Hello, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the Blake Seven podcast, that if it has a failing, it has a tendency to give more information than requested, or less information than requested, but seldom gives you the information that is requested.
Hello, I'm Cy.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
And I'm Simon.
And we're here towards the tail end of series D for orbit and...
I think we're all quite excited about this one And it's the return of Robert Holmes for his final script for the series.
And like in series D. We have had one episode where he's kind of warming up, and then another episode where he completely goes for it in the most Robert Holmesey way possible, and this episode, he really goes for it.
Simon, what do you think of this one?
Well, I feel that, and I, there are other episodes which I love, uh, and may even be my favourite, but I, watching it today in advance of this.
I cannot shake the feeling that the entirety of Blake 7 exists to build up to this episode.
It is, I think, it is, it is why Blake 7 exists so that we can, we can watch orbit.
It is just so superb.
Everyone is on form.
The direction is fantastic.
The delivery, the lines are fantastic themselves, but then the delivery of those lines is just so spot on.
I'm just blown away even now.
Well, that's the episode.
We're done.
Yeah, I agree with all of that. put that on repeat. put it on repeat and then you just say that again.
Yeah, fine, you know.
For me, I think this is like the best or the 2nd best episode of the season and probably one of the top 5 episodes of the series, I would say. just endlessly quotable and terrifically entertaining, as well as being a solid story and technically adept.
I mean, you don't often get that combination of things.
It's also incredibly economical.
The action takes place on 3 sets.
Basically, the shuttle bridge, agrarian's headquarters, and Scorpio.
So it's cheap as well.
It's amazing.
It's got the smallest cast of any Blake 7 episode at all.
There are 2 guest characters, and that's it.
There are no extras.
Nothing.
It's incredibly economically written.
And like I think it is Holmes absolutely kind of nailing Blake 7.
And he does it very quickly, doesn't he?
Like I think his 1st story, which is killer in series, B, is incredibly good.
And it's a very good, like, standard Blake 7 episode.
You know, it's the usual thing where, you know, taking over a communications base in order to get a crystal, blah, blah, blah, and then there's a B plot with sort of killer zombie pathogens and stuff.
Um, it, and he, he's the one I think who more than anyone else gets, how good it is to pair up Villa and Avon, even before, um, Blake leaves.
And so this depends on that, doesn't it?
And it actually has him kind of properly driving a truck through that thing in a way that makes you wonder how the show can have continued if we'd had another series.
And I know we would have all forgotten about it. would never have been mentioned again.
It would be fine or Tanneth Lee would come along and do an episode about it, perhaps.
Um, but it is so astounding uh, what even tries to do at the end.
Uh, and so unlike anything that you would normally get in, in kind of just a, you know, week to week, non-serialized TV show.
It's really something, it still surprises me, I think.
You know, only Bob Holmes does comedy, Blake 7.
I mean, if you discount voice from the past.
That's just a comedy of errors.
And I can only imagine if this episode had been in the hands of someone like George Spanton Foster how far it would have gone off the rails.
He wouldn't have known where to draw the line.
But this kind of Blake 7 is exclusively within Bob Holmes purview.
It, that rendering the show, Nathan, like you said, where Avon and Villa are the odd couple.
And Avon comedy spits out his drink and calls Villa a dummy.
It's that version of Blake 7.
So I think any episode that's set in that universe is really welcome, and this is, as you said, the best example of it.
This definitely feels like Robert Holmes is more comfortable doing this than he was doing traitor at the start of the season, where, although he's got the Dana and Tarrant pairing, and he's good with a pair of characters, but you always sense that his his wheelhouse is always Avon and Villa and he just gets that relationship so brilliantly and so spot on and wants to explore what they can do and how the 2 actors can push it as well.
Um, and he gives, um, there was all that always that saying, if they knew they'd got a Bob Holmes script, they didn't have to worry because it was going to be brilliant.
And for Michael Keating and Paul Darrow it really is.
In fact, there's a fake out, isn't there?
It looks like it's going to be a Dana and Terrence.
Yes.
And then we decide not to do that.
Which occurred to me.
Why do you think I'm sending Terrence?
Yes.
And it's the 2 of them like stupidly volunteering, and they don't play it like that because both of them kind of think it's funny that they're being called upon to do this and they go, oh, well, all right, I'll go and do it, and then, no, Bob Holmes is on this week and he wants Villa and Avon, and so that's how it goes down.
And of course, we introduce the line, uh, that uh, ends the episode, so brilliantly at that point.
You know, you always say you're safe with me.
I think Paul Darrow and Michael Keating are clearly loving every minute of it, like they always do with the Blake's, with a, like they always do with a Robert Holmes script, and Paul Darrow brings a surprisingly light touch to the dialogue he's given.
He's clearly revelling and he shows that different side of Avon.
You know where he has fun at Villa's expense.
He says things, I didn't know you better, Villa.
I'd assume you were trying to get out of this.
It's really nice and it's really light.
Yes, and that's the great thing about the performances.
I think from everybody is that nobody's labouring over any of their lines.
They are all just kind of thrown away in this beautiful, casual nature, which just makes them all the more brilliant, uh, the way they said.
And it's not just the 2 of them.
I think John Savan is just utterly spectacular, the way he carries that role.
And there's so much, and I don't know whether his direction.
I mean, this is the kind of thing they come up with rehearsals, but there are just, there's this all these lovely little bits of business that, uh, you know, um, Agrarian and Pinder are doing.
I mean, I'm just thinking of the bit where earlier on when they're actually talking over the communicator, and I think Avon says, suggests that Agorian is forgotten, or Agorian feels seems a bit hurt that he, he, he, it sounds like he's been forgotten, and Pindar over his shoulders, just sort of does this sort of smirk, and and just the way, you know, John Severn looks up at him and sort of tells him off and not sort of tells him off with his eyes whilst continuing the dialogue, that is not in the script.
Like, I am sure that that little action is not in the script, and it's all that kind of thing, which just adds depth to the characters, and they're all doing it.
So, I mean, I thought the same thing when I was watching it.
The business is marvellous in this episode.
And not contrived at all.
Not contrived, absolutely.
And the direction is fluid in following it.
So you see everything that you need to.
And that moment you referenced, there was a slightly different moment, which I adored, where Agrarian says he's alone on the base.
And then he kind of casts this drag queen snarl over his shoulder at Pinder, who looks hurt and then wanders off to the chess game.
And also when Pinder reaches out to activate the tachyon funnel and Agorian slaps his hand, it's just perfection and it's all caught on camera, but it's not laboured, like you said.
But it's because, and I said this, I remember saying this during the killer episode as well, which is another episode, which is one of my all-time favourites, is, and I think one of the reasons why and why it all comes across so well, is because there are no sort of silly action sequences in any of those episodes.
So they're not wasting the precious little studio time.
They have trying to make those effect shots in those fight scenes, look believable.
And so they cannot, I think, spend a little bit more time on sequences like that to make sure all those little bits are captured, which is all the little stuff that they've come up with during the week.
I imagine is a week at Acton or wherever it is to rehearse. 10 days, I think you'll find, Simon. 10 days per week.
I mean, that is absurd luxury.
I mean, I mean, I suppose they rehearse for 10 days so they can have like 75 minutes of studio time on a Friday night, I imagine, something like that, but something stupid.
I mean, it benefits from just having 2 incredibly practised and experienced actors.
Both of them have sort of long careers, I think.
What's his name?
Is it Larry Noble?
He's Emmerdale for my 10 years and John Savitant has, you know, never not worked.
Coronation Street for me.
Coronation Street.
Yeah, exactly.
So they're great, but it is the director who is Brian Lighthill.
Yes, he only does this and gold.
He only does two, which we heaped praise on last week as well.
Did you really?
That was that was the biggest revelation for me watching it this time is just how incredibly well it's directed.
There's that wonderful moment of triumph where they think they've sort of won their on the, they're on the shuttle and the camera just moves in on the 2 of them with their feet up on the console, but it moves in on them.
Or there's one where I even looks across to Sulin, and Sulin says he's bluffing, but the camera just follows his eye line.
Sulin delivers her line and then the camera goes back onto him.
It just moves.
Oh, there's others, um, Agrarian prostrating himself before Serverland.
And we can definitely see him and we can hear it's a huge performance.
We not going to miss it, but we get to see Servland rolling her eyes.
Or that incredible moment.
Think about think about Yurak, right?
in Time and the Rani, where he learns from...
He learns.
And that's quite well directed.
And he learns that he's going to be left behind and he's down the stairs and stuff.
But what we have is the 2 of them, a groin and serverland, talking about leaving Pinder behind, and Pinder appears in the middle of them.
You know, in between them while they're talking is right in shot and we can see him overhearing them.
It's so well done.
Just every shot is really well charged.
So many moments of Pinder watching and reacting to all the stuff that's going on that he's not directly involved with.
And Larry Noble is absolutely phenomenally good.
He is so funny.
He gets so much pathos out of one tiny look into Atagorian or something and he, you can tell that he absolutely worships the man, but absolutely hates him as well.
Yeah, like the bit where, you know, where he's beginning to be jealous of Agrarian's fascination with Villa.
And, you know, he sort of turns away and that's when he sort of moves over to the chessboard.
But he's so like, it's not a big performance.
I mean, it's heightened, but it's not a big performance and a cheesy performance.
It's just so well done.
And you actually, even though it's all, the whole thing's like funny and ridiculous.
You cannot help but feeling crushed by his response there.
You can really tell that Larry Noble was an experienced clown. because he's got that big expressive face and all that. and those resentful mute looks of outrage that he shoots at a groin are just so beautiful.
But what I wanted to say about the direction, these kind of directors, and you see it with people like Douglas Canfield and all those sorts of types, is that this doesn't cost anything.
Like this, this kind of thought that they've put into it, to make it all work so beautifully, it can, it raises a good script up to perfection in the same way that sloppy direction can diminish an, an otherwise good strip, script to become comparatively ordinary.
I will keep coming back to this in both Doctor and Black 7 in the locked in the classic area.
It's make or break because of the director, always because they are the ones that set the tone.
They are the ones that set the boundaries.
They are the ones that inspire the actors to give the performance.
They're the ones that make sure that all the actors are on the same page, whatever that page happens to be.
See, one previous homes episode that we were surprisingly down on was Gambit, which I had always liked, but I think it's really, really bad.
Ordinarily done.
Yeah, and it ruins it, I think.
I mean, I really think it ruins it.
There's no pacing.
There's no kind of verve to it.
Um, and here where you just get that concentration on the actor's performances and just an unfussy way of, as you said, Peter, making sure we see what we need to see.
Like, it's it's really very good.
And we made, like I was saying earlier about George Spencer Foster.
The reason I like Gambit quite a lot, but it does fail in some instances, and the reason is that he doesn't know how to pitch it and calibrate it.
He just soars over the top with absolutely everything.
And so it doesn't feel like it's a cohesive piece of work.
This does.
It's expertly directed and mounted.
And it's so hard to keep such contained drama with long dialogue scenes interesting.
But Brian Lighthill gets that great studio coverage.
And he just pays attention to the details.
That shot you mentioned earlier, Nathan, that pushes in on Avon Villa with their feet up on the desk is a really great storytelling moment of where they are in the script, but it's also just the little things he pays attention to.
So, when the shuttle pitches up, Aurak almost slides off the desk.
Yes, and village at least hand and stalls in this very casual way, because he knows that the shit, it's, yeah. brilliant.
And we are used to seeing that and not happening and rolling our eyes, right?
But he's taken care to make that happen.
And there is no way that someone like, you know, one of our regular punching bags like Desmond McCarthy or David Sullivan Proudfoot would have even bothered with that.
No, and he gets the lighting right as well, which is the key to it, particularly on the shuttle where the moment that the tone of the episode changes, the lighting changes to that that steely blue and it's suddenly really cold and dangerous and feels wrong in the way that it on the flight deck it had felt sort of quite cosy sort of moments before.
So it's things like that, that attention to detail is really making this episode.
And it's even the model work as well.
You know, the model workers often dependent on how much budget they have and which designer has been attached to the episode.
But here, the model work is really well filmed, and it's literally well, and it integrates really well with the rest of the episode.
There's some thought, which has been put into this.
Yeah, because you've got that shot where they're sort of following the shuttle on the screen and you can see the landscape and it's moving all the time.
And it actually works in a way that sometimes these things would, if it could voga or whatever in the outside doesn't actually inside.
Yes, I often do like that.
Actually, this is really well shot and really well done.
And the domes are sort of of the base are really lovely.
It's one of those images from Blake 7 that I remember.
So that model shot, obviously, appealed to me as a kid.
And do you remember the moment we see the tackian funnel operate for the 1st time and then the director decides to take us outside and just look at the dome?
We don't even see the reaction we just hear, Agrorian's voiceover explaining what's happened?
And it just makes that moment so much more dramatic because essentially they're just looking at a fucking, you know, like they've wheeled the TV in from the next classroom.
Yes.
It's like one of those AV racks that you have.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like an Avon Villa rack.
But it's properly dramatic, isn't it?
Like, it's properly dramatic and he's that sudden can't, even Dudley's doing an amazing job.
Yes, Dudley is so...
Dudley.
No, you know that you know that to be to be untrue.
That's true.
Brian Lighthill has also got the best out of Dudley for gold, so there is something with him.
And again, the sort of contrast between these 2 scripts and the way he directs, because the previous week has been all action and fast paced, and this is slower paced and character building stuff.
He's, yeah, he's a really amazing find at the tail end of the series.
And I suspect if we'd had series E, he'd have gone on with Mary Ridge to be the 2 main directors of the show at that and the show would have benefitted hugely from that.
Did you notice, speaking of like the music and the soundscape, that Agorian's lab, has that same background sound that every high-tech series delocation has?
So from the hummock HQ to Muller's office, they all have that kind of, it's like a high pitched tone with little bleeps and blurps.
Everything sounds exactly the same.
Yeah, Liz Parker's not earning her money, even though she doesn't.
Could you work in an environment like that?
I'd be going around trying to find what made the noise.
You know what I mean?
And kind of throwing it out the window.
Taking the battery out of the fire alarm.
That's right.
Actually, it's interesting.
We talked about, you mentioned before about the fact that there's only really 3 sets, you know, Scorpio, the shuttle, and the bass.
And the base says he's not very big.
No.
No, but it has a feeling.
It does.
Yes.
Yeah.
And the shuttle's not very big.
So they must have had like acres of studio space to just like put up their deck chairs or something in.
And also the only Blake 7 episode with no film.
Ah wow.
The only one?
Not even spaceful.
I suppose baseball.
No, because they all had they all had filming at...
Of course they did. list.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There is that little bit of the set that you sort of see, which is where, you know, the urinals that Avan and Villa standing. so dramatically in it.
It's just usual dramatic stands just to be scanned for a weapon.
It's brilliant.
I mean, we did say earlier that Paul Darrow loves the light touch of the lines, but he is also, like, he's cheering on the scenery in some places, has become a feast.
So I thought of him standing in the urinal.
And I wonder, do you actually stand like that?
wouldn't it splash everywhere?
Anyway. his pizza?
He's a remarkable delivery of an otherwise innocuous line where he says, this is Avon in the privateer Scorpio calling Aglorian in Malodar command.
Yes, but really?
that because he's taking the piss out of a glory.
Yes, I know he is.
I know he is, but there's a quick cutaway to Michael Keating as well like going, what the fuck is he doing?
It's the Paul Darrow show.
It really is the pulled down show at this and we love it for it.
It is a great choice, isn't it?
Because it could have been a sort of fairly boring line and he's clearly noticed that Holmes is making fun of Agrarian because he's referring to him and his boyfriend as Maladar command.
Yeah, yeah, it's a terrific line.
I really, really enjoyed his reading of it.
I mean, the script is properly amazing for what it does with that relationship.
It's whatever happened to Baby Jane in space, isn't it?
So, abusive antagonistic relationship of 2 people stuck with each other for decades.
And they sort of they can't live with each other, but they also can't live without each other.
In a way, what was exciting at the time was just seeing gay people on screen because it's very clear.
Do you know what I mean?
even to me at the age of 12, that that's what's going on there.
And even though they are both, and particularly, um, agrarian, so horrific, like just such horrendous, awful people.
And it goes from.
Yeah, yeah, they're grotesque, like huge grotesque.
They're physically disgusting.
Like Sabinant, you know, like he's he's got the big mole.
Oh, he's got that big wig.
Yeah, wig.
But there's just a sort of horror around his physicality as well, like the way he touches Villa's face.
It's all really creepy and oily.
Yeah, yeah.
Like he's just physically revolting.
And the way that he sort of, like how pathetically he bases himself before Servoland.
And, like, I have to think, you know, that bit of extra information that Aurak drops about why his degree from Bellhangria University was rescinded.
Like there's only one way of understanding.
Like, I don't think gross misconduct meant that he wasn't footnoting correctly.
Like, I think that we have to read that he was doing something and and also the age difference as well, because Agrarian wasn't exposed to Hoffel's radiation.
And he disappeared 10 years ago and and Pinder was 18 at the time as well.
Yeah, took a young man away with him.
Are you saying you're not a genius?
Well, I'm not...
That is so great.
I love that line so much.
There is the definite inference that Agorian had once invited young Pinder back to his flat to talk about the theatre.
Oh, no, it was clearly to talk about equations, though.
Yeah, he's golden haired stripling.
Yes.
Yeah.
We talked a little bit about it in um, in the 1st 2 episodes this year, both in, um, rescue where you have the 1st kind of person on the show who is clearly coded as gay and just the way that he was associated with kind of depravity and consumption and stuff like that.
He'd eaten up these young twinks, a series of young twinks that he turned into sea devils in his basement.
Just the ones...
Yeah, probably.
They sort of glomped together.
That's what Peter will be doing after this.
What makes you think I have a basement?
And then here, do you know what I mean?
Like, again, he's voracious and slightly sort of pedo adjacent and he's eaten up this young man.
Do you know what I mean?
He's consumed him. you know, during the course of the work.
There's been an accident that has seen him sort of age and wither away.
And, and like, it's kind of terrible.
When, when we were talking about power, we're talking about the way that women are portrayed in power.
And I kind of made the point that gay people in like 7 also get a pretty bad time.
Not just, but...
No, no, no, no.
I know.
But the fun thing was, of course, that we were being seen.
Do you know what I mean?
And, you know, we contented ourselves with this and Harrison Chase having sex with a plant and that was all the representation that we were going to get and we enjoyed it.
Well, you know, she is never far from our forms.
You know, Bob Holmes strikes me as an equal opportunity offender.
He loves taking Mickey out of everyone.
And so when the material is this grotesque and delicious.
I kind of welcome the offence.
It's not baleful, I think, or vindictive.
It's just funny.
Yeah.
And it's all a more amusing that it's only hinted at.
So it's never stated, of course, because it's 1981 that Agrarian is gay, but there's all of those delicious things that Bob Holmes drops into the script, like talking about his golden-haired stripling.
The fact that his weapon scanning equipment is the urinals in a cottaging toilet.
And also, you know, his devotion to a diva like Servolan.
I mean, that's all that's Robert Holmes at his typewriter, laughing it up like Terrence Dixwood.
And it also gives us, like you said, that moment where he shows his appreciation of the estimable villa's twinkiness.
Yeah, which is not quite...
He says he says one could become very fond of that young man.
And Avon just breaks into the hugest smile and says, oh, I'll tell him that.
Great.
The whole performance, though.
He's also so Oscar Wilde.
You know what I mean?
as well.
The whole thing is like lifted from an Oscar Wilde play and the role that Oscar Wilde is kind of based on himself.
And even the whole, like we had with Torian at the beginning of the season, there is that sort of with the ageing thing. all that obsession of youth and beauty and so it's all it's all lifting from that playbook.
And I don't think we can blame people from that era utilising gay, like, it's like not try.
I don't know whether trapes is the right word, but like how you suggest that a character might be gay in this way.
It's just, it's just the way of the world.
And I don't mind it at all.
Yeah, look, I'm glad we still not putting up with it, I guess.
But...
And, you know, it is, it is pretty funny.
And I think, you know, I'm allowed to lie.
And to be fair, it's from this time on and throughout the rest of the decade that people such as Jane T and Gary Downey are sort of swanning around conventions, you know, surrounded by all these kind of teenage boys doting on them.
It's not a 1000000 miles, I have to say, for that.
Yeah, you can fully imagine where Bob Holmes has got his source material from.
But, you know, also, you mentioned rescue.
And even though, yes, Dorian is coded as gay, he's also clearly in a romantic relationship with Su Lin in that episode, the way that they come...
Well, when he comes in, he grabs her and snogs her.
So, she's a beard. yeah.
The thing is, it's not coded in a different way.
It's a different kind of coding compared to a.
The agrarian.
I mean, Agrarian does want to marry a woman in this episode.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Is a Korean actually gay?
Or is he just into...
No, he wants to marry a woman because it's serve land.
And, for God's sake, we all want to marry serverland.
Don't be so ridiculous.
Yes, is it just icon worship for him?
Because the clearest thing that came into my mind was like Liza Minnelli and David Guest, it would be that marriage.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. is exactly that.
But where is Agrarian is kind of the, for one of a better description, creepy old man who loves his pretty young boys.
Dorian is the dashing young, sophistic, younger, sophisticated, successful man who is notionally speaking married to a woman, but is actually shagging all these men and boys and basically using them and tossing them aside.
Um, you know what I mean?
They're different parts of the same, same thing.
So, I mean, the thing is, the Dorian isn't physically disgusting in the way that Agrarian is, and he's pretty, you know, he's the 1st pretty man, I think, that we've ever had on the show..
Maybe Stephen Pacey.
Oh, yeah, yeah, Nova, obviously.
The 2nd pretty man we've ever had on the show.
But he's pretty in a particular sort of gay 1980s, early. kind of way.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaking of pretty people in league seven.
Where do you think Agrarian fits on the Bleak 7 scale of hotness, which runs from Nova to Agrarian?
I'd bring him up for 2 parts, Florian.
I'd put him in not too pass to glory, and frankly, having Sandy.
Really?
I'd be inviting the fan out to dinner, I think, before I took it in.
Maybe same on.
Who knows?
Isn't that someone who's doing fashion rocks?
No, that's somebody else.
I know, he's in power, Simon.
Although he's absolutely repulsive, is really vain and real, and the way that he sort of flicks his hair back, like he's some gorgeous man and things like that, that attention to his physicality is really good, that he doesn't see any of that.
He thinks he's absolutely marvellous and the, the, a genius and everyone will fall at his feet.
I think that the other really shocking thing is that moment of violence where he breaks Pindas are, which is something.
Like, I imagine they debated whether to put a sound in for that.
And it kind of misses not having a sound, but the description of it and its homes with his usual kind of obsession with, um, sort of biological or medical language, he's sort of interested in that, he showed that in killer.
You know, it's all over caves of Andrazani, for instance.
Um, And like, it's so shocking and so kind of awful, and they don't walk back from it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, there's 2 kind of follow-up gags on it where, where Villa arrives back on the, on the base and says, hello, Pinta, how's the arm?
And then Agrorian's threatening to hunt down the people who've tradition, hunt down his traducers, which is a wonderful.
It's such a great homesian word. hunt down his producers and and he can't get a thread out and Villa should just break their arms.
Also, that moment, the villa knows what's going on where he says, oh, I imagine you spend lots of time in them. or whatever.
Therapy chamber or whatever.
Well, of course, sire, because naughty boys must be punished.
It's just that casual domestic violence.
Yeah, yeah.
Seething underneath it all.
And because and he's preying on someone who is weaker than him the whole time, because he's a classic bully.
And who was once much younger than him.
And why does he do it?
He does it because.
Pinder beats him at chess in front of people.
Yeah.
Because Pinder goes off pissed off to the chessboard.
He's annoyed and so he's annoyed and he goes and beats Agrorian to get back at him and Agrorian breaks his arm.
It's amazing.
Yes.
But interestingly, though, unlike some of the other cases, you get a domestic violence in this era of TV and stuff and film.
In the deepest era of Blake 7.
The main characters are disgusted by what's going on.
Yeah.
And horrifying knives.
And also the script makes efforts to kind of bounce out.
It's not just horrible stuff that you're watching.
There's actually surprisingly tender moments between Aquarian and Pinder as well.
Like the bit where Agrarian is fretting about the plan working.
And Pindo looks worried and sort of comes and touches his shouldering concern.
It's just a little touch of moment.
And they've actually, they've taken the effort to build this relationship to something that's more interesting than just domestic violence.
But it was always going to end with him killing Agrarian.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
It also offers some of the best laugh out loud lines, and I actually did laugh out loud at this one, where Villa says maybe a growing gives him lessons in etiquette as well as judo, which is just an amazing line.
Why is judo being mentioned in the 3rd century of the 5th calendar or wherever the hell we are.
It's a wonderful set of homes here bringing it back to real life.
You know, he's the man who brought sandwiches to Blake 7 and his judo now as well.
I thought one thing that doesn't quite work, but we're attempting to do is the chess thing, because there are kings and queens, then how compinder is unable to distinguish between men and women.
And that also gives rise to that wonderful line where Avon's trying to nut that out on the shuttle and Villa says, if it's any consolation, I never thought you were a woman.
Which I think is absolutely fantastic.
And of course, I suppose we ought to talk about the woman in this episode who comes in and steals the show as she always does.
Jacqueline Pierce giving an amazing performance and actually playing Servoland as a comic character in a way that she's never, ever done before and won't get the chance to do again, but she actually plays sort of physical comedy really well.
The scene I always remember is the scene where Agrarian is worshipping her and she's backing away and away until she reaches the edge of the set and she has to stop and she's sort of even then she's sort of still trying to move away from him the whole time.
She gives this wonderful startled little jump when a bum touches the table.
Well, that scene where he is kind of on the floor kind of talking, you know, like begging her and abasing himself and she's rolling her eyes in the foreground.
I think Pete Lambert.
Yes, posted just a couple of minutes of that and said it was like the best few minutes of television in human history or something, something like that during the course of the week and he's right.
I mean, it is an incredible performance from her.
And, but, Why is she never meeting the crew anymore?
It's so strange.
She just doesn't meet them at all.
And like, I've got no place.
Oh, really?
He didn't like the way that Avon and Servoland's relationship had developed, which is odd because it develops a long way along that path because of his scenes he gives them a Death Watch.
But yeah, he just tried to keep them apart, which is why, of course, it's not Avon in...
I think it was, yeah, I think it was the kiss in Death Watch that he objected to because that wasn't in the script and he was very focussed on what they what's what's written and they ad-libbed that and the director went with it and he said, I'm not, I don't want that, that's not.
I'm not having them together if they're going to misread what I've written.
Oh, okay.
And then the series arguably loses something for it because we mentioned in gold that actually, this is one of the few Avon Serverland scenes and it absolutely sizzles.
You've waited a long time to see them playing off each other and that's what's been missing the rest of the season.
And it is a really great scene in gold.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The last one that I did was games and they don't meet in that either.
Like the crew just never meet her at all.
I think it's a shame.
It doesn't matter here because, you know, this is one of her best performances that I'm not wondering why they're not meeting, but it is odd in retrospect looking back at it.
I'm ready to come up.
I'm sure you are Simon.
Becky Pierce got to play a bit of comedy in Moloch, and we saw then how... the eye roll then as well. didn't we?
And she adds a lot of this.
I mean, I can't imagine that little, at the end of that 1st scene with Agrorian.
I can't imagine that little slap that she gives his cheek as she leaves was in the script.
They've worked that out in rehearsals.
Um, but she's just, she's masterful at it and I think, yeah, whoever posted that.
Who was it who posted that scene saying it was brilliant television, Nathan?
Pete.
Pete Lambert.
Oh, well, Pete is absolutely right.
They are the highlight of this episode.
It's also interesting.
I think that the other crew doesn't get left out because even though Tarantina and Su Lin don't have that much to do, what they do get is actually pretty interesting.
So that scene with Dana and Su Lin, where that little girly scene at Villa's expense is really fun, where they're just cracking up about the fact that he, you know, he was explaining stuff to Avon.
And I really love the fact that Tarrant did a course at the Space Institute, there's Terry Nation name for you.
Not long after Agorian disappeared.
That was 10 years ago.
So how old was Tarrant?
12?
Well, I'll be damned.
Even Paul Stephen Pacey.
He just struggles with that and it always stands.
I've noted that because it just makes me laugh every time.
There is something I like about that though.
Like, it is something, and I think you've said this to me, Peter, that, um, that, that Taron is more likeable in series D. so there's a really sort of genuine moment of delight there.
Um, and, you know, it's a cheesy line and maybe he kind of doesn't quite land it, but it is kind of nice seeing him happy about something and he's just excited that they've, you know, that they've managed to pass off the fake Aurac.
Isn't it interesting that Avon takes Tarrant into his confidence, but not any of that.
But no one else.
Yeah, he needs to know so he can deliver that sort of exposition. at the same time as, you know, Agrarian and Servoland discover it.
I mean, that is perhaps my favourite line in all of Blake 7, and it's absolutely Bob Holmes.
Remember in The Time Warrior, where he has Liz Slade and say, oh, it's going to be, you know, say, oh, you're overdoing it on the gritty realism here in this plywood castle that they're shooting in.
Hang on.
No lights, no cameras.
And, and, and here where he has serverland, say the line, that is an aurac, it's just a box of flashing lights.
Like that is a rare moment of absolute genius in the show.
It's so good.
Just so absolutely perfect.
And in fact, the whole speech is terrific.
It's the uh, I warned you about Avon and still he tricked you.
I will kill you for this.
It's so good.
She is so furious.
The way that Jack and Pierce could just say, it's a box of flashing lights.
It's with one fury and anger is beautiful.
And when she's watching them on the monitor and Agrorian name checks her and she just goes up her arms and rolls her.
It's really good, isn't it, that little bit because it is like she's listening, he knows she's listening, and Aurax, they're saying, and he was plotting against like the Federation and trying to overthrow the government.
And so, and like he's kind of looking at her, but trying not to look like he's looking at the camera.
He's obviously into the security camera, just so good.
And the fact that we see it through the security camera from her point of view, him delivering the line, him kind of regarding the camera, but not really.
It's just tremendous.
It's so good.
And even just after that, well, before that, rather.
Um, the, the, the sequence, I think, is Serverland's watching the room and Villa and and so on arrives, they walk into the room from her in, in her, you know, her, her space capsule and you see the action on the screen and then it cuts to the actual room.
It's that kind of economy of storytelling, which is so great and it keeps things moving and it gives you a sense that she's watching and without labouring over the point of, you know, the door opening and him stepping through and all that kind of stuff.
It doesn't sound like much, but it all kind of keeps it going.
Isn't it great that Agorians test of Aurax limitless power is basically to look up his Wikipedia page.
Exactly.
Well, it's a we are.
It's like looking yourself up on Google, isn't it, basically?
It's extraordinary think the idea of a networked computer was just so foreign and space at the time.
It's just amazing.
Computers, they can talk to other computers.
Oh my god, what witchcraft is that?
I want to give a special shout out to homes and space names in this one too, Maladar, you know, Agory and the planet Porphyrus.
Like it's a moon that gets destroyed.
Bellhangria University is an absolute homes name.
He's so good at it.
The way, yes, they're so much better than those 2 syllable ones that Terry Nation comes up with, which, as a rule, are kind of cod by comparison.
Because the homes ones just have this beautiful poetry, this kind of lyricism to them when you, when you, you just, you just want to say them.
You know?
Yes, yeah.
And I love that Maladar, Well, the episode basically starts with a fart joke in best Robert Holmes tradition, where they said, oh, and it's made up of ammonium and soul fat.
And so Philip basically says, yeah, it smells bad.
Like, oh, can it ever?
It's a thing, isn't it?
That all the best dogs who and Blake 7 writers, you can tell their talent, by the way, that they name planets.
So it just rolls off the tongue, you get, I'm thinking of Andrazani in late 7 because if that was just some cod space planet name.
Lets say Zeroc from gold.
It just wouldn't have the same weight to it, whereas Andrazani trips off the tongue.
And I think as well, when they make a big deal of the planet where the doctor dies in the new series of Doctor Who.
It's an amazingly sayable planet.
Trends of law.
It has the same sort of rhythm as Gallifrey, like the same number of syllables and the same rhythm.
And it's a rare thing, you know, to be able to come up with good space names and certainly Terry Nation can't do it.
No, it's not like Marinus or Aristo or whatever.
Aridius.
Aridius. water planet that has recently dried out.
It does, they do roll off the tongue a lot better than, say, I don't know, Ranscore avcolas, for example.
To choose one. choose one.
I just keep coming back as well to how good the casting is in this episode because obviously Larry Noble's amazing, but John Savadant, he's one of the best guest roles in Blake 7.
He's he's only 43 as well, which just sends chills down my spine because even in the script at one stage, he's described as old and decrepit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so different to his previous guest role in Blake 7, where he's in trial as the old star killer, where he's very resolute and military and almost flat in comparison to this, where he's just sort of basically the figureheads.
Yes, he does.
And you feel like, and he's an actor of talent who's been wasted and they give him a 2nd chance to show what he can do.
I mean, but what other opportunities does he have to act like this in anything else that he does, for goodness sake?
I mean, there is, yes, minister, Simon.
Oh, that's true.
He does.
Brilliantly, beautifully, if they have all hats.
Yes.
No, no ministerizing a terrible meat. 2 guest actors this season who filmed a Doctor Who role and then hopped straight into a Blake 7 role.
So there's Scratford Johns, who did 4 to Doomsday, and then Games was his next job, and now you've got John Savaden, who did the visitation, and now Orbit is his next job.
So they're clearly just pilfering off each other.
But I just, I think if the casting of Agrorian had been got wrong, the episode would have failed.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's like, it's like the casting of Justin in animals sinks an already irredeemable episode, whereas if they cast someone good, it could have at least made it more interesting to watch.
But John Sevenan understands the assignment to use a phrase that Simon's used in the past.
He gets what he should be doing.
He knows it's going to be whatever happened to baby Jane in space.
He knows how to craft the relationship with Pindar or Pindar, as he calls it.
He's just gloriously over the topping places, but he also knows when to pull it back.
So it's not just tapanto performance.
So he's sometimes quite cold and menacing as well.
And The way he bears down on Servland is actually quite confronting.
But then he knows how to eat up a line, like, you don't look like the ruthless desperadoes of legend, or when he talks about, you know, do you think I wanted to be here in this grinding desolation?
It's just perfect and without him, the episode would not work.
Absolutely.
Obviously, we get a bit of a tonal shift in the episode towards the end.
What starts off as a comedy played quite lightly and the performances are quite light, suddenly twists into something that no one would see coming at all.
It's phenomenal.
And I think what makes it is that contrast of the slightly lighthearted lighter performances of the early episode really puts you in what feels like a safe comedy space for Blake 7.
And then suddenly you're plunged into one of the darkest moments of the whole, possibly the darkest moment of the whole series where Avon turns on Villa.
Can we talk about how well set up, that is, as well. even though we don't see it coming. even brings the gun into the shuttle and we have dialogue about it.
It's a thing that's worth doing in the glove box and forgotten about it.
He puts it in the glove box where that plastic, the little plastic tonka toy thing is that he's going to use to push the thing out.
He has a conversation with Agrarian, which I think maybe they stuff the lines up or something, but where they talk about neutrons, but what they mean to be talking about is neutron star material, but they talk about the very, very heavy thing that is keeping the ship from reaching escape velocity.
Um, and all of that stuff is is just sort of terribly well done.
The fact that we've brought Aurac down on the shuttle because we're using a short range relay.
Like all of that stuff is all set up really, really well without us looking like it's set up and it's all of that that makes that scene possible and what is great about it too, is that while it's happening, although it looks like Agrarian has been tricked, it's still within the sort of scope of his plans.
And so he has a plan.
It's, it can't fail, and it's visible how the plan is working as well because we've got the BBC micro showing us, you know, the trajectories and stuff.
It's so well done.
Like it's just so well told and well set up.
And what's also set up well is then the extension to, is he actually going to throw Villa off the ship because he implausibly weighs 73 kilos.
It's, it's, it's the right anorexic.
I also weigh 70s. drink, right?
I thought so, I thought so.
It doesn't just come from nowhere.
Like they are desperately trying to track stuff off the shuttles, try and get like there is, they've got minutes like they're really, it hasn't just suddenly happened.
It's not done in 30 seconds.
It's built over several minutes.
And as the door slide shut, as Aurex says, Villa weighs 73 kilos.
It is another example of absolutely perfect.
You see precisely just what you need.
And it's, and also, regardless of whether the fact that we know, I mean, we know Avon is incredibly ruthless and will basically sell his own grandmother, et cetera, et cetera.
He doesn't really normally do that, but it's this moment where suddenly it really is, well, we're both going to die or one of us is going to die.
And it's this cool what would, and you, and you wonder what would, what would you, and it makes you actually think, what would I do in that situation?
It is so well done.
And then Villa, of course, absolutely sweating profusely and hiding.
Absolute terror is crushingly beautifully done.
Well, Simon, you wouldn't throw me out of the airlock.
Only when 69 kilos.
Yes, but once they then throw the tonka toy thing out as well, that'd be enough because they only needed 70.
He's doing exactly what a growing is doing.
That's the other thing.
You know, we've got a glory and is going to abandon pinder to his fame.
And this is what he's doing sort of upstairs.
I think it's really amazing.
Yeah, but Agorian is being doing it nastily, whereas Avon at least is deciding he has to do it because, as I said, they're both going to die or one of them is going to die.
And, and so it's, it's, it's that cold calculating. is like what he goes through in is in horizon.
Yes, when he works out that he can't possibly pilot the ship alone, so he's going to hang around.
You know what I mean?
He actually works it through and thinks about it.
Yes, he is cold and calculating.
You've got that moment where it plays across his face for a moment where he's working it out and you can see it sort of as Darrow's sort of looking for a moment, just a slight agonised moment and then he picks up the gun and he walks out and you know exactly what he's decided.
Blake's not going to do this, right?
Blake's not going to do it.
Like, he's not going to make some kind of utilitarian calculation and decide that it would be a good idea to throw Gan.
He weighs a lot more than 73.
So just to be on the safe side, throw Gan out of the out of the airlock.
You could have won game equals...
Jenna and De Cali.
So it is still a horrifically shocking thing.
It's not just, oh, well, he's making a sensible calculation.
It's either one dies or both of us dies.
The solution, the morally correct thing to do in this situation as far as this sort of TV show is concerned, is to work harder.
They'd already been working together to strip the thing, find more things to strip.
He's already sent Villa down to get some more things to throw out of the thing, throw the, you know, insulation out of the cargo bays and stuff.
But he doesn't wait for that to work.
He just goes, hmm, this might be quicker, you know.
And so it is still like a shocking thing for him. very shocking, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, and I don't think Villa would have suspected it.
The one thing, the one flaw in the plan is why does he go, Villa, I think I found out how to do it.
Villa, come out.
You know, like, who, like, like, why is Villa not going?
And this is why Villa clocks it because he knows that's not Avon.
Oh, but he's overheard it.
He's overheard it.
He's like, and this is where we've, I always feel we kind of missed sort of like an echoing of the scenes earlier with Pinder reacting to things that we should have had that mirroring with Villa suddenly reacting.
But we get it.
We just get it.
As Simon said, as Aurex says to Avon, Villa weighs 73 kilos, we're looking at the door behind him, closing of his faces.
And Villa's facing.
And so Villa...
Oh, no, no.
And I think Villa goes, shit, that's what he's going to do.
Is isn't it?
Absolutely, 100%.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be high.
Otherwise he wouldn't be hiding and scared.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, all episode.
Holmes has been drawing this comparison between Avon and Villa and Agori and Pinder who are kind of like the grotesque versions of them.
They both have these weirdly codependent relationships, at least when Holmes writes them.
And Avon, as we said, turns on Villa with the same calculation that Glory and turns on Pinder.
So each is kind of this lead character with their straight man to playoff.
The only real difference is I don't think Avon and Villa Shag that we know of.
But it is that thing where we've seen these grotesque and horrific characters and the, you know, the mistreatment and the violence and stuff.
And then when it comes down to it, Avon's going to do the same thing as Aglorian.
And it's pretty bleak.
Like, everyone sort of goes, oh, you know, like, there's a very clear and planned descending to madness on Avon's behalf, you know, and it's probably, let's imagine it's the death of Cali, and he gets more and more mad as time goes on.
But I think what genuinely happens is that he just overacts and there's no one to stop him and he's been in the show for 4 years and the directors can just fuck off if they are going to tell him to rein it in.
Hence that incredibly misjudged and strange series of line readings in that scene where he's hunting villa.
But this, I think, is a proper deterioration of his character, like uh, it's Holmes actually going, let's make him as evil as we possibly can.
And so making him just agrarian, but better dressed for that final scene is absolutely, you know, the deterioration, the ultimate deterioration of his character.
But I don't think he's actually evil.
I think it's actually within character for Avon because what he has been since those scenes in Horizon and the start of the series is all about self-preservation.
So it's the ultimate moment of self-preservation.
It just requires him to take it to another level and consider killing one of his colleagues.
And I think you said earlier, Nathan, that's the kind of story it would be difficult to see the series continuing with after it happens.
I think Avon and Villa are the core relationship of the series.
More so than Avon and Blake, more so than Blake or Travis or whoever.
And to rip the trust in that relationship part, you have to be prepared to run with it, and they do because there's only 2 episodes left, and any scene between Avon and Villa in the next 2 episodes has Villa playing it with that intensely guarded way that he does in the last scene of this episode.
So it actually does carry forward.
I think it's, it's bringing the series properly to a thematic close as well.
It's a little bit like getting Deanna and Worf to start going out.
Do you know what I mean?
at the end of the end of series 7.
It's kind of like, let's do that.
We won't have to include it in many episodes.
It'll be fine.
I think Michael Keating pays attention to it and...
Yeah, I think that's it.
His performance for Warlord and Blake because of this.
He knows the repercussions of this, whereas it might not be written sort of explicitly, the way that he chooses to play Villa from now on.
You can see it from the moment where he says, it's a trip.
I won't forget Avon and you know there's real emphasis on that.
Villa is not going to forget, and Michael Keating knows exactly what this means for the next 2 episodes.
And there is that beautiful scene in Blake, which I'm sure we'll talk about on the episode, where Avon finds them, Dana Sulin and Villa in the forest, and Villa is instantly suspicious of him, because Terence's not with him, and he keeps asking him, if you're here and Aurax here, how did Tarrant get off the ship?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you know the working title for this episode was a few kilos more?
Truth.
Really?
I can never be sure when you say it like that.
That's my always say it's facts.
You have to you have to kind of underline that.
Otherwise, we won't believe it. yes that's true.
I mean, the tacky and funnel is really kind of interesting because I remember, and I don't know whether I've misremembered this.
So Paul Cornell, forgive me if you're listening.
He's not listening, that I once said that you could achieve the same effect as the tackian funnel by just, again, rolling the TV from the nearest classroom into the room, pressing play on the videotape, and showing your video of a planet kind of disappearing, and then sort of cackling like a sort of bunch of massive kind of hilarious comedy homosexuals, and we could have achieved the same effect.
And Paul actually said much, I guess, Paul actually said that there had it one time, you know how there's the series one novelisation thing that being finished is doing.
I think there had been talk of one of those before, and Paul said that he'd written a version of, um, this story in which Scorpio notices on the way away from Malta that the moon around the planet Porphyrus is still perfectly intact.
It's all the cold.
I'm not entirely sure, though, why these particles that travel faster than light, though, will annihilate a planet. doesn't quite make sense, but I don't care.
Yeah, it doesn't matter.
It's just space reasons.
It's a special special.
Yeah, I'm not really sure what the agrarian theory of parallel matter is either.
I sure it's something to do with calories.
It's probably, it's, is it the same theory of parallel matter that Dastari worked out at this very desk?
It, doesn't it?
Are you suggesting that are you suggesting that rice is mine their other material when creating new?
They might.
No one, the viewer never clocks it.
Do you think the word parallel keeps appearing in the script because Holmes is secretly trying to get us to make that parallel between Avon and Villa and a groan and Villa?
I think it's the work.
Parallel physics, parallel matter.
It's the sort of thing that you might do if you were a writer, you know, just to subtly inch people in that direction. just him there with his pipe in his mouth and at his typewriter, giggling away to himself, yeah, they'll never know, but I know.
Well, do you, like he's, he's incredible, isn't he?
Like, he's the best person to ride for the show?
Absolutely.
Boucher's incredible, but at home.
But Boucher, when you think about it, doesn't doesn't contribute.
Oh, sorry for Blake 7.
Yes.
I'm just talking about if you think of the Doctor Who Blake 7 universe.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Classic Doctor Who. writer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's just so much imagination there.
And as we've said before, just brilliant space names in that sounds superb.
It is kind of amazing, though, that Bob Holmes script editing Chris Boucher on Doctor Who is some of the best Doctor Who ever.
Whereas Chris Boucher script editing Robert Holmes on Blake 7 is some of the best Blake 7 ever.
Well, he felt very much like Christmas's protégé and Chris really looked up to Bob Holmes because he brought him in as a writer and all of that.
And you can sense as sort of mutual admiration and Chris Boucher, I think, has learnt a lot from Robert Holmes.
I think for me, the thing with Bob Holmes is like Blake 7 doesn't do world building, you know how Star Trek does world building and, you know, by we know where the empires are, we know what sort of technology we have.
We know a little bit about how the thing is governed. you know what I mean?
Like we know about the world and the universe that it takes place in.
And every episode, the federation is completely different in Blake 7 and we introduce things for a story and then they never come up again.
And all of that sort of thing, which is just how TV's made at the time.
And that's not a criticism.
I think world building is absolute bullshit and really kind of a bad thing.
Uh, and Holmes, what Holmes does, though, is that he makes it seem like the stories that he's telling have, like, have causes that things are happening or have happened elsewhere.
You know, like, like, there's, they're happening in a bigger space.
We're seeing a part of a thing.
And that's not the same as world building, I think.
It's different kind of world.
It's so good at it.
It's a different kind of world building.
I was actually going to say, I think there's an awful lot of world building in Blake 7 and Doctor Who.
It's just the fact that it's as you're sort of suggesting that it's contained within episodes.
And that's like, I feel so much world building in something like Horizon or Killer and things like Death Watch and so on like that.
Basically most of the really, really good episodes.
And I think one of the reasons why it's so interesting and imaginative is because they don't care and it doesn't matter what they're contradicting for what's being said before or what might be related.
One of the most sterile things that was uttered in 1996 when Philip Siegel was bringing back Doctor Who in the form of the Paul Magan Tilly movie and was then, of course, hoping to create either a series of such telemovies or regular series. is I remember being at a monoptical or an optical or whatever it was, it must have been a monoptical because it was earlier in the year, and because it was before the special, the film came out, and he, Philip Siegel was this guest of honour, and everyone was kind of, oh, my God, you're bringing up to her back and all that sort of stuff.
And one of the things he kept going on about in his interview was how he created this Bible. for the show in terms of, like, basically, they'd effectively decided what the true history of the cybermen were and all that kind of rubbish, all that stuff, which...
Straitjacketed all the writing.
Exactly.
Basically, and that's how you get kind of that mishmash of the Paul McGann kind of voiceover at the beginning because basically we have to summarise, you know, the entire series in a pre-credited sequence.
And all that kind of thing.
And even back then, I remember thinking, why do you care?
That's not actually important.
You might think it's important.
But all you're doing is your stifling potential creativity.
And, you know, it's like we've we've really never cared that there are multiple ways that Atlantis was destroyed and all that.
You know, it never mattered.
Whereas to him it matters and and I think that's where Star Trek became in the 90s is quite comparative, even though I love it, is comparatively sterile because it needs to all, they've decided to make sense.
Whereas Blake 7 a doctor, they don't care.
It's like, and not that they don't care in a malicious or careless way.
As you said, it doesn't matter because it's not, it's not being shown again as a world.
In fact, it makes it a lot more interesting for us because then, you know, you don't get the same federation in every episode.
You get a different generation.
And you like this one, you find this one's going to rise into pressure points.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it really hampers Star Trek in all sorts of ways.
And when Star Trek reacts against it or plays with it.
I think that works really well Exactly.
And I think that's something, I think that's something Doctor Who has done as Doctor Who has become increasingly regarded as a kind of cult TV, you know, part of science fiction program.
Like, just like a long running science fiction program, like it started in the 80s, but just being, like, having fun with the, you know, using it as a source of, of, um, of colour and comedy and stuff like that.
I think is the right approach.
So, I think it's safe to say this has been one of the most enjoyable and brilliant episodes of Blake 7 so far, one that we've all really enjoyed and appreciated.
That's all bit for you, and that's the genius of Robert Holmes.
Join us next week when we'll be experiencing what it's like to be in a blissed out, joyful, drugged up state in a shopping centre in Guildford.
Thank you very much for listening and goodbye.
Good night.
It's just a box of flashing lights.
That's the power.
Go, go. 30 seconds thrust, Maxi, uh...
Switching command.
Maximum power on all drives.
Seven pound.