Hello, you listener, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast that turns out to have been a Babylon 5 podcast all along.
I'm Bruce Boxleitner.
I'm Jerry Doyle.
I'm Claudia Christian.
I wanted to be Claudia.
I'm just going to be Simon because I don't know who any of those people are.
Well done, Simon.
It's Christmas and so it's time for the annual celebration where we go hunting for Blake.
The spaceship blows up, and then Gareth Thomas turns up with a beard to disappoint us all.
It's time at last to say goodbye.
It's Blake.
All right, so we start by blowing up the base.
Great model work.
It is great model work.
When we're watching this last night, Rod said, it's an episode of Thunderbird.
So I said, I said it's most of the same crew.
Also, that's not a bad thing.
No, no, no, he loves Thunderbirds.
That was not pejorative in his sense.
You can sometimes see the strings on Stephen Pacy.
It's a very strange thing though, isn't it?
Because they've decided to blow up the base because Zookan will have told someone where it is.
And if he hasn't done that.
Rick James was going to do that.
And I just thought it might have been sort of appropriate forward planning to consider that possibility before inviting them all over.
Absolutely And I also kind of wondered why they had to blow up the base more when Zukan had already blown it up sufficiently.
I think, you know, they do want to end last week's episode with the base clear of the virus, but it might have worked.
Given that we do have a conversation about last week's episode, which is a vanishingly rare event.
Um, you know, if we'd still kind of left it contaminated and they were blowing it up because either the booze had run out or because there was a virus rampaging through the base.
I think what they're doing is just, and I get an uneasy feeling from the very start of watching this episode, they're making clear that things are changing.
This is not just an entry of the week where things will happen and they'll go back to normal next week.
Things are clearly happening in the scope of the series.
They've had to leave their base behind.
There's no going back from this. one way or the other, whether it ends in the way it does or whether they have to move forward to do something new.
Yeah.
I mean, what they've got left is we do get a little shot of a bed, I think there's a bed in the wall, is that right?
That's right.
Villa sleeps on one in Headhunter.
Ah, there we go.
But, I mean, basically, they're now in a room, you know, at least the Liberator had some corridors and pressurised stairs.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Occasionally pressurised hold.
Dramatically purposed, pressurised.
Yes.
A pressurised hold separated from space by one of sleeves, force balls.
Yes.
I do think we get to see a brief shot of that hold later in the episode when some explosions happen.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're getting exploding corridor, yeah.
Yeah.
So we quickly explode the base and then we kind of head off and explode the ship almost immediately.
Well, I don't know, before that, we sort of get into the action in record time.
And this is why Chris Belcher.
You can tell when he's writing because he writes flight deck scenes immaculately and always gives every character things to do, has them give intelligent input so that it moves the plot forward.
And I think you get real character moments and things like that.
And I think this scene, the one where they realise that Avon is going to find Blake, I think this is a corker of a scene.
It's really great for every character and it's full of that bleak 7 banter.
And it really sets up the episode really well, I think.
So people who are keen to kind of overread stuff into the show and into people's performances, I think located some animosity between Villa and Avon in that scene, but it's very clear, I think, that Villa is staring at him so that we realise that he has long since worked out, that it's Blake, that he's talking about.
Yeah, that's my reading.
I think if you want to go back to what happens in orbit, I think you see that in the abandoned building on the planet later, if you want to read that, yeah.
No, no, it's because of course Villa is the only other one who knows Blake.
Yeah.
That is pretty great, I think.
And one of my favourite lines of the entire series is Terrence's reaction, when Ivan says that before I, before you ask, yes, I would have just left him there, had the zookan thing worked out, and he says that, he says something like, oh, I really must work that into the conversation.
I think is absolute genius.
Do you think he works that into the conversation while he was lying injured in the wreckage of Scorpio, like came looking for him?
It's interesting as well.
I mean, I think that both things are true.
I think Villa is staring at him going, you think you found Blake before we hear him say it, but I think he is also incredibly wary of Avon.
And as you highlighted, Simon. in that scene in the ruined building later on.
It's very clear that Villa is extremely wary of Avon now.
But also, it's interesting because setting up the search for Blake.
It's clear how far Avon has moved into the Blake role now.
So there's a scene earlier in the season where Villa's advocating running away, and Avon tells you and says, I won't run Villa, which is so Blake.
Avon at all.
And here, Villa says, you know, are we going to go somewhere safe?
And Avon turns to him and says, in the end, winning is the only safety.
And you think, well, that's just Blake.
You've become Blake.
Sort of.
I mean, I mean, winning is the only safety is saying that once we've destroyed our enemies, only then can we be safe, whereas Blake has the angle on it of once we have destroyed our enemies and freed all these oppressed peoples, then we shall be saved.
Avon never quite cares about the oppressed peoples.
No.
Well, except perhaps for last week.
Okay, fair enough.
You can easily say in this episode.
Really?
He's tried that.
That didn't work.
So it's actually number one.
I would argue for a lot of this season.
Actually, he cares more.
Like, they are trying to find it, like, a way of combatting Pylene 50.
Yeah.
Like throughout the season, they do come back to that, you know, we are trying to work out a way of releasing these people from impression.
So maybe not in the same passionate way, but he still has sort of turned a corner as a character to care more about these people.
You know, maybe it's also mainly about destroying the Federation, but it's also his trying to do good.
You could also look at it from the perspective that you tried to put together his own anti-federation alliance.
It didn't work and now he's just going to outsource that to blink and not do any of the work.
Well, I mean, I don't think that the riders are putting that much effort into character arcs or character development.
No.
And so what happens in series C, we get him take over as the lead and the show isn't about anything.
They're just going from place to place, you know, and having adventures, but love it.
Yeah, it's awesome.
That is pretty great.
It's a good season, but there's no overarching thing.
It's not like the search for Star one.
And so V Lorimer comes in and says, actually, we should really get them to fight the Federation in some way.
And he doesn't actually do that.
They're still faffing around on sort of various planets and stuff, but they talk a big game about finding the federation.
And so each new person they meet is going to help them in some way in that fight.
But it's also just not the way these programs were made then. didn't think that way.
Yeah, how groundbreaking the EastBace trilogy was.
Well, it doesn't mean that you don't have some sort of reference to sometimes back to previous services.
But as you said, the fact that they even mentioned that the previous episode happened at all is very, very rare.
And then later on, you know, they reference the events of terminal.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's hanging a hat on what I think is a big problem for the episode is that we did a final episode of Blake 7, 18 months ago and it was a lot better than this.
And in a way we've burned up some of our best ideas and this one's running on fumes, I think.
I think that's both unfair and inaccurate because I actually think this is better than terminal.
I mean, terminal sort of sits into that lump of episodes for me, like Star One, Duel, which are well loved, which I don't actually care that greatly for.
You know, my favourites have always been things like Orbit and Death Watch and and Horizon and Killer and so on.
But this is the one that I think I do really like.
I think it's like they're having a 2nd go at killing off the series.
The reason why I think terminal seems better is because it concludes the destruction of the liberation, which is the ship they've had for 3 years.
Whereas now it's just they're crashing a ship that they've had this year only.
Yeah, it doesn't really matter.
It was a terrible, terrible stare.
And we never really liked the set.
So, so...
There's nothing invested.
There's nothing invested in our, you know, our heart's not really going thumpty thump as it did when the liberator set was dissolving because that's kind of like, oh my god, they're doing this.
But point being that I think it's actually a much better resolution for the Blake character, and I think it's a much better resolution for all of the characters, really.
I do love how, speaking of those 2 destructions of those ships, they use the same pivot floor slides.
Yes, things.
We'll talk about that later because that makes no sense.
I mean, the entire thing about that.
There is actually some shared DNA between the episodes.
There is the hydraulic flooring.
Of course, Bleak is in it.
There is the ship computer having it sad last words, et cetera.
And the 2nd one of each of those is somewhat worse than the previous one.
And I also think the great thing about the destruction of the liberator is that it happens as a result of weird Blake 7, which is something that Via Lorimer has not been very keen on.
And we did talk a little bit about that in our rescue episode in that magic room is sort of weird, Blake 7.
But weird, like, 7, like, the decimas or the Farn or Moloch.
Moloch.
You know, things Ultraworld or any of those.
Yeah, ultraworld.
Yeah, all of that sort of stuff.
That's weird Blake 7.
Suckophagus.
Yeah.
And there's very little of that.
Here it's just some really, really like dodgem car spaceships come and start shooting them for no really apparent reason and then they just...
They look like ice hockey. adorable.
They are.
I'm going to split the difference between what both of you are saying and say, I think terminal is a better episode, but I think Blake is a better finale. for the series, but we'll come back to that.
Yeah.
Definitely final.
Nothing's ever definitely final.
We should actually talk about that because there was a plan to bring it back if there was a plan to bring it back for the 5th season.
That's why you don't see any blood on any of the other characters.
But Gareth Thomas really didn't want to come back again. ever again.
Let's talk about that when we get to the final scene. imagine how much this episode would have been diminished if they'd all woken up in series E, episode one on hospital gurneys.
I mean, come on.
Oh, you wouldn't have minded that after a minute six.
I mean, if I got another series, I absolutely...
Exactly. missing a few kidneys.
I do love on the Scorpio flight deck.
They finally given Aurak a seatbelt.
Yes, yes.
Well, it's after the shuttle in all rack that he put off it.
I think a girder falls on him, doesn't it?
Last week, last week, Gerda falls on him.
Strap is just...
He loses them.
He's fine by later, like once we're on location.
Rod said to me, have they redesigned it, but said that's just his seatbelt.
When Aurax hidden under the foliage on location.
He looks so much like Christmas lights.
A bunch of flashing lights.
There is so much to love in that early part of the episode.
I really think the 1st 20 minutes of the episode are immaculate.
And by the way, it only takes to the exact 20 minute mark for Scorpio to be crashed and gone, which is amazing.
There is that scene in which Mary Ridge highlights in the direction.
Thieves, killers, mercenaries.
Psychoass, which is just an amazing moment.
And I think Sulin is really great in these scenes.
And this is a recurring thing through the 2nd half of the season.
The 1st half of season, she had no character at all, and she got nothing to do, apart from getting snogged by Dorian.
In the 2nd half of the season, she might be one of the best written characters and performed in all of Blake 7.
She gets really interesting things to do.
The moment where she's talking about her parents and how they died, I think, is really affecting.
I like how she challenges the other characters.
So when Villa says, oh, it wasn't a crime, and she says, oh, it was crime all right. and then she has to go at him.
And later on, where she faces up to Avon and says, I really could be quite annoyed if I thought we were the bait in a trap that you'd laid for them.
She's a really strong character and I love her by this point.
I think both she and Dana are far better than Callie and Jenna, but the performances and the characters and you're absolutely right.
The character does start as a kind of a generic, Here is an extra female character to flesh out because...
Yeah, yeah, she works.
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, different. but yet different enough.
And the great thing about that sequence where she is talking about her family and on Gada Prime and yada, yada, yada, with the farming and so on, is that so often those kind of little backstories where you get like a sort of 62nd speech about, well, this is this is the summary of my life till now.
They're often so drearily or chewily performed and she just kind of delivers it in this great straight way, which has some emotion there without being ridiculously overwrought or anything.
It's just a nice summary of a good performance.
It's colony and space, but just done in like 2 minutes.
It's awesome.
Yes, yes, it is.
It is actually.
Something I've criticised this season is that Su Lin doesn't get a focus episode.
And look, that's not necessarily a bad thing when your focus episode is animals, but instead, what we get through the back half of the season is Sulin gets focus scenes, which build up to this.
And it's like, okay, I can then get on board with that.
And especially watching her in Assassin in Warlord.
She's excellent.
Yeah.
And especially I love to highlight Assassin and Warlord because Tarrant accuses her of being jealous of Perry and she calls out the sexism in that remark.
But then when Tarrant meets Ziona, she is a willing helper and participant in facilitating their relationship.
And it does prove Terrence criticism earlier wrong, but also proves Sulin as a person is generous and kind and has a strong sense of justice and we find out why here because what happened on her planet was totally, it was legal, but it was totally unjust. absolutely.
And she's, even though she's a hard character, because, you know, she's a gunslinger and she's had a hard background.
She's not, like you said, ungenerous to others.
So Ziona, she becomes friendly with, and they have sort of some nice scenes.
And her and Dana's relationship and the 2nd half the season is amazing.
They're really kind of girly together.
We talked about that scene in orbit where they both gang up on Villa, which is just tremendous.
It seems really terrific in it.
Yes, and you really believe in the scenes that come later in this episode that Villa is going to depend on them to keep him alive.
Yeah, yeah.
So, very quickly, we're plummeting towards the Planet Garda Prime, and again, Sulin gets her best line there, which is, you know, that we've lost control of the ship, and they've stopped following us, and, you know, we are literally going to crash, and she says, no wonder they were convinced, which I think is pretty great.
I also love who the hell are they?
Who the hell cares?
Oh, it doesn't seem to affect their aim. is the other one.
Dana's one.
Try and get your sums right this time.
I have a question for you.
Who did this better?
Blake or Star Trek Generations?
Well, clearly, it's very similar.
The way the ship gets grounded.
The Star Trek generation scene was inspired by this.
I can't believe the...
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
In answers to that question, obviously in terms of special effects, generations.
But I would say in terms of character, this, because in the Star Trek generations one, you are never under any impression that any of the lead actors are going to be killed in that scene.
There is that scene where data rushes forward and puts himself over Deanna Troy just in time for a big girder. to fall on him.
That's true.
But, you know, when Avon leaves the Scorpio, we are being directed to think that's it for Tarant.
Tarant is going to die.
And Stephen Pacey, like Paul Darrow, of course, is great, but Stephen Pacey's performance throughout all that and shouting, you know, it takes talent to fly a dead ship.
It takes Terence to fly a dead ship.
But yeah, when Avon says goodbye, Tarrant, and Stephen Paisey's face is a mix of disbelief.
I can't believe he's really gone, disbelief.
I can't believe there was affection in his voice, disbelief.
Oh shit, I'm gonna die.
Yes, you know.
And that scream as he falls through the floor is just harrowing.
It's just...
That's what's missing from generations is the angle bit of flaw coming up.
Exactly.
I mean, it's a scream as wharf...
Powered by a barrel.
Every distraction thing, like, I mean, yes, it goes back to terminal, but also I'm thinking of Superman one when Krypton's being destroyed.
There's a bit of flaw that comes up like that angle.
There's always someone can kind of scream as they slide.
I like to think it's just a Mary Ridge thing.
There's an absolute coronation streets out there.
I wonder I wonder what's the originator.
Like, who did that first?
Who can say?
I mean, I don't understand why it's there because literally everything else on the flight deck follows him down that hole.
And so when we next see him, like he seems to be maybe under the ship, but the stupid consoles, which we discover are all... on casters.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, and of course, slave has fallen down there as well.
And I figured out what really doesn't work about that console moving around is you needed a sound of grinding metal.
Like, I'm perfectly willing to believe this is a cargo ship.
The units are modular.
You can move stuff around.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that if they make noise because otherwise he's just sliding around on John Cleese's motorised desk from and now for something a little.
The thing is, though, that, again, the thing, one of the reasons why the generations one is so much more effective is because there's a sense of that 1st impact.
And you don't get, it's too kind of, they're all kind of sliding.
We're all kind of sliding around the set.
Like, it's being tipped about rather than you get that 1st initial bang where everything flies forward.
And when they can't, it's not vaulted. and you get the close-up of Marina's face, you know, as the ship just won't stop going.
Yes, I do think the bit where it sort of lands and then just sort of swings hilariously.
That's pretty good.
And that's where the floor needs to come up and the desk needs to slide because there's a gap in the visual grammar there, I think.
Yeah, I think what we're meant to take away from when the ship comes to a halt and then starts to slide further is that it's breaking up.
Yeah.
I think that's what we're meant to get, which is why the flight deck breaks up as well.
Tarant falls into the hole.
I want to channel my 10-year-old self watching this for the 1st time in 1982 when I thought this was the most remarkable sequence of television I had ever seen.
And actually, I still kind of do.
I think to do an extended action sequence like this, on studio time, and serviced by great Chris Boucher dialogue throughout going through the action, is just a remarkable achievement.
You could prize this apart and do it on film and it would look better.
But can you think of another sequence quite as urgent and destructive as this, which has been committed to tape in all of Blake 7 or Doctor Who?
and its original runner?
sort of light entertainment style with 3 videotape cameras on the studio floor and stuff.
That's right. being cut live and it is actually an incredible sequence which has really great, well integrated model work.
I mean, obviously, you can laugh at the model work if you want to and go, you know, the trees don't look like that to scale, whatever.
I think it's amazing and we should credit it for attempting something where you'd think, oh, really?
You're going to try and do that. they pulled it off.
And, you know, in generations, like generations is decades later and with 1000000s of 1000000s of dollars.
And it is still doing the same thing with tiny miniaturised trees.
We're outside, like the, it's the sky that we actually see in generations, they shoot the, that scene.
Yeah.
Yeah. 13 years. 13, there you go.
They're in the parking lot, aren't they?
Something extraordinary about that generation sequence.
And I think this extra is now on DVD.
But when the film came out, there was a promotional VHS and I think you got it from Kmart or Target or something when you bought another videotape or whatever, but it was a 20 minute making of that crash sequence.
And they're like, as you're looking at this, on our video cameras, yes, the trees are fluorescent tennis ball green.
And yes, the ship is blue because this is how it looks on film and you cut to it in its natural colours.
Whereas I think with a lot of BBC model work, it is what you see is what you get.
I don't want to say it was before they were playing with colour in that way because, of course, they did that in the black and white era, you know, different colours showed up as different grades.
This is like 90% of what generations does.
And that, you know, we don't have a quantum leap in 13 years.
We just understand how to do this better.
And of course, feature form budget, television budget.
Luxury of time.
It's the time thing, isn't it?
But to get 90% of the effect.
That affects shotting generations probably cost more than the entire series of Blake 7.
True.
Yeah, true.
Well, at least more than Glenis Barber's hair extension.
There is a lot to be said for ambition.
And I think if you read this script cold, you would think, how are they going to pull this off?
And yet they do pull it off.
And I think that is absolutely amazing for the time.
And it's just written so urgently as well.
The fact that they abandon ship via teleport.
You think, okay, but it's so well mounted.
So when they run forward, Dana, Sulin, and Villa into the teleport area and do that little kind of triangle, supporting each other, that's iconic, that shot.
And in fact, I think Blake 7 Monthly ran a poster of it and called it teleport trio.
The fact that they appear in the forest in that same position.
Simon, do you remember Christmas 1995 with Gary Russell, David Bailey and Grayson, we were in a wood, which did not look unlike.
A 1000000 miles from there.
And I forced them to recreate that.
I think I have a photograph here.
Gary was Villa.
David Bailey was Dana.
Talking of the wood, I don't actually understand...
I mean, it's a beautiful wood.
Mr. Wood.
It's so gorgeous.
But I'm just trying to work out why all these bounty hunters are there just wandering around eating the occasional rodent on a campfire. trying to kill each other.
This is where it all falls apart for me.
What are they there for?
I don't know. is a planet with a forest and which is not being destroyed thanks to strip mining.
No, and in this forest, there are a lot of bounty hunters jumping out from behind trees and attacking one another.
Jumping into the middle of shot to get shot.
It seems to have sort of happened quite a lot.
And I think that the problem with the episode is that Chris Boucher has had this incredible idea that we're going to see Blake, but he's not going to be Blake intervening in a gentle argument taking place in a Waitrose car park.
You know, it's going to be hard bitten Blake who's lived, he's been injured.
He's, you know, got a haircut.
He's had a haircut, he's grown a beard.
He's fatter.
And it's very cruel when they have 2 shots with him and Tarrant.
And so the idea of him as a bounty hunter and having him act out of character is something that Chris Boucher really, really wants to do.
And it's something that differentiates this from the finale last year.
But there doesn't seem to be a good reason for it.
And merely having David Collings later say, there doesn't seem to be a good reason for this. doesn't actually solve the problem.
And so we have this opening scene and it's when we 1st mention, like when we're back on Scorpio, when we mention that he's a bounty hunter, and then we get to see him interacting with Ireland for the 1st time.
And then we go back there and we have Villa saying, no, I can't see him doing that.
That's not how he would be.
And so that's the kind of shocking sort of central image, but he never justifies it, I think.
Yeah, because he's pretending to be a bounty house, to attract all of these criminals to and convince them that we've got this wonderful setup and we're going to build an army to fight the Federation.
Why doesn't he just masquerade?
I don't know as Blake.
Yeah, okay.
Don't be tired.
I have answer for that.
So in that earlier scene, it's kind of speculated.
The reason that Blake is on Gouda Prime is because no one likes going there, so it's a good place to hide.
And there's a suspension in the penal code, so no one's coming to look for him.
Yes.
But I also think that if the Federation hears Blake is alive, and they're like, oh, Blake's alive.
What's he doing?
Bounty hunting.
Oh, well, that's not Blake.
That's not, it's like, Blake was a freedom fighter.
Hes not going to be selling out other freedom fighters.
So it's a double bluff cover.
The original plan was putting him in an eye patch, very similar to Travis's, to really hang a lantern, the idea that he may have, you know, lost his moral code.
Become evil.
Yeah.
I tell you what you're saying, Nathan.
I buy the fact that Blake is trying to sift through these people and test them himself, to bring them to the cause, where it falls down for me is why he does the same with Tarrant.
He quickly realises that this is Avon's ship, because you have that scene with Tarrant in the wreckage of Scorpio and Blake's in the background looking at one of the teleport bracelets and saying whose ship is this?
And Tarrot says, why are you thinking of putting in an offer?
Great, Chris Palcher dialogue.
And also another throwback to terminal.
By the way, you should be very careful about buying a secondhand spacecraft.
They can be very unreliable Can I just say, though, in that whole sequence on the ruined Scorpio, where we have the 2 of them together and just the 2 of them together.
I mean, the title of the episode.
It's an absolutely great scene.
The title of the story is Blake 7, the 2 Blakes.
But I mean, that scene is great.
And that's something that we didn't get because, you know, Avon is the person who sees Blake in Terminal.
And so pairing him up with his replacement.
I think he's extremely good.
And as a kid, it's absolutely what I want.
What you want to see?
and allows you to have that wonderful dialogue about Jenna.
Because that gives you the moment where Blake mentions her name just to get a reaction and you get a big reaction from Terrence.
It's great.
Yes.
But you're right.
The thing with why does he bother going through the whole charade with Tarrant given the fact that, you know, he says, he knows that he's worked out that, you know, it's Avon and Villa and Aurac and everything like that.
So why does he need to do that?
Why does he say, oh my god, I'm Blake, you know, I hope Avon's told you all about me.
You know, isn't that the way it unfolds?
Plot expediency.
But that's unusual for Chris Boucher. unusual to see the gears grinding.
Yes, that is the problem.
That's the problem I have with this.
It's like, he's realised that Taryn knows Avon.
Like, why does he do that apart from to drive the plot towards Taryn saying he's betrayed you and getting Blake killed?
That's right. an idiot plot.
They've all become too stupid to stay alive.
It's not just...
They even hang a lantern on that earlier in the episode.
It's not just villa that's too stupid.
Some might say that's the reason we've come to the end of this podcast.
I mean, is it because he doesn't actually, no, Terence.
And so even though he knows Terrence with the others, he needs to sort of...
Yes, you can absolutely... you can absolutely him.
Like he's overplaying. not just pretending to be the bounty hunter.
He's saying, oh, and he's friends with Avon and Avon's worth even more money.
Despite the fact that we were all assured that it didn't matter that they had a bounty on their head because Sulin said there's no law, so it doesn't matter.
Like all of that stuff doesn't make sense.
But Avon has said, it is the day of the bounty hunter, because all the rough people are being rounded up now, so we can return the plan to Laura.
Something I particularly love about that Taranton Blake scene, though, is, you know, Blake leaves his gun next to Tarant accidentally and then chucks him the bag of, like, plastic gemstones.
And Tarant says, isn't this a bit obvious for a test?
Not realising this isn't the test.
The test is coming later, even if the test is a bit stupid.
But the test is a bit stupid because just like Avon's gone nuts, Blake has gone nuts in a different way.
I mean, it is the test, though, isn't it?
I read that as the test, you know?
The test is whether he will discover that Blake has sold him out and refuse to kind of become a federation collaborator like Ireland does, at which point Blake says, well, actually, no, we're not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's not what's happening, though.
Like, it's not Alan doesn't become a Federation collaborator.
No, no, but they kind of suspect that of her.
And they're right.
Well, they're suspecting that of everybody.
They just did they just needing to screen everybody before they make sure you're a problem.
They don't do a very good job because she gets through it.
Which takes us back to the question.
Why would you need to screen Tarrant?
It just makes no sense.
And the setup makes no sense.
You know, like when we 1st see Blake, his meeting in, you know, an office car park with Brand Foster and a lot of sort of sad hippies and stuff and they're...
From a 70s streamer.
Are you sure you want to do that?
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, there's something political about it.
Here.
Like, why, like, why is he trying to recruit freedom fighters from among the bounty hunters of the forests of Gowda Prime?
Like none of that makes any sense.
It doesn't seem to be a fruitful thing.
And if Blake is building enough...
But he's not trying to recruit bounty hunters.
He's trying to recruit the people who the bounty hunters are trying to find.
So they're trying to get the criminals. murderous criminals.
So he's building up an army of murderous criminals.
Like, that isn't that much better than being a bouncy hunter.
Maybe because it went so well the 1st time now.
I just, you know, like I just think, I think there's a, the problem at the heart of it is that the central thing around which their downfall kind of revolves makes no sense.
And if, for instance, Avon had just stopped and listened for a couple of seconds.
Like Blake is unarmed.
Yes, yes.
You know, and he does some massive overacting that no one at home can possibly believe for a second. and then sort of shoots him for no reason.
And all of that stuff.
And then, of course, the Federation arrived in force at just that moment.
Like, that's the problem.
So it ends up not about anything.
We don't learn anything, whereas at least there's a hint in terminal that the reason for the downfall is that Avon has become so obsessed and suspicious that he no longer confides in any of the others.
But I find that equally implausible.
In fact, more implausible.
Also, isn't this a natural extension of that?
The one person he thought he could rely on.
The one person he thought was unambiguously a good guy who he could build an anti-federation alliance around suddenly seems not to be, and it just makes him flip.
If I can be so bold, basically, the floor is that you kind of need for Avon to actually end up shooting him.
There needs to be a longer period where he feels that Blake really has betrayed him.
Yes.
Rather than the 30 seconds, because he's walked in an all Terence said, is he's sold this house or whatever it's like.
And he doesn't give Blake a chance to say anything.
Blake takes one step towards him and he shoots him 3 times.
He's not armed. just doesn't make any sense.
Well, the thing is, Blake's words are, I set all this up.
I was waiting for you.
And we know that means I was waiting for you to run this with me.
Avon having been told by Tarrant, who he's finally decided he trusts after 2 years, Avon having been because Tarrant has sacrificed himself for Avon at this point.
Avon, having been told that by Tarrant, reads that as I set up all this to catch you.
Yes, that doesn't help because now they're just dying as the result of a hilarious series of misunderstandings.
Yes, I know. called tragedy.
Actually, it's set up as a grand misunderstanding.
And yes, I think he's trying to set up, set it up as a tragedy that it's all a horrific misunderstanding, which is why Avon shoots him.
And the problem is that I do take on board absolutely everything you say and everything you say is actually correct, but it's, I think it's because it's, it all happens too quickly.
This whole thing had have been 75 minutes or something as a kind of a finale, which was a bit longer.
I think you would have had more time to build that and it wouldn't have been such a shock.
I will always come back to when it comes to a program such as this, whether it's classic Doctor Who, and modern Doctor Who, or Black 7 or any of these other programs of this era, is that unfortunately they are often, I won't say riddled with flaws like this, but they are riddled with these kind of, well, it didn't quite come together like that.
For me, I am carried with it when I watch it.
I'm not noticing, even though I recognise all of the flaws that we've just talked about whether it's the bounty hunters or the whole setup and why is Blake doing this and da da da.
I recognise all those flaws, but while I'm watching it, they are invisible to me.
Now, I don't know why that is.
Is it the direction, is it the performances, it the conviction that it's all happening in?
A lot of it's to do with the conviction.
Exactly. this is why it's a good episode not a perfect episode.
It's good because I am carried along with it.
And if you're carried along with it, I think it means it's basically done this job.
I'm going to agree with what Nathan said in that I think you see the plot gears working to get us into a position where this misunderstanding can happen.
And I don't think it's all that logical, but I agree with Simon in that I don't mind.
I think to get us to this position and make it such a grand misunderstanding between these 2 characters who've been the focal points of Bleak 7 all along is worth it for that dramatic payoff.
I think in plot terms, there's 2 things.
It's whether you accept that Blake has been so damaged by everything that's happened when we saw him on the series and the stuff that's unnamed that's happened to him since he left the series, that he wouldn't just tell Tarrant straight up who he was, and the fact that he dances round what he says to Avon rather than just coming out and saying, Avon, it was all a setup.
I'm, you know, trying to get together an army and I'm really glad you're here because you can help me lead it, why he doesn't just say that.
But also, whether you buy into the fan theory that Avon Psyche has just crumbled throughout the series.
And we saw this.
Simon, as you said, in terminal where he couldn't bring himself to trust his colleagues.
And so that lost them the ship.
And throughout this season, it's been a series of disappointments and things going wrong.
And the one thing he thought he could rely on was Blake, and suddenly in that split second, it turns out that he can't.
So there is, I think, explicit stuff in there to make it clear that Blake is the same old Blake, and it's when he jokes with Klein, and it's that conversation that he has with Diva, where he seems to be in his old role.
And so it's made clear there, I think, that the bounty hunter thing is a front and that he's still the blank that we know.
As for the Avon psychological disintegration throughout the course of series D. I think that we invent that in order to make this scene work because I don't think...
Yeah, I don't see this.
I mean, it is there in the weird things that Avon does throughout the season.
So, you know, the cackling with laughter at the end of gold or he's clearly a bit unhinged that hasn't worked. lost a lot of money Trying to teach a ride on an asteroid through the Al-Turn system.
Well, exactly.
And also trying to kill Villa, which we talk about the impact that that has on Villa.
What about the impact?
What about the impact that it has on Avon?
The decisions he makes, like, killing Dr. Blackston?
Let's all say it Who?
There is evidence there.
It's just, and maybe that's a fault of the way that, like, we've been talking about the way that television didn't do plot arcs or character arcs back then, but there are moments littered through the series, which show how far his his kind of ethics or oral code has changed.
Yes, I think that's true.
Willing to kill one of his friends for want of a better word.
A lot passes for a friend.
Unless not forget that that's happened to all of them.
They've all become indiscriminate killers.
They will move people down, which makes the scene in gold where they're having a go-it Keeler for killing the unarmed doctrines seem quite outrage, but that's like, wow, you know, really?
You're saying this?
Where did you get released?
Exactly.
I think it's just slightly inconsistent character writing. sorry.
It's nothing.
The joy of being a fan, putting all that together.
No, I know, but yeah.
Yeah. thing is, I think, you know, what we see as character development of this is almost entirely down to the actors.
Absolutely.
Probably also in conversation with Chris Boucher and Chris going, oh, I'll put in a line here.
You can play like that.
But I think certainly in the cases of Paul Darrow and Michael Keating, and they've got lots of interviews where they talk about character and how their characters changed, particularly Michael Keating, who says there were directions my character went in that I didn't like, and we tried to steer away from that or I tried to play it differently.
Something very interesting I've seen recently is the convention footage on the Blake 7 series one slash A box set.
One to be tougher.
But, um, Dead to me.
There's a panel that includes Gareth Thomas, and it's Gareth Thomas, Stephen Griff, Michael Keating, David Jackson, and Peter Tottenham.
And there's a running gag that Darrow isn't there.
So I'm guessing he's the one person who didn't come.
I was going to say, where will all the interesting...
Yeah.
But one of the questions from the audience is a woman saying later on I'm doing a panel about Avon, the convention, and it's Avon, stressed or insane, question mark.
What do you think?
And Gareth Thomas gets very quiet and very serious, and he's like, I reject both of those things.
He was incredibly clever.
He was always under a lot of pressure and he was loved.
Blake loved Avon, and I think a lot of people forget that.
He's been reading slash fiction.
Right, and he almost certainly hasn't watched series C or D. Yeah, yeah.
Why would he?
No, absolutely.
Well, I mean, he's probably watched Blake in 5 minutes of time.
Can I just make the observation going back to what I was saying about, you know, this is just the way these things are written and characterisations are inconsistent?
And it is up to the actors, as you say, Brendan, during rehearsals to try and shave pointy bits offline so that it kind of you get this suggestion of a consistent show. a few pointy bits off Scorpio.
But that's also the way I watched, not just watch it now, but that was also the way, there was something about my consciousness about what I was watching as a television program way back in the day, that when it's like, it's like when City at the Edge of the World begins and, you know, there's, there's a bit of a, you know, Tarrant is bullying Villa to, and all that business and Villa ends up going down without the tracking device, whatever it is, which is completely ridiculous because Tarrant hasn't done that in any other scenes before, and he doesn't really do it again later.
But I kind of watched the episode with like, okay, I just slightly shift my universe for this.
The series has just slightly been recessed in this direction.
And everything it all, we're watching this and then next week is going to kind of go out, jump over here and jump into another direction.
And I'm quite happy to watch that and just understand that just that's the way these things are.
And not go, oh, but he said that the 37 minutes of episode 3 of series B, blah, blah, blah.
It's like the characterisation of Villa. you know, depending on who is writing Blake 7.
Villa is a wildly inconsistent and different character.
So he's written as a drunk and an idiot by someone like Alan Pryor.
He's written as someone who presents that as a facade to the world and is actually, as we see in this episode, when he's put under pressure, is capable of rising to the occasion and knows what's going on.
And I think the performances paper over all of this.
So Villa is Michael Keating, Michael Keating, makes Villa a consistent character.
And I think we've said that about the companions in Classic Doctor Who as well, that it is...
Sarah James Smith.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I have to say that I, and it takes a while, and we're not even necessarily there, even in modern series TV that has a writer's room and has a Bible and a little bit more... care.
I think you get better characterisation and that is more rewarding.
The characters have more interiority.
There's more complexity.
But even still, there are times when a character will do something, you know, because the plot really needs them to.
Yes, exactly. after all, just a TV show, yes.
But I just remember at the time feeling that this was less of an event than terminal had been when I had watched that.
And I think it is the fact that there's 20 minutes of faffing around of very, very well written vamping on the Scorpio flight deck.
And then we just sort of wander through the forest and, you know, the occasional bounty hunter leaps out from behind.
Amazing scenes, though.
Yeah, yeah.
It's engaging.
But there's nothing to it. easily, no, but I can summarise so many episodes that there's nothing to it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like there's nothing to an awful lot of episodes.
Yes, the narrative is basically about separating the crew and then almost immediately bringing most of them back together.
They could all be shot.
Also, it reveals something about the characters because Dana and Sulin are probably able to survive under their own steam.
Villa is not.
Villa lets the side down.
Avon's the person who comes in and has thought about everything and has the flyer, which they're going to follow, which can get them to safety.
They're all bringing good characterisation to be seen.
Yeah, and the other thing, this, this is what I think of something like duel.
I just think it's not really, there's not really much there.
It's various stuffs just done for effect.
And I actually find it quite unengaging.
Something like Time Squad has actually got a lot more going on in it.
But unfortunately, it is directed by Pennant Roberts.
And is therefore awful. you know what I mean?
Is he dead?
That is so staying here.
That's the type of the episode.
But Michael Bryant, however, is still alive.
He was granted a long life for doing such a great job of his series.
Exactly.
Never, ever again say that the good day young.
But the point is, you can reduce to its core elements any episode and it can be, it cannot amount to very much and yet you can be incredibly engaged with it.
And everything you've said about and what's wrong with it is entirely correct.
I'm just saying that doesn't mean it's not a great episode.
I think that maybe the episode that does this best is Star one. and the reason is that it gets Blake to confront what he's doing and it questions what Blake's motives are. and he does, and then we throw it away.
Yeah, he's a little bit overwrought and then we decide who cares, but it is.
And that's why I think I'm just not impressed by that.
There's nothing in Star one that comes out of left field.
Except for maybe the aliens.
But that's great.
Do you know what I mean?
Like that really wraps things up in a really interesting way.
But it's the idea that, you know, what does it mean to be a resistant?
What does it mean to commit terrorist acts, you know, what who's going to pay the price for what my decisions are going to be?
And yes, you know, we forget it almost immediately.
It's like the incredible moment in Genesis of the Daleks, where Tom questions, you know, whether he's allowed to do this.
And then we throw it all away and then a dalek bowls over the 2 wires later and explodes it anyway.
Do you know what I mean?
Like in a way, none of that really matters.
The thing is, it's exactly that because Blake doesn't destroy Star One.
The aliens do.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's not his fault.
Yes, fine.
And then he's not around for the consequences anyway.
Can I mention Rod's views on this episode?
Oh, yes, please.
So for those of you at home who may have forgotten.
Rod gave up rewatching Blake 7 with me at the end of Aurac.
He decided that ship exploding was real and they're all dead anyway, and he's very glad of it because they're all stupid.
What a strange thing to decide.
Now, he has been watching the series D episodes with me that I've been on, and generally he's gone, well, that's silly.
That's silly.
Well, well, yes, that's right.
So you're saying he's not enjoying the D?
He's strangely not enjoying the D. Now, so the credits are old and he just looked at me and started spouting this off.
This is insulting to the audience who have invested time in these characters and now what?
They're all dead because they can't talk to each other.
It reminds me of the finale of Lost.
And how that angered the audience.
It should have been more like the finale of Battlestar Galactica with individual endings for the characters that made sense. that was tedious.
And I am saying this is someone who does not even like these people.
I love the finale. yeah, it's ridiculous.
He's saying the finale of Battlesar Galactica is great, the finale of Lost Piston.
Also, I'm going to respectfully disagree with Rod because I think the summary ending for these characters, like just out of the blue.
They're all dead.
I think that's the majesty of the series.
And in fact, that final scene for all of the complaints that I've had, we have no music.
We have the alarms going on. soft and then it stops.
It's so good Like Mary reaches absolutely kind of going, you're not going to forget this scene.
Absolutely, that's the way these characters should end. in a battle sequence, like trying to overthrow the Federation.
Like, they were always heading in this direction.
I think they were going to destroy the Federation, which was the original pitch for the episode, was that they would go back to Earth and finally over through the Federation and voucher was a point.
Yeah, and Boucher was like, no, no, let's not do that.
But also it possibly might not have been the end.
They deliberately do not show blood. except on Blake, obviously.
Yeah, simple Blake.
And, well, there's a story there.
Yeah, he did want to come back.
Gareth Thomas made sure there were extra blood packs and made sure that he was shot multiple times to the point where it actually shocked Mary Ridge with its gore and violence because he talked to the special effects guy behind guys behind her back to make sure he was definitely dead.
How fortunate that he didn't have time to do another team.
But the rest of them are deliberately ambiguously not seem to have, you know, mortal wounds in case they renew it for...
I think that's been retrofitted onto us.
I mean, they thought obviously that terminal was going to be the last episode, but in terminal, they are leaving themselves clear out to go forward.
Orak is taken off the ship.
All of the crew are alive at that point.
All that they've lost is the Liberator.
And, you know, that is a great ending to the series.
Here, the series is being dismantled bit by bit. and there is a feeling of desperation.
Yeah, they're going to get a 3rd ship in series.
And are they going to spend 2 episodes developing a teleport and getting a star drive and...
The flavour at the end of a terminal is it's not a happy ending per se. but there's an opportunity for the characters to go off and do stuff and do something else.
It's a downbeat ending, not a tragic ending.
Yeah.
I will I will say that when I've been watching these, I been trying to come to it with the mindset of, I don't know what's coming up next week, you know?
And that's hard to do.
But it's kind of interesting in that when we 1st see sort of Blake and Diva and Klein played by Mrs. Paul Darrow. by Mrs. Paul Darrow. doing it if Paul kills me.
But when we 1st see them together, they're kind of warm and funny with each other.
So we've got Blake has built up a new team.
Blake has a base of operations.
Avon has just blown up his base of operations.
Oh, hold on.
When we started this season, we had a whole new format.
Oh, wow, is that where we're going next season?
Is that what's going to happen?
yeah And I think that's meant to be the expectation for about the 1st 3540 minutes until...
He starts shooting them all.
Well, I would say until Tarrant runs off.
And you kind of go, no, no, hold, no, go, go get him and tell him what's going on.
No, no, no, don't do that.
Don't do that.
And that's where the collapse starts.
Because I do think there's an atmosphere of unease throughout, but I think at least partially meant to be the atmosphere of unease of, ooh, big change is coming, big change is coming, and then at around the 45 minute mark.
Oh, no, big change is coming.
I am upset that we haven't yet talked about the magnificence that he is David Collings.
Oh, he is so good.
He knows, like, he's one of those actors who knows how to deliver these ridiculous lines in a very straightforward, sensible way with enough height. with a heightened performance style.
It suits the genre.
He is just magnificent and he's got this long lock of hair that he keeps having his breath.
Yeah, he's an 80s doctor who we never had.
Absolutely it is.
Well, not just modern.
We nearly had it.
That's why he works in modern.
That's why he works so well in Modern and did.
We had him on Big Finish.
For pity's sake.
But he's also, as Brian keeps reminding me every time he comes on any screen that he was Legolas in the audio version of the Lord of the Rings in the late 70s.
Yes.
He was the Orlando Bloom of his day.
Yes.
And he was also the voice of Monk.
Davros.
Yes.
Yes, he was the voice of monkey.
I seem to recall.
That was actually really good adaptation.
Monkey.
No.
Nike was great.
Lord of the Rings.
Yes, no, apparently no, no, was gold standard until the film came along.
But again, it's a reason why this episode, despite it having some plot issues is so good because it's incredibly well mounted and cast.
If you had an actor who didn't really occupy that role as diva.
Those scenes, the long scenes, the 2 handers of just him and Blake, wouldn't really be anything, but instead, they're actually really great Blake 7 scenes. are so important and they delivered by the director.
Yep, Mary Rich's direction throughout.
You talked about that last scene.
She makes that last scene.
She knows how to build it to something that really caps off the series properly.
I actually think that the very, very small regular cast is another disappointing thing about it, where you've basically got 2 guest stars, if you don't count Gareth.
They were paying Gareth Thomas RSC money.
Yeah, that's it.
And just, again, maybe that contributes to it being rather down beat, that they just, you know, there's that wonderful line.
They just sort of drop into one of these holes and never come out again.
That's so great, that might.
But I just find there's so many mirrorings of the early series as well.
Sort of diva is a combination of Avon and Villa because he's the computer expert, but he's also sarcastic.
Klein is a bit like Jenner in the, you know, Blake will lean over the console tour and kind of flirt a bit, you know, or, you know, he's kind of charming with her.
Alan is like Calli.
Her 1st appearance is trying to kill...
Maybe that's why Paul Tarrow killed Blake because he was flirting with his wife.
Only I am allowed to kill him.
Not only that, but you have Blake going to a secret meeting and being trailed like he is in the 1st episode, but this time it's his game.
He's setting it up.
It's still disastrous.
Parallels are really good.
Federation guards bursting in and killing everyone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just rewatching the 1st series recently and then rewatching this straight afterwards.
It's like, oh, and you know, with Chris Boucher, I'd say those are conscious parallels.
Yeah.
Okay, so plus or minus for the end, to the very end.
What about how's this for an alternative universe, where in that last sequence, after everybody else has been gunned down and Avon is standing there and the siren has stopped, the siren stopped because Servolan just walks in behind the guards, no dialogue, she just walks in, looks at Avon, he's looked down at the bodies, he looks up at her, she has this pain, sad look on her face, then you go to that last shot of him shooting.
Would that be better or worse better?
People actually did that sort of weird thing where they remember seeing her in the final scene?
Oh, do that, do they?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's Mandala effect.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's absolutely because, you know, we've made a deliberate, stupid decision to not have her in it because...
I think it's an accidental, stupid decision.
Well, no, no, I...
Well, exactly, because they've realised too late that she's done too many.
Yeah, yeah.
But, you know, you can plan ahead.
Yes.
Or you know, negotiate another single.
Exactly.
I'm saying.
No dialogue. have to pay for the dialogue.
She doesn't even have to turn up to rehearsals.
She just turns up to the...
And again, it is the sort of obscure hole in the ground on a crappy planet that no one wants to visit.
And so it makes it sort of more miserable.
But it does make it less interesting.
And she is so great.
Like, you know, the great thing about terminal, um, was that she beats Avon, and then just through a quirk of fate, she loses as well.
And, you know, just seeing her.
Like she is so tremendous.
She's so important to the show.
And they've kept her away from them all the time.
Like, she doesn't meet.
She speaks to Zookan last week.
She doesn't speak to our crew, does she?
Yeah, she has kind of, you know, a scene with Dana in animals.
She has like that one moment with Avon in Assassin, but otherwise it's just the group of them facing her across the gravel pit in the end of gold.
But even more than what you're saying, the script in Blake appears to be pushing us towards thinking that Serveland's going to appear.
They mention her early, then Klein says, there's too much traffic up there.
Could be that the federation's observers finally arrived and you think, well, you know, we're meant to believe serve line's going to show up and then she doesn't.
No, to the special effects team.
For serious D, can we somehow work her into it?
special edition team.
Yes, but like the, like, I want a special edition.
I'm sure that you'd be able to edit that.
You'd be able to create that.
I think you could probably take her out of that shot from terminal where she does maximum power with the arms, just place her in the Gauder Prime tracking room. wonders with cropping people out of scenes now.
Like, just rotus go her in.
Yeah, if we can have an almost not entirely unconvincing Peter Cushing in Rogue One.
We can have Jackie and Blake.
The cost must have come down by now.
Can I just say also that the slow motion falls to the ground are all terrible.
Sorry, yes, yes.
I mean, I do die a little bit inside when I say that.
So, Joe, set.
Sulin's hair gives a lovely sweat.
Yeah, that is awesome.
I don't like Dana's kind of eye roll, though.
Oh, no, that's all.
She was the best one.
Exactly.
And I also like the sort of heroic sideways fall of Tarrant before he just puts his hand down.
I didn't want to bruise his ribs.
No.
You know, we can nitpick things like that, but repeated viewings of this episode have dullest to its tremendous impact.
And that's what I was saying before about the fact that it's engaging.
You don't notice these flaws until afterwards you go.
Yeah, you know, there's all kinds of things.
You know, you can you can laugh at the fact that they've tried to show Scorpio doing a 360 degree role by just rolling the cat.
Oh yes, that's awful as well.
I don't think it works very well.
I don't care.
I'm completely swept up in that action.
And I agree with you, Nathan.
I don't think the slow motion debts work all that well.
Again, I don't care.
I think this is magnificent television taken as a whole.
I think it's too low key.
I think, you know, I can understand why you make that decision, but I do think that it robs the show of its grandeur a little bit.
And had they died heroically failing to do something perhaps.
Do you know what I mean?
That could have been low-key as well.
But just the fact that, you know, they just go to this sort of shitty and unconvincing planet and they misunderstand a thing that someone says, and now they're all dead, like, it's shocking, and I absolutely agree with you about the tone and tenor of the episode.
But it just seems a little bit too low key for me.
I think your expectations for a show like this in 1981 or whatever it is, was able to do and would normally do for their final episode is much higher than reality.
Very few series had big finales.
Except, I think Star one and Terminal are better finale.
Andorak.
It's deliberately left.
It has the map.
Look, I think this is very crisp Boucher flavoured.
Chris Boucher was quite downbeat, slightly douer, um, very nihilistic character when I spoke to him and I think this reflects him.
He thought, you know, this is his view on the universe, that they all tried and in the end they just failed on a shitty planet and died.
And I kind of buy into it.
Yeah, exactly.
I believe that more than them dying heroically because they were never heroes.
They tried to be.
Do you know what possibly would have given it more impact is if Tarrant had died in the Scorpio crashed.
Yes.
And then we'd hooked Blake up with, I don't know, Dana or Sue Lin.
Oh, actually, that would have been great.
Blake and Sulin throughout the episode because that would have really fed into the end of term.
Yeah.
And to go back to what you were saying earlier, I think terminal is better episode.
I think it is a better written, maybe not better mounted, equally mounted, but a better written episode, but as a finale for the series, I think this is better than terminal.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back next week to find out what big finish productions is made of all of this as we discuss the Blake 7 audio adventures.
Until next time, remember to use your words.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
I still don't know who all those people were at the beginning.
Ta-ta.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximal power.
The end.
Yeah, I think that's the end.
I think it's down, not Dua, isn't it?
Isn't it the pronounced now?
I think they're both.
No one knows.
It's like the word victuals.
No one knows how to say it.
Is it the fittles?
That sounds silly.
Is it dur?
Well, I can't say that.
I'm not Scottish.
Like no one knows how to pronounce that properly.
I would like to say something that can go, I would like to either.
Sorry.
That's all right.
I would like to say something that can go earlier because I absolutely think that should finish.
Oh, good.
I will also say something that can go earlier after you say something that can go earlier.
I'm just going to say before, like, before I say that, I bribes the architect first.
Now, you know, Chris Boucher has said in later years, he wrote this to be both a finale and a potential cliffhanger in case the series got renewed, whether that's true or not, is neither he nor there.
But watching it, I kind of thought, okay, you know, the obvious thing is, like, oh, you're stunned, but you're not because Glenis Barber didn't come back or whatever.
But I then thought, what's a worse series E setup I can come up with and I came up with it.
And that is.
You reprise that scene at the beginning of series E and then you cut back to the Bridge of the Scorpio and Aurexes.
So that is my prediction.
But if you go and find Blake, and they decide, we shall not go to Gelder Prime, it is a silly place.
First of all, let us examine the nature of prediction.
Right?
There's a distance time.
I thought you were going to say a worse beginning for series E would be afterlife by Trevor Hoyle.
Is that who he is?
Yes.
Is that the world?
Was that the big finish thing, wasn't it?
No, no, that was the novelisation published sort of a novel at the time.
No, no, no, in which Avon unsatisfactory.
How terrible.
Yeah, a new computer.
Yep.
Avon Villa and Tarant survived, but then Tarant is torn apart by wild animals on terminal.
Yeah, and there's a twin of Aurak called Caro.
Which is the Latin word for meat.
Turns out. you go.
And that's what they did with Tarrant.
Did you have something else to say about it?
Oh, no, I was just going to say, um, I was surprised, you know, that those consoles didn't fall off the ceiling when the camera did the barrel roll.
I love when it comes loose on its casters that you can see the big pit in the set with the wooden construction underneath.
That's great.
But again, I don't.
You can't kind of almost believe that because it's a shitty ship.
It is made of...
It is made of balsa wood.
Don't you sort of just blur your eyes at certain points when you're watching these things, like when you see bad crime, you go, oh, well, just...
No, no, I love that stuff.
I'm not blurring my eyes.
There's no suspension of disbelief.
Apart from those lamentable Scorpio flight sequences.
There's no bad chromaking in there.
Oh, yeah. when the when the little dodgem cars are attacking them and there's like explosions near Scorpion.
There are explosions that happen in another studio. in the gliders, in the, what do they call them?
gliders, rider, flyers.
My favourite bit is the bit where Michael Keating goes...
Look out the window and then we cut to the stock footage of the helicopter.
Can we please sing again, Michael Keating's praises, because not only is he always, he always delivers his villa.
He is continuing on the thing from orbit where he does not trust Avon.
It's clear in every interaction, every reaction shot he gives him, including the amazing scene that we referenced earlier, where he keeps on at Avon when Avon arrives in the dome in the fire.
Where's Tarant?
It's like, if you're here, an Aurax here, how did Tarant get off the ship, because he is quite willing to believe that Tarant, that Avon just left Tarant behind to die, because that was exactly what he was going to do.
But also those scenes where he's been clubbed over the head and then he's walking through the forest and against the glider in every one of those scenes which switch between a different studio day and filming on location.
He's clutching his head Yeah, okay.
And he has the pain. know how this works.
Those scenes on Gowda Prime with the 3 of them. are great.
They're just plot moving things forward, but they're all great character moments.
I would watch the Dana Su Linen Villa show.
I particularly love in that bit.
And I notice this sort of when they teleport down and they start running away from the crash site, Dana and Sue Leon are in front.
By the time they're taking cover, Villa is already about 10 seconds ahead of them on the ground.
Yeah, he can he can do anything fast enough if he is scared enough.
I also realise the fact that Josette has both hands clapped over her ears because of the noise of Scorpio going overhead.
Whereas Glenis just has one hand over one ear and you think, that's not going to help, love.
She should have played the rest of the episode deaf in one, yeah.
All right, I think I'm going to press stop.
What do you think?