WEBVTT NOTE This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 22:27:54 1 00:00:09.660 --> 00:00:19.500 Hello and welcome to Maximum Power, the podcast where we don't care if your whole planet turns into a mushroom, because this week we're watching Mission 2 destiny. 2 00:00:19.559 --> 00:00:21.899 I am Pete, and I'm Peter. 3 00:00:22.019 --> 00:00:25.079 I'm Cy, and I'm Simon. 4 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:26.160 Hooray. 5 00:00:26.219 --> 00:00:33.060 And if you can join, if you join the dots between the 4 of us, you will notice we've only got 2 space names between the 4 of us that we have just shared out this week. 6 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:43.200 And we have some great space names among the cast of our potential suspects for this episode, maybe Terry Nation is top of the list. 7 00:00:43.259 --> 00:00:43.740 I don't know. 8 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:50.399 We'll see how it went down with everybody, because this week it's a very, it's a real Agatha Christian space vibe, isn't it? 9 00:00:50.460 --> 00:00:56.880 And I'm doing air quotes around that because we can talk later about, is it really hitting that nail or is it just paying lip service to it? 10 00:00:56.939 --> 00:01:01.619 But yeah, what do people think about this as a, as a different style of like 7 episode? 11 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:06.599 Well, it really seems to me, like, it was so obvious that Terry was doing his space mystery. 12 00:01:06.659 --> 00:01:14.040 So he had he had 13 episodes to fill and in his original pitch documents and he probably didn't, but this is what I'm imagining. 13 00:01:14.099 --> 00:01:17.519 Episode 7 was earmarked as the space mystery, so he could do that. 14 00:01:17.579 --> 00:01:26.760 And it does give Dudley Simpson, the incidental music composer, an opportunity to roll out his thriller stings, which, let's face it, lend the episode its only atmosphere. 15 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:38.879 Yeah, he's going deep with the with the dumicello music this week and making everything sound extra dramatic when there's not a lot of dramatics going on on screen. 16 00:01:38.939 --> 00:01:53.040 No, there isn't very much dramatics going on screen, but I still think that at least everyone's taking it terribly seriously and terribly earnestly, and I think that's one of the things it does have going for it, even if it's all a little bit neh. 17 00:01:53.099 --> 00:01:54.180 Yeah, yeah. 18 00:01:54.239 --> 00:01:57.540 And we've got it's got a big cast, and that's not the greatest of plaudits. 19 00:01:58.079 --> 00:01:59.219 There's a lot of people in it. 20 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:01.500 If you're just here for counting people, there's quite a lot of them. 21 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:09.060 But they've got a good range of familiar faces from various bits and pieces. that we've seen subsequently and before. 22 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:14.039 And what do we think about having this idea of Avon? 23 00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:16.919 sort of stepping up and acting, is if he's the central character for most of the episode? 24 00:02:16.979 --> 00:02:19.500 I don't know whether that's going to ever turn out to have legs. 25 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:23.219 Yeah, I don't think it's really, it's just not in character for me for Avon. 26 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:26.099 I mean, he says, I really, what is it, what is the line? 27 00:02:26.159 --> 00:02:29.340 I really can't cope without it. 28 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:34.080 I don't, you know, I need to I need to solve the mystery is what he's saying. and I think, does he? 29 00:02:34.139 --> 00:02:35.939 I mean, I can't see it. 30 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:47.280 It's just utterly inconsistent with everything else that we know about Avon that he does before or since, where he'd be happy just to steal the stuff and get out of there and leave them to keep going around in circles. 31 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:58.740 So from that point of view, it is, that's the thing that it probably doesn't sit well with me, even though I love having as much Avon as I can, and of course, the benefit is that we get lots and lots of Avon in this episode. 32 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:03.360 It's the get out of jail free card that they always use with characters who don't want to get involved. 33 00:03:03.419 --> 00:03:05.879 They always say, oh, but they can't abide a mystery. 34 00:03:05.939 --> 00:03:09.360 And so they have to be, they have to solve what's going on. 35 00:03:09.419 --> 00:03:16.560 I think that's right, Simon, I think, it's slightly out of character for Yvonne at this point in his character development. 36 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:18.060 I think you'll move more towards that. 37 00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:25.620 And we'll see when he might assume more of a lead role, shall we say, later on in the series that that becomes a bit more of a driving thing. 38 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:31.439 Um, but I think this episode would have been fairly intolerable with Blake at the helm. 39 00:03:31.500 --> 00:03:34.560 It's an interesting choice to put Avon there for the 2nd half. 40 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:42.780 They'll do it again in deliverance this season, and I think it's nice that it's him and Kelly, because it sets up that good dynamic between them. 41 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:49.740 The good thing is, though, there isn't any kind of faux conflict between the regulars that I think they try and manufacture in other episodes. 42 00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:54.360 Like, you know, they may be the occasionally slightly barbed one liner, but they're not. 43 00:03:54.419 --> 00:03:59.819 They're not trying to outdo each other. you know, everyone's not trying to sort of be bitchy at Cali and all vice versa. 44 00:03:59.879 --> 00:04:02.219 So that at least makes it feel a lot more comfortable. 45 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:07.080 But I sort of can't help feeling that they've come up with the plot or the idea. 46 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:16.500 And then he just sort of slots characters or slots the regular characters in to perform particular roles without really caring about who those characters are. 47 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:20.160 Yeah, they're there to be a specific number of people. 48 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:24.420 You sort of get that vibe quite a bit from it. 49 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:25.319 Yeah. 50 00:04:25.379 --> 00:04:35.759 I think it's, I think it's always bold to open a story with everybody continually falling asleep uh due to the snow gaps and the lack of atmosphere, the lack of atmosphere on this on this spaceship. 51 00:04:35.819 --> 00:04:45.060 And also, I think it's quite strange that, I'd love to know more about the behind the scenes things, but why, like, about a quarter of the scenes on the spaceship a shot on them in a massive sound stage? 52 00:04:45.180 --> 00:04:47.579 I don't know if they went to Elstree or something, but there's clear cuts. 53 00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:54.600 It's like they go, they walk down a corridor into another corridor that's just much bigger and on film and then go through a door at the end and they're back in the studio. 54 00:04:54.660 --> 00:04:55.139 Is that like? 55 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:58.199 Was that because they were blocking it with a different episode maybe? 56 00:04:58.259 --> 00:05:00.180 I don't know, you know, they just happened to be at a big studio. 57 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.420 Yes, the film the film video matchup is particularly jarring, isn't it? 58 00:05:03.480 --> 00:05:16.500 Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine it's because the fact that, you know, they've got a certain number of studio days or a certain amount of studio time, and they've got a certain amount of film time, and the episode ended up not needing any location work, and so they therefore do a couple of sequences on film. 59 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:24.240 But you're right, I keep waiting for something in those, you know, filmed corridors in that film room that they're in like the control room which is in charge of the gas. 60 00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:30.839 I'm expecting something there to be a fire or something to burst into flames because that's what you expect when suddenly you've got a sequence on film. 61 00:05:30.899 --> 00:05:31.800 So it's a bit off quitting. 62 00:05:31.860 --> 00:05:35.519 Or a badly choreographed independent Robert's phase. something like that, yes. 63 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:38.040 But this is it. 64 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:52.199 I mean, the only thing that actually of dramatic significance that happens on film is when Stuart Fail falls off the top of the filing cabinet, which is a really good moment, but that's the only stunt in the in the episode. 65 00:05:52.259 --> 00:05:57.180 That's the only, only sort of reason I can think that they did, did a film sequence. 66 00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:06.600 But otherwise you've just got the different coloured corridors looking gray with a yellow light or a blue light or a red light depending on where you are in the spaceship. 67 00:06:06.660 --> 00:06:09.600 And we'll come back to that in Blake 7 several times. 68 00:06:10.259 --> 00:06:13.019 They've had to change the light bulb, haven't they? 69 00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:16.379 Well, you know, I think I may be slightly colourblind. 70 00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:22.139 In fact, I think I am, but I thought that those basic spaceship corridor flats were a terrible brown. 71 00:06:22.199 --> 00:06:24.180 In fact, they were mission brown. 72 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:28.980 They were their 70s made manifest in a dual X paint colour. 73 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.980 And we don't know why this decision was made. 74 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:37.019 Everyone knows that spaceship corridor should either be metal or black and white, but brown. 75 00:06:37.079 --> 00:06:37.920 Why? 76 00:06:37.980 --> 00:06:39.000 Mission... 77 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:39.660 Yes. 78 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:46.019 We're at the height of 19 of the winter of 1978 at this point, aren't we? 79 00:06:46.139 --> 00:06:48.420 That's right, the winter of the audience's discontent. 80 00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:54.180 And we've got everyone in very drab costumes as well. 81 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:56.339 Although they're nicely colour coded. 82 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:57.839 They're all really bad. 83 00:06:57.899 --> 00:07:03.360 And they haven't quite got to the operatic Blake 7 costumes yet. 84 00:07:03.420 --> 00:07:06.420 So everything is very functional, but dull. 85 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.040 Yeah, they're still doing this. 86 00:07:08.100 --> 00:07:11.279 Well, we're not Star Trek, so we're not wearing bright coloured uniforms. 87 00:07:11.339 --> 00:07:12.959 What shall we wear then? 88 00:07:13.019 --> 00:07:14.100 And they're finding their way. 89 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:20.220 But yeah, what you picture in your mind's eye as a definitive Blake 7 get up is still a little way ahead, isn't it? 90 00:07:20.279 --> 00:07:21.060 We've not quite got there yet. 91 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:22.500 Yeah, there's nothing flowing. 92 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.620 There's no drapey bits of stuff to switch around in. 93 00:07:25.680 --> 00:07:30.300 Yes, the swishing the swishing evolves quite naturally as we go further on, I think, doesn't it? 94 00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:32.279 And having mentioned Star Trek there. 95 00:07:32.339 --> 00:07:35.759 Can we just have a moment of appreciation for the fact that the Ortega? 96 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:39.240 a galaxy class vessel, and every time they say it, it just gave me a laugh. 97 00:07:40.379 --> 00:07:47.399 Yes, the 1970s galaxy class is slightly different, slightly different level, isn't it? 98 00:07:47.459 --> 00:07:48.120 Absolutely. 99 00:07:48.180 --> 00:07:57.899 Now, lest anyone think that because we're poking a little bit of fun at the drab sets and costumes and the fact that nothing very much happens in the studio or on film. 100 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:04.439 It's not to say that I don't love this episode because I love every episode of Blake 7. 101 00:08:04.500 --> 00:08:08.519 I love it on a genuine, will watch it again and again level. 102 00:08:08.579 --> 00:08:11.759 It's just that this is slightly disappointing. 103 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:15.060 It feels like no one could really mustered that much enthusiasm. 104 00:08:15.180 --> 00:08:28.860 I think the only person who really is mustering enthusiasm is Paul Darrow, who is seizing every opportunity to be sent to stage here for the 1st time and he has so many great moments, sort of 11 bit. 105 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:35.700 I love is when he turns around and he smiles where he says, there is, however, a problem. 106 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:42.480 And this thing, yeah, he's just really enjoying this script because he's right at the centre of it. 107 00:08:42.539 --> 00:08:50.100 I think you can see why he gets more and more to do as the series goes on because he's just magnetic to watch. 108 00:08:50.100 --> 00:08:52.559 When he's on the screen, you're just watching him the whole time. 109 00:08:53.220 --> 00:09:09.179 I just want to sort of take issue with that sort of thought that I don't know whether it's what you were actually saying there, Peter, but about there not being sort of enough effort in it because when I was watching it, again, just now, I was surprised. 110 00:09:09.299 --> 00:09:20.759 I was expecting everyone to be not really caring, as you're kind of suggesting, like it's, everyone's just kind of going through the motions, apart from Paul Darrow, to create an episode and, oh, it's 10 o'clock, time to go home, right? 111 00:09:20.820 --> 00:09:21.480 There something in the can. 112 00:09:21.539 --> 00:09:25.019 Whereas I actually thought, no, they are actually taking care. 113 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:28.440 The performances are actually all on the same sort of level. 114 00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:32.399 You don't get someone who's completely in a different program compared to the rest of them. 115 00:09:32.460 --> 00:09:37.799 I think Pennant Roberts, despite his usual flaws, doesn't do that bad a job. 116 00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:39.120 I think it's all nicely covered. 117 00:09:39.179 --> 00:09:45.899 There's nice shot choices where, you know, the over the shoulder, usual type of stuff that you get in kind of multi-camera television. 118 00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:48.779 There's no sense for me that they're not caring about what they're making. 119 00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:50.759 I actually think they're all doing a good job. 120 00:09:50.820 --> 00:09:58.080 It's just that the base material that they're working with is somewhat underwhelming and that's what basically drags everything down. 121 00:09:58.139 --> 00:09:59.220 Oh, yes, yes. 122 00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:05.220 I actually, I completely agree with you and I would never accuse TV professionals of not caring what they did or not putting in the effort. 123 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:09.840 But the word that I used was... enthusiasm. enthusiasm. 124 00:10:09.899 --> 00:10:12.360 It doesn't ever sort of really take off. 125 00:10:12.419 --> 00:10:14.399 It's all curiously muted for me. 126 00:10:14.460 --> 00:10:16.980 Yeah, it doesn't land on our screens in that way, isn't it? 127 00:10:17.039 --> 00:10:17.519 That's the thing. 128 00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:25.019 That's the director or whether it's a roll of the dice and sometimes everything slots into place in gels and other times it just doesn't, no matter how hard everyone was trying. 129 00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:25.440 Yeah. 130 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:38.460 Yeah, because that's a great cast here, who, um, I've done really good work elsewhere and they've all sort of come together and there's quite distinct characters, but you don't really get a chance to get to know them very well. 131 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:42.720 So, although we've got lots and lots of red herrings in the mystery. 132 00:10:42.779 --> 00:10:59.279 You've been, it's really going to be one of 3 of them, because it's not going to be nice John Leeson, because he's just smiled and said nice things all the way through, and it's probably not going to be Levitt, although she's cold and lacks affection. 133 00:10:59.399 --> 00:11:01.259 Yeah, what a strange line. 134 00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:02.460 Isn't it just? 135 00:11:02.820 --> 00:11:16.139 But she does have one of my favourite moments in the episode where she runs down a corridor and moderates her run into a very fast walk into a walk as she runs out of corridor. 136 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:17.399 I love that bit. 137 00:11:17.460 --> 00:11:21.720 I have to rewind that bit a couple of times to watch that because it's a masterclass in. 138 00:11:21.779 --> 00:11:24.360 I'm running out of set, but I've got to be urgent. 139 00:11:24.419 --> 00:11:25.559 Oh, stop. 140 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:43.679 Nigel Plainer did a fantastic spoof acting masterclass series on, I think, channel 4 in the mid to late 80s, and he did one on science fiction, which was a sort of generic mishmash of Doctor Who and Blake 7 acting tropes, basically, and there was a whole section on corridor acting. 141 00:11:43.740 --> 00:11:47.100 And yet, I think, I think she possibly might have inspired that, perhaps. 142 00:11:47.159 --> 00:11:49.980 In fact, perhaps this entire episode inspired it quite possibly. 143 00:11:50.100 --> 00:11:53.639 I don't think it's ever been released, but if you can track it down on the internet, it's really worth looking. 144 00:11:57.059 --> 00:12:01.200 And yet we have this really large cast, but very helpfully, I found, while doing notes for doing it. 145 00:12:01.259 --> 00:12:07.500 It was like they had future podcasters in mind because they spend their 1st 2 scenes always referring to each other by their names. 146 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:09.720 It's like, well, Dr. Kendall, what do you think? 147 00:12:09.779 --> 00:12:10.919 I think we should talk to Mandarin. 148 00:12:10.980 --> 00:12:11.940 Mandarin, what do you think? 149 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:15.179 And that's very helpful when you're taking notes and trying to figure out who's who. 150 00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:17.759 And they're also with a cast in that they don't look like each other. 151 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:19.440 No one looks like each other too. 152 00:12:19.500 --> 00:12:21.120 That's a good point yeah. 153 00:12:21.179 --> 00:12:21.419 Yeah. 154 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:28.019 And there's the, my favourite one is the really distinctive gravain, who is the, the guy from Planet the Spiders with the scary lips. 155 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:31.320 I will always remember that, the chanting, the chanting skin. 156 00:12:31.379 --> 00:12:31.860 That's right. 157 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:33.360 He could see a blue lice, I think you'll find. 158 00:12:33.419 --> 00:12:34.620 And nimble from Ghost Light, yeah. 159 00:12:34.679 --> 00:12:37.259 He's just got one of those faces that just sticks in your mind. 160 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:40.620 And it helps, of course, that they've all got those terrible space names. 161 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:42.539 I mean, it's particularly bad in this episode. 162 00:12:42.600 --> 00:12:49.139 We've mentioned Levitt and Mandarin, but there's also, you know, Grovane, as you said, Sonheim, Pasco. 163 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:52.500 It's like, where do these 2 syllable names come from? 164 00:12:52.559 --> 00:13:01.320 It's like the Aldi shelf of knockoff pastas products or something that have all got names that are meant to sound a little bit like they ring familiar but not quite enough. 165 00:13:01.379 --> 00:13:06.600 Mandarians and Sondheim sound very like Mondrian, Sondheim, don't they? 166 00:13:06.659 --> 00:13:12.000 So maybe he was originally thinking, oh, I'll just name them all after artists and then, oh, I can't think of any more. 167 00:13:12.059 --> 00:13:15.360 That's fine Yeah, the 2 of them could have gotten together and written a musical. 168 00:13:16.500 --> 00:13:21.960 Maybe that's what they did on the long spaceship flight nights, yeah. 169 00:13:22.019 --> 00:13:23.580 I mean, all of those characters. 170 00:13:23.639 --> 00:13:24.480 I mean, I don't mind them. 171 00:13:24.539 --> 00:13:30.659 It's actually quite good to enter this situation where you've got a large cast, as we said, and they've got an interesting dynamic with each other. 172 00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:35.039 It's slightly sabotaged by the fact that they're all slightly one note. 173 00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:36.840 They've all got their one character note. 174 00:13:36.899 --> 00:13:41.879 So one of them and his name escapes me, but he's kind of like the curly haired guy who's with Sarah. 175 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:46.259 His one character notice clearly snarly anger, because that's all he gets to do. 176 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.500 And I do quite like it, though. 177 00:13:49.559 --> 00:13:51.840 In a stagey way, it appeals to me. 178 00:13:51.899 --> 00:13:58.320 It's interesting you mentioned stagey there because I was thinking, my God, it feels like the whole thing is a stage play that they're filmed. 179 00:13:58.379 --> 00:14:06.240 Yeah, and then edited down quite brutally because although it isn't an episode that flies along in terms of pacing, in terms of structure. 180 00:14:06.299 --> 00:14:08.159 Suddenly stuff will happen really, really quickly. 181 00:14:08.220 --> 00:14:10.559 And like you said, you know, we meet the characters with these one. 182 00:14:10.620 --> 00:14:11.399 I'm the friendly one. 183 00:14:11.460 --> 00:14:15.539 I'm the untrust worthy one, because they just don't have time to actually show us all of that. 184 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:20.460 So obviously they've got to just spell it out nice and quickly for the murder mystery angle to kick in. 185 00:14:20.519 --> 00:14:26.879 I asked on Twitter for people to nominate episodes of other science fiction series that have done this and the answers come back pretty much all of them. 186 00:14:26.940 --> 00:14:36.720 Yeah, Buck Rogers and Battle Star Galactica both got mentions and of course Doctor Who's got several under its belt, particularly robots of death, if we're talking in Chris Boucher involvement. 187 00:14:36.779 --> 00:14:46.919 And the Doctor Who fan and Agatha Christie expert, Dr. Mark Eldridge on Twitter, chipped in very pointedly to point out that often they say they're doing Agatha Christie in space. 188 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:52.799 And what they're really just doing is an episode that ends with someone doing the Poirot reveals all in front of the fireplace scene. 189 00:14:52.799 --> 00:15:00.240 And that if you really want to do Agatha Christie, the clues should all be there and it should be about playing a game, the viewer, to follow, to follow those clues. 190 00:15:00.299 --> 00:15:06.960 But I think this does a reasonable, reasonable job of it, but we are, we're presented with red herrings and things like that, aren't we, as we go along? 191 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:09.120 It's not just the den, a cut to the denimon. 192 00:15:09.179 --> 00:15:15.179 It does do all those things where like guy with a beard, I keep I keep thinking them in terms of not their names, but their colours. 193 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:22.139 So the guy in clean with the beard, where he's in, whatever he is, he turns around and he says, I knew you'd be here and you know, you cut. 194 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:24.600 It all that sort of, um, rubbish. 195 00:15:24.659 --> 00:15:26.100 If you imagine put it that way. 196 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:31.919 Simon, I think it might be helpful if you think of guy in the green with the beard as Buick from Doctor Who's Warriors of the Deep. 197 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:33.600 No, he's not Buick. 198 00:15:33.659 --> 00:15:34.139 Oh is he not? 199 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:36.659 Right, that's solid, you are colourblind. 200 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:37.559 Sonheim. 201 00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:42.419 Greenbeard is from Les Mis, the recent movie. 202 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:43.679 I remember, I got that. 203 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:45.539 I recognised him from that and had to go Google. 204 00:15:45.659 --> 00:15:46.080 Oh wow. 205 00:15:46.139 --> 00:15:49.200 Well, to redeem my lack of telling the characters apart there. 206 00:15:49.259 --> 00:15:53.879 There is sorrow and her terrible screaming, and she's played by i Claudius's Beth Morris. 207 00:15:53.940 --> 00:15:55.200 Who is she in I Claudius? 208 00:15:55.259 --> 00:15:55.919 Drusilla. 209 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:57.360 Oh, wow. 210 00:15:57.419 --> 00:15:58.139 She a big dealer. 211 00:15:58.259 --> 00:15:59.399 Much better than I Claudius. 212 00:15:59.460 --> 00:15:59.940 Yes. 213 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.480 After IMDb searching all these people, all the cast. 214 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:18.600 I think in future episodes, I'm going to start taking a proper tally of who's done the most episodes of Doctors, Casualty, and Doctor Who, and we can have some kind of Matrix to find the definitive BBC 1970s, 80s cast based on what they've subsequently gone on to do, because some of them have got a heck of a lot of those. 215 00:16:18.659 --> 00:16:30.360 Doctors is a daytime soap here that's filmed just up the road from me here in Birmingham, and they have a constant churn of characters and pretty much any British actor who has been in anything in the last 40 years, has at least had one role in it. 216 00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:33.299 I mean, including several of these as well, spinning it out. 217 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:38.580 But Dr. Kendall, the one who's sort of the main one that Avon spends most time talking to. 218 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:43.679 He did 76 episodes of the Midsomer Murders after this as a doctor. 219 00:16:43.740 --> 00:16:46.379 So he's getting his doctor, Dr. Roll. 220 00:16:46.440 --> 00:16:48.179 Obviously, the mystery was off on him. 221 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:49.799 Yeah, yeah. 222 00:16:49.860 --> 00:16:52.559 And of course, almost concurrent with this episode. 223 00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:53.940 He was playing Drax. 224 00:16:53.940 --> 00:16:54.480 Yes. 225 00:16:54.480 --> 00:17:01.019 In Factor, which would have been a possibly a little earlier in the year, but not far off. 226 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:02.580 Yeah, oh, that went right over my head. 227 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:03.179 Of course it's him. 228 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:04.859 I mean, that wasn't his real accent. 229 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:06.180 Accent, Doctor. 230 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:08.220 I thought he was a Cogney. 231 00:17:08.220 --> 00:17:09.539 Core Blimey. 232 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:13.200 No, obviously he was cast in Blake 7 and they said, no, no, we all do Rada here, love. 233 00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:15.480 Of course, yes. 234 00:17:15.539 --> 00:17:18.420 They all had cockney accents, really, when the cameras weren't rolling. 235 00:17:18.539 --> 00:17:20.819 That's the only exploration.ation. 236 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:29.279 What do we think of what the actual mission to destiny that our other 5 heroes actually go off on? 237 00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:31.079 It pads the episode out. 238 00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:35.460 There's some jeopardy, there's meteorites, there's all sorts going on, isn't there? 239 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:53.759 But it's basically just the plot to get them away from the ship where everything is happening and I love the bit where the box that's holding the neurotope gets shaken so much in the meteorite storm that it, oh, it opens to reveal that the neurotope is not there. 240 00:17:53.819 --> 00:17:59.099 And then they've got to go back and it gives Villa a moment of, oh, we've got to go back. 241 00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:00.779 My stomach. 242 00:18:01.380 --> 00:18:02.039 That should have come. 243 00:18:02.099 --> 00:18:05.700 Where was Dudley Simpson with a comedy bassoon kind of whack, whack, whack? 244 00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:14.099 With that whole thing is actually the biggest hole, I think, in the plot, and that's the biggest part where, you know, Terry Nation or Chris Boucher. 245 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:20.339 Whoever it is, is in charge of it. really hasn't thought it through properly because for a start, okay, they go back. 246 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:30.240 They choose to go back and they must, they must therefore go back through the asteroid storm, one imagines, or they take, you know, 6 a week or however it month, long it was to go around the long way. 247 00:18:30.299 --> 00:18:41.759 The other thing is, once they get back to the ship, which is still going around in circles and this other ship is coming to meet them, to hijack them or whatever, it's like, so then they all get taken away, and so they all go to destiny on the liberator. 248 00:18:41.819 --> 00:18:43.980 It's like, well, why didn't they just do that the 1st time around? 249 00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:45.599 That's the thing that's so ridiculous. 250 00:18:45.660 --> 00:18:47.519 Yes, that struck me as well, Simon. 251 00:18:47.579 --> 00:18:55.680 It's quite a big thing because you are aware of the fact that they've made a thing of having to go through the storm and it's taken them X number of hours. 252 00:18:55.740 --> 00:19:03.000 So when they turn around and go back, the time frame doesn't work because they get back to the ship much more quickly than they got away from it. 253 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:18.779 And it could have easily been fixed at the scripting stage by having them initially go the long way round to avoid the asteroid storm or whatever it was. discovered the new tote was missing, then have to take the dangerous shortcut back, which would have added in a little bit of tension, but alas, no. 254 00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:19.440 Oh, yeah. 255 00:19:19.500 --> 00:19:21.240 That is like, damn. 256 00:19:21.299 --> 00:19:32.339 But it still doesn't make any sense, but it still doesn't make any sense that not one of the destiny people goes on the liberation to take to sort of chaperone the the nutrotrope, or whatever it's called, to destiny. 257 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:33.720 That's also odd. 258 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:36.900 And there's no, there's not even an excuse as to why they don't. 259 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:41.519 Even the idea that there's a murderer on board and so you can't, none of you can possibly come with us. 260 00:19:41.579 --> 00:19:45.960 Not even that said, like, there are so many easy things they could have said to explain that. 261 00:19:46.019 --> 00:19:52.079 Yeah, and I don't quite get why Blake turns to Avon and Kelly says, well, we're going to leave you here with these murderers, so I'd better take all your weapons with me. 262 00:19:53.400 --> 00:20:00.059 It does lead to the brilliant comedy moment where Callie turns around and said, you can consider us hostages if you like. 263 00:20:00.119 --> 00:20:05.099 And then Avon just turns around to her and says, oh, what's a very good idea, Callie. 264 00:20:05.700 --> 00:20:17.339 Yeah, you get a nice shot of Gareth Thomas, I think, at that point, reacting to what Avon said, knowing that he probably didn't hear what Callie said, but had probably figured out what she said based on Avon's reply. 265 00:20:17.400 --> 00:20:20.819 That was that was a really nice little moment of the cast really jelling over these things. 266 00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:23.700 It's not a it's not an episode that doesn't ever get there. 267 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:25.079 It has these really nice moments. 268 00:20:25.140 --> 00:20:27.480 It does, and especially the Avon Cali dynamic. 269 00:20:27.539 --> 00:20:39.359 I think it's the 1st instance of a really quotable Blake 7 line where Kelly says to Avon, a man who trusts can never be betrayed, and Avon turns around, which is a great line in itself. 270 00:20:39.420 --> 00:20:45.839 And Avon turns around and says life expectancy must be fairly short amongst your people, which is classic Blake 7 interaction. 271 00:20:45.900 --> 00:20:48.359 And I think it might be the 1st really quotable example. 272 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:50.579 And it's such an Avon line, isn't it, as well? 273 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:54.420 They all just really still slot into their own places when they get the chance. 274 00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:54.720 Yeah. 275 00:20:54.839 --> 00:20:58.140 And Avon and Kelly are a really great partnership. 276 00:20:58.200 --> 00:20:59.880 They work so well together. 277 00:20:59.940 --> 00:21:05.039 You can see there's quite a bond between Paul Darrow and Jan Chappell already by this point. 278 00:21:05.099 --> 00:21:09.180 It's something that will be played out in quite a lot of episodes going forward. 279 00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:15.240 They're paired together sort of fairly often, not as often, obviously, as Avon and Villa, but I really like their relationship. 280 00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:20.460 Another thing with Avon in his autobiography, which I know I've mentioned on previous episodes, but it is so good. 281 00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:22.019 You've got to give it, listen to him reading it. 282 00:21:22.079 --> 00:21:35.279 Paul Darrow starts talking about how he knew that the series was going well when he started getting lots of particularly affectionate fan mail, particularly from divorcees, divorce ladies in their early 40s, who were particularly keen on the rougher side of my character. 283 00:21:35.339 --> 00:21:38.099 And my God, you see it here, where he punches that woman. 284 00:21:38.099 --> 00:21:40.259 And then says, get her out of here. 285 00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:41.400 I rather enjoyed that. 286 00:21:41.460 --> 00:22:10.980 It's a moment which hasn't aged well, but it's just meant to make Avon look badass in that, you know, he will hit a woman as soon as he will hit a man, but it's, unfortunately, the 1st in a series of moments where Avon has no problem manhandling women more so than men, thinking of characters like Lorina in Star one, Pella in power, and of course, Servolan in aftermath where he thinks really nothing of, well, you know, kissing them and throwing them to the floor. 287 00:22:11.819 --> 00:22:15.720 Basically low-level S&M tropes, isn't it? 288 00:22:15.779 --> 00:22:18.299 Because he's not, you know, he's not breaking people's noses. 289 00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:26.220 Yeah, at least in the case of Sarah, though, she is a murderer, so it does, it is sort of okay for him to, you know, overpower her in that way, really. 290 00:22:26.279 --> 00:22:28.380 It's not pushover, is it? 291 00:22:28.440 --> 00:22:31.980 She's actually she's winning the fight at one point. which doesn't exactly make it. 292 00:22:32.099 --> 00:22:36.299 I'm not saying that makes it a feminist triumph by any measure at all, to be clear. 293 00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:38.400 But yeah, it's not written as a walkover. 294 00:22:38.460 --> 00:22:44.460 Yeah, the moment is actually saved a little bit by Paul Darrow's delivery because he doesn't overtly relish it. 295 00:22:44.519 --> 00:22:47.339 He throws away the line that he really rather enjoyed that. 296 00:22:47.460 --> 00:22:56.880 Yeah, almost as if Avon's just saying it to try and diffuse the situation or something as a, it's not, it's not made as a threat, but it could easily have been played that way instead. 297 00:22:56.940 --> 00:23:02.279 So would it have been better if it had been Callie who had done that and done that confrontation? 298 00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:02.640 perhaps? 299 00:23:02.700 --> 00:23:06.000 I mean, this is the eternal question of Blake 7, I think. 300 00:23:06.119 --> 00:23:25.920 Where the female characters are all extremely strong and well drawn, especially for a series of the era and well played, they are not often given a chunk of the action, which sort of goes to a male character instead, and you think, wow, that would have been so interesting if one of the female characters had played. that part. 301 00:23:25.980 --> 00:23:37.259 And I think you've just presented one there, where if Callie had been involved in that confrontation overpowering Sarah, it would have been really quite interesting and it would have removed that unfortunate. 302 00:23:37.319 --> 00:23:38.940 Well, it's not really subtext, is it? 303 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.460 That unfortunate text of what Avon says. 304 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:46.019 Yeah, and remember, Kelly is supposed to be hard as nails still at this point. 305 00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:50.940 An ex-freedom fighter who's been on Sorian Major for all this time fighting. 306 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:52.500 She could easily have done that. 307 00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:59.220 Yeah, it's just like in this era of adventure, in this decade, on the decade that followed it, making an adventure era. 308 00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:00.359 They just still hadn't got that. 309 00:24:00.420 --> 00:24:03.539 They'd have these ideas for creating these brilliant kick-ass female characters. 310 00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:05.880 And then 2 weeks later they're writing them as the girl. 311 00:24:05.940 --> 00:24:08.880 It's everywhere around the time, isn't it? 312 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:16.859 But you still see, you see it being subverted here and there, and then it becomes more common to just always subvert that later on. 313 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:21.359 Yeah, because there are moments sort of through this script where Cali is put in danger. 314 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:24.000 So there's the whole bit where she's creeping round the hold. 315 00:24:24.059 --> 00:24:32.519 Sondheim creeps up on her and things like that where she's obviously put as the woman in distress and treated sort of that way. 316 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:37.140 In a way that Avon wouldn't have been if he'd been doing those scenes. 317 00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:41.819 But she gets a really good line in that, in that interaction with Sondheim, there's a bit, I haven't written down with her. 318 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:42.960 She gets to be one step ahead of him. 319 00:24:43.019 --> 00:24:49.980 I mean, he's written to be a bit of an idiot anyway, but still got that, that narrative drive of being, she's outwitting him. 320 00:24:50.039 --> 00:24:52.079 She's saying stuff to her and she's already a step ahead of him. 321 00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:59.460 Yes, but even though she's kind of being threatened by him and sort of others, she's not, she's not playing the kind of, you know, the weak female role. 322 00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:00.660 She is standing up for herself. 323 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:02.940 She's, she doesn't even seem particularly frightened. 324 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:09.240 Like she, she, so, from that point of view, I think she does have that, she does have that strong character element. 325 00:25:09.299 --> 00:25:15.420 I mean, she may not be physically hitting people and overwhelming people like that, but at least she is not being the damsel in distress. 326 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:38.759 Yes, I was thinking that exact, that exact term, Simon, damsel in distress, and I can't, I can only think actually of one instance in the whole of Blake 7, where Cali is put in that situation of being kind of the helpless female, and that's in volcano in series C, where she's kind of like kidnapped by a bunch of men and teleported down to a planet and kept hostage with her, with tape over her mouth and all that kind of thing. 327 00:25:38.819 --> 00:25:41.400 So she very much is the perils of Pauline character there. 328 00:25:41.460 --> 00:25:49.440 But other than that, she always maintains that strength and that, that sort of quiet agency that she has. 329 00:25:49.500 --> 00:25:50.640 It's never taken away from her. 330 00:25:50.700 --> 00:26:00.119 Jenna, in this one, doesn't get all that much to do, but there's a wonderful bit where we cut back to the liberator and she sat there with a little, she says, her and Gana sat there pressing buttons on things and reading out numbers to each other. 331 00:26:00.180 --> 00:26:01.859 And I swear they're doing Sudoku. 332 00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:06.059 But they're just killing the time, waiting for some scripts to come along with them to actually get on with. 333 00:26:06.119 --> 00:26:20.160 Do you know there is a background story to that, where Chris Belcher recognised the fact that Jenner had had a strong start in the series, so she gets quite good roles in the 1st couple of episodes, and then the focus switches to Cali. 334 00:26:20.220 --> 00:26:36.900 So for 3 episodes now, Kelly has been foregrounded, and Jenna has been backgrounded, and that was going to continue in the week after next with Project Avalon, where Cali was going to be the character who went with Blake and met Avalon because they were going to have resistance ties. 335 00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:44.039 But they recognised that Kelly had been foregrounded too much, and so they shifted the emphasis back to Jenna and actually swapped over the character roles. 336 00:26:44.099 --> 00:26:52.079 I actually like how those Sudoki scenes, you're talking about with, you know, Jenna and Gani, because there's, as I said, sort of earlier, there's no catty dialogue. 337 00:26:52.140 --> 00:26:53.640 There's no kind of bitching to each other. 338 00:26:53.700 --> 00:26:59.700 It feels like the characters, not the actors, per se, but the characters aren't professionally getting on with what they need to get on with. 339 00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:02.700 And the whole thing feels sort of comparatively underplay. 340 00:27:02.759 --> 00:27:04.559 Nothing's cheesy about the performances. 341 00:27:04.619 --> 00:27:05.640 Yeah, yeah. 342 00:27:05.700 --> 00:27:11.400 Then there is a deliberate attempt to make the deliberator feel like a place where some people are having to live, isn't it? 343 00:27:11.460 --> 00:27:14.460 They're not just there waiting for their next point of the plot to happen. 344 00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:23.579 They are kicking around, occupying themselves, having a sleep often in the case of villa, and suddenly woken up, which makes trying to make it more of a living space. 345 00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:26.759 Yeah, and the characters can have professional disagreements and do. 346 00:27:26.819 --> 00:27:31.259 There's often conflict over what they're going to do or what the next step should be. 347 00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:34.559 But you get the impression that Avon is meant to be the fly and the ointment. 348 00:27:34.619 --> 00:27:36.839 And everyone else gets on pretty well. 349 00:27:36.900 --> 00:27:43.859 They're quite smiley at times in this episode, I've noticed, I noticed, just in the little, yeah, in the introducing teams. 350 00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:53.880 They clearly don't want it, the viewers, to just think these people are miserable and hate being together, despite them being the band of unlikely rebels. 351 00:27:53.940 --> 00:28:03.059 They're working in smiles, which gets ramped up, which are other ridiculous levels in subsequent episodes. at some point it have endings like a sitcom of everybody having a good old chuckle. 352 00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:09.180 But in this, they're just, yeah, they're putting things in so that we know that these people aren't just putting up with each other because they've got... 353 00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:10.740 But the whole flavour of the episode's like that. 354 00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:18.599 Like, the way all the regulars are written, they're into relationships with each other are all much friendlier, then I think we see in a lot of other episodes. 355 00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:28.859 And I do find that sometimes they take often, actually, I feel that they take it too far with trying to create this pretend conflict between some of the characters. 356 00:28:29.460 --> 00:28:39.119 And for me, I always feel it's a little bit forced and often it's just to try and trade an argument, so one of them is goes off here or goes off there or whatever. 357 00:28:39.180 --> 00:28:42.539 I just find that it doesn't ring true to me. 358 00:28:42.599 --> 00:28:47.700 And that's why I, I'm sort of, I feel really comfortable watching their interactions in this episode. 359 00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:50.099 It's actually one of the one of the things I really like about this episode. 360 00:28:50.160 --> 00:29:01.980 I think it might be one of the things that the series loses a little bit when Terry Nation stops writing every episode because when you have those 2 voices, You have Terry Nation writing and you have Chris Boucher script editing. 361 00:29:02.099 --> 00:29:13.799 The characters are fairly consistent from episode to episode, and fairly homogeneous, and I think that more fake disagreements creep in a little bit later with maybe some other characters. 362 00:29:13.859 --> 00:29:19.140 But at this stage, there is an idea that they're all just living and getting along together. 363 00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:22.259 Yeah, so they've all been thrown together, haven't they? 364 00:29:22.319 --> 00:29:26.940 And there's a real feeling now that there's friendships between them. 365 00:29:26.940 --> 00:29:34.319 And I think we've pointed out in previous episodes, there are relationships that are different between each character. 366 00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:39.000 It's not just them related to Blake and this is the central relationship. 367 00:29:39.059 --> 00:29:48.000 Gan and Jenna, as we've said, obviously have after time squads, have bonded a little and are working together to pilot the ship and things like that. 368 00:29:48.059 --> 00:29:54.299 Obviously, we've got the Avon Villa relationship that is burgeoning and now we've got the Avon and Cali one coming together. 369 00:29:54.359 --> 00:30:01.380 So there's sort of nice little dynamics between the crew that are gradually sort of building up, and I think we see that through the rest of the season. 370 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:11.759 And it is one of the wonderful things about this series, one of the things that makes me love it, is that I can imagine any 2 hand a scene between any 2 characters and roughly how that will feel. 371 00:30:11.819 --> 00:30:16.440 Yeah, that's a mark of how well the characters are defined at this stage. 372 00:30:16.500 --> 00:30:21.960 And how well the actors are performing those characters because you feel like they know what they're doing. 373 00:30:22.019 --> 00:30:29.279 Yeah, they've all got really clear personas and it's something that they're not fighting against the scripts at all. 374 00:30:29.339 --> 00:30:31.740 They're all really in some other series. 375 00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:34.319 There might be occasions where characters are written to have conflict. 376 00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:47.099 I'm thinking of Doctor Who season 22 era where you've got the Doctor and Perry written to be constantly bickering and yet the actors are desperately trying to put warmth into it that isn't actually there in the dialogue by smiling and hugging and stuff a little bit. 377 00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:55.859 Whereas it's not like that at all here, here, where they're being prickly, it's because there's some really good prickly stuff to do, but then they're seeing the use of each other and getting on as a sort of team. 378 00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:56.700 Yeah naturally. 379 00:30:56.819 --> 00:31:30.720 Yeah, and I think Peter's right that this is something that's lost when you start bringing in other writers to the series because obviously they latch onto certain characters and certain relationships and write for that relationship, but don't necessarily give the rest of the cast, the material to deal with at the same time in the way that Terry Nation is trying to do through much of series A. Yeah, we're really lucky with it to have had this unusual. really unusual, I think, wasn't it, for a British series to entirely be written by one person, entirely mostly written by one person. 380 00:31:30.839 --> 00:31:33.539 To be credited to my... 381 00:31:33.599 --> 00:31:35.279 To be true, that's the way to do it, yeah. 382 00:31:35.339 --> 00:31:41.519 Si, when you, Si, you said earlier that when they're on the liberator, they have to put up with Jeopardy Meteorites and all sorts. 383 00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:46.859 And I just had a, I noted that down because I thought, I wouldn't be surprised if that was all the script said, but Chris Voucher can't. 384 00:31:46.920 --> 00:31:49.259 They fly off those Jeopardy meteorites and all sorts. 385 00:31:49.259 --> 00:31:51.059 And Chris Boucher filled out the rest. 386 00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.819 Yeah, you could fill these scenes in Chris. 387 00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:57.000 That's fine I'd just do the mystery on the ship. 388 00:31:57.119 --> 00:31:58.740 Exactly, yeah. 389 00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:04.500 And the mysterious number. written in blood, which sounds like it's taken from a Sherlock Holmes or something, I don't know if it really is. 390 00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:10.859 And it, well, I was thinking he was just going to turn the, turn the number around upside down at the end and go, my God, it spells out boobies. 391 00:32:11.099 --> 00:32:14.220 That was not what it did. 392 00:32:14.279 --> 00:32:19.740 That is the coddest part of the plot. plot, this frigging number. 393 00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:21.180 I mean, really, really? 394 00:32:21.240 --> 00:32:34.200 And you'd think actually that Sarah would be able to see her name spelt out as, you know, 54124 and try and kind of secrete a way that that thing or wash it or accidentally wash it and go, oh, I'm terribly sorry. 395 00:32:34.259 --> 00:32:34.920 I thought this was finished. 396 00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:35.700 I'm just washing it down. 397 00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:36.599 You know what I mean? 398 00:32:36.660 --> 00:32:38.759 It's like, oh, come on. 399 00:32:39.480 --> 00:32:47.099 I think the success of the episode may hinge on whether you buy that central conceit, the Sarah equals 54. 400 00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:47.700 What is it? 401 00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:48.539 54124. 402 00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:49.380 Yeah. 403 00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:50.400 I do buy it. 404 00:32:50.460 --> 00:32:51.359 I think it's quite clever. 405 00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:55.319 And if you ever want to... 406 00:32:55.380 --> 00:32:57.420 It's very famous 5 sort of thing, you know? 407 00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:04.019 If you ever if you ever steal the credit card of a really hardcore Blake 7 fan, you know exactly what pin. 408 00:33:06.420 --> 00:33:12.059 Actually, my pin number is numerical narcissus from power. 409 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:16.200 Well, colour me surprised. 410 00:33:16.259 --> 00:33:23.460 I don't think it's the majority view that the 54124 works very well, even though I think it does. 411 00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:36.299 But it's interesting that Avon is the one who 1st sees it and reads it out, and therefore he is the one who you would expect to be quite on top of these things and see them, who delays the mystery being solved by 0 35 minutes. 412 00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:44.460 Yeah, because the mystery is solved by it's just suddenly occurring to him that something he didn't notice half an hour ago was there all the time. 413 00:33:44.519 --> 00:33:46.079 That's the resolution, isn't it? 414 00:33:46.140 --> 00:33:49.980 Yes, in some respects, yes, there is an extra thing that's missing. 415 00:33:50.039 --> 00:33:54.779 There needed to be some just something else there to flesh it out a little bit more. 416 00:33:54.839 --> 00:33:57.000 It's all a little bit too straightforward. 417 00:33:57.059 --> 00:34:09.239 Yeah, and that's the thing where, of course, if this was the only script that it's a script writer, bracket writers had had to write that month, they would have had time to go over it and put some more stuff in, but the rate that they were powering to make this series. 418 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:17.159 It's understandable that occasionally one one's going to go out where, yeah, it would have benefitted from having more time, but then we wouldn't have had as many episodes of Blake said. 419 00:34:17.579 --> 00:34:24.059 It's that kind of thing where you can look at it like we were talking about with the asteroid storm and it being a bit of a plot hole earlier on. 420 00:34:24.119 --> 00:34:34.559 Well, you think maybe if they had a little bit more time or one more draft, then possibly Avon might have identified that as 54124, Callie may not have seen it early in the piece. 421 00:34:34.619 --> 00:34:36.059 It might have just been Blake and Avon. 422 00:34:36.179 --> 00:34:41.340 Callie might have then seen it towards the end, and Avon says, what you make of this? 423 00:34:41.340 --> 00:34:43.800 and she turns to him and says, that doesn't say that. 424 00:34:43.860 --> 00:34:49.860 And he looks at her, and so you've actually got that thing of characters discovering things rather than random realisations. 425 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:56.940 You're script editing whatever series I eventually get commissioned to write because I want those kind of insights up front. 426 00:34:57.059 --> 00:34:59.039 That would be a more interesting way of doing it. 427 00:34:59.099 --> 00:35:11.159 I agree, rather than just a character, i.e. Avon, just proclaiming it at the end in that, as you said, Poirot, you know, drawing room, reveal sequence where it's like, ta-da, you missed this and this and what about that? 428 00:35:11.219 --> 00:35:11.820 and there we go. 429 00:35:11.880 --> 00:35:12.780 And aren't I clever? 430 00:35:12.840 --> 00:35:14.039 It's all a bit silly. 431 00:35:14.099 --> 00:35:19.739 Yeah, and they've just thrown so many red herrings at us all the way through, haven't they? 432 00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:29.280 So, like, we've got Mandriam looking guilty, so often, we've got the red herring of, oh, perhaps there's a stowaway, which is such a Terry Nation idea. 433 00:35:29.340 --> 00:35:42.840 We've got Sonheim creeping up on Cali very oddly looking like he's about to strangle her and all these bits where just think, no, you're just doing this just to pad it out a bit more. 434 00:35:42.900 --> 00:35:43.980 These aren't actual clues. 435 00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:45.840 Is anyone actually fooled by this? 436 00:35:45.900 --> 00:35:53.400 And then I think, well, actually, when I 1st watched it, I was sure it was, I was sure it was Mandarin who was behind it also. 437 00:35:53.460 --> 00:35:54.960 So I fell for it completely. 438 00:35:55.019 --> 00:35:58.199 So, but I was a very stupid child. 439 00:35:59.099 --> 00:36:05.460 There's one thing that I'm very glad that they didn't do, is that when the, you know, Blake, et cetera, come and wake everybody up. 440 00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:10.079 Then all suspicious of Blake, et cetera, of, well, what did you do? 441 00:36:10.139 --> 00:36:17.579 You killed the pilot, and you did this, and you've stolen this, such, and we can't trust you, and that they sort of trust Blake, et cetera, straight away. 442 00:36:17.639 --> 00:36:19.800 That's that's actually something we were saved, I think. 443 00:36:19.920 --> 00:36:21.360 Yes, the standard. 444 00:36:21.420 --> 00:36:23.099 All these problems began when you turned up. 445 00:36:23.159 --> 00:36:24.420 Yes, exactly. 446 00:36:24.480 --> 00:36:26.760 Yeah, it's all, yeah. 447 00:36:26.820 --> 00:36:36.719 Oh, it's like the Doctor Who thing of the doctor turning up and being accused of murder for 5 episodes or whatever before someone thinks, oh, no, actually he's a nice man. 448 00:36:36.780 --> 00:36:37.920 That's fine, or a nice woman. 449 00:36:39.300 --> 00:36:43.139 Although, bring Doctor Who into it for just a moment, if I may. 450 00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:48.599 Apart from the cast, is that opening sequence is so Doctor Who. 451 00:36:48.659 --> 00:36:50.400 It just so Doctor Who of that era. 452 00:36:50.460 --> 00:36:58.440 You know, this opening sequence where there's a lone person in a control room who gets killed or the thing blows up and then crashed the spaceship in the planet or whatever it is. 453 00:36:58.500 --> 00:37:02.579 It's not actually something you see in Blake 7 again, really, is it? 454 00:37:02.639 --> 00:37:05.639 It's actually a really vicious murder as well. 455 00:37:05.699 --> 00:37:09.539 There's blood all over the place and he's really hit on the head. 456 00:37:09.599 --> 00:37:11.340 It's really great. the hammer. 457 00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:13.739 That's what makes it adults, you know. 458 00:37:13.800 --> 00:37:14.880 So it's not doctor. 459 00:37:14.940 --> 00:37:16.320 I had a... 460 00:37:16.380 --> 00:37:19.139 And the fact that Avon and Kelly look at each other every so often. 461 00:37:21.420 --> 00:37:35.159 And we've got room for some wonderful Terry Nation, Terry Nationalisms, like, I mean, the main threat that these people have got is a space plague of fungus consuming their planet, turning it into a mushroom, as Avon wonderfully says. 462 00:37:35.219 --> 00:37:38.039 And what's this new isotope? 463 00:37:38.099 --> 00:37:39.900 What do we call this new isotope? 464 00:37:39.960 --> 00:37:41.880 It's a it's neutrotope. 465 00:37:41.940 --> 00:37:53.460 That's what it is That even though I've watched it sort of many times, every time you mention about the fact that, you know, destiny is going to turn into a mushroom or whatever it is, I go, is it? 466 00:37:53.519 --> 00:37:55.500 Oh, is that what the hell they're trying to do? 467 00:37:55.559 --> 00:37:59.159 I completely forget all the time that that's the important thing. 468 00:37:59.219 --> 00:38:01.440 It just completely passes me back. 469 00:38:01.860 --> 00:38:05.280 All I know is they're just going to get this thing to destiny. 470 00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:07.380 I don't really care what it is or why. 471 00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:09.059 I just know that that's okay. 472 00:38:09.119 --> 00:38:12.000 Simon, I think you've struck the creative process right there. 473 00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:25.019 And the ending is really abrupt and it's like, Blake, it's like, oh, yeah, I just had to bomb and kill them all. 474 00:38:25.079 --> 00:38:26.280 Off we go. 475 00:38:26.340 --> 00:38:27.960 It's fostered, isn't it? 476 00:38:28.019 --> 00:38:30.059 Yes, did anyone else have a real problem with that? 477 00:38:30.119 --> 00:38:40.739 When he reached that charge and says, you know, he's put it on the hatch and he's murdered for all he knows, dozens of people, and these are petty criminals, like a Jenner and Avon, who he's hooked up with. 478 00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:42.360 And when he says he's does it. 479 00:38:42.420 --> 00:38:43.800 He does it with a smile. 480 00:38:43.860 --> 00:38:45.780 He's like, 0 yeah, I just killed them all. 481 00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:46.980 He's a psychopath. 482 00:38:47.039 --> 00:38:48.420 That'll teach the rascals. 483 00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:50.639 You're terrible. all bad. 484 00:38:50.699 --> 00:39:02.820 But what I love about that sequence too, is that there's, you know, the other spaceship on the on the monitor in the on the liberator, he's like one pixel away from connecting at one point before they all escape from from the other ship. 485 00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:08.340 And then, you know, there's still one pixel away, but they're all just relaxing on the sofas and looking at the thing. 486 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:14.820 It's like, it's, it's such a jump, like they don't, the scene doesn't, that sequence doesn't start with them kind of all rushing in from the teleport room. 487 00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:18.119 You know, they're just there relaxing quietly, watching the screen. 488 00:39:18.539 --> 00:39:22.260 Is that the most people we've ever had on the Liberator flight deck? 489 00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:23.579 It is so far, isn't it? 490 00:39:23.639 --> 00:39:26.159 And I think it might be, but the whole series. 491 00:39:26.219 --> 00:39:27.539 I counted a dozen. 492 00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:29.159 I can't think of a dozen in another area. 493 00:39:29.219 --> 00:39:30.480 Wow, no. 494 00:39:30.539 --> 00:39:33.659 We can't afford a dozen by the end of series C. 495 00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:34.380 Absolutely. 496 00:39:34.440 --> 00:39:36.420 Barely afford the set. 497 00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:42.059 But we've not seen all of the Liberator yet. 498 00:39:42.119 --> 00:39:43.440 Have we, or have we now? 499 00:39:43.500 --> 00:39:44.699 Are there more rooms to be discovered? 500 00:39:44.820 --> 00:39:48.000 can't remember Yeah, they've got their space bedrooms to be revealed yet. 501 00:39:48.059 --> 00:39:48.960 We haven't seen those. 502 00:39:49.019 --> 00:39:49.440 Oh, okay. 503 00:39:49.440 --> 00:39:50.820 The medical unit? 504 00:39:50.820 --> 00:39:51.539 Have we seen that? 505 00:39:51.539 --> 00:39:53.400 Space Medical unit, yep. 506 00:39:53.460 --> 00:40:06.059 Which we will see, because extensively. in a couple of weeks time, because once I got my head around, the idea that actually the big round green bit of the liberator isn't the engine, and like I spent 5 years of my life flying my toy around backwards. 507 00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:07.860 I don't know why I never got that wrong. 508 00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:10.320 It just looked like the, to me, I had it the other way around. 509 00:40:10.380 --> 00:40:10.920 I'm doing it now. 510 00:40:10.980 --> 00:40:12.659 I'm flying it backwards in my mind's eye. 511 00:40:12.719 --> 00:40:18.780 The idea that the bridge of the liberator doesn't completely occupy the big green round bit. 512 00:40:18.840 --> 00:40:22.559 That's what I thought when I was a kid, when it cut back because that room seemed so big and so high. 513 00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:29.340 So I had the scale completely off because actually they're in one of the pointy bit in the middle going forward, I guess. 514 00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:35.460 So did you think it was flying backwards or did you think that they were just in the bridge and it was flying forwards and the bridge happened to be at the back? 515 00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:41.940 I thought that they'd made mistakes when filming it on TV and that actually... 516 00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:48.719 The pointy bits were rocket engines propelling for the ground green bit forward. 517 00:40:48.780 --> 00:40:52.139 Now, is there not an actual reason for this? 518 00:40:52.199 --> 00:40:53.219 Is that not true? 519 00:40:53.280 --> 00:41:02.219 that Roger Murray Leach, who designed the wonderful Liberator set, designed the Liberator itself, and he wasn't a model maker. 520 00:41:02.280 --> 00:41:06.539 He was a designer, and so there was a little bit of kind of demarkation dispute going on there. 521 00:41:06.599 --> 00:41:13.440 And they assumed it was going to be flown green bit 1st until he stepped in, said, no, no, it's actually the other way around. 522 00:41:13.500 --> 00:41:14.639 Oh, right. 523 00:41:14.699 --> 00:41:15.300 Yeah, yeah. 524 00:41:15.360 --> 00:41:15.840 Yeah. 525 00:41:15.900 --> 00:41:18.420 Because I thought the pointy bits were rocket engines when I was a kid. 526 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:18.900 Yeah, yeah. 527 00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:23.340 Isn't one of the covers of the original BBC video compilations. 528 00:41:23.400 --> 00:41:33.059 I think it's the 1st one, the beginning, has got the marvellous shot of the liberator, but with fire coming out behind the 3 turrets, like those are the engines. 529 00:41:33.119 --> 00:41:34.440 I had that. 530 00:41:34.500 --> 00:41:36.000 That is probably what there we go. 531 00:41:36.059 --> 00:41:38.639 I'm going to blame it on that and say that's what imprinted this idea. 532 00:41:38.699 --> 00:41:41.579 And it's a bit like, in that respect, it's shape wise. 533 00:41:41.639 --> 00:41:49.920 It's similar to the enterprise with a 3rd Nacell, as they call them in Star Trek, pushing pushing the round a bit forward rather than the round bit actually being the end. 534 00:41:49.980 --> 00:42:06.659 Yeah, speaking of those kinds of mistakes, I think maybe the original cover of the novelisation of Project Avalon committed the cardinal sin of having an illustration of Blake holding his liberator gun, but clearly they didn't have a very clear reference photo or they didn't have any reference photos at all. 535 00:42:06.719 --> 00:42:15.780 But he was holding it and it had the plastic rod bit coming out of the end, but then he was holding it and it had a handle and trigger on the bottom and you just think, what is that? 536 00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:19.199 To make it look like a problem. 537 00:42:19.199 --> 00:42:19.559 Correct. 538 00:42:20.880 --> 00:42:27.000 They were worried that people looking at the video would think it was about somebody just going around with a Geiger counter or something. 539 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:27.480 Exactly. 540 00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:29.159 Or a haircut. 541 00:42:29.219 --> 00:42:38.639 But I do like in this episode that Callie gets to plug something else into her battery pack and has the big liberator-s gun style torch. 542 00:42:38.699 --> 00:42:41.280 I really like that Oh yeah, yeah. 543 00:42:41.340 --> 00:42:42.599 A little bit of accessories. 544 00:42:42.659 --> 00:42:43.739 Yeah, this would all be marked. 545 00:42:43.800 --> 00:42:46.260 If they were making this now, it would all be so marketable, wouldn't it? 546 00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:47.460 Cali with accessory pack. 547 00:42:47.519 --> 00:42:48.599 It's really nice, isn't it? 548 00:42:48.659 --> 00:42:58.860 And I like that they do reuse similar props, and so you'll have the bombs, which I think they use in cyclocate destroy, and which appear in the series all throughout. 549 00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:03.059 Like in Star one, they use the same props, but those little bombs with the timers on them. 550 00:43:03.119 --> 00:43:09.119 And then they reuse them in series D in Headhunter when they blow up the bridge across the thing. 551 00:43:09.179 --> 00:43:16.380 And so you think, wow, Villa had time to secrete those on his person when he leaves the liberator in terminal. 552 00:43:16.440 --> 00:43:21.840 Or maybe they're just standard tech in this century and that's what your bombs look like. 553 00:43:21.900 --> 00:43:25.500 And when you go and buy your bombs from the bomb market, that's how they come. 554 00:43:25.619 --> 00:43:28.199 That could absolutely be the case. 555 00:43:28.260 --> 00:43:30.840 Generic off the shelf bombs. 556 00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:32.159 They just put different stickers on them. 557 00:43:35.219 --> 00:43:51.000 So, does anyone have anything that we've anything we've missed in this in this packed episode, which just turned out to have prompted a lot more chat than I thought it would, which I'm really pleased about because it's, yeah, although it's not one that gets praised to the rafters. 558 00:43:51.059 --> 00:43:54.000 There's still there's still a lot of fun moments in it, isn't there? 559 00:43:54.059 --> 00:43:56.940 Yeah, you know, I've always really liked it. 560 00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:06.960 And I don't know whether this is sort of nostalgia for when we finally got the video range with 2 episodes per take because I'd seen all of the compilation videos before this. 561 00:44:07.019 --> 00:44:11.280 This was one of the new episodes that I was seeing for the 1st time. 562 00:44:11.340 --> 00:44:23.039 And I think there's a whole series of what feel like new episodes in series A and series B that I come back to and think, I really like that because it's not one of the ones that I knew before. 563 00:44:23.039 --> 00:44:29.880 And which is a very silly reason for liking it, but I've always just having a lot of warmth for this episode. 564 00:44:29.940 --> 00:44:39.300 It's not one of the best, but just giving the Avon and Cali relationship and attention, which is one that I've always really, really enjoyed watching. 565 00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:42.539 I think that elevates it slightly for me above the average. 566 00:44:42.599 --> 00:44:46.739 It's an episode which I'm not overly fond of, but all things being relative. 567 00:44:46.800 --> 00:44:48.780 It's Blake 7 and so I still adore it. 568 00:44:48.840 --> 00:44:52.139 I think, as I said earlier, it's curiously muted. 569 00:44:52.199 --> 00:44:54.179 It never quite takes flight. 570 00:44:54.239 --> 00:44:57.239 But there are many things to appreciate about it. 571 00:44:57.300 --> 00:44:58.920 I do quite like the dynamics. 572 00:44:58.980 --> 00:45:05.940 And I really like, and I've been liking and revisiting series A, as we were talking about earlier, the ensemble nature of it. 573 00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:12.179 I think at this point, Every character, and this got to be Terry Nation, is still playing a key role. 574 00:45:12.239 --> 00:45:18.059 So even though, for instance, in the web, Blake and Avon are foregrounded when they go down to the planet. 575 00:45:18.119 --> 00:45:25.139 All of the things which happen on the Liberator, everyone gets a good chunk of dialogue and incident and things to play. 576 00:45:25.139 --> 00:45:31.500 And the same, it's the same in this episode, even though Jenna and Villa and Gann are stuck on the Liberator. 577 00:45:31.559 --> 00:45:34.920 When we cut back, they've got interesting dialogue to share. 578 00:45:34.980 --> 00:45:36.480 They're all sort of doing things. 579 00:45:36.539 --> 00:45:38.940 No one is really background and I really appreciate that. 580 00:45:39.780 --> 00:45:45.659 Yeah, I think it goes back to what someone said before, I think, Peter, it was you. 581 00:45:45.719 --> 00:45:47.460 It just needed a few more drafts. 582 00:45:47.519 --> 00:45:52.500 The episode is kind of undercooked and it's undercooked from a writing point of view. 583 00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:59.039 I I think, you know, as I said before, they've taken the utmost seriousness when they've made it. 584 00:45:59.099 --> 00:46:05.460 You know, there's no stupid over the top performances, and the regulars are all doing really well, and the guest cast aren't chewing the scenery or anything. 585 00:46:05.519 --> 00:46:10.739 Now, maybe it's a little bit too earnest at times, but nevertheless, that I think is probably better than the alternative. 586 00:46:10.860 --> 00:46:15.420 I just think the thing that's wrong with it, and I don't think this makes it terrible. 587 00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:24.719 It just makes it not particularly good, is that it's a slightly cod plot, and if there are just too many cliches in there that, you know, the Agatha Christian space thing. 588 00:46:24.780 --> 00:46:29.940 It's like, they've taken a cliche and then just extrapolated a whole lot of cliches from that. 589 00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:33.599 And then to me, it's like, you know, we did Timescore. 590 00:46:33.659 --> 00:46:47.099 The other episode I've been on so far, it's another example of a sort of series A episode which is experimenting with the style that the series might take and they never, they never come back to this and I, and I think they, they don't come back to the reason. 591 00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:49.860 Who did you offend when the episodes are being handed outside? 592 00:46:50.400 --> 00:46:53.880 Who did you offend when the episodes are being handed out? 593 00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:56.940 I enjoy it because I mean, I didn't come. 594 00:46:57.000 --> 00:46:58.500 It's like sometimes there's an advantage. 595 00:46:58.559 --> 00:47:10.199 I think you sort of intimated that yourselves that I've sort of come to some of these episodes without the received wisdom of whether it's supposed to be good or supposed to be bad and when everyone says it or people said, oh, you know, mission to destiny's terrible. 596 00:47:10.260 --> 00:47:10.800 It one of the worst. 597 00:47:10.860 --> 00:47:13.199 They went, well, it's not brilliant, but it's not that bad, you know? 598 00:47:13.260 --> 00:47:22.440 And that's, I suppose, my, my, I mean, I, I, for instance, still prefer it to Jill, for instance, which I find quite dull and uninteresting in comparison. 599 00:47:22.500 --> 00:47:24.659 So, you know, there I've said it. 600 00:47:25.559 --> 00:47:28.619 I'm doing a shocked reaction shot right now. 601 00:47:29.880 --> 00:47:37.199 But as I said, you know, this is, you can, we can judge these as individual things, but also this is, this is part seven. 602 00:47:37.320 --> 00:47:38.579 We've met these characters. 603 00:47:38.639 --> 00:47:39.900 We already invested in these characters. 604 00:47:39.960 --> 00:47:47.159 So even if they only get to do little bits, it's extra bits on top of what we've already seen them do rather than just a one off play standing on its own. 605 00:47:47.219 --> 00:47:56.400 If these are all characters that we would we'd never seen before, it would be really strange, but because we're picking them up and going forward, it has got some momentum to it, just not just not quite as much as episodes around it has. 606 00:47:56.460 --> 00:48:01.619 Yeah, and I think Terry Nation is still pushing what this show can do and what it can be. 607 00:48:01.679 --> 00:48:07.800 And it's not just the Federation of Chasing Blake or Blokes going to blow up a base. 608 00:48:07.860 --> 00:48:15.659 There's still other interesting stories around the whole universe almost that you can tell with this series. 609 00:48:15.659 --> 00:48:18.179 And it doesn't have to be just one thing. 610 00:48:18.239 --> 00:48:23.099 It's showing that there's flexibility in the format that's built in. 611 00:48:23.099 --> 00:48:24.000 And that's a really good thing. 612 00:48:24.059 --> 00:48:27.360 Yeah, for a series that is coming from one creative vision. 613 00:48:27.420 --> 00:48:36.119 It's already had a remarkable range of different styles of episode over the weeks that we've had. 614 00:48:36.239 --> 00:48:38.880 Chris Boucher will actually say that about his own scripts later on. 615 00:48:38.940 --> 00:48:43.619 He said he loved working on Blake 7 because every episode gave him a chance to do his version of something. 616 00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:47.639 And so you'll have Death Watch in series C, which was his version of a Western. 617 00:48:47.699 --> 00:48:54.539 You'll have uh, rumours of death, also in SiriC, uh, which was his version of sort of a romantic tragedy. 618 00:48:54.599 --> 00:48:56.219 And I think there's something in that. 619 00:48:56.280 --> 00:48:58.079 The format does stretch quite a long way. 620 00:48:58.139 --> 00:48:59.099 Hmm. 621 00:48:59.219 --> 00:49:06.300 But it's another example too, of like time scored, is that it is an episode which is taking itself completely seriously. 622 00:49:06.360 --> 00:49:13.139 There's no, there's none of the camp which starts to not take over the series, but gets ramped up. 623 00:49:13.199 --> 00:49:16.079 And that's why we love it and that's why I love Blake 7. 624 00:49:16.139 --> 00:49:20.820 But this is a very dry episode and I think that's why it's, it's not loved. 625 00:49:20.940 --> 00:49:22.320 Yeah, it's quite sober, isn't it? 626 00:49:22.380 --> 00:49:23.460 Yeah, sober. 627 00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:23.880 There you go. 628 00:49:23.940 --> 00:49:24.360 Yes. 629 00:49:24.360 --> 00:49:31.320 Can I just in closing, make a little celebration of the 1st Blake 7 blooper? 630 00:49:31.559 --> 00:49:33.480 Oh, of course. 631 00:49:33.480 --> 00:49:58.679 So it's where they realise that the gas is coming through and Blake turns around to the controls and turns off the air con and little plastic switch falls off with a very noticeable clatter on the ground, and he soldiers on, but Jan Chappel, who's also in the scene, reacts as she always does in these situations by looking at the floor, looking off camera to the AD for a moment, then realising, oh, we really are just going to go on and falling back into character. 632 00:49:58.739 --> 00:50:01.139 So, what's that again now? 633 00:50:01.679 --> 00:50:04.320 Yeah, that is definitely one time. 634 00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:05.760 She will become famous for doing this. 635 00:50:05.820 --> 00:50:25.079 There's another episode in which her teleport bracelet falls off and she just looks at it and then looks off camera and goes, oh, okay, we're just going to go on and there's another time where she tries to put on a teleport bracelet, yanks at it for a few moments, realises it's one of the non-opening ones, and then slides it over her wrist with a very distinct eye roll. 636 00:50:25.199 --> 00:50:29.039 Yeah, she's so painfully thin. 637 00:50:29.099 --> 00:50:29.579 She can do that. 638 00:50:29.639 --> 00:50:35.519 Yeah, you know, kudos to her because, you know, she expected that maybe we're going to do a retake. 639 00:50:35.579 --> 00:50:36.539 No we're not. okay let's go on. 640 00:50:36.659 --> 00:50:37.800 Yeah. 641 00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:39.539 Blank 7 has bloopers. 642 00:50:39.599 --> 00:50:42.480 It has bloopers, but it doesn't actually have many outtakes. 643 00:50:42.599 --> 00:50:45.300 They all made it into the finished product. 644 00:50:45.599 --> 00:50:47.159 Well yeah. 645 00:50:47.219 --> 00:50:48.360 And if it is 5 to 10. 646 00:50:48.539 --> 00:50:49.800 You've just got to crack on, haven't you? 647 00:50:49.860 --> 00:50:50.280 absolutely. 648 00:50:56.820 --> 00:51:00.960 Okay, well, thank you very much, everybody, for your contributions. 649 00:51:01.019 --> 00:51:03.900 Thank you for listening at home or wherever you have been listening. 650 00:51:03.960 --> 00:51:05.760 It's been a blast as always. 651 00:51:05.820 --> 00:51:10.920 Do come back and join us next time where we will be going into the episode. 652 00:51:10.980 --> 00:51:16.320 Duel is Simon's excoriating opinion of it going to be held up by the panel for that. 653 00:51:16.380 --> 00:51:17.280 I suspect not. 654 00:51:18.179 --> 00:51:21.059 You will have to wait and see. 655 00:51:21.179 --> 00:51:25.199 We might end up reviewing you, Simon. 656 00:51:26.460 --> 00:51:28.440 How dare? 657 00:51:28.619 --> 00:51:38.099 So we will, but we will all, we will meet again in whatever combination of the 7 or however many of us there actually is, and we hope you'll be joining us again next time. 658 00:51:38.159 --> 00:51:40.800 It's till then it's a goodbye from me. 659 00:51:40.860 --> 00:51:43.500 And it's goodbye from me, Peter. and it's goodbye from me. 660 00:51:43.559 --> 00:51:44.940 And it's goodbye from me. 661 00:51:51.599 --> 00:51:53.820 Switching to Manny. 662 00:51:53.880 --> 00:51:55.860 Maximum power on all drives.