Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Maximum Power, the only Blake 7 podcast who wants you to pass the Turing test about how paranoid you are, all while sitting on a grenade enhanced chair and wondering why the food machines on the blink.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Joe. I'm Mark.
Now, gentle listener, you've asked for this, and while we can't cover all 90 plus stories in the various ranges, we can provide a taster of the new worlds of Blake 7 Adventures from Big Finish.com.
Now, Joe and Matt, of course, I imagine all of our listeners are aware of hamster with a blood penknife, and the Nymon be praised, but also you do have a big finish podcast, which like to tell us a bit about that.
We do, yes.
It's called Finish Big, and very original.
The mission is to listen through all Big Finish releases in order.
That's all the ranges, Doctor Who.
Earth search.
What else have we done?
Bloody Earth search.
She loves Nadine.
I mean, look, we've been going for years now.
Just listening to Big Finish.
I think we've only covered the 1st couple of years of actual releases so far.
It's a slow process, but we get a long way to go.
And, you know, we haven't even reached Blake 7 yet, have we?
90 releases, did you say?
Yeah.
Oh, there was a lot, isn't there?
There's so many, I didn't realise.
Yeah, I sat down and so there's 40 stories in the Chronicles ranges.
There's 40 full cast stories and now, of course, they've got the various spinoffs, which we'll be talking about a bit today as well.
And yeah, just having a look at the finished big feed.
Your most recent Doctor Who episode was on roof of the world medicinal purposes.
Lovely medicinal purposes.
I remember medicinal purposes.
We had a Rising Star, David Tennant in it.
I don't know what happened to him, but, you know, yeah, no, yeah.
So yeah, you do have a long way to go because I think medicinal purposes may be pre 2005, I want to say.
Like, might be...
Yeah, I think it's pretty new.
I think we're sort of 2004, 2005. just going into 2005, I think.
Just to give you a sort of glimpse of the horror that we're currently facing.
We're in the 2nd season of the divergent universe right now with Paul McGann and in Divisher.
You remember those ones?
I do, I do.
And to be honest, I'm quite fond of those, but I do think they never quite sold the idea of a universe without time, until oddly enough, they have to get out of it, and then adapt some of the stories that were meant to be in it, to be out of it, including one where time stops, and it's like, I can't help but think.
Well, yes, yes.
Yeah, it's been a bit of a struggle.
I'll be glad when we're out the other end of that.
Could I ask a question to you though?
Yes.
We even go into talking about any of these, please.
How are they still doing forecast audios?
I mean, there's hardly anyone left with us.
Yeah, well, that's that's the big reason for the spinoff Rangers, which, you know, we'll discuss in more detail later, but there's Avalon, Clonemasters, Babe and the Butcher, and some more sort of general releases such as heroes and villains.
Um, and yeah, they're kind of just casting new characters.
And then sort of one story in the box set will feature one of the original actors as well.
I think we've had a Tarrant box set recently.
Baby and the Butcher.
Has he got his...
Yeah, he has.
And there's a full-length audiobook read by Colin Baker as well.
That's right Colin doing it, then it's going to be gold.
And also, he does at one point guest star in the Avalon series, which makes it very clear that he does survive being blown up by his massive penis gun at the end of...
He was in City on the Edge of the World.
Only a smidgenless, you know.
Yeah, he's a bit older, so...
Do you remember the line?
He goes, babe, she called me babe, you know.
Right.
I'm very happy to be dragging you forward about 7 years in Big Finishes Ouvre.
So the structure of today's episode is that we're going to be covering one Liberator Chronicle. 2 of the full cast audios and the 1st episode of Big Finisher's spinoff range.
And so looking at the Liberator Chronicles first, we're going to start off with the touring test over to you, Joe. Yes, the Turing Test by Simon Gurier and directed by, and just a quick moment for Lisa Baumann, who we just adore.
Oh, yeah.
She's like the patron saint of Finnish Big.
Okay, everything she touches is gold. absolutely.
This came out in 2012 and the Companion Chronicles from Big Finish started in 2007.
So they obviously realised they were on to something good with the Companion Chronicles and their 1st person narratives.
Usually with just one or 2 actors.
And so they take that format and bring it to Blake 7.
This is an Avon and Villa story to Kickstart this range and what better place to start them with these 2 characters.
So you've got Michael Keating in there and you've got Paul Darrow, but Darrow does most of the reading here.
And it's just a lovely little adventure set on a base where a load of scientists are doing research into Android tech for the Federation, and it's them attempting to come away with that technology and foil the Federation's plan there a little bit and bringing this Android back to the Liberator at the end.
And uh, I thought this was rather marvellous, actually.
But over to you guys.
Well, I think the Chronicles format is just perfect for. audio and perfect for sort of dipping your toe in or dipping big finishes toe in to getting these actors back into the roles before they go full car.
So this was, they did these, didn't they, before any of the other forecast adaptations and everything like that.
So you get inside their head.
I could see everything.
I could see this in the 1970s when they're landing, when he's describing them going into the base, that was on film and it was gray and industrial.
I could just see, and then when they go into the base, I could see it sort of overlit, and the cell with the Android in was this really bright room on a studio.
I could really see everything.
It just works really well.
And the combination of Villa and Avon is brilliant to kick off the Liberator Chronicles range.
But you know what this has?
What this has that the other 3 stories don't, and I'm not saying all the other 3 stories are all terrible, maybe well.
Um, but is Paul Darrow doing the bulk of the narration and he is charming and sly and funny and idiosyncratic in a way that only Paul Darrow can be.
I don't know if either of you have heard Paul Darrow's autobiography as read by himself.
But the man is a racon.
He can tell a story, right?
This could have been a shopping list. and Darrow would have made it, they would have spun it into gold.
Yes.
But actually, Simon Gurier is one of the best companion chronicle writers.
He gave us Oliver Harper.
He gave us the Sarah Kingdom trilogy.
He has perfected this 1st person narrative with Doctor Who, and he brings this over to Blake 7 and characterises Avon just beautifully in this.
I had an absolute sense that Darrow had never been away.
He's gone from recording Blake and the next week he came back and did the Turing test by Simon Gurier because he just slips into this like a glove.
We've just been watching the final series, obviously, and Darrow's performance is as big as ever it gets.
So it was really interesting to come back to this story because of course I've heard it before.
But to come back to it immediately after series D, and to hear Paul Darrow rein in the performance and give us an early Avon.
So this story takes place about halfway through the 1st series, there's lots of comments that the crew don't really know each other all that well yet, they haven't been together that long.
And Paul Darrow does play it with more reserve than Avon has later on.
And that's something wonderful that Big Finish does is that, you know, we as fans say with Blake Seven or Doctor Who.
We watched the episodes tons and tons of tons and tons of times, and we think we know everything about an actor's performance.
The actor with 20 or 30 years of hindsight comes back to that performance and goes, well, I'm more experienced as an actor now, and this is all the nuance I wanted to put in back then.
So, yeah, I'm with you in that it's a very clever idea to give this story to Paul Darrow and Michael Keating.
Who are the most popular, right?
Yeah, longer serving actors on the show, um, in this, in this same box set, Michael Keating gets the story where he, where Villas, the focus.
So Avon's the focus of this with Michael Keating supporting.
But even then, it throws Avon's character into contrast.
Some of the best parts of this, though, was Avon commenting on Villa, because Villas on this base, pretending to be this sort of high-tech scientist.
And, you know, Darrow gets lions like a Villas charm makes me want to break things.
But it worked on some.
You know, and yes. constantly insulting it.
The thing about Darrow is, right?
You could give him any random line.
I don't know.
I came for a door and he would never say, he's like Tom Baker. would never say the line.
Like you imagine it would come out, you know.
I came through the door.
You know, so throughout this entire thing.
Well, we were on a walk listening to this down the beach and I was just laughing my head off every line he was saying.
I just think he is, he is like the MVP of the 4 of these, and it's a bit sad because in the others, he really doesn't get too much to do, does he?
But here he's the focus.
But here as well, listening just to this format of, you know, you've just got 2 actors, it doesn't feel minimalist.
I felt like I'd watched a full episode.
Even when he's talking with the other scientists and everything.
At first, I was thinking, oh, it'd be great to actually hear if there was another voice of the scientist or that conversation, but then you don't actually miss that.
You don't need any of that.
Just the way that it's written, all coming from Avon's point of view.
And then just in terms of the story as well.
I mean, I sort of guessed what was going to happen.
Um, when he walks in and there's a the girl robot, I was like, 0 my god, here we go.
Avon's going to fall in love with us. going to be something that I just knew that was going to happen.
There was going to be something like that.
She's going to end up dead and it's going to be a horrible ending.
And it sort of was.
Yeah, but then that's what's revealing about this is he does have genuine affection for 14.
That's what she is.
The 14th version of this character that gets taken away.
I really liked it when he started to get very possessive of her, when he takes her back to the ship.
Yeah, I had freed her.
She was mine.
Yeah, yeah. something we may not have mentioned is, of course, Avon himself is posing as an Android.
Which he does effortlessly.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But something I quite liked about the Avon and 14 relationship is it actually directly says this is not a romantic relationship because Villa speculates that.
And Avon's response is, it's not like that, I want nothing from her.
And so it's his altruistic expression of emotion from Avon, which is uncharacteristic in itself.
But it's so personal, isn't it?
Because it's the 1st person, because we're in his head, one of the things about Avon in Blake 7 is he's kind of a bit inscrutable, you don't really know.
And Darrow sort of lets emotions peek through in the TV show, but really there's a big mask on most of the time and you're left sort of, you know, that's why it's great to talk about maximum power because, well, is he thinking this?
Is he thinking that?
What's his motives?
But here we're directly in his head and we know what he thinks, which makes this one of the most intimate looks at Avon, you're going to say.
The conclusion that the story comes to, you know, the last line is just fabulous where, hang on, I wrote it down.
What was it?
I was logical.
I wouldn't let 14 staff affect me.
She wasn't alive, but we were so alike.
And then he just pauses and goes.
Because I was a machine.
Q music, you know?
And that's how he's losing himself.
I just thought it was great, this.
I thought this was really fun. and Lisa Baumann directed the bulk of the Companion Chronicles.
So she is a dabber hand at bringing this stuff to life now.
You would swear she'd been directing Blake 7 her whole life because it's so authentic.
And the Doctor Who ones have been going for a while, so they've learnt how to build that narrative and to do the 2 voices, they've learned quite a lot.
So by the time they get to Blake 7, I think, it's pretty much perfected.
It was so clever, wasn't it?
Because you had Paul Darrow sort of narrating what the other characters were saying and then you had Michael Keating within those scenes reacting live.
So it sounds like it's a forecast audio despite the fact that there's only 2 actors.
Yeah really clever.
Really good.
And it's nice that Gang gets a mention, I think.
Yes, You know, it's good to, you know, and this is the only way you can do those really early stories, you know, with that cast dimension.
Ganzov doing something while we're doing this, you know, it's just nice that, you know, you can slot it in there, then, you know, at the beginning.
Like most 1st season episode.
Well, yeah, everyone, Gad, just gets a mention.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
In this is literally like someone notes that Gan is very tall.
What it really shows to me was before series four.
Avon led series of Blake 7.
That is just the template, right?
That is, that's the gold of Blake Zen, I think.
Who do the other four, the this set then?
I know you said Michael Keaton does one.
Oh yeah, so the villa one and then, oh, it's Blake, isn't it?
Oh, and then Blake as well.
Okay.
How could you forget Blake?
Oh, it's Nigel Fairs.
So what are the titles of the other 2 on that?
There's a solitary, which is the villa one?
Yes.
And then counterfeit, which is looks like Avon and Blake.
Yes, yeah, and that's the that's the Blake Led one.
Yeah.
Telling, isn't it, that they started with Avon and not with Blake?
I remember when I 1st got it and 1st listened to it, I thought, that's an interesting choice. controversial opinion number one on this call.
Blake is a bit boring, isn't he?
I don't think that's that controversial.
Oh, right, good.
You better wait for some of the opinions coming later then.
But yeah, it's a really strong start, not only to the Blake 7 run, but to the Chronicles, which run for 12 volumes, plus an individual episode as well.
Our volumes. 12 volumes.
So 37 chronicles in all.
Hang on.
Do they start to get a bit desperate at the end and do like all sort of random subcharacters that are just in one scene or...
No, no, they really don't.
Like, it really does focus on the main cast.
There's one episode that is Serverland and Peter Miles, a.k.a.
Nider.
He's a Federation official in 2 episodes.
That must be the topist audio of all time.
Oh, it's so good.
It's so good.
It's an interrogation.
He's in a cell, just as Servolan has deposed the president, and she's going to try him for sedition.
And he says, well, we both know I didn't do it, but we both know I'm not leaving here alive.
So Servoland, tell me how you did it.
Oh, that sounds great.
The Serverland and Peter Miles play president is written by Simon Guria.
Oh, he is the best.
He does all the best Doctor Who ones.
Just David Warner guest in one.
Have I just have I imagined I've seen him on the cover of one.
You know, you're absolutely right.
David Warner is in...
I think he's in 3 or 4 in total as Villa's dad.
Oh, God, right.
Is there a crook?
No, no, he was the governor of Mars.
But Villa was Villa was the illegitimate son he had with, you know, a degrade, a delta grade.
So he never he never really acknowledged him.
Oh, I love about Big Finish, filling out all this backstory for the characters.
Yeah, but it means you get these wonderful cracking scenes of David Warner and Michael Keating.
We're terribly embarrassed about Villa.
Oh, he is scornful of Villa.
So he's not he's he's thoroughly unrepentant.
Yeah.
No, it's it's really electric stuff.
He's not a good he's not a nice man.
With the Liberated Chronicles, I was being facetious then when I said I was at all these random sort of one scene or one episode of characters.
I think there's something in that, though, you know, because then suddenly I started sort of rolling through the episodes and thinking, like, I know Ireland has just had a say.
Yes, but a character like that or I love the 2 guards in rumours of death, I could just imagine a great, just one companion chronicle with just them, you know, David Hague's character in rumours of death, and just people like that, you know.
Just giving, just fleshing out that universe, just a little bit more through the eyes of other characters.
Yeah, but I suppose with, yeah, I mean, you've only got a certain number of cast members, I suppose with the Doctor Who companion chronicles, you've got many more options, haven't you?
So you do need to find these other characters, but yeah, I think this is a really great way of exploring more of the Blake Sedden universe. absolutely.
And just in a way where you're very close to the characters.
And I think with audio, I think 1st person works far better than forecast and more on that later.
But I think, yeah, when you are alongside that person looking through their eyes that is as close to the story as you can possibly get.
And it's riveting.
And you don't miss the others because, you know, in the, you know, in a standard TV episode, I'm generalising here.
It is usually like 2 or 3 that go down and do a mission and the others are just sitting up there anyway.
So you might as well just have a story that really does concentrate on these one or 2 because that's that's sort of what happened anyway, didn't it?
Was there a line in there?
You know, that Jenna and Cali were at the teleport.
Wait, it's played the button with a couple of copies.
I'm going down to stay here.
Oh, Jenna.
When he brings 14 back to the ship, Jenna and Kelly are described as fussing over her and finding her clothes and things to eat.
Oh, yeah.
And with the skilled writer that CyberGuria is, I think that's actually a dig ass.
That's deliberate.
Yeah, that yeah, that's a dick.
That's a dick.
We just happen to have a whole rack of June Hudson's costumes that you could try on.
Come on now.
A blamboyant cocktail dress for you.
It's worth noting as well that all of the Liberator Chronicles, with the exception of Remnants, which was a standalone special, are available for free on Spotify to listen.
So if anyone wants to give these a try.
All of them finish.
You won't get a penny out of them.
Well, no, that's the thing is I bought a few of them, but they're all sort of out of print on CD and I like having the CD, so I'm on eBay looking for them for ridiculous amounts of money, but our house is not built of bricks.
It's built of finished CDs, all right?
People walk in right and they see the impressive, enormous floor to ceiling bookcase of big finish CDs.
I mean, there are 100s of them in there and they go, oh, what's all of that?
And then you go, oh, the Doctor Who's CDs, and they go, oh, you've wasted your whole life, haven't you?
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, it's all tat, really.
I mean, I say it's all tat, sitting in front of a literal wall of seeing a master system cartridges.
So, you know, I'm not, I feel better about my life.
Thank you very much.
Well, I thoroughly recommend checking out any of the Blake 7 Chronicles.
But within a year of the Chronicles starting, they did actually manage to get the full band back together and start making full cast audios.
Now we have already covered Warship, which came out in 2013.
A year later, they started more regular releases, and our next story that we're discussing is the 1st full cast audio in that range, which is fractures. over to you, Mark.
Yeah, so this is, yeah, the 1st one.
I was going to mention this.
So they had already Yeah, they'd already done warship.
So this is the 2nd sort of full cast, but it's the 1st in this in this series, this ongoing series.
And it's an interesting one because it's the main cast and it's all set on the Liberator.
And it's just the forecast, bar, a brief cameo from Travis.
Um, and it's a, it's a, well, I'll describe it as a character piece. see what you think.
It's a bit of a character piece.
They're all stuck on the show.
Joe, it looks up all to do.
It should have been a character picture.
Well, that was maybe that was the intention.
They're all stuck on the liberator.
There's power drainage, and they're all in various parts of the ship, trying to fix things, and there's lots of conversations over the, over the con system, but then there's something that's infiltrated the ship.
People aren't who they seem.
It brings to the fore, their distrust of each other and the paranoia of each other.
And so it's really trying to look at the crew and how they relate to each other, but just in this sort of, well, not based under siege.
But liberator, liberator under siege setting.
I really like this.
I know you're looking at me like, this is the worst thing ever.
But I love the liberator.
That is the main thing.
It's my favourite ship in any series, anything ever. absolutely love it.
A favourite ship in anything.
There's something about...
I could have all of these sort of things. lactica. any ship.
It would be the liberator.
I love that front lounge room thing, chatting to Zen.
It would be amazing. absolutely love it.
You must hate serious falling.
And this was the 1st forecast that I listened to from Big Finish.
And I think maybe we should start just addressing.
When I 1st listened to it, I was like, where's Blake?
somebody's talking here.
Who is this old man?
I actually had difficulty working out who was who to begin with.
No, no, no, not to begin with.
In the 2nd one and the 3rd one we're going to cover today.
This is controversial opinion number two.
I had no idea when Gareth Thomas was talking when Stephen Pacey was talking.
Certainly when Yasmine Bannerman was talking.
I kept saying to Mark, who is that?
Who am I listening to?
That's a problem.
Maybe that's a bit of a conversation to have now then.
Does it does it matter that much?
Yes, I, yeah.
The thing is, I think, um, In the in the case of Gareth Thomas, and I don't think this is controversial to say.
Gareth Light is cigarettes, and he liked his beer, and it has taken a toll on his voice.
And it is a bit of a problem.
And, you know, I found it a problem listening to the Liberator Chronicles with him in.
I think he still gets the heart of the performance.
But yeah, sometimes the voice is distracting, especially because his voice is down much lower, and he tries to go higher sometimes, and it sounds like he's straining himself, which makes it a bit, which makes it a bit hard.
Whereas I think sort of Michael Keating, Paul Darrow, Jan Chappell, Sally Nevette, their voices are all still quite close to what they were.
I had a little trouble with Jan Chappelle as well.
I was like, is that Kelly?
Yeah, you can tell.
You can tell me.
These are audios, right?
So you it's sound only.
So the sound has to be authentic.
Otherwise, what's the point?
And I personally, I would have recast Gareth Thomas, I would have recast Stephen Pacey, and I would have found somebody else to play Dana.
Well, I think, but I think the Blake 7 cast have suffered.
If you compare it to some of the others like we've been listening to like the Doctor Who's or the Tomorrow people.
Really only.
It's Deborah Watling from Doctor Who.
That's the same Gareth Thomas issue here.
I mean, we're quite lucky that that lot haven't suffered in.
I just feel like the Blake 7 cast, but I'm...
Yeah, but the Blake 7 car sort of suffered more from drinking drugs that all the other cars and TV shows, I feel.
They just had weird opinion, right?
But the late 7 parts of living a life of the box.
I'm only going by the boys.
Drugs and drinks.
They've just had more hard lives.
I was just going to say, I don't think they suffered.
I think they enjoyed it immensely.
You're totally right.
But it was a definite problem.
And, you know, can I, can I, this was a terrible...
But maybe, sorry, I'm not allowed to.
Sorry.
No, I might want to.
No, no, before you'd say how terrible it is.
Oh, also, as this, as this is the first, you know, in this series, maybe, is that the I, maybe having this, just the cast, at least that helps because there's no other characters to get confused with and you're sort of reacquainting yourself with these new voices going forward, maybe, maybe that does help having a story like this.
I mean, I think the idea of setting it on the liberator, having just the crew, and like you say, reacquainting yourselves with them, in a story that's about paranoia that reestablishes their relationships and what they mean to each other, that's genius.
Unfortunately, that doesn't happen here.
Because I was making notes of whatever actual character development or beats were said in this, and there was two.
There was somebody saying, perhaps Blake is still under Sivan's control at one point, and why would we ever want to remember Sivan?
I'm sure Kelly knew that Sivan was Travis.
I'm not going back to watch to check, but I'm sure she saw that reveal.
And the 2nd carat beat was them saying at the end, you know, we're stronger together than we are apart.
But during the actual nuts and bolts of the story, where they're being sort of hunted through the ship and this shape changer is taken on and all of this, all they're doing is is having sort of hysterical moments where they're paranoid and they're sort of screaming at each other over intercoms.
Do you know what it felt like?
A bad Star Trek episode to me.
The ship has wandered into a bizarre derelict area of spaceships and there's an evil alien force on board that sucks out all the paranoia and hate from people and is trying to stir them up.
It was like a really bad.
The trouble is Justin Richards wrote this.
And I think Justin Richards is a fantastic writer of Doctor Who novels and he is a very meat and potatoes writer of audios, whether that's Doctor Who or whether that's Blake 7.
The 1st half of this story was the crew, obviously the liberator's broken down.
It was the crew talking a load of tech, a babble to each other.
They're like, oh, pass through the spanner, go to this place, do this, and then I was like, what is this?
This is like an episode, a bad episode of Star Trek.
But this is a Blake 7.
Bring, please, as for bringing back Brian Croucher, as the worst Travis.
I kept waiting for him to turn up at the end of this.
Because I was like, why was he at the start?
It wasn't at least it's a little fun thing, isn't it?
Just as a little surprise.
Still got it though, hasn't it?
He was terrible.
Hello, Blake.
Hello Blake.
There's nowhere to run, Blake.
Like, he puts, he puts about 3 Y's into Blake. all in different places.
Now, look, I get I get what you're saying, Joe. And I think sort of by about the 35 minute mark.
I'm going, okay, this is very leather rinse repeat, but I still really enjoy this one.
I think I possibly enjoy it on on the level of what Nathan describes as this is weird, Blake 7.
It's not on the same level of sarcophagus, but it's dealing with some of the famed themes as sarcophagus.
I did this, didn't they, with sock officer?
the same thing.
There's an alien entity on the ship with genuine character development of Cali.
But I think I think it's a bit of a long walk to get there, but I think where we get to is the crew outright saying, no, no, like we weren't chasing each other, saying come back calm down because we were angry.
We were chasing each other because we cared and we didn't want the other person to get hurt.
And when they actually say that, I think it has been directed earlier on that there is a degree of ambiguity, not that you think they want to harm each other, but certainly say in Villa's case, yes, he wouldn't want Kelly to get hurt, for instance, but he is more afraid for himself.
But, you know, Blake Jenner and Callie are all like, no, no, no, we were concerned about each other.
And of course, Villa is then like, are we?
Oh, we were.
Yes.
I was very concerned.
But there's, I think there's another version of this story out there where when they're paranoia starts heightening and raising that these are really interesting characters, the Blake 7 crew.
They've all got a past and they've all got beef with each other.
So within this story, you could start to explore the things that they don't like about each other in some really sort of pointed exchanges, but instead it's just sort of Sally Nevet, screaming a red off, going, you tried to kill me.
You know, I'm like, what is this?
Oh, I don't know.
It depends if you look at this.
If, as a series, because they do, from the end of this one, it feeds into the next one and so forth for this whole 1st series.
You could see it as part one.
There's a bit of a warm-up.
They're warming up their vocal cords, ready to do the rest of the series.
I was disappointed at the ending of where this entity or this, this thing.
There's a very brief explanation.
Well, very brief.
It looks good.
It's just over and it's done.
I was waiting for something a bit more at the end after going through all of this and that just wasn't there.
So that was a disappointment, but I'm quite happy to hear them chat and distrust each other over the comms for, you know, a good half an hour.
I'm absolutely happy with that Listen to this line as the moral of the story, okay?
The fractures that you sense are the tires that Biden does and make us stronger.
You know, like that is like a Star Trek moral as well.
And maybe this would be, I mean, I know we've had warship, but maybe, you know, people are getting on board maybe with this.
So this, as I say, it's a bit of a reacquaintance if this is the 1st one you're going to get of the series, you know, for new listeners.
Maybe that's what it's designed for.
Yeah.
I think also, as you say, Mark, this is part of a piece.
It is part of a 6 episode season, and towards the end of the season, we do start to come back to the distrust, and there is actually a scene in a later episode where Jenner takes Blake to Tasco, the Gans death, which isn't, you know, isn't even alluded to here.
You know, they don't talk about pressure point.
They talk about voice from the past for some reason.
You just said, you know, we did do nothing anyway.
We don't really miss him, Gam. nice in that episode.
Yeah, it's actually taken Jenna. 9 weeks to remember.
Oh yeah, Dan used to sit over there.
He hasn't said anything for a while.
He hasn't grabbed his head and stared out the screen.
Yeah, I mean, I think we said this at the time when we recorded it, but killer, the 2nd series episode was recorded with Gan.
And he had one scene where he operated the teleport.
And then they decided to move it to the back end of the season after his death and all they had to do was take that scene out.
Yeah, he is the councillor Troy of Blake 7. easily removable from any episode.
Talk about like recast.
Do you think Big Finish could have recast Gan by this point?
Or do you think what is the reason they haven't?
I think possibly the reason they haven't is there's still the same writing problem around him in that, you know, you, you know, you introduce him, he's a fighter.
He's a brawler, but also he can't fight and he can't brawl.
And it's like early in the 2nd series, they sort of try and retarget him as the moral centre, but that's also kind of Callie, you know, so it's just like, uh, what are you doing?
Life beater as well.
That's a very old character.
Okay, so he he killed a federation guard who killed his partner.
Oh, well, I don't know where I got that from then.
He does try to strangle Callie at one point, but that's when his that's when his brain implant goes wrong.
There's a lot of attacking the women in Blake 7.
Yeah, there is.
There is.
On the topic of recasting, going back to the voices.
It becomes a lot easier to accept the differences in the voices once you've listened to a few of them.
And I'm just saying that for anyone out there who's thinking of giving these a go and listening to one and yeah, absolutely.
The 1st time you hear Gareth Thomas's voice as was 10 years ago, it's it's a shock.
It's a shock to the system.
You listen to 2 or 3 with him and it's like, oh, okay, that's Blake's voice now.
I know.
I, uh, obviously, talk quite a bit with Syhar, and I know his favourite is warship, which was the one just before this, wasn't it?
Actually, I have to say, he was appalled that we weren't covering this for this episode.
He said, why are you doing that one?
It's a warship.
So I'm putting this on your shoulder.
We did a whole episode on bullshit.
We did a whole episode of warship.
But he said to me, my God, in warship, they all sounded like they'd never been away.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
And I agree.
Yeah, Gareth Thomas is some not, sometimes not recognisably, Blake, maybe that's why in the Companion Chronicles, his one goes last on the 1st one.
So it's kind of like, you know, here's Paul Darrow, Michael Keating, who do sound like we've just taken them out of the cupboard and dusted them off.
Identical, doesn't he?
Michael Kidd sounds older, but he's still got that sort of plummy voice.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a distraction.
And like, yeah, I'm sure if I listen to loads of these that, yeah, I would absolutely relax into those voices, but like as a snapshot, I was just saying a lot, who is that?
Who am I listening to?
That's a problem when I'm trying to listen to a story, you know, get involved in it.
Yes.
I also like about this.
And obviously, I've seen all of Blake Seven.
I've only sort of seen maybe the last, like, 2 series, like once before.
So I'm not like an expert.
You never certainly, Blake Silver, don't you?
But I like earlier, Blake 7.
But also, I like this as a beginning of a series where it's not full of all the continuity, you're not plonked. you know, there's a couple of mentions, but a lot of all the other, if there's lots of other mentions, other characters and things that I might not have remembered from before, I quite like this as a bit of a fresh start to go into and then I can follow the series rather than contradict you, but you're literally going to say the opposite of that in the last story we're coming.
Well, no, wait, wait, wait.
We wait till we get well, yeah, compared to how they go a bit later on, how they go a bit later on to the box sets.
I appreciate this as the first, you know, I can get the 6 in a row, once a month or whatever, and follow that story rather than be plonked into the middle of a war or something else like that.
My issue is I find the 1st series of Blake 7 incredibly earnest and serious for the most part and quite dull.
Whereas when Blake goes at the end of two.
I think 2s are very consistent year. 3 and 4 where it gets a bit more camp and it's like gangsters in space.
That's my Blake 7, you know, and it's a lot more fun.
And so, so perhaps stories set in this period aren't for me.
So maybe don't listen to me, all right?
Also, that's the good thing about all these the big finishes, you've got this, and then the next series they do.
So there's like 6 of these.
The next series is set later on.
And isn't that the one, which is the one where they're like, oh, we've woken up and data just left.
She's not here. because we don't have the actress.
So we've written that. they're like, oh, where did she?
Oh yes, she just got up early one morning and left.
We got fired now.
I know what happened between series 2 and three, wasn't it?
Where's Jenna and Blake?
Oh, who knows?
Let's go.
We'll just keep having adventures.
Jenna's gone with Blake.
Yeah.
All right.
Because they bring in um, what's his name?
Tom Chapman, don't they?
Tom Chapman.
That's like a regular in the full cast.
Oh, is it Anna Grant's brother?
Yes.
Yes, yes.
As Anna Grant's brother.
After Anna Grant's death.
And I think it's the 3rd or 4th story before Avon tells him what happened.
I mean, there's a character that's worth exploring, right?
Anna Grant.
Coming soon from Big Finish production.
Yeah, no, us.
I don't think they have.
Oh, play her.
Why do you look at me like that, Avon?
Right, anything more to say on fractures?
No, don't, no, don't let this be your first.
Let it go.
Yeah, no, give it a go.
Listen to the touring test, which was a more relaxing ease into the Blake 7.
Just don't be shocked about Gareth Thomas's voice.
Just prepare yourself, everyone.
Yeah, I will point out that fractures as well as the other 5 stories that make up this season are available on Spotify as well.
Do you have to pay for any of the Blake 7 audios?
Along with the Danaless season with Tom Chadmin and the rest of the Liberator Chronicles, but that's all that's on Spotify.
Everything else is from Big Finish.
Fractures can be bought separately on at Big Finish or as part of this season box set.
Retention!
This is another one to this merge.
This is an unlawarded to dispatch.
Can you is now?
But, Mark, with what you were saying about the setup for the following season of full cast, We aren't covering any from there, and I'll explain why.
So, yes, you're right, in the 2nd season.
It set during, um, the 3rd series of Blake 7.
Tom Chadbon's character of Dell Grant was reintroduced in a companion chronicle called The Armageddon Storm.
And then in these stories, he stayed on the ship afterwards, Dana has disappeared in a search for her mother, who she believes is a federation collaborator.
The behind the scenes reasons for this is that Gisette Simon has rarely wanted to return to any Blake 7 projects.
But at that stage, Big Finish didn't feel comfortable recasting an actor who was still with us, understandably.
Simon sat down and was like, do you know what?
That's been a long time since I thought about Blake 7.
I'll just stick on one of my episodes and see if it's really, and then she put on animals and went, oh, no, she has been thinking about that again.
She has worked with Big Finish, though.
She did a Doctor Who.
Exactly.
And I think the timelines pretty much line up that she probably came and did that, Doctor Who, and they discussed doing Blake 7 and I imagine she turned them down again and they said, well, look, do you mind if we recast?
And she probably said, oh, no, absolutely not. have my blessing.
And so that brings us to the 1st story of the 3rd season of Blake 7 forecast audios.
So at this point, Gareth Thomas had passed away.
So stories in the 1st half are off limits for full cast, basically.
And so the 3rd season opens with a box set called the Spoils of War, which is all about the fallout from the intergalactic war at the end of the 2nd series, beginning of the 3rd series.
This 1st episode, liberation, takes place after power play, but before volcano.
And kind of, it deals with the liberator crew attempting to help a revolution on a federation world in 2 teams.
Dana and Villa, Tarrant and Cali.
Well, Avon stays behind on the ship with Aurac.
And the recast Dana is played by Yasmin Bannerman, who may be familiar to Doctor Who fans as Jabe of the Forest of Cheem from the end of the world.
Ross Forrester as well from the new adventure.
Oh, yes, Ros Forrester, of course.
Yeah, I haven't heard many of Ross Forrester's stuff.
I completely stalled on the last day.
Oh my god.
Anyway.
What's the last name?
Sarah's doctor.
Oh, 6 hours of your life, you're never gonna get back.
Well, I haven't done the last 2 episodes, so I'm ahead.
Five hours of life, but you're never going to get...
What a terrible set.
Sylvester McCoy is my doctor.
Anyway, this isn't the...
No, you're not missing anything.
Right?
Thank you.
Yes, this is a problem.
Anyway.
Oh, yeah, sorry, liberation.
It can't hurt me anymore.
Yeah.
So liberation, for me, kind of plugs a continuity gap, but we brought up on the podcast at the time, which is PowerPlay ends with Dana and Tarant being officially welcomed on board, which Paul Darrow behind the scenes objected to.
He basically said Avon would not allow these people to have computer control.
And David Maloney says, we're not having them run all their orders through you, so you can have extra lines, Paul.
No, you love Darrow.
I love him.
But it does mean that the very next episode, we have Tarrant and Dana being sent on a mission together unsupervised and it's just like, what?
We're sort of testing the waters, you know, to see if they're really on size.
Yeah, but this is sort of a natural midpoint in that instead, Avon sends them each with someone he can trust.
And I think as fractions sort of explored the trust between the crew, in one way, this explores it in another, because you've got Dana and Tarrant, who are both 2 very independent, headstrong characters.
Tarant is paired up with someone very contemplative and thoughtful, who thinks through their actions before they do them.
Dana is paired up with someone very cautious and reluctant.
And it all goes horribly wrong.
He's very pleased that she is paying up with Villa because she trusts Villa because he is a coward.
So she knows what is most.
She doesn't want to be paired out with Taryn because he's ex-federation.
Yeah, I actually quite like her rationale there, but also she won't say that in front of Villa.
She's not going to compliment Villa to his face.
No, she just insults Taron instead.
It's all about, isn't it?
thought this was more effective than the 2nd one, especially as a character piece.
I think Yasmin Bannerman gives a very good performance.
I wasn't getting Dana.
And again, that was a problem for me in that I'm just, Joseph Simon's voice is so distinctive, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it could have been worse because in the BBC ones, Dana's played by Angela Bruce.
Oh, God.
Yeah, another, yeah.
Another very talented actor, but is she right for the part?
Yeah.
I know we keep coming back to this, but it is, I think, I couldn't work out who Tarant was for a while.
No, I couldn't either in this one.
Oh, God.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Pacey's voice is even more far departed from than Gareth Thomas's, in my opinion.
And he does say, what are the making of somewhere?
He said, you know, I came in and he said it was his choice not to do the high pitched voice because that was never his voice.
You know, that was always performance, said, you know, I can kind of go, okay, you know, you're 50 odd, 60 now.
Yes, you can come in and do what you want.
But at the same time, yeah, it does make it difficult.
Steve Lyons, though, who writes this, I think he is a massively underrated writer.
Pretty much everything he has written, whether that's a Doctor Who book, a Doctor Who audio, a Blake 7 audio now, because he does the last 2 here that we're covering, doesn't he?
I think I think he always tells an entertaining story.
He always pushes on the characters a little bit.
Whoever he's dealing with and he always captures the voices of the characters he's writing extremely well, but not in a pretentious way, not in an obvious way, in a sort of unobtrusive way.
And I really liked how this story focussed on Dana as a warrior, you know, pulling this ragtag rebellion together.
It's all of her strengths, but then showing that she can go too far and that maybe she's got too much of an axe to grind and that that could possibly be a problem, that she doesn't just, that she doesn't trust Taron, you know, and they are all on the same side.
She's got to learn the lessons that they are all on the same side now.
So I thought all of the character stuff there was really interesting on Dana's side of the story.
I was less keen on the Taron and Callie side of this.
Was Taryn pretending to be bad in this.
Yeah, he was pretending to be on the Stella Federation.
Yeah, still a Federation. thing.
Yeah, because he's in the uniform and everything, isn't he?
There was a great performance of the woman who used to be in charge of this well, you know, the ruler.
I don't know what they actually...
Yeah, Sarah Powell is roll call.
A roll call.
Okay.
Which was a great performance, but I kept thinking, have we met this character on Blank 7 before?
Like, I feel like... this is just for this story.
See, that's where I got a bit lost in this because I didn't have any of the back, didn't know where this was set.
I expected just to go into it.
This is where you just sort of dropped into it and then they're looking for Jenna and there's all this.
I'm like, what's happened?
I don't know what's happened before.
So I'm already sort of on the back foot trying to catch.
I just felt like I was just trying to catch up with where everyone was for this one because like, yeah, I know, but I like a more straightforward story.
That's just my personal taste, but when there's all this sort of continuity stuff in there and like what has been going on.
Would you like a scene at the start where they said, well, we've just had those, you know, that fight with those great space cologners...
Yeah, I knew I knew... space and now Jenny's gone off at Jenny.
Jenny's gone off.
We're going to go off after.
I mean, that would be a bit...
No, I know, but just some, it just takes a bit more if, as I'm not as familiar with it, that's all.
No, no, I definitely take your point.
It's like, I'm someone who read his copy of the Doctor Who discontinuity guide so much that the cover and the 1st few pages fell off.
So my ear is specifically tuned to lines like, trust him.
I've only known him for 3 days.
It's like, right, it's only been 3 days.
Oh, go.
PowerPlay was just the other, you know, I'm...
Anally retentive, I think is the word.
Or about a few little subtle hints and pointers.
And then you're left to work things out.
Oh, yeah.
And the thing is, we get, you know, we get those because in, I think it's PowerPlay Zen mentions that Jenna was last heard of on morphenial.
Her situation is regarded as non-critical.
So, you know, that's why they're on more finial and yeah, we've only known each other a few days.
That was incredibly known that. voice.
Alistair Lock, you are out.
Brendan Jones is here now.
And can I do Aurak, please?
You do the noise, gone.
Villa weighs 72 kilos. can do that.
Sorry, I'll totally, you're trying to fall.
No, no, I was I was just gonna say, it's it's a difficult balance to strike, putting in the lines for the fans to kind of go, okay, this is where we are.
And as you said, Joe, you know, you don't want a scene at the start, which is, right, here's the briefing scene.
As we know, Blake and Jenna have gone missing and Jenna was last reported on morphenial.
Dana and Terence have just joined us.
This is not Star Trek Voyager, you know.
No, no, there's consequences.
One thing that happened at the end of this show, though, truly shocked me, and it shouldn't because they're a bunch of rebels, right, that are trying to take down the Federation in violent ways.
Plus, they hand them a load of weapons and said, go on, blow those people up.
It's fine.
And then off they win.
And it was truly like a bloody revolution where what was the woman's name?
roll call?
They were killed, weren't they?
I thought, yeah, they really are without morals.
She's tied to an exploding chair at the end.
I don't know that violence like that is, you know, violence as a response to violence.
I mean, is a big moral issue there.
I didn't have fits in with Blake seven.
Yeah, and that's the interesting thing.
That thing with I was wrong.
Her name is Rokon, not Rokon.
But, um...
The name was character in Hand of Fear as well.
I know exactly.
But I think that thing with Rokon's chair is it's actually Tarcoal, the very plummy new leader of the rebels, says to Avon.
Can you send me back there?
Because I've got a grenade from my supply.
So it's made very clear that it's not an explosive from the liberator.
You know, it's an explosive from these people.
And I think that's a deliberate thing to, Have it as a morally gray thing.
But also, it's then not another morally gray thing for our crew.
It's a morally great thing for the people they're helping.
But they are involved in the story. they could arrange a negotiation or something like that, you know.
Instead, they just go, oh, well, let them sort it out. lets go.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think, yeah, there is a sort of earlier point on the TV show where Avon actually points out to Blake, okay, yeah, you liberate one world, what then?
Are you going to stay and run it?
No, you're just going to go off because you have to just go off because that's what a rebellion is.
That ending as well, when they actually find Aquila and, you know, he's been subjected to torture and he's not in a good way.
Dana's lament really sold Yasmin Bannerman's interpretation of the character.
And it also made me realise that as much as she respects what came before and she talks about this in the special features, she was a little girl watching a strong black woman on television.
And going, she's like me.
You know, she was a fan of the show.
It was fabulous, wasn't she?
Just outside.
Yeah.
Amazing.
And still is.
I do appreciate that Yasmin doesn't come in and go, I'm going to, like, attempt to copy Gisette's voice.
I think what she gets is the cadence and the emotion and the little upwards inflection whenever she's insulting someone.
And you hear it very early on with Villa, where Dana, if she's insulting someone, it just goes up at the end.
Unlike the 2nd one, right?
You know, I was lamenting the lack of carrot moments in the 2nd one.
There was loads scattered throughout this, but my favourite was where Dana finally loses her temper with Villa and she showers him.
I thought I was joining a group of revolutionaries.
Like when things get violent and she goes to him, you must have known, eventually your fight was going to come to this.
And Bill's like, no, I just want to get out of it.
I don't want to get involved in a fight, you know.
But as a character study of Dana.
And I, one of the things I love in series 3 is the Avon Dana relationship, I think that 1st episode of series 3 is one of the best episodes of Blake 7 and it establishes a mutual respect.
Well, I mean, they snorke, don't they?
But a mutual respect between Avon and Dana, and the last scene of this was beautiful, where, and it's a shame, actually, we wait until the last scene to get the 2 of them together. where he says these people are worth leaning on.
Although, sorry, as a side note, there's a wonderful scene in this where he's talking to Aurak and he goes, you know, are these people worth my trouble?
Oh, should I just go?
He asked or act to do the statistical probability of whether it was worth saving his friends or not, which is very agon.
But yeah, he basically says you need to integrate with his crew.
You need to trust these people.
There was a point to this story, I thought.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can I can appreciate that.
I just, yeah, I didn't enjoy it as much as fractures is more my thing.
I know.
No, no, it's it's a good point though, because fractures is something you can come to and having a knowledge of the characters, you can appreciate it more, but everything you need to know is in there anyway.
Where, where is this?
Yeah, it does help to know where we are in the season, how well do these people know each other, which you can surmise, but if you miss a line of dialogue.
Like, you know, Cali says literally once, well, that federation, a uniform suits you, Tarrant.
But if you miss that dialogue, you don't know he's in a Federation uniform, for instance.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to contradict the pair of you, but I am going to, because in fractures, you get a mention of Star one, you get a mention of Sivan, you get a mention of Travis.
There's plenty of continuity in there.
It's just you know that continuity quite well.
So as well, maybe because the more minimalist style of fractures.
And I'm just trying to think because we're now in the, this is like the box set time of big finish where, same as what we've talked about, about the Doctor Who's where the music is trying to be more of a TV soundtrack.
It's trying to be more of a lot more thrown in, whereas earlier on, it was more like an audio play, you know, there's not tons of music.
It's just more of the cat, that's just the style that I prefer rather than the big battles and it's trying to be an epic.
If you rearrange the words minimalist.
Can you get unimaginative out of that?
No, you could do creative stuff.
With the recast of Dana, has that gone down well with Blake 7 fans?
Is she accepted as a...
It's a really good, you know, it's a...
It's just distracting...
Appreciated, is she, you know, people aren't against it or...
I haven't seen pushback.
You know?
I'm just trying to think, because, you know, big finish have done a few recasts now.
And I can't really think of any that have been poorly received.
I think there was a bit of murmuring when Michael Troughton came on as a 2nd doctor. has Fraser Heinz been pushed out, but then Fraser comes back to play Jamie anyway.
You know?
Well, Ace is the role.
Yeah, I think some of the some of the doctor who recasts, I think there's people that are like, I'm not getting those because they're recasts.
I just wondered if that was the same with Blake 7, but...
It doesn't, it doesn't seem to have been.
I haven't I haven't heard it.
And on the sort of making of the, the rest of the original cast, you know, compliment Yasmin's performance and she says she has great fun working with them as well.
I mean, she's a very good competent actress.
Oh, she's great.
So if you're only complaint is, so I'm talking to myself now, is you're not just at Simon, but the performance is great.
Well, shut up, Joe, all right?
It's a good performance.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I'm better than better than Angela Bruce anyway.
And Paula Wilcox is Sulin as well.
I just think I just think it really spotlights just how unique Gisette Simon was back in the day, though, and the impact that she made for that character.
But it's a good introduction to Dana because it explores her strengths and her weaknesses and it starts integrating her into the crew.
So as like a, as a bringing her in to the audio range, I think it absolutely, you know, it does its real bit perfectly.
And, you know, as much as Terrence plotline in it is less interesting and sort of tells us less about the character.
And, yeah, Stephen Pacey's vocal performance, as we've touched upon, makes things a bit confusing.
I do think his additional years as an actor since Blake 7 do come out.
I think he gives a more nuanced performance than Tash just being sort of brash and and what have you, because here when he's brash, it works against him a little bit, you know, because, because Rokon is so disillusioned that just, you know, being told off by a federation officer, she's just like, yes, so what?
You want to call the president?
Please do.
I can't get a line.
Actually, well, when we're talking about Stephen Pacey.
When I met him, I was doing my watch through of Blake 7 and I said to him, I was like, they're so horrible to each other, why is this crew together?
And he was like, yeah, I know, I can't believe it.
I don't know why they hung around with each other.
So yeah, he agreed with me.
These bizarre people are fine.
He was lovely.
Paul Darrow attractive in the TV show.
I mean, what is wrong with you, people, this middle-aged man?
Stephen Pacey on the other hand?
He is hot as hell, isn't he?
You know, they're already drugged up in gold.
You know, well, what could I do for her, doctor?
Man, I wanted to have him so badly and that's like.
Anyway, sorry, back to the audience.
The forecast Blake 7 Audios did continue until 2020.
However, the untimely passing of Paul Darrow coupled with the previous passing of Gareth Thomas meant it, they really couldn't continue for much longer after that.
In fact, uh, the last box set had to be sort of rewritten and sort of off cut to ball.
Darrow's performances had to be used to give Avon a presence, et cetera, et cetera.
So, Big finish have moved on to producing spinoff ranges. including audios for Babe and the Butcher, with a returning Colin Baker, the Terra Nostra, with a returning Carl Howman, the Clone Masters, and Avalon from Project Avalon.
So we are talking now about the 1st episode of Avalon, which was also the 1st of these spinoffs to be released, terra firma.
So in Avalon, we don't have Julia Vidler back, I have looked it up online.
I'm not sure if the actress is still with us.
And interestingly enough, Julia Vidler does play a role in PowerPlay.
She is Bar, one of the girls who lures Villa into the organ bank.
Isn't the other one, um, what's her face from Para Planet?
Yes.
Yeah, the one who goes, why, why, why?
Why?
Yeah.
My father wasn't taken by the Mediads.
He was shot by the captain's guards to save him from the Media.
Yes.
No, instead, we have Olivia Poulet as Avalon, Olivia Poulet, probably more recognisable to big finished listeners as Mrs. Emma Peel in their Avengers Rangers, where she does a very, very good job.
And I know the 1st thing we want to talk about with Avalon.
Yes, it's the recast of the theme tune.
Aha.
Oh, my God, it's amazing.
Is Dudley Simpson in with this fabulous, porny music letter?
Oh, brilliant.
Da, da, da, da.
Can I say Mark and I did a whole dance?
Title sequence for this.
I was running around with a fabulous pair of jugs in slow motion.
He had an enormous laser rifle.
I mean, it's brilliant.
And actually the music throughout is excellent.
It really stood out.
And I believe the music was done by Simon Power, who also does the sound design for the Doctor Who novelisation readings from BBC books.
The music brief to me seems to be, what if this series was actually developed as a replacement for Blake 7 and went out in 1982?
Like, this sounds like Blade Runner.
It sounds like Battlestar Galactica, it sounds like the Disco Star Wars theme, you know, it's really embracing the era in which this could have been made, which is such a bizarre and quite wonderful decision.
A genuine thing.
This was the best of the 4 that we did, I thought it was absolutely riveting.
I think this is so much more interesting.
I know I'm going to lose everybody that's still listening after that controversial thing said already.
So much more interesting than just hanging out with the crew of Blake 7 from the TV series, exploring the universe, going back to Earth, seeing what the situation is there, you know, exploring that people are being drugged, you know, there's stuff in their food, that sort of Orwellian 1984 field on Earth, um, side characters that have were in one episode of the TV series, just being given a huge amount of development, uh, showing Jenna before she Blake, that great reference when she goes, 0 yeah, I've heard of him.
Just an offhand.
I don't know, that guy is.
Yeah, just absolutely brilliant.
But the whole production.
This was a huge lift from the other 3 in terms of the music in terms of the sound effects, the pacing, all of it.
This sounded like a really, whereas, I'm not saying the other sound like fan films, but I could see, you know, what are those fan film people called?
BBV, yeah.
Fractures could basically be a BBV production.
This was like a, you know, a proper prestige BBC production.
Well, for me, I mean, I was a bit apprehensive going in because Avalon.
I wasn't sure who that was.
I thought, and I think I told you as well.
I thought it was that woman in like the very last episode.
I thought that...
I got them mixed up.
Understandable.
But you don't, but you understand, Brett?
I didn't.
You're very kind.
But going into this, I was really surprised.
Yeah, that theme tune set it up.
For me, in my head, listening to this, this was like, Blake 7 reboot on Netflix. for me.
And, but then as it went on, you know, yeah, I got to know Avalon, you don't need to, you don't need to know anything before for this one, I don't think, because it is set parallel to, you know, the 1st episodes, Blake 7.
But as it went on as well.
In my mind, it felt like a Jenna box there with Avalon.
And it's only at the end when Jenna went off, I was like, oh, yeah, it's an Avalon box.
Jenna's just guess starring.
These were like Jenna the series to me.
It's a great Jenna story though, isn't it?
It's the best Jenner story.
I mean, because she didn't have nothing to do on the TV show.
Like, as a cold smuggler who's mistrustful of people, doesn't want people.
I just want to hang out with people or form any kind of a band, but that was great, her going on about how she doesn't want to be part of a rebellion, and we know what's awaiting her at the end.
But there was a great beer.
A really fantastic bit where Lions... says what she's been doing on Earth, which is like undercutting the Federation and giving supplies to the people.
And I goes, well, what the hell's that doing?
That's not achieving much.
And she goes, I'm denying the Federation a revenue stream.
And then Avalon comes back straight away saying, no, you're making the people complacent so they don't fight back against the Federation.
And all of that stuff. exploring that those sort of moral issues.
That's what I want from these audios.
Because there's stuff they're just ripe to be explored.
It's all her strengths.
And her little gang, I felt I felt like we were just brought right into that.
Is it, is it crass?
Crass, yeah, crass, can you Fay?
Yeah.
Yeah, just I'd love, I just was thinking, this is a great scene.
I just want a whole series of these guys.
It was the best self-sacrifice ever where he went off and go and went, oh, I don't really want to do this, but...
Yeah.
There's also an element with the character Fay, where they make it clear that she's about 16 years old and she's going out and doing all this gung-ho stuff.
So the others are protective of her without ever saying, well, you're just a kid, you don't know anything, but it's more the protectiveness of, and I think this is what inspires crass, is he's like, I can't let a kid go die.
You know, not that he believes she's not capable because he can see that she is and she's proved herself throughout the whole story.
And I think it ties in thematically. who are you fighting for if you're not fighting for the children?
Jenna's reaction to him going as well.
Instead of, you know, giving him a salute, she goes, oh, I didn't think he had it in him.
She's so gross.
She's she's like Avon in this, you know, she is cutting at times.
I like this sort of hard bitch, Jenna.
Yeah, what happened to her in series 2 when she was just pressing the teleport button and wearing cocktail dresses.
Something I wonder if it's sort of deliberate because, you know, a lot of this is concurrent with the 1st episode of Blake 7.
And, you know, Jenna is really quite aggressive towards Blake in the holding cells.
And then in this, she hears over the Tannoi that he's been, you know, arrested for the trumped up chargers, but she doesn't know that.
You know, Avalon knows it's a, it's a frame up, but she doesn't know.
So it adds a sort of new layer of context to that that when Jennifer's Meats Blake.
It's kind of like, okay, so yeah, I've been told you're a freedom fighter, but also the tanoi system has said, yeah, you do horrible things to children, you know?
I think as well, this, this is how you plug a gap in continuity perfectly.
This is what Big Finish does really well.
It takes unexplored things.
With Doctor Who, it did it with companions like Perry and Male, you know, doctors like the Safe Doctor. is take a character that's underrepresented and generous.
Let's be honest, yeah.
If Sally Novette was getting scripts like this, she wouldn't have ditched the show at the end of series two.
It's because she had nothing to do.
And what they go through here on earth and how the federation officer sees her in this, that's why she gets arrested.
That's why she's on the ship in the 1st episode.
It explains all of that because we don't really get any march of an X. There's a couple of lines in the way back.
But this really explores all of that.
I mean, I'd quite like to see a box set with all of them with the explanations as to how they got there in the way back.
That is a great idea.
Yeah, yeah, I think because in this, there's 3 in this box set.
I mean, we're just talking about the 1st one, but Cali turns up in in the other one.
I don't know when they're all set or anything, but even for this, you could just go into this not knowing anything about Blake Seven.
This is like a 1st episode of this series you could follow this deer.
It felt like a pilot of a series and it's this horrible, as you say on earth, it's this horrible world, but I thought want to be part of it and you feel the danger throughout the whole thing.
I just, and it just flew by as well.
Yeah, honestly.
And this is the longest of the four.
And yet, it felt for me, it felt the shortest.
Yeah.
I think the most important thing is I really like the new characters.
I think Lions got them just bang on.
And so you put them in a situation, you know, where they're doing their terrorism and all that and the federation are after them.
You really care?
about them?
And what did you say there was a Ptera Nostra spinoff?
Obviously, a Babe and the Butch.
This is what I want.
I want less.
Let's do, let's do copies of episodes set on the Liberator with a space vampire.
Boring.
Let's actually genuinely look at this fascinating universe that Terry Nation created, yeah?
And all of these things happening on the periphery of our heroes, and let's explore some of that.
This is this is my idea of blazing.
Yeah, I really enjoyed this.
That was, yeah.
Even not knowing who Avalon was or anything. and you get it straight away.
You understand what's going on is clear for people like me to know what's going on.
The highest endorsement we could possibly give this is Mark actually went out and bought the set, didn't you, after this?
Yeah, yeah, a lot more.
Yeah. you go.
I was not fray on Spotify, is it?
No, it's not.
It's a newer one.
Yeah, it's a newer one.
But like, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say the, obviously, like the loss of Paul Darrow is enormous.
Yeah.
And the debt we owe him for making Blake 7 on TV as good as it was cannot be repaid.
But if Losing him meant they ditched the forecast audios and started exploring some of this really interesting stuff.
It's a, it's a good reaction to an unfortunate event.
Because I think it's more interesting.
Yes, yeah, I totally agree.
And the other thing it helps with is, you know, I think, if I were selling a vet or Jan Chappell, even Stephen Pacey and Michael Keating, just, oh, Gareth's gone, Paul's gone.
Big finish probably won't be hiring me anymore.
But, you know, it's still giving these actors who've given us so much joy.
One, good work for them to do, and two, let's let's also be rank, it's giving them pay, you know, to help enhance their lives.
And I, I have sort of heard apparently, you know, Michael Keating isn't doing them anymore and I think he's 82 or something, which, you know, is totally fine just because Tom Baker was still doing them well into his 80s doesn't mean everyone has to.
It's interesting.
You know, there's there's a lot of joking in fan circles about, you know, big finish making a tar and wood beast box set, you know, versus Jackie Tyler.
I'd buy it Yeah, exactly.
But the thing I think some people sometimes forget is it is giving these actors work.
Yeah.
You know, and we love these actors.
Exactly.
But these aren't just the big finished dartboard of random things.
This has a purpose.
This is this is being thought through.
This is we're going to do this with Jenna in this 1st episode and it's going to be, it doesn't feel like it's just a random Let's just get these people.
That whole world.
Yeah, absolutely.
I just want to explore the Federation rule on Earth in more detail.
It's such an interesting idea, you know, that anti-Star Trek idea.
Yeah.
And I think that's where this really succeeds in that it's not another crew out on a ship flying from planet to planet.
It is on Earth, and if they want to go somewhere else, they're going to have to get false identity papers, and we also see in this episode that doesn't always work.
They have to get on a ship and they have to go somewhere and risk being recognised.
I say bravo to be finished for finding creative avenues to continue telling Blake 7 audios when they can't do what they really want to do, which is, you know, audio version of what would be televised episodes.
That's what that's what they wanted.
That's what they were doing when they had the opportunity And I mean, what's that?
I don't know if we, I don't know if it's been mentioned before.
What's that other company that do those ones where everybody's recast?
I've never heard any of those.
Um, oh, B 7 Enterprises.
Yeah, I've never been interested in anything like that.
Does she sound like Gisette Simon?
I don't know who that is.
It's all of them younger, isn't it, or something?
I don't I don't remember about them.
What?
Blake's some rugrats.
It's a reimagining.
So, for instance, Blake is Derek Riddell.
Colin Salmon is Avon.
So it's the series A crew, basically.
Craig Kelly from Quera's Folk is Travis.
These are available on the big Finnish website as well.
The whole box set is called a rebellion reborn.
So they did like 31 hour episodes, which was relaunching the series, and then they did a bunch of companion chronicle style stories.
And you know what?
They're interesting in their own right.
It is a reboot.
It was around the same time as TV series reboot that was going to come out on Sky around 2010, I want to say, and Sky pulled the plug on their funding, but then announced it as this show is cancelled, and B7 media are like, no, no, no, it's not cancelled.
You've just pulled your funding, but by saying this show is cancelled.
No one else wanted to touch it.
Wow.
Oh my god, lots of us see a modern day version of Blake 7.
See what on earth they would do.
No, but I think this is the way to do it if you're not, you know, doing a complete reboot or recast or anything.
This is what you do.
You get these.
I would actually suggest if you wanted an in to Blake 7 audios.
Don't do the other three.
Do this one and I know it's not all of the Blake 7 characters.
It's by far the best listening experience.
So if you want to see how good these can be, start here, I'd say.
This is great because, A, it's contemporaneous with the 1st episode.
It's world building the Federation from the same point that the TV series did.
And, you know, arguably this is the vision of Blake 7 before Serverland turns up because they do have a major sort of course correction halfway through that 1st series.
Michael E Bryant's talked about it recently in an interview.
He directed 5 episodes and he's like, it started to go in a different direction from what he envisioned it going in.
And he's not cross about that at all, but he's just like, he would have liked to focus more on the Federation being this faceless massive organisation rather than give it a figurehead kind of thing.
Mark me, Brian, give us the decimas. think he did.
I don't think he's in any position to go too much about the direction that Black 7 went in.
Do you remember the decimas?
Great masks on the head.
SV 7 is in there as well.
Oh okay.
No.
Sorry, you're not.
That's interesting because I prefer those early. 1st 10 or so are my favourite episode before it goes off.
No, I like that style.
I like it when all that cutting wit comes in, you know, and they're doing heist with gold and, you know, Avon's hunting villa through the ship and all bit, all that stuff.
So there's 2 box sets of Avalon so far.
That's correct.
And they both came out in 2021 and there hasn't been any further announcement.
But, you know, that doesn't mean anything because they've been doing other stories as well.
I will definitely listen.
I want to listen to the other 2 because I think we've got there's a Cal and Travis turns up as well, I think.
Yes, yeah.
Interestingly enough, in the Clone Masters range, and I haven't heard this yet.
There's a story with both Travises.
Is there a Liberator Chronicle with Brian Croucher as Travis?
No, no. doesn't come back at all. would be truly terrible, but I'd love to hear it.
I just want a whole hour of him going, I will catch up with you one day, Blake.
Why can't I catch Blake?
It's like a brick, isn't it?
But, um, one last point about this one I'd like to make, and that is, I really liked the rug pool at the end where they say, well, what the hell have we achieved here?
So they're trying to, um, stop, stop the food games for people, isn't it?
Because the food is drugged.
That's what's making them docile.
And they say, yeah, we've deprived the poorest people of a food supply.
In order to stop them being drug, we've actually deprived them of food.
So it's like there are no easy answers to bring it down Federation, which I really like.
Blake 7's great at doing those rug balls.
You know.
And what this really reminded me of.
And then I discovered this came out a year beforehand was the Star Wars series Andor.
Right, yes.
Which, contrary to what a lot of other people think I don't actually rate that highly.
You better open Nathan, don't listen to this one.
It's just that it's called Andor and literally any other character in it is far more interesting, watchable and enjoyable than Andor.
Blake Seven and Blake.
Andor spends about, oh, half an hour of every episode just going, yeah, I'm not getting involved.
Yeah, I'm not getting involved.
I'm not getting involved.
And it's like, you know what?
That's fine for 3 or 4 episodes.
For 12 episodes.
It begins to make me wonder, when are we going to go back to fabulous modern Moth buck.
But anyway.
Well, it's interesting that we're not, I mean, Avalon is in this, but it's not the focus of our conversation because, yeah, true.
She's there.
I, but maybe because we know, but maybe because we know Jenna, and that's the point on the TV, maybe, but we're not like, wow, Avalon is this amazing, you know, she's done this groundbreaking.
I mean, yeah, it is only the 1st one, but it's interesting that I just feel like it's Jenna the series.
This is a much later audio than fractures.
I mean, I thought her performance in fractures was appalling.
All that hysteria she was doing.
Whereas she's clearly, really relaxed into the role now.
And actually, I think she's honed with the Jenna voice by this point.
So in this, I could really hear Jenna.
Yeah, she's probably, you know, go on and listen to what she's done before because she's, yeah, she takes acting very seriously and she taught acting after she left Lake Seven.
In terms of Olivia Poulet, I think perhaps I haven't said much about her, just because I think she's a very competent actress, I love her performances in the Avengers.
I think she does, you know, she gets the hard edges of Avalon exactly right.
But I think also Avalon is a character on TV.
There was very little to her because half the time she's an Android duplicate anyway.
So you've got almost a complete blank slate to work with.
And it's interesting in that this Avalon is undoubtedly a harder character than the TV Avalon, but there was so little for Julia Vidler to actually do on TV that it doesn't contradict. what we've already seen.
So this is a recasting.
I think really works.
Because basically halfway through episode 2 of this box set.
Olivia Poulet has played the character for longer than Julia Vision.
Yeah, it's a bit like that perverse situation that I think John Colshaw has played the brigadier for more episodes than Nicholas Courtney has now.
A little more nasally.
The Nicholas Horney did.
Listen, are you listening to me out there, big Finnish people, because I know big Finnish people, and I know they're big Finnish people that listen to this podcast and my one opportunity to do this.
Please, get Sally Novette in and we want the Jenna Smuggler Chronicles because I just think it'll be wonderful.
Just seeing her being given so much to do.
I think it's so fucking competent and, you know, honestly, a space bitch is wonderful.
I imagined her having sort of crazy Lisa Goddard terminal style hair in it as well, you know.
I mean, if it's Barbarellarish. yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know, I just...
Do you hear that theme tune?
Do the Star Trek TNG thing.
It's like, oh, okay, are we in the past?
Beverly's hair suddenly has much less volume.
It's just hanging straight down now because it's the past.
I was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find out that Paul Gates McFadden had to wear a wig until halfway through series 6.
Yeah, it's not her own hair until halfway through season two.
Oh, shocked to discover she thought she was given a performance in those 7 seasons. there we go.
But I mean, honestly, look at the 1st season.
Someone then decided that that wig was good.
Or the red one.
Morris Hurley, probably.
Oh, God.
How did we get here?
With the Jenna Chronicles.
Bring it on, all right?
Mark and I will do the title sequence.
One more time.
You got to say it 3 times for a big finish to do a boxing.
Rob Valentine.
I know you're listening The Jenna Chronicles.
Get on it.
To contradict something I said earlier.
Um, where, so I said, well, what on earth did you choose those for?
Those were the 4 I would have chosen.
I actually think as a way of exploring all the different corners of what they do on audio, this was a great, and the quality as well.
Because I thought, you know, 22 were great.
One was good and one was pretty terrible.
So like all of Big Finish.
There is a spread of quality amongst the releases.
But, you know, they they can do 1st person narrations where you get close to the characters.
They can do forecast stories, which are incredibly tedious, and they can do explanations or like plugging gaps between stories like between power play and volcano, and they can go right back to the start and explore the universe as a whole.
It just means, I just think there is a very tasty field thorough with Blake 7 and it looks like they, they go a long way to exploring a lot of untapped potential.
So that is all the time we have for this very small smattering of Big Finisher's Bleak 7 output.
Please come back next time for our series D retrospective, which ask important questions like, would you rather snow, Justin, Gunsar, or be thrown out of an airlock, uh, until next time, you can find us wherever you get your podcast and at maximum powerpodcast.com, and search for maximum power, uh, on your socials of choice.
Joe and Mark, do you have anything you'd like to mention anything you'd like to plug coming up in the near future?
On Finish Big, we'll be doing series 5 of Benice Summerfield very soon.
Gold.
And then, as we say, going into the 8th Dr. Divergent Universe, then 2000 AD, I think.
So it's a mixed bag of big finish releases.
Unfortunately, Blake 7 is quite far away from what we'll be doing, but if you want to discover any other ranges from Big Finish.
Give us a listen.
Oh, I gotta say, this does entice me to explore more.
I can't wait till we get there, but the pace we're going.
It will be, you know, long into our retirement.
It'll be on like Avalon series 10 by the time we think.
Olivia Poulet will be recast.
Okay, I'll tell you what, why be more interested than peddling out our usual podcast.
I'm going to think what?
I'm going to say, I'm going to say yours.
You say mine.
That's a nice easy way of doing it.
Mark does a podcast to watch who, where he watches all of Doctor Who in order, with his best friend Sarah, who is a non-Doctor Who fan, and she generally loves all the terrible stories like the underwater menace, the Space Museum, the Time Monster.
If it's a shit Doctor Who story, you're going to get a brand new opinion about it.
They have gone through all of the classic series.
They have just gone through smatterings of the wilderness years.
It was a bit of a chore, I think.
And they're about to head excitingly to the new series.
Yeah, yes.
Yeah, what am I going to do here?
hamster with a blunt pen knife?
I'm sure everyone's heard of it, where Joe and many, many guests.
Yeah, 120 guests, not new commentaries, but also you're doing a lot of Doctor Who book reviews.
Lately, the book club, whether that be new adventures, BBC, past adventures, new series adventures.
You've got a lot.
Stranger by Porsche D'Costa.
The version porn version of Doctor Who Recovered.
So, yeah, come along.
Hamster with a blunt pen knife, joined the Doctor Who book club on there.
Have you done the pit yet?
No, I'm doing it soon, actually.
Oh, okay.
Neil Penswick's criminal classic.
Because I was gonna say, if you need, there's a particular passage, I can eviscerate.
I have heard that rumour about you, you know.
Oh, you mean in the book, yes.
Yes.
Well, that too.
Well, thank you very much for all that wonderful listening chaps and thank you very much for joining us to talk about these big finish adventures and until next time, hey, big finish, the Jenna Stanis adventures.
Get on it.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
That's the power.
Go, go!
Notice, I can just thrust it, Maxi.
Switching command.
Maximum power on all drives.
Max 7 pound.
Yeah, of course, I don't have to tell you this will be edited, so, you know.
And also, also, we have the explicit attack.
We have the explicit tag, so yeah.
Ah, explicit.
How explicit.
That's all right.
I just point out, you just insulted my mother.
But anyway, she fancied Abon.
Oh, does she?
All the women do, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
And from, it must have been from 1984 because I'm a baby in the photo.
She went to a costume party as Surferland.
Oh my god.
I know, when I saw those photographs of you dressed up in the male costume from time on the party with the shoulder pads and everything.
I was like, you know, well, what could possibly have happened to him for that to have happened?
Now I know.
Yeah, there you go.
Your mother was cosplaying well before you.
In terms of recasting.
We do not have the original Avalon actress who I'm going to look up and then re-record this.
Thank you, Blake 7 Wiki.
Um, This is why maximum power sounds so uh, professional.
Yeah, because we do this and the edit is extraordinary.
Right.
It'll be on like Avalon series 10 by the time you think.
Olivia Poulet will be recast.
With Julia Vidler.
Oh, Olivia.
You should be too old.
Is there anything else?
You'll start to sound like Stephen Pacy.
I'll tell you what.
I'm sorry, I can't be coming to Stephen Pacey because I'm going to tell you a little story now, okay?
So we went to see a play, an Alan Akborn play, right, at the local Devonshires, and it was so exciting.
Lisa Goddard, you know, great goldfish bolt lady from Terminus, and Stephen Pacey from Blake 7 were both in it.
So exciting.
Anyway, we get there. goes to the loo, right?
What the hell has this got to do with anything?
I was thinking, I go to Salute and I come back and who are we there with?
Was it Nathan?
Oh, Nathan.
Oh, there you go.
Nathan and Mark are looking a bit sheepish.
And I went, are you all right?
And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just go in.
Anyway, we sits down to watch this fabulous.
What play was it?
I can't remember what it's called.
Oh, these great light comedies, you know?
And then the curtain comes up.
No sign of Stephen Pacey, no sign of Lisa Goddard.
There was a sign up in the auditor saying they're both ill and they can't be on tonight.
Oh, no.
Stephen Paisey.
I sorry, you can give as many great performances as you want in Blake.
I will never forgive you for that night.
I was like, we can't tell you because you were so excited.
And then this old man came on and you're like, is that Stephen Basey?
Maybe if I had to see him in the play, it would have prepared me for his voice in his audio.