Welcome to Maximum Power, the podcast where life's a beach, but the sand draws a line in you.
Have we got grit or are we soggy sandwitches?
We're here to debate the Blake 7 episodes Sand.
I'm Pete.
I'm Adam.
I'm Kate and I'm Simon.
Welcome, everybody, and welcome Kate to maximum power.
It's great to have you joining us on a pretty amazing episode.
How do you find sand in general?
or is you going to tell me you hate it?
No, absolutely one of my favourites.
I think possibly sad and psychophagus are the 2 best episodes.
There's a commonality.
Arguably.
Um, you know, I liked it from...
I, trying to remember if I saw it when I was a little girl or if I had to see it when I was a teenager when it was repeated.
And I'm not sure, but I know that it knocked my socks off at the time.
Yeah, yeah.
And I saw it as a kid.
I would have been 7 or 8.
And I just remember it being like, why is this space show about having dinner?
They just on a date?
Very disappointed as a child.
As an adult, I'm like, oh, this is awesome.
What about you, Simon?
When did you 1st?
I feel, well, when I 1st saw it.
I can't remember when I 1st saw it, but it would have been watching it as part of watching Blake 7 in a very random order through VHS tapes supplied by Peter Griffiths back in the day.
But I hate to say it, and I don't want to bring it, put a downer on it, but I think this episode, the parts are greater than it's some.
Uh, the, the, the best things about it are all the bits, all the lines, all the little scenes.
But I, I, when I was watching it this morning in preparation for this, I had exactly the same reaction with the last time I watched it, which was, yes, it's bits of it are fantastic, but it's just a little bit tedious to watch, I'm afraid.
We've got an, that sounds like we've got an episode then because we've got, we've got things to debate.
Ooh, conflict.
Conflict.
Which is more than this episode has.
I mean, and for me, yeah, I saw this one.
I don't think I saw it when I was a kid.
But then I saw it when I was a teenager and like, you know, I was being shown them in random random order.
Well, not random, but you know, selection by a friend.
And I was just, I was perplexed that it wasn't Avon that was having this showdown with Serviland, but I'm sure we'll come to that.
Showdown, etc.
I suspect that was possibly a Jekyll Pierce directive, which is like, yeah, I've kissed him a lot.
I want the younger one Not enough though, Adam. not enough.
I mean, this could very easily be a backdoor pilot for the Serverland show, couldn't it?
I mean, it's...
Not that she needs one.
Not that she ever needs to use a back door.
She comes into a different character, doesn't she, in this, sort of?
Yes, she has an emotion.
And Netflix seems determined to bring out Silverland's vulnerability, which is not a characteristic that you associate with Silverland.
She's the steel queen.
And an interesting thing I thought was that we are very clearly shown that the emotions that Servan is having, her fear, her grief, are genuine because she is having them when other people can't see her face.
So evil Stephen Yardley, whose name I've forgotten, Reve, is standing behind her and you can see her reaction to the recordings of Kala.
And sometimes she seems to be putting on a performance for Tarrant.
Other times he can't see her and she's still emoting.
So it's all quite genuine.
And um, very unusual, but I think it really helps to round that character out, that she isn't just there and she has, she's blank and has no emotions.
She actually feels quite deeply, but nonetheless she's the steel queen.
She's more than her evening dresses. yes Oh my god, wandering around on the planet of sand in high heels.
Five miles, they say at the start, we're flying in 5 miles at the place.
Israel over this ground.
That's how indomitable she is.
She's like, I can do this in heels.
Don't worry, sweetheart. quicker than Roger Bannister as well.
It's about a montage of 2 clips and she's done the 5 miles in one minute.
It's quite a turnaround.
Barely worked up a glow getting here.
You mentioned Reeves.
Stephen Yardley because we've got a fairly small guest cast this week, but they all do their bit, don't they?
And he's a real staple of BBC.
If you're a fan of anything from the 70s or 80s, you will have come across him and he's got just, you know, Bergerac, Juliet Bravo, Dr. 2 fans known for vengeance on Varos, of course.
And he does more than being just the sort of Travis substitute of the week.
I think he puts a bit more into it than that.
Because it needs more than that, doesn't it?
I think he's disappointed that he gets killed so early, frankly.
As he does, it's a good fall.
But as he's doing that for?
my agent said this was a bigger part.
You can almost see his days being numbered from the very 2nd he mentions that he's recognised server and it's like, yeah, you are not going to make it to the end of this episode, buddy.
Yeah.
She's incognito.
She's like Emperor Palpatine.
Somehow, she survived.
I mean, she's only, the 1st episode, she's only, was it, 30 something she's killed?
There must be 1000s for her to go through the full, the full list of everyone who saw her.
But that's not going to stop her, is it?
That is not good.
She's incognito, but she looks exactly the same.
With this extraordinarily striking appearance and yet, yeah, but she does say that everybody who knew her had been purged.
They must have made a good purge of it if nobody recognised it.
Very good purge.
But yes, you'd think she'd at least put on a Cassini wig to sort of make herself look like somebody else.
Just seen him or something, you know.
Yes, exactly.
Also, as if as if the original serverland, who this serverland's not supposed to be, I guess, wasn't, you know, one of the most photographed people of all time.
Like, she's extremely glamorous.
She would have been turning up in places like, oh, you'll never believe what the Supreme Commander was wearing this week.
Her Czech list probably actually got to destroy all her special edition postage stamps with me on.
I've got to destroy all of those meltdown those coins.
Everyone who read that issue of Who Weekly.
We've also got Chazgo, played by Daniel Hill, famous to Doctor Who fans for not being able to be in Shada, but again, he was a he's a BBC staple from sitcoms particularly through the 80s and 90s.
And I think the amount of grease on his hair in this episode could in itself, like, you've seen the, you've seen Shada.
I mean, you see how big that hair is.
That's what it takes.
Yeah, that's what it takes to get it splash.
Yeah, I, uh, Tesco and Servoland's assistant who hasn't given a name.
They, to me, they really looked like they'd come out of Tom Corbett's space cadet.
They had a real 50s rocket ship captain look with the big shoulders and everything.
It was quiet.
I'm not sure we see that look anywhere else in like 7 they look quite extraordinary.
Don't we see those uniforms in Trace, or am I imagining?
Yes, you could be right.
Could be.
I could also be wrong, but I'm just, that's what I thought of before.
I'll check in post.
Whichever one of you's right. leave that go luckily back.
Whichever of us is wrong, you'll leave that in your name.
Whichever's funniest.
Oh, get on with it.
What difference does it make if he is wrong?
He did seem like possibly the most incompetent person to ever fly anything ever.
Like, it was called, that's rude.
I think he was very confident.
I think it's that button and maybe this one.
Yeah, sure.
Why aren't we going?
I think he was very earnest.
He was doing it all very earnestly.
I really felt for his position because, you know, he was trying his best and he's surrounded by all of these, you know, fools for commanders, you know.
I mean, the line, yeah, the line management practises within the Federation are not based upon work-life balance and improving your employees' sense of development.
Are they?
Basically, just if anything goes wrong, I'm going to kill you.
Ever since they replaced those people that put the blood vials in their chest to fly anywhere.
Yes.
Oh, no, we have to feed them.
Yeah, we don't see much of the mutoids anymore, do we?
No.
I thought that's maybe these were recovering ones.
Like, when you take off those weird little helmets, they've got very slicked back hair underneath.
Most of the mutuids are all purged.
Oh, yeah, maybe they all know what's in that looks like.
I thought the mutanoids went out with Gareth Thomas day, didn't they?
Yeah they did.
Went out with?
In which sense?
I can see him now.
They were in a polycule.
Stringfellows with one on each arm. ceased appearing at the same time as.
And yeah, our 3rd Federation is Peter Craze of Michael's brother, isn't he?
And it doesn't even get a name.
Oh, is it?
He's just Serverland's assistant.
Yeah I'll have words.
I mean, he gets a few lines.
He's not just a, he's not a walk on.
But not having a name is a very bad sign for your survival.
Oh, yeah, it really is, yeah.
We don't we don't do it by shirt colour.
Although I've been enjoying a TV show lately called Dr. Odyssey and barely anyone has an actual name.
Like, their character names are like Grandma, as played by Shania Twain, or Syphilis Sam, as played by Cord Overstreet. is the weirdest show.
So you can have not a name and still impact the script. is true.
I mean, enough to 4 years, they're probably running low on space names by now.
The space name generator is overheated.
Is he a space assistant?
Does he count as a space assistant?
I call him Henry.
That's not spicy enough.
Just don't be blameful.
Space Henry. quite a few minutes in.
We meet the supporting cast of less important characters back at Xenon Bass.
They're debating it.
And well, the idea that Avon would actually be bound by a vote. they actually sells that idea to me. and when I stand back and think about it, I'm like, would he, really?
But he's genuinely, they're genuinely having a, you know, are we in for this one or not?
And it's everyone except Villa is basically his, aren't they?
Yeah.
But he can't get a vote because he's inebriated.
I wouldn't give myself a vote when I'm inebriated.
I think I think whilst it is a democracy, I think Avon has as many votes as everybody else +one.
He would have the casting vote.
He's 50 he's always 51% of the vote.
Yes, exactly.
I wonder if Avon takes a bit of a vote because it's a rather ill-defined mission.
It's like, well, there's something good maybe and maybe we could get it first.
It's not a typical Blake 7 life or death.
You know, we must defeat the federation kind of mission.
So he's sort of thinking like, yeah, do we really want to do this?
Yes, I suppose we do.
All right, let's go.
Otherwise the story's going to be too short.
Yeah, we had the same kind of vague debate before the last episode games and look how well that turned out.
They're not the wisest ship's crew in the galaxy.
I think Avon has one of those votes where he's very skilled at convincing other people to make the decision he wants made.
Like, you know, like if you wanted to get out of a job and you're just like, do you really think I'm the right person for this?
Everyone's like, you know what?
I think I know someone who's better for this job being like, yeah, because I did not want to do that.
I suspect Avon's doing a little bit of that.
We might not see it on screen, but I reckon he'd be going around white handing everyone before the vote.
Well, here's the dominant male.
He'll tell you.
He is.
There's some great gifts to be made out of the reactions to that statement at the end where he says.
This isn't, I forgot to mention, this is an episode that starts with a poem.
I don't think we've had an episode of Blake's heaven.
Start with somebody reciting a poem before, have we?
And it's one of Tannethlee's own poems that I think she'd written prior to this.
One of the Blake 7 fact websites gets quite tangled about whether this means that she exists as a fictional poet within the Blake 7 universe as well, by virtue of having written her own poem into the story.
Right, Tangle.
Yeah.
I hope she didn't feel the need to write a Blake 7 episode in order to get her poem aired. you How can I give this poem a greater audience?
I had the impression that Reeve was quoting a poem that might be well known.
That he says this is this plan that reminds me of this, and the approaching you get is that the other person at the other end might have heard this poem and thought, oh, I see what you mean.
Um, I'd love the use of poetry all through all through it.
The thing about, well, we be lovers for a long time, which the computer then, The computer produces like a mangled poem, it's starting to go colour, killer, colour, colour, and it comes up with that little bit.
Uh, I loved that all through it.
It's kind of, it's a bit like cut up poetry, isn't it?
Like, you know, the way David Bowie used to write his songs, like just hacking things together and going, there you go.
That's a bit of poem.
Or I can say it.
That's art.
Yeah, an Aurac and the computer on the base both come out with the same phrase about, will we be together for a long time, isn't it?
Yeah.
Sort of, and that's where that's where this...
Well, I mean, opening with a poem anyways, it makes you realise this is a different episode to usual, but when the computers start quoting poetry as well, you realise that we're playing by some different rules this week.
This isn't just going to be a shoot them up.
I love it.
I like the fact that some of some of the dialogue is essentially poetry as well.
So, um, uh, Tarrant is describing Serverland as the panther with the golden eyes and the silver talons are like, whoa, where does that come from, Tarrant?
Didn't suspect you had that in you.
And also, so that I'm talking about power being beautiful and shining.
And there's these incredible poetic little speeches as well as all of these witticisms.
So it's just got this very rich language, which is a bit unusual.
It's not that unusual because there's a lot of witticisms in Blake 7, but it is a very rich stew.
Yeah, it just leans in a different direction.
It is leaning, isn't it?
Do you think it's because Tenneth Lee's like predominantly a prose author and is kind of, you know, for want of a bit of term, slumming it, writing for television?
And it's like, oh, Chris Boucher sitting there going, yeah, I don't know where to cut this.
We don't normally get poetry.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the and it does, you know, hark back to sarcophagus, doesn't it?
I mean, very literally later on, but even just in terms of tone, it's definitely a do another one a bit like that, please, commission, isn't it?
try something different at all.
It's more of more coming from that perspective again, because they know there's something really distinctive that can like 7 can really do.
I couldn't imagine a Doctor Who episode written by Tan Italy.
Oh God, no.
Well, at this point.
No, yeah.
Not at this point in time when Tom Baker would just say whatever he felt like.
Oh God, now I'm imagining this episode with Tom Baker and Mary Towne locked in the thing and that would not be broadcastable.
Oh my god, the food machine, instead of dinner produces the cake for the 400th episode.
Tom would want to be flirting with Beatrix Lehman, wouldn't he, actually?
That would be his green version, probably.
But yeah, it's going to a very different place and trying to really get the emotions running on us as it is on its characters because I remember seeing it for the 1st time I was a teenager.
I tried to rewatch it this time, not letting myself remember that I know what's going to happen, that it isn't actually a murder mystery in that sense.
They aren't going to cure a space plague.
Although they kind of, I mean, nobody bothers putting on a mask as they go striding into this base where everyone is supposed to have died of a plague.
I mean, they've all had space vaccines.
Oh no, that's true.
Yeah, they mentioned that, don't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes, remember?
So, yeah, they're all fine with their space vaccine.
Oh, and I love the way when he says, when Reeve says that to that line, you know, have you had your shots?
She sort of turns to look at him and said, of course I have, coming in here and it's like implying it's getting close to him as much as the planet that she's wanted to be fully inoculated against.
Yeah, I needed I needed to not be near you and whatever you're wearing.
But when we 1st see Keller on the little screen, there's something in her eye, you know, she's def- she's not telling us why, but she's reacting differently to him.
And he doesn't, I mean, certainly based upon her previous encounters with men that she finds sexy in Blake 7.
He's not the type to fling her over a shoulder over his shoulder and call her his woman.
And maybe this is more believable than that, that she's gone for an intellectual, I suppose.
Unless that's, you know, because she said this is from years and years ago.
She was 18, she was young.
Yeah, she was young.
And so maybe that's why she did gravitate towards the more brutish behaviour of her later paramours because her previous experience is like, oh, I'm just, I could never replace anyone this smart.
I need to go with the dumbest man I can find.
Well, she does.
She does say she has a relationship, ends up having a relationship with power.
And so I think I think the idea is, yes, while she originally falls in love with Keller, all she wants from her later men is just a good hard shag and that's, you know.
Somebody can pick her up and drop her into a dress.
Exactly.
She should like she should like them to do it again.
Oh my god, it's my favourite episode.
Yes.
Definitely, I would say, sort of 2 opposite poles of late seven, in terms of its approach to...
I don't mean it's approach to the female gaze.
When you're young too, because you're so young, you're so dumb.
But if Ben Steed tells you something about women, you believe it and you get old gender or sex or something and you get awfully nice to believe what Star Trek had to say.
And, you know, just sort of absorb these ideas uncritically.
And then later you have to undo all of those knots that have been tied in your brain. is terrible.
Um, I can't blame this episode for anything like that.
I do, I do, the dinner scene.
Like, it's one of my favourite moments because it's like, you know, I feel like this episode could have been called Sand in brackets, my dinner with Tarrant.
And did my picnic.
And that scene of, I don't know if it's just one of those fan rumours or a conventional anecdote, but there's the, I've seen claims that that line about, would you move?
I'd move next door was something that they actually had said to each other as a joke and then they got incorporated.
I just had to film during a hairstyle.
Yes.
I don't know how many. that's true.
That's great.
It is a great set of lines.
It is a great...
I'm just the girl next door.
Would it work better with Avon?
Or it would be different.
No.
I've already been there.
Sort of, haven't we, with their flirtation?
Well, when have we really been there?
I mean, you see, I think I think everyone's thinking of the scene, you know, the Death Watch scene as, you know, I'd be dead in a week, you know, kind of thing.
I, I, that's not enough for me.
I'd rather have had a longer sequence like this.
And I think you could have still done it again.
Maybe that's something in series 5 that we didn't get to see or something.
But yeah, I, I, you needed a, a longer, where they're trapped together by themselves for a while, so they can properly get it on.
I also think the thing I love about them being trapped together is that Tarrant thinks he's, you know, cock of the walk and, you know, the new Blake, essentially, who they've cast because he looks vaguely similar.
Um, but the reality is that Jacqueline Pierce is walking complete circles around him as an actor, as a character, and it's, it's kind of fun that he's sitting there like, yeah, I'm holding it.
I'm holding my own.
I'm and it's no, you're not.
Like that's part of the joy of the scene, is him not being in control as much as he thinks he is.
You know, I'm the big action man and I'm going to conquer this woman.
It's like, no, no, I've got your mind.
I've got your car.
Glorious.
I think it provides a contrast.
We've got vulnerable serverland, but vulnerable serverland has your gun.
Yes, exactly.
Well, it's all an act.
Vulnerable server lane's all an act.
She's in control pretty much of everything that happens with Tarrant.
He doesn't realise it, but she really is running rings around him.
That couldn't happen with Abon.
They'd have to kill each other and that'd be, you know, their idea of sense.
Oh, yeah.
No, that's why I think that Avon doesn't work in this story, but this episode, but I think we want, I just want another sequence, you know, another episode. different episode.
And that's a really good point, that Servoland's maturity versus Terence, boyish, desperation to please and to show how clever he is and and how flattered he is by the fact that the planet has chosen him from a list of three.
I mean, you are literally the last man alive on the planet, Tara.
Don't get too cocky.
He's been chosen because he's the most in proximity.
Yes, you're in the same room and you're alive, you'll do.
It's not really that much of a victory.
I have to say, I was disappointed by the resolution, the, um, oh, water.
Like that was a bit frustrating.
And then it was several X tears.
Resolution?
Is that what we're calling them?
classic, though.
It's good enough for the seeds of death.
Of course it is.
It's such a weird resolution to come from a country where the water falls from the sky 90% of the time.
No, this is the thing.
And I wondered when they wrote it.
Well, they're thinking now.
It's writing.
It's definitely British.
I think she is, isn't she?
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Yeah, yeah.
She's writing this now, what the Brits will never think.
At some point every British post is going to say they're on the beach and it's not raining.
Isn't that that's meant to be a clue that we've just failed to pick up?
Oh, it's satire.
But yeah, Servolan actually crying.
Atia is difficult for me.
Like, I would, you know, if she was actually crying fine, but yeah, I feel like her squeezing one out and that being the thing that stops the sound, it's like, she's capable of everything, Adam.
She's capable of everything.
Remember that.
But we sort of get told it, don't we?
Because like, yes, Sevilan, you a tear fell from your face, but we couldn't quite catch that on camera, so we went up to see Villa do it instead.
It would have been great if it had turned.
A single tears dissolved all this sand, yeah.
It would have been great if Avon makes a bit of a leap of judgement when Villas builds his wine on the stuff.
It might be alcohol that kills it.
It's like...
Crack open the vodka.
We need to uh we need to defend it.
Yeah, it might be fermentation that kills it.
Like, who knows?
I'll tell you an extraordinary coincidence, which you can probably just cut out.
But, um, you may remember in the 1970s when the Viking lander went to Mars to look for life there. script up the soil.
It added water.
And it jushed it round, yes.
And I waited to see if there are any chemicals.
And now there's scientist who said, what if water kills the life on masks?
There's no water on Mars?
So it might be getting its water from the salts that are in the sand, different kind of chemistry.
And so when we dump a bunch of water in on top of it, we actually killed everything that was in our sample and that's why we got a negative result.
Oh, that's only just the same time as I'm watching fan for this very podcast.
How fascinating.
Was it water?
Was it water that they had in the Viking or was it something?
Was it?
I thought it was like hydrocarbons or some kind of like organic chemical that...
They had nutrients as well.
Nutrients.
It had nutrients in it or something to see whether the nutrients were eaten by the things that it's just all the bacteria that it's just killed by adding these foreign alien nutrients to its soil.
One of those little sachets you get with flowers from the florist.
Yes, you know.
Yeah.
It's, you know, I wonder where Tenet Lee came up with the idea of the monstrous sand.
Like, was that...
Do you think she had a moment of like, everyone loves Dune?
What if I make the worms the sand?
She likes vampires, apparently.
She does, yes.
Huge on vamp.
So what if, what if um, nutrients were a vampire?
What if chairs were a vampire?
Ah, what if sand was a vampire?
Is that not how you write?
I don't know.
Just got that out. nonsense.
Hey, I want to know, as someone who writes, you know, novels, pros.
How would you feel being tapped to write an episode of Blake Seven?
Terrified.
I have no idea how to write a television script.
But it's the 1st idea what to do.
Actually, you know, I was actually on my 2nd watch through for this podcast.
I was actually just admiring the skill with which bits of the story and characters.
I moved around in a very elegant way so that like we, for example, how do we get Tarrant on his own?
They always beam down in twos.
Well, it's because the sand is affecting evil Stephen Yardley.
And so he shoots, but doesn't kill or horribly wound.
Dana.
And I'm just sort of sitting there going, the skill on display here.
It's very nice and I couldn't emulate it.
So, yeah, I'd be petrified to be asked to write an episode of like a real one.
I'd have a stab though.
John and I wrote a like 7 book or a little while ago and we had so much fun doing that that I'd really love to do it again.
Yeah.
It must be a fun sandbox to play in.
Not intended.
No, it really is. there's childhood there.
There's your adolescence there.
There's you've been a sad old adult who still loves to watch Blake 7.
Now...
Do you get a list of things you're not allowed to mention because they don't know who owns them and that sort of thing?
Or is it, or are you...
Oh, that's a really interesting question.
I can't actually remember now if we were given, you know, a bit like for the Doctor Who knew adventures.
It was like you can't use the Daleks.
Um, There very probably was.
Or possibly it would have been more, we did the outline for the book and then they had a look at it and said, yeah, this is, this is okay.
You haven't mentioned anything that were a bit worried about.
So just go ahead.
Um, I remember just having a pretty free hand with it, so, uh, love to do that again.
If I'd ever ever get the chance.
What do we think of the, what do you think of the directing of this episode?
It's a one-time director.
Vivian Cousins.
She went on to do quite a few soaps and children's things.
She did some Fraggle Rock, apparently, in Grange Hill, and Emmerdale.
Yeah.
There's a Fraggle Rock crossover that I want to say.
There's some odd, but there are some, there seems to be some odd choices. the start, like some strange zoom effect on a CSO that kind of comes across looking a bit blotchy.
Maybe the Blu-ray people will be able to fix that, don't they?
I was fascinated with the effect of making the sand move, which looked...
That was great actually. completely convincing and really unnerving because it just looks somewhat like someone had put a vacuum cleaner on and then played the film in reverse, but it kind of was effective that it was just like, oh, it's moving in a really unnatural creepy way, even though it just looks like someone shoved it from the other side of the studio and you can't see the broom.
I was wondering if it was magnet.
Well, sort of, but yeah, you sort of think that, and I was actually thinking about that when I was watching it.
It's a better movement, though, than a broom pushing it.
It's really quite, and when you're saying a vacuum cleaner, maybe that's what it is.
And then like, although that wasn't work either, because it's quite clearly live video.
So I wonder how they got it or is it at an angle or something and everything's at an angle and the sand is sliding down the slow.
Like that terrible quiz show where everyone had to stand on the air.
But that sequence, that's, yes, that sequence where the unnamed functionary is not completely sucked into the sand, but is sort of killed by the sand.
Yeah, it gets him what the sand is doing there is really, really good.
That is actually, and I think that some more judicious cutting and a little bit more camera work would have actually made the sequence work a bit better because I think we're sort of stuck on his face for too long.
And so it kind of loses the, loses the sort of the horror moment and needed to cut away or cut something else or cut to his hand writhing or whatever it is.
I, I, I, yeah.
I guess we've got people out of shop wiggling things.
Yeah.
Yes, but I think they were focussing on the people wheeling things rather than what the camera was doing, you know.
But yeah, that's the reveal, isn't it?
That's the point at which we discover.
It really is the sound.
It's not just a slightly...
Yeah, yeah.
I have an answer to your earlier question, I think, which was, why Sand?
Where did Tenethly get the idea for the sand?
And I've written down bodies preserved by the sand.
I think she was thinking about ancient Egypt because before they did harmification where they'd use all of the different chemicals and everything and wrapped up the body and it was quite an elaborate process.
The original mummification was simply that you buried your dead in the sand, and it was extraordinarily dry, and the body would dry out, and it would be preserved in that state.
You just wrapped people up in mats and put them in the sand.
Um, so I wonder if that's what she...
Preserving a sausage.
The idea that it was a preservative might have suggested, you know, that that peculiar thing where the bodies are still warm and supple.
Um, and from there, ah, another vampire.
Oh, they should have done the accent.
That's what it really needs.
Everyone on the planet.
Oh, if the sand had a voice.
Oh my god.
No, no, no, please, no.
Whatever.
You must too easy.
Another Peter Tutman.
Yes, yet another Peter does in the voice.
Yes, that's street, that's drinking, mistake.
Make it a bit more gravelly, Peter.
I was just going to observe that I wonder whether the sand thing is about because there's a line earlier on, the fact that it gets into everything.
And, you know, anyone who's been to the beach knows that, you know, you find it in everything for days. you know, and I think that that's kind of thing, it's invasive.
It just gets into everything.
And I think that's maybe where the where the concept maybe comes from from that point of view.
But look, I think I think there's some, just going back to the direction, though, I think there's some interesting choices early on where you've got this collision of in studio stuff, and then the next shot is like a film insert, and then the next shot's a sort of crime a key, something about that.
And then you've got, like, each shot practically is a different kind of effect.
And I actually feel that quite jarring in the beginning.
Like just decide what you're going to do.
Are you going to be underworld or are you going to be, you know, face of evil?
I don't know, you know.
Yeah, it seems like sometimes they're transferring up the road to the film studio simply because they can have a day there and they've got no days left in the TV centre because I can't see any other reason why they need it.
It's a choice because usually you get like at least a sort of a little sequence on film, but you've got literally, here's the shot of something happening, whatever it is.
And then we go back to the studio for the next show.
And then we've got the film bit for that. you know what I mean?
It's going to and from to and from to and from.
And that's a bit disconcerting.
It looks terrible now.
I think it looks terrible.
I didn't even allowed television.
I watched Blake 7 because it was on Friday night, so I had to, you know, run home from swimming.
Um, and I watched it on a very small black and white television.
I'm going to tell you, there is no difference between what you're saying from saying... on a 4 centimetre black and white.
I'm a great defender of the fact that, you know, it was standard definition on a crappy television with bad reception.
Absolutely.
But, you know, I think this kind of this kind of is a little takes it just is stretching it a little bit too far.
Very possibly.
I've got to say, I wonder if having a female director is why Jacqueline Pierce has gone to those places with this character she's never really gone to before.
Like she's been kind of convinced to go, no, no, no, you actually felt something for this man.
She's like, I never feel anything from anyone.
But, you know, having a female director's gone, go on, give me a give me an emotion.
She's like, oh, all right, I'll give you one.
That's a good point actually.
Yeah, she feel, I think you're seeing someone, in her performance, someone sort of being a little bit liberated from having to be that, and the other example, you know, Children of War on is is another one where she gets, but that's much more, no, the huge melodrama of, I don't die, all of that.
Yeah, and she's clearly going at that full pelt as she does in this.
So I don't, yeah.
I don't think her arms are been twisted, but maybe she's just been reassured.
Because, I mean, you know, I feel like, you know, male directors would probably have a tendency to direct her as, you know, a glamorous man.
You know, here's this glamorous creature, but in charge of everything, so she's got to behave like a man.
And whereas having a female director is like, you can be glamorous, you can be in charge, and also you can have an emotion.
They're fine.
We can contain multitudes.
You know, you don't have to be just one type of thing that a man thinks you are, which is normally the case with directors.
No, yeah.
The only bit that made me still do a little wince is the moment where she, for a moment she gets spooked by something and buries her face in Terrence's shoulder.
Yeah.
It's only for a fleeting. when the sand start's breaking in.
Yeah, I thought that was a bit unfortunate.
For character consistency.
Yeah, that's true.
She's humouring.
Yeah, yes, she's humouring him.
That's how it was.
Oh, yes, fair enough.
Yes.
And also, it's like, I want to see how hard the pecks are, but I want to feel how hard they are with my face.
I don't think there's much firmness there at all, Adam, I think.
Karen, he's arrogant.
He's terrogant.
Yes, yes, yes.
Probably quite doughy under that jumpsuit.
I keep having, this is the stupidest thing in the world.
I keep having, whenever I'm thinking of a title of something that I've got to talk about.
I sing it to myself in my head.
And if it's a 3 syllable title, it's always Goldfinger, you know, it's Blake.
But because sand is a one syllable thing, the only song that comes into my head is gold by Spandau Bella.
But that's got its own open, I'm wandering around singing, hungry, sad.
Oh my god, Tarant is bland.
It's been stuck in my head.
I'm an idiot.
But what song can you do for gold?
It's just such an odd title.
It invokes nothing.
Well, the thing that struck me while watching it, I think the previous time too, but and I don't think it's intentional.
It's just sort of rhyme, I could just see it sitting nicely alongside, um, Solaris.
Oh, yeah. um, this idea of a sentient in, in Solarity, it's the sentient planet in the water and we don't know what's happening and is it trying to communicate or what?
And this is kind of looks like dry Solaris with sand instead.
Um, the, the, and it's the sentience of it.
Because I don't get a sense that the sand is evil, like a vampire normally is portrayed.
The sand is just trying to do its thing.
But then I suppose, but then maybe that's, you know, vampires get a hard wrap for that.
They're just hungry.
Yeah, but and they do explain as it's just trying to turn us into cattle.
Like, that's... which is a great line and a great image.
And I know that there's a whole thing in vampire fiction with, you know, treating humans like cattle, which, of course, yeah, but it's, yeah, I'm not a very good stock animal, though.
Oh, yeah. 18 years to reach full size.
I know, and a lot of undoing offences, just, you know, it's all the opposable thumbs are no good.
Get away. has happened in this one, shoot ourselves in the head and stop recreating.
Well, it needs to have a voice is because then you can have an argument with it saying, you know, you haven't brought this through sand.
I'm obsessed now with inside Kate's head that there is the voice of Peter Tottenham as...
His voices are going to be, you know, this is going to be Peter Tottenham's voice.
Do you think it's a high pitched sand?
It's like, I'm going to...
Or is it like low?
I'm the sand.
No, I think the voice is gravelly.
Gravelly.
It's handy, Julie. not grammar.
Yeah.
Well, see, when I 1st saw this, I was a bit confused.
When they found Keller's body.
I, it is explained, but I didn't pay attention and thought that he, I thought he must have just died and that the sound had just, as actually... literally an hour ago.
Yeah, because Tarrant was there and it just was going to get, and so, yeah.
Because but then that undermines the whole um, the whole point of it with the preservative, which Avon is strangely thinks he's going to make them rich by pickling things.
It's like going to be years new.
That's going to be then.
They're going to corner the market in preservative.
I think, yeah, I...
Is it really our USP, Avon?
Have you gone slightly mad this year?
Yes, we can't let the Federation get their hands on this preservative.
But he kind of sells it as a preservative, like not for food, but for people.
Like it feels like he's going to start selling, you know, Avon.
Some kind of cosmetics at all.
It's great exfoliant, yeah.
It's going to keep you looking young.
Just wipe some of this sand on you.
You'll be amazed at the results.
We do get something in this episode is quite unusual.
Callbacks to a previous episode.
Yeah.
And from the one character who wasn't in it, which is an interesting way of doing it.
And I love as you told me previously.
That thing that you told me about.
You told me about that really good episode that someone wrote last year.
There's quite a few callbacks, aren't there?
Like, did they know that they were on their, their last legs, like that this was heading towards the end and there was not going to be a renewal or, you know, they were kind of personal non-grata around the BBC.
So it's like, yeah, let's just start calling back to things because no one's watching anyway.
Oh, you mean no one at the BBC?
No, none of the high-ups at the BBC.
Yeah, because the rates were great, weren't they?
It's getting 8 million.
Yeah, yeah.
But no, yeah, the bosses are just like, all right, do yeah, do one more year.
Just let them get on.
But they were kicking, they were kicking around ideas for what they might, it might be like the next year, weren't they?
But yeah, they knew that nothing was, then it wasn't likely, I think.
Yeah.
I love them.
I love...
It's weird.
It's only in the 2nd half of the series.
I start to notice Glynis Barber's beautiful accent.
And I get she's got more words.
I suppose that's why.
She really emerges as a really distinct character, the sort of let me Adam fighter.
So, but she delivers this thing about, and her theory, and she theorises about the liberator's destruction and Callie's death all coming back to what happened in sarcophagus, and then says, and then everyone says, do you believe that?
It's just not one word.
Okay, why did you say it then?
But it's little...
It was a nice little.
That is really there to keep the previous scene apart from the following scene.
I think.
It's the weakest bit of the story.
Yeah, but it's still, it does it in a, in a, it's so unusual that it's, uh, it's, it's quite interesting. want to do that every week, but yeah.
I loved her as a kid because she was like Charlie's Angels in space.
Like it was my dream show.
Like, I was so glad she came.
I like, 0 my god, I love her.
She's kicking people, like in the head.
So it was Aurac Charlie in that scenario.
Yeah, essentially, yeah.
You know, boys coming out of a block box, you know.
They're all, um, Serverland's line to Tarram, but they're all resourceful and decorative, really. sums up sums up the whole cast and to some extent.
Oh, right.
It's so annoying.
Even if you loved you, would you switch him off if you said he loved you?
Yeah absolutely.
I'd want more of that.
I'll take it where I get it.
I think it's just the constant wine.
It's just like.
Can you turn it down?
Like, he needs a quieter fan.
That's what it is, isn't it?
I was about to say, my laptop's starting to make that noise, which is usually the sign that it's needing to be replaced because the fan is going help a leather.
Just to run a video link.
So Avon is not embroiled in the action this week, but he still gets to be pivotal to the solution.
But when this head he's doing his logic squares or whatever.
Which is awful.
Oh my god.
Well, I just think of those things you have in the playground where it's the 4 little roll pieces of paper folded over and do the little...
Parent loves serve land, this that's...
But he's not he's got some little plastic chunks with words printed on them.
Yes.
They were, they were space arrow cards is what they were.
I mean, if any writer, if Talent League script had somebody getting out of the tarot cards, it would be quite fitting, wouldn't it?
Yeah.
But I guess someone's gone, oh, no, Avon would use something more logical because he's like a computer.
Like he and Auret could be brothers.
Avon has an extraordinary moment in this episode where he turns with a flourish.
It's the only way I can describe it.
He's literally walking from one of the consoles in the ship to another console, but he turns around in this sort of magnificent fashion.
And I thought, he's not got as many lines as Tarant in this, but by God, he makes a meal of them.
They are fabulous.
I just enjoyed watching it.
Turning with the flourishes is what he does though.
And at least he does say well now, which is important.
Just enjoyed watching it so much.
I kind of miss the Liberator set where he had much more room to flounce.
Like this set is so he's kind of cramped.
Like he barely, like he's, but I'm halfway through a flounces out the set, like he's somewhere else.
There's moments where he has to, if he wants to run from his, from the, on the liberator.
If he wants to run from the control desk around to the communicator.
You have to do a big lap all the way around the sofa and just to answer the phone while it's bringing.
But he was always so magnificent at it.
Whereas here it's just like, I could just lean, but I'm gonna really lean.
Nobody leans like Avon.
It's a darrowing move, isn't it?
Yeah.
He's got his own verb.
I like the conceit or structural thing, I suppose, in stories where you've got 2 people in different places solving the same problem at the same time and getting there together.
And that is nice that we've got the Tarrant wakes up in the morning and realises about the water at the same time as Villa spilling his booze up, up, up on the Scorpio.
The Scorpio?
It's never the Scorpio, is it?
Scorpio.
It's the liberator, but it's just Scorpion.
I have a question about the green planet.
Hmm.
Sun never shines there. right?
We never see the sky.
Yeah, it's always black.
But it gets dark.
They have night.
They say, it's getting dark.
You know, we've got to make count.
And I thought to myself, What?
Yeah, that's a little, we just need that.
Yeah.
But and Servolan's face when she says she's got to make camp is marvellous because I mean, hey, you're the best.
The campus thing on Tellylov, the she doesn't...
She's like camping.
I've dated people like that who I've suggested. suggested a nice weekend in a tent and they reacted them exactly that way.
Camping as in not going out in drag?
are you talking about?
But at least, though they wake up, they are all sleeping under sort of sheets of tin foil, which is quite a camp way of camping, I suppose.
I wonder if the sand has a glow that we don't know about.
See, this is, in my Doctor Who podcast, I'm often coming up with stupid theories for things that are not explained in the script.
So I'm more than happy to posit that the sand glows and then has a little 9 eyes.
So when they say it's getting dark, the sand's like, got to have a sleep. gorged myself on old mate down in there. visitor centre.
All the little sand particles are turning over so that the glowing parts are facing down.
Yeah.
They shut the sound down.
I mean, it is quite glittery sand.
I want to know why it's green sand because it seems to be more green from space than it is when you're there.
Yeah.
Yeah, it depends on the lighting.
It is sometimes.
Yeah.
My head cannon with the light thing, even though there's no sun, is that the this is a very boring explanation.
But when you are in, like, a remote, if you're in a remote area and it's an absolutely clear night and it's a moonless clear night, and the atmosphere is clear.
The Milky Way is bright enough to cast a shadow.
Wow.
I was reading a thing and someone, and I've noticed it down here in ginderbite is that out of gingerbite, you can, on those really, really crisp, clear nights, no moon and the stars are just hanging out there and you do, you can see, like you can see as if there's a moon.
And, I don't know, that's a romantic idea that maybe that's what they were referring to.
I suspect not, but, you know, Look, it's a lovely backdrop to my dinner with Tarrant.
Yes exactly.
It is.
And they need that backdrop because things are, hopefully, from the Sands point of view, going to get physical, just like Olivia Newton-John, at number one in the Australian hit parade.
This week in 1981.
Oh my gosh, that's the beginning.
That's the beginning of my of my realisation, my my my coming of age into pop music was was Olivia Newton-John's physical.
So that is perfect.
Oh, really?
Weirdly, it only got to number seven up here, but in Australia, it was number one for many weeks, has it?
Right, we should have been.
Yes.
And she's our living.
And she's yours.
So, the actual, so, once Avon has deduced that, uh, that water is the, the, is its weakness, um, he sort of just, he just comes up with this, well, we'll fly down, this lightning sound effect means it's going to rain, and, and, and he seeds some clouds, doesn't he?
Maybe that's, no, I don't want to go there.
Maybe that's...
I feel like Avon would be virile enough to be able to seed clouds in that way that you're thinking.
I want to, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to know about what, what, what problems Taryn and Surfland had with sand down there.
Because it does get everywhere.
It gets everywhere.
But so it's not a science.
Well, is it a science year or is it a magic?
Well, it's magic sand, so...
No.
Yeah.
It is magic sand.
Do you remember, surely these things weren't were only a bit after this, that you'd buy this magic sand in like little genie bottles and you'd pour it into glass.
And I think the sand must have had a wax coating or something because you'd be able to make little towers and shapes in the glass of water.
Inside the water.
Yeah.
Inside the water.
And it was colourful.
Yes, yes, yes Yeah.
So it's water...
Yes, exactly exactly what this planet needed too. you know, not be foiled by these.
And two, the return to Vern.
I did love that the sand didn't die.
Like, because I was like, what is this ridiculous life form that is allergic to water and that obviously is rain on this planet.
Like this makes absolutely no sense to me, but the fact that the sand, the sand organism was not destroyed.
It was just kind of rendered inert. by water insert.
Well, it was kind of, it died back a bit before it then was able to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a real sense of panic. and from serverland in that final, Well, not panic's the wrong word, but, you know, urgency in that final scene where she's like, just make the thing take off.
As her greasy head assistant has come to, presumably, when he, when he, he's saying he passed out.
I guess it was the sand was kind of in the process of doing away with him as a as an unnecessary male, but then suddenly he was the last one left, so that's why he survived, yeah.
But is she sad in distress at the end when she's doing whatever she's doing and she smashes the cube of water in her hand and there's a bit of sand there that dissolved because is she sort of worried that the whole spaceship's going to dissolve around her?
Because surely she just needs to go to the replicator and get some more water to spray about the place.
Hose the place down.
Exactly.
How is the place down?
I think that that water crush is just her having her final moment of, oh, my 1st true love is finally dead.
Yes.
I can move on.
He was the last person who would have recognised me.
Yeah, that's a point. would have had to kill him if he was still alive.
I know.
Best nunner if we change this episode.
Maybe that's why she was hitting him when they find him.
She was like, die, die.
It must be dead.
I also, I love, speaking of Silverland not being dead, the, when, when Tarrant gives his big...
I had dinner with Silverland.
Oh my god, guess who I had dinner with last night?
What happens on Vern stays on Vern?
But it is really good where it's like, you know, yes, it's just like, and she got it.
You're sympathy, I mean.
I like, I do like that it, although she doesn't say anything, it's Dana who reacts 1st to this news with Fury and Storm glares at him and Storms out.
Because, yeah, her history with Servolan and her dad and everything isn't the episode hasn't got time to go into that, but it's not forgotten.
But yeah, which, you know, I'm guessing is her being a great actor and going, oh, yeah, I remember my backstory because I'm sure it was not on the page.
Yes, it's the kind of thing that, you know, in the Acton rehearsal room.
She said, why don't I storm off 1st?
Because if everyone remembers, you know, she did kill my father.
Oh, yeah.
She killed my dad while wearing a fabulous red hat.
I love that moment where she says to Tara.
Taryn's like, I ought to kill you.
And she's like, what have I what have I done?
She haven't got a check.
Did I murder your family or something?
I can't remember.
Which one are you?
I was there when your shit blew up, but that wasn't my fault.
It is funny that we only now in this episode get an explanation as to why as to how Serverland escaped liberated, even though they've already seen her in this season.
Yeah, it's almost as if this episode's supposed to have been supposed to have gone out earlier.
It's also what.
I mean, it's nice that they do, but sort of why bother once you've got this foreign, you just, you just did.
Yeah.
And mind you, and that's the explanation, isn't it?
I just press some buttons.
Oh, I just...
It's all hard.
It's hard to explain.
A word with my agent.
Somehow, Palpatine survived.
And she gets the final thing?
She gets the final shot.
This has been a thank you for enjoying the Jacqueline Pierce show moment, really, isn't it?
And really, this is, and this is her.
There's more to be seen of her, but this is her peak just in terms of number of lines about anything else.
This is the big server-am episode of the final segment of the show, isn't it?
I still think it's a bit ordinary, but the lines are so good.
Like, there are so, so, so many good design lines, but it's just all a bit...
Interesting.
Well, yes, what's missing?
I don't know.
I don't know, a bit, I don't know.
I, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it is just the fact that there's, there's good, interesting stuff, but for me, it just doesn't quite engage me in the way that it should.
I was a little bit like that with traitor.
There's nothing wrong with it at all, but it wasn't a 10 out of 10 for me.
That's a generous description of traitor, to be fair.
Well, there's nothing wrong with that.
It wasn't bad.
Well, I thought I liked it least.
I enjoy traitor a lot more, but I think this is better in terms of the craft of it.
But in terms of the craft of the script, but I just think that it's just not.
I'm just not, um, like there are only so many times that I, you know, that although all the one liners are really great and fantastic.
It doesn't, it doesn't drive me to the next one, if you know what I mean.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, I mean, it is, you know, part of its problem is trying to service everyone on Scorpio with at least 2 lines and a lot of those scenes drag because it's like, why aren't we back at the dinner?
want to get back to the sand planet.
We need more serverland and it does, it's weird that, you know, they do feel like complete secondary characters in their own show. in this episode.
But yeah, I hear what you're saying.
It does kind of feel like, oh, maybe if I had tuned in to watch the Serverland show, I would have loved it more.
But I did come here for Blake 7.
Well, I do tune in for the server Lane show, of course.
This is more Serverland show than any other episode.
Normally, Serverland's there messing things up, but this is her like, no, no, this is my episode.
I'm doing all of these things and everyone else kind of interrupting her instead of the other way around.
I actually wonder whether this is the sort of point in the season where, and I think about, I think this about a number of the episodes to come, that they feel like a possible template for if there is a series five, what are the kind of episodes we're going to do, because sand is a different, as we've sort of said, is a different episode to a lot of other episodes.
Is this the kind of thing they want to explore more moving forward?
Or is it just a random one off?
I think that a lot about something like warlord, for instance, is like a possible template for what might have come orbit being a template for what might have come. because they all are a bit different and a bit more different compared to episodes in earlier seasons.
I don't know.
Maybe that's just the odd impression I get.
I mean, I would love like 7 series 5 to have been, you know, largely space horror.
Like, that would be amazing.
Imagine every planet had some kind of creepy monster that wanted to eat you, but didn't have a voice.
I want Sam too now.
I'm completely sold on the idea of a sequel to this just when he thought it was safe to go back on the beach.
Yeah, but that's the kind of thing.
That is the kind of thing, though, because there's no, there's no kind of, the raison d'etre for Blake 7 has kind of gone a long time ago with sort of fighting with Federation in some ways.
And so trying to find a new reason for being, and I think that's what exactly what you're saying, like what you could do next year.
I would I would love if there was a sequel to this for the sand to have worked out how to make people.
So you get down there and there's like a weird Tarrant and a weird serverland who've been having dinner for about 2 centuries, just waiting to trick people into having dinner with them and then eating them.
Well, the thing that we're deprived of series E could start with server line turning up with a little baby in her arms with curly hair and white white teeth.
He was through the land here.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
Oh yeah, her genes would be dominant, wouldn't they?
I suspect anything that went on between them was probably pegging.
An interesting query about how this planet works.
Like, okay, the base was there for 5 years.
So what was the sand eating before the base got there?
There must be creatures of some kind somewhere on this planet.
And aren't we grateful that they didn't try to simulate them after the harvester Chyros Centre?
to just take it as red.
There's camels or something.
Well, maybe the sand felt because it had new species.
They could kill the indigenous life form because it had this...
They're just not very tasty.
Yeah, exactly.
Humans are like chocolate.
Whatever else is on the planet, it's like, oh, this is like salad.
I want these tasty chocolate humans.
Maybe that's our episode title.
I'm game. do it.
Thank you very much for joining us on our sandy adventure.
We hope there isn't any trap between your toes and that you'll be back to listen to maximum power again next time.
From now, though, from all of us, bye bye.
Bye.
Bye bye.
Now for now.
That's my power.
Go, go. 30 seconds thrust the maximum power.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.
And when we first see, uh, Servoland's beloved, Oh, what's his name?
Wheres my notes?
Where's my notes?
What's his name?
The guy we're going, the guy we're going to find.
Oh, his her ex-boyfriend.
What his name is?
Keller.
Keller, thank you.
That's a very Blake 7, isn't it?
That's why it was hard to remember.
A lot of them.
It could be any of them.