980s and they were called Zen, Orac, and I will tell you the 3rd one in a moment because someone, is she overheard a conversation and this person said, why are the computers called Zen Aurac and this other name?
And the person said, oh, they're computers from some science fiction thing.
And my mother poked her head around the door and said, excuse me, Zen and or Aqua computers.
Jenna was a gorgeous blonde. and swept out of the room.
The 3rd one was called Jenna.
Jenna.
Maybe there was an objection to calling it slave.
Oh, which is a surprise for the time.
I wanted to know, were they prime computers?
Almost certainly.
Rosalind Bailey.
Yes, stage actress and sort of bits and pieces of TV around the place.
At this point, though, she was quite famous in the UK as a regular character in when the boat comes in.
Yes.
Which concludes around the same time.
So, yeah, it's quite possible that she was considered like a 3rd big name in this episode and maybe she was busy shooting the last series of when the boat comes in, but said, oh, coming into a voice for you, you know, or it could have just been Vivian cousins, maybe had worked with her before.
I don't know, to be honest.
Yeah.
The thing that they do with Gambit is they have her being made up out of a bunch of other computers and being added to, and so being made haphazardly, like not being designed.
And so that's, I think, why it has human characteristics, because it wasn't designed on a drawing board, but like us, it was just kind of cobbled together out of other things, you know.
And so like, I think that's kind of cool.
But I, you know, like, I think it's a great performance and I think it's maybe one of the highlights of the episode.
And I think, again, we'll get to the end quite soon, but I think the fact that we have really no idea what happens at the end of the episode actually kind of spoils that final interaction that you mentioned, James, between Belkoff and Gambit, because it's impossible to tell what the outcome of that is.
How cheesy, on a scale of one to 11, do we find the last bit where the Scorpio crew arrive at the space station and each one of them gets one thing?
Jesus Christ.
So we have 4 games, each of which is based on the special skill of one of our characters.
There's a door.
I think by the time there's a door.
Maybe even when there's a pilot game, do you know what I mean?
Or you see sort of, oh, it's a quick draw game right at the very beginning.
Yes.
And that's the only thing that we know about Zulian, that's her entire character summary.
Yes, exactly.
But it doesn't make sense anywhere because the even it appears on the computer screen.
It says the computer will match your skills and then in the final round, exceed them.
So that kind of means that you're going to lose at the end anyway, because it'll always be a final round where it's better than you.
It makes no sense at all.
But maybe maybe it can't exceed Soulin's super skills.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's the usual sci-fi thing of, and we even, we even, well, Villa undermines it later on, but it's the usual sci-fi thing of, that takes 2 hours.
You've got 10 minutes.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
But then the next one, the flight simulator one.
I mean, flight simulators were the most, most boring, tedious game of those early PCs.
Like, everyone wants everyone, like, I think they'd always come with your IBM piece.
Yes.
You always crash.
They were just ridiculously dull.
I hated them.
Likewise, the quick George games I never got into and I think.
So I was, where was the Pac-Man slash Space Invaders style game?
Because those games existed.
Yeah.
And especially the space invasion, or even a pong star. you know what I mean?
Like, it was all the dull ones.
Big dug or load runner.
Oh, I love load.
Yeah, load runner was pretty great.
Yeah, I dig dug's a bit lazy than that.
I'll have to look up my emulator.
A bit later, it might have been bubble bobble.
I know load runners 1984.
I think Dig Dog could be 1982.
I think it is, that rings a bell.
But something that is notable about the games.
The 1st game with the joystick was, I believe, missile in 1969 arcade game.
Okay.
So most arcade games throughout the 70s and into the 80s didn't necessarily have what we would consider the modern control of the joystick or direction pad and buttons.
They had some sort of dedicated controller to simulate the activity.
And that's what we get here.
We get a light gun, which I believe is recycled later in Vengeance on Varos.
And we get like a moving seat cockpit with a joystick for the flight simulator.
So we get a door for the door.
But you know, I mean, I always loved, you know, Death of the Daleks 4 and Pyramids of Mars 4. as a kid.
Now, I still have some fondness for them now, even though they're a bit ridiculous.
They clearly just running out the time.
But at the same time, I just think that this could have been a little bit more logical if this is allegedly an adult science fiction program.
It could have been.
Avon goes over 1st with Aurac and goes, okay, this is a gun thing.
Sulin, you're up.
Sulin beams over.
There you go.
Oh, this is a flight scene.
Okay, Sulyn, you go back.
It's too dangerous for too many of us to be here.
Tarant, get over here.
You know, and that...
Even that, you would be going, 0 my god, it's still one game per person. at least you're hanging out.
Possibly more so.
You're hanging a lantern on it.
And it's a computer game thing.
If you are playing an arcade game, some at the time allowed you to select two, three, four players and you would alternate and you would step up to the cabinet.
Yes, yes, for an extra $.20.
I think it's just done, yeah, clumsily.
I think is what it is.
And without care, without finesse.
No, it's the usual thing, right?
Where, as someone learns that computer games are really new and interesting now in this world of the early 1980s, and I, Bill Lyons, who has maybe read about them, but never actually encountered one and going to include them in my script.
And so it's very definitely, you know, it's like the emoji bots in Doctor Who, where they're being written by someone who doesn't know how to communicate with emojis.
But that being said, he gets the computer games part right.
Like the computer, the computer game.
Door game.
Well, here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
And I will get to the door.
We'll get to the door again.
But, you know, the light gun, the flight simulator, the computer chess, that is all how those things worked.
And considering Bill Lyons is maybe what, about 20 winnings in Doctor Who?
he's probably 40 or something.
Well, yeah, approaching 40, which means he probably has teenage kids who are playing these games and that's probably where he's seeing them.
Now that's the thing.
We know the idea runs out when it's like, here's a door.
And instead of having a game attached, like recently over on the BJBJ game show, available wherever you get your podcast.
We played the Talos principle and one of the mechanics in that, you unlock doors using tangram puzzles.
Yes, and that's what it needs to be rather than the fingerprint.
It needed to have 2 things appear and say, you know, the next thing I say will be true, but the last thing I said was a lie kind of thing. all that kind of nonsense.
You know what I mean?
Like, it needs that added to it rather than just a door because really they've run out of time in the story.
And look, the fingerprint thing is clever and it's appropriate to character and it makes sense as much as anything does in this episode, but it's not a game.
So what is the game that Avon plays?
So Avon has to do a thing about where planets are?
Avon plays a pub trivia quiz machine?
Okay.
It's, you know, it's it's like the star must be this, this, this, this.
It's the next illogical sequence.
Oh my god, it's a black hole.
Okay.
And then we suddenly know that the Felden crystals aren't here.
And apparently...
That's what that's what Avon says.
I think the logic is, when Avon solves his puzzle and it's, what's the name of the star?
It's something XL.
Yeah, like an extra large star, I think.
It's not how we name stars.
Signus XL.
We don't call stars that, do we?
Yeah.
So, yeah, he names the style.
Cygnus XL.
It a black hole.
And I think there is some very hurried dialogue that indicates during the thing, it's like, as soon as we solve this puzzle, we get access to the Felden Crystals, but also the station goes to wherever the star is.
And that's when Avon realises there can't be crystals because if there's crystals, you can't get to them because this thing is going to shoot towards a black hole.
So their crystals can't be here.
But where's the black hole?
It's nearby.
What?
Like what?
But also then why is the space station reacting to the black hole with the infinite energy if the crystals are not there?
I mean, how does that work?
Like, they're the panels on the space station?
Is there a light?
Are they Felden panels?
The panels are felded.
The panels are Felden.
Yeah.
So there is Felton on the space station, just not the crystal.
But if crystal.
And if they're infinitely magnified, why won't someone's big lighter on the surface of the planet do just as well as a distant black hole?
Like, it, like the whole, which is not emitting light.
I don't know what, like it's not, is it emitting energy?
Maybe it's anything radiation.
It emits radiation out of the holes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there we go.
It is.
Sorry, Bill.
It's all big radiation, not necessarily light radiation. but they're still against...
Well it is a full light, actually. in terms of this full spectrum.
Look, I don't I don't want to claim that about black holes, but just please.
This is a different podcast.
But, like, and then something, there's some sparkly light.
We really are doing it now.
At some point, and then a thing happens, and then, like, it's really, like, there's clearly something can't, we go, or not filmed.
Yeah.
We go from, uh, it's not made clear that the stupid circuit that Villa takes out of Gambit, he's in that box that's on top of Aurac.
Well, the weird thing is it's not.
Because I thought when we get that that picture of the space station and it's like Dana, where put us over now.
I thought, okay, this is covering a scene where we attach the circuit to Aurak. et cetera, et cetera.
But you've got the weird box on top of all rack.
And then you've got the circuit next to it that Villa gets the fingerprint off.
Also, somehow, or it's both on Scorpio and on the orbiter at the same time.
But isn't the box?
Oh, yeah.
I thought the box on top of Aurac was basically just a camera attachment.
Maybe.
I thought that's what I interpreted.
Oh okay.
Because it needs to be this massive thing.
It's not exactly a webcam size.
Yeah, but who is that for?
Who's looking at it?
Isn't someone still back on Dana is?
Dana is but Dana needs to follow along.
She wants to watch the episode too.
I wonder if she followed it better than we are.
Clearly.
So Aurek has become a Twitch streamer.
That's what we're saying. basically.
Okay, because I do like the thing the thing that I do like is Aurac and Gambit giving the dialogue at the same time as they analyse the games.
So why just treat me, you know, like I'm a child?
Explain it to me as if I'm a child.
Why does Belkov's ship blow up?
No, it doesn't.
It doesn't.
What does it do?
I don't know.
There's like there's a special effects shot missing there.
So all you see is him kind of go, oh, I'm you to go to the orbiter.
And then that's basically the last you see of him, yes?
Like, it's supposed to be a shot at his ship blowing up that they either didn't film or they edited out of time.
Because what happens is he has the conversation with Gambit and then Gambit is going to let him die and he persuades Gambit not to do that.
And then he laughs.
Oh, yeah.
And actually, he persuades Gambit to send him and the station into the black hole.
So I'm wrong earlier.
Oh, really?
Why would he want to do that?
He says, if you're not going to give me control, lock my ship and orbiter onto Cygnus XL.
But does that mean send them into the black hole?
What does it mean?
What is locking something onto something, me?
That doesn't mean to send me there.
Well, um, who knows?
Who could say?
That's why, you see, I, because when he laughs, I thought it was that laugh of, I'm going to die.
Well, because we do, you know, we do have a line of dialogue saying the felon crystals won't be any use to Belkov where he's gone.
But like the last we saw of him was him successfully persuading Gambit to do something that seemed to be not killing him.
No, I thought he didn't successfully.
Why does he laugh?
I thought she agreed.
He was laughing, staring at him, like, because she's beat him.
Oh, yes, yes.
Oh, okay.
He's laughing like he laughed before.
You know, it's like, I just can't tell what's going on.
No, no, I can't tell. what I'm saying.
I not sure.
Is he dead?
Like, I know, you know, Endgame Tabilikov in credits.
Yeah, so he must be dead and then he out with them.
He's out with you.
Because then none of them have got Felden Crystals because the few that Villa style were fake. were fake.
Yeah, why were they fake?
Because he didn't want to leave something so valuable.
I don't know, because I don't know, what did you do with the real ones?
absorbed LED light from the console would have blown up his...
What's not actually covered is, well, I didn't understand, which may be the same thing, is why.
So obviously this infinite power that you can get from distant stars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sometimes they can control it. sometimes it can blow up.
Do we actually get an explanation as to why it's controllable sometimes and or is it even controllable or is it erratic or is it what's going on here?
Because it blows up that planet at the beginning, right?
No, it blows up their facility, not the planet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
With that shot of the explosion at the beginning, when Avon's explaining, you know, about the new power station, they can build and et cetera, et cetera.
He does say something along the lines of the reaction can be controlled, but it can go out of control.
So it's it's kind of a metaphor for a new pass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like a nuclear reaction, only more volatile.
Yeah.
My reading of the ending, oh, God, we shouldn't have to use those words.
But my reading of the ending is.
Belkov arranges for his ship, which is carrying some Felden crystals, and the orbiter, which has Felden solar collectors or whatever, are being sent towards the black hole.
The energy from the black hole.
He shrugged. is being magnified by the Feld and Grizzles, and increasing the gravitational pull of the black hole, and Avon basically says, well, if we apply a directly inverse force, that could be enough to push us away, and Aurak's like, that's fucking stupid.
And it is.
And then it worked.
And it does.
It makes all of the things disappear.
Yeah, and is that what happens to Belkov?
Is he one of the things that disappears?
He goes into the black hole and loses his physical being and becomes...
You know what?
It is the plot that almost 10 years later, Red Dwarf would reuse for much better effect in Whitehole.
They plug up a black hole with the inverse energy from the Felden crystals.
In a particularly 1950s understanding of science fiction.
I mean, I think that this is the problem with the entire show, is that it has a whole heap of science fiction things that are not very interesting and then it has the usual kind of faffing about in a quarry and like a tribe of primitive people, again, who have religion, those weirdos, and that's a thing.
And then, like, there's no real kind of character to it.
The closest it gets is the idea that it's about computer games, but you have to think that something like Death Watch is much more interestingly about computer games than this.
And so there's no real proper high concept.
There's nothing super interesting for Servoland to do.
There's nothing really there, I think.
And that's why I've been kind of, I've only been half joking when I've been comparing it unfavourably to animals because animals has a very strong, very stupid main concept, but it is an actual main concept.
You know, it's the episode with OG and, you know, hypnotising, hypnotising Dana and stuff.
Whereas this is the episode about what exactly?
Yeah, that, that, that suddenly, an inappropriate grooming.
Yeah, yeah, there's that.
Yeah.
Well, so when is grooming?
Yeah.
No, no, don't cut that.
Look, I think you're absolutely right there, Nathan, but I don't think it's the worst Black 7 episode.
I think we've had others, which qualify in more important ways to be bad.
I think, yeah, I think this creates the sin of being poorly thought through, poorly put together.
Poorly made, because there's obviously, well, as James, you've said, there's at least one missing shot that's either missing because they didn't get to it or because they forgot or whatever ridiculous excuse they have or because it was cut.
If they decided to cast it, that is a very poor decision. unless it was because it wasn't properly realised.
But it's too slow at the beginning and then 2 rushes at the end.
So there's a pacing problem.
It needs an extra draft and it needs everyone to go away and just have a big good think about what they've been doing. think that's the thing.
The point that you made earlier, Nathan.
It's like, it's a grab bag.
It's a grab bag of ideas.
It doesn't really have much of a purpose.
It's just all these sci-fi concepts chucked in.
Which you can't do.
And you can't explore any of them properly.
That's the problem as well.
So whereas Death Watch, for instance, can explore a single idea.
And, you know, you don't need to pair it back that much.
You just need to kind of just think about what you're trying to say and what we're trying to do.
Have a through line.
It's okay.
Computer games are definitely a thing that the kids are into, right?
Yes, yes, we should do that.
We should.
I can do a really good game over graphic.
Great.
Let's make an episode.
I think what probably saves it from being even in the bottom five, is that 1st of all, everyone is acting in character.
You know, exactly.
You don't have, like, animals is terrible for a number of reasons.
But mostly it's Josette, is it?
Well, mostly it's what Josette is given.
Yes, oh, no, quite. portrayal of her character.
Exactly.
Which she then does the best possible job with.
Yeah, maybe.
You know, Star Drive has some really stupid design decisions and, as I mentioned before, just Avon, Sulin, and Tarrant dancing around a quarry.
And it's also that series D has a coherent visual identity.
It always looks great.
They have dedicated model work per episode.
Like we get new shots of the Scorpio because we have the orbiter.
This is the only time we see Scorpio fire, it's guns.
Oh, wow.
You know, something Via Laura Ma brings, which David Maloney tried to do and kept getting shouted down by various departments.
I't know how Via Lorimer does it instead, but Via says, no, we want this to look as close to Star Wars as possible, and we are going to pull out all the visual stops.
So yeah, I think those 2 things at least keep it entertaining.
Yeah.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back next week to talk about a Blake 7 episode that's coarse, rough, and irritating, and that gets in everywhere.
It's sand.
Until next time, remember that a huge negative force a long way off could be balanced by a positive force close to the crystals, which might be a bad thing or a good thing, or both, who knows?
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
It's how I balance caffeine with my soma.
Good night.
Bye for now.
Let's go.
Go, go. 30 seconds thrust, amazing...
Switch his man.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maxim, now.
I need to correct something for me before.
It is not X rays that come out of the poles of a... black hole.
Yeah, well, it might be x rays.
So please, no one at me, but it is, there is ionised stuff that comes out.
I think they're still not entirely sure, but there is stuff that so a black hole can actually evaporate over time.
Yes.
Which is why, basically, otherwise the universe, which is black hole.
Well, it is full like holes, but yeah.
Oh, well, that's it, the science, and this is totally accurate.
Action, totally.
They were ahead of their time, in fact.
The universe is basically Swiss cheese.
Yes, essentially, yes, yeah.
Not as delicious.
Beats of it are quite delicious.
Yeah, in my experience.
Not as good as a nice cooter.
Yeah.
But much like this plot full of...
That's the ending.
No, I think we've probably already had the ending, I think, into our low effort. been ending it since the beginning.
But I'm not entertained by this episode.
Yeah, see, I was super bored.
I'm bored.
I keep coming back to it again, and I'll say it again, the keeper.
Yeah, the keeper is also boring.
No, no, no, that's where I'm bored.
In fact, the one thing And I'm also bored by duel.
I'm sorry everyone.
Oh, okay, that's interesting.
See, it's just tedious.
I think I think the thing about keeper that's just about to say is it for me is Sally's performance.
Like, she's the best thing in it, because she just thinks all of this is stupid.
She's right.
And you what?
Kudos to the production team because Sally leaves because she's not very satisfied.
So they're like, okay, we are going to give you a really dumb episode.
Okay, we're so that you don't regret your decision.
We're going to give you 2 really dumb episodes because she also plays a large party in Gambit with that cat fight.
But at least they at least they go, we're going to make you a focus for this episode.
It's actually going to be you that negotiates and you that gets the mission.
You'll get to leave the teleport, basically.
You get to sleep.
It's kind of like, we're very sorry and we won't do it to the next woman.
We did do it to her this week.
Yeah.
It'll be easier for the one after and the one after that, I believe, I believe, was what a great woman once said.
Yes.
Well, also shack her up with her dad's mate.
Yuck He'll free to cut that.
I need enough.
I hate to say that's the sort of thing that did go on.
Oh, God, it still does.
Well, my look, my beloved Avengers.
You know, Linda, Linda Thorson said the only way I could play this role is if I, is if Tara was madly in love with Steve and thankfully I was madly in love with Patrick.
Well, you would.
But she's like, not like that.
Not like that, but you know, he stopped me going mad.
Enamoured.