Blake's 7 (Series 4)

Stranded on a planet by Servalan, Avon (Paul Darrow) and Dayna discover that the ship which was so kindly left for them has been booby-trapped.  It explodes when one of the natives of the planet climbs aboard.  Avon quickly surmises that the same will be true of the base.  They rush back to warn the others but are too late; Cally is buried under the rubble.  Fortunately, Dorian arrives and takes them back to his base.  Dorian has a ship called Scorpio with a computer named Slave.  He also has an extensive base on Xenon.  He takes the survivors of the Liberator with him and introduces them to Soolin (Glynis Barber), a fearless quick-drawing gunfighter.  Unsurprisingly, Dorian has a distorted image of himself stored in the basement.

The adventures resume with a new ship, a secret base, a new recruit, and a growing desire to fight the Federation.  Servalan - who had been presumed killed when the Liberator exploded - has survived, but is no longer president of the Federation.  She is seeking to claw her way back to power, often using Avon and his band to advance her goals.  Some of the episodes are too convenient.  Right out the gate, the crew manage to equip Scorpio with a teleporter.  Wow, something that was unique in the galaxy to the Liberator is already integrated into Scorpio.  Handy.  Soon after, they get their hands on an advanced engine so that, once again, they can outrun Federation ships.

One of the saddest things about the show is how no one, except the crew of Scorpio, ever realizes how Servalan never keeps her deals.  Again and again, some idiot agrees to a deal with her only to get betrayed.  How is it that these fools keep believing her?  These supposedly brilliant or cunning people all think they will be the one to survive a bargain with Servalan.  Nope.  It starts to grate that this storyline repeats.

Some of the costumes were truly outlandish.  The Space Rats - who were like punk rockers with mohawk hair and ridiculously painted faces - were beyond silly.  They were like drooling idiots who just happened to fly vehicles with the most powerful engines in the Federation.  Sigh.  Possibly the worst episode of the entire show.

The show concludes with the return of Blake (Gareth Thomas), who is now a bounty hunter on an isolated world.  During a conversation with Tarrant (Steven Pacey), he tells the story of Jenna's (Sally Knyvette) death.  Avon hopes to recruit him as a figurehead for the rebellion.  Instead, he kills Blake for betraying the cause.  Or so he thought.  No sooner has Blake breathed his last than Federation troops storm the facility and gun down everyone.

Wow, brave cliffhanger.  And then the series was canceled.  Gareth Thomas agreed to appear only if Blake was unambiguously killed.  Paul Darrow spent his later years trying to revive the show.  He had envisioned an older Avon mentoring a new band of rebels to fight the Federation.

Overall, a good show.  This series was weak.  Avon is the best part of the show.  His willingness to toss Vila into space in the episode Orbit was one of the highlights of this final series.  In the final few episodes, Soolin developed into an interesting character.  Tarrant became less obnoxious this series.  Slave was more annoying than funny.  Why would anyone program a computer to be constantly apologetic?  I preferred Zen.  Or even Orac.  Interestingly, both of those and Slave were voiced by the same actor.

Recommended.

Blake's 7 (series 3)

The battle between the Federation and the alien fleet from the Andromeda galaxy has been won but the Liberator is in dire straits.  The life support fails and the crew abandons ship.  Avon (Paul Darrow) finds himself on a Medieval planet where the natives have a prophecy of invaders falling from the sky who must be killed.  Luckily, Avon is rescued by Dayna (Josette Simon), the daughter of a one-time rebel from Earth who is hiding on this planet.  Vila (Michael Keating) is on a different planet where the primitive people fear and avoid the 'high techs.'  When Vila is captured by a high-tech hunter, he is baffled by their fear.  For a while, at least.  Cally (Jan Chappell) was picked up by a neutral hospital ship.  News is that Jenna was injured but has survived.  Blake is missing.  In the meantime, Liberator has been self-repairing and, per instructions, seeks out the crew to teleport them aboard now that life support is restored.  Avon arrives with Dayna to find that a contingent of Federation troops have boarded, led by a snooty fellow named Del Tarrant (Steven Pacey).

The war cost the Federation 80% of its fleet and has left it crippled.  With Blake absent, the crew of the Liberator is free to wander the stars in an epidsodic fashion.  However, as the series progresses, it becomes clear that Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce) is doing a surprisingly good job of reconstructing the Federation.  Perhaps they should resume the fight against the Federation.

The absence of Blake nixes a lot of the purpose of the crew.  Initially, the story is survival in the wake of the war.  Then there are the random encounters of flying through space.  A few episodes that explore the past of this character or that character.  Finally, the show moves back toward the weekly showdown with Servalan and the Federation.  As such, it is a hodgepodge of a series.

Tarrant and Dayna are poor substitutes for Blake and Jenna.  Tarrant is so over-inflated with ego that it's a wonder he doesn't float to the ceiling.  He is meant to replace Jenna as pilot and Blake as idealist.  Despite being shown up on several occasions, he develops no humility.  He acts without thought, a reversal of the cautious and analytical Avon.  Avon's clashes with Tarrant are a pale reflection of those with Blake.  Worse still, Avon virtually cedes command of the Liberator to this blowhard.  It's almost like the scripts were written with Blake still present and Tarrant just got the lines with a little tweaking.  Weak.  As for Dayna, she is introduced as a weapons' specialist and master combatant.  These skills come and go depending on the needs of the script.  Her desire to kill Servalan, who murdered her father in the series opener, is easily restrained despite numerous opportunities to exact revenge.  I guess she isn't that eager to avenge her father.

Of note, the series proposes that the whole of the Milky Way galaxy has been mostly explored and colonized.  The Liberator crisscrosses the galaxy regularly.  However, this doesn't mesh well with how the technology is explained.  How fast is "Standard by Twelve?"  How is it that Avon, Vila, and Cally abandoned Liberator in the series premier from the same spot but landed on vastly different planets in different star systems?

The series ends with news that Blake died in the aftermath of the war, the destruction of the Liberator, and the apparent death of Servalan.  In fact, this was meant to end the series, but it came back for a fourth series.  In that case, here's another cliffhanger.

Blake's 7 (series 2)

Picking up at the cliffhanger from last series, Avon demonstrates that the Liberator would have to be in an entirely different part of the galaxy to meet the prophecy.  Let's just avoid that area.  Easier said than done.  The true owners of the Liberator finally arrive to recover their advanced ship and bring it home.  Yes, it is exactly that part of the galaxy they were supposed to avoid!  All looks grim, but Orac has some tricks to make the prophecy true-ish.  The efforts to destroy the Federation escalate as do the attempts by the Federation to eliminate Blake and his band.

Unlike the typical series of the time, there is an overarching story here.  The achievements of one episode will feed into the next.  Likewise, the failures of an episode will impact later ones.  It is not the adventure du jour.  Blake has decided to destroy the central control computer of the Federation, which takes multiple episodes to discover.  In the season finale, they arrive to destroy the Star One computer only to discover that an alien invasion from another galaxy is inbound!  Now, Star One is the best defense against invasion.  The situation is so desperate that the Liberator summons the Federation fleet to assist, but they will have to start the fight alone!  See you next series.  Ha!  Another desperate cliffhanger.

Overall, this is a great series.  There is constant dissension between Blake and Avon, which is one of the best parts.  Blake is admirable for his idealism and determination, but Avon is level-headed and often has to save the day.  One of the downsides of the show is that the villains are very often dumb to allow the heroes a chance for survival.  However, this is a two-way street.  Almost as frequently, Blake allows Space Commander Travis or Supreme Commander Servalan survive when he could easily have killed them.  Far too often, he uses half-measures which both increase the risks to his crew and reduces his chance for success.

Blake's 7 (series 1)

Blake's 7 is a British sci-fi series that ran from 1978 to 1981.  It was created by Terry Nation, the very man who created the Daleks from the Dr. Who franchise.  As such, the show often feels like background for a Doctor Who episode of the era.  I would not be the least surprised if Tom Baker arrived in the Tardis in any given episode and joined Blake and his crew in fighting the Federation.  I first encountered it sometime in the mid 90s.  I saw a handful of episodes and was intrigued.  Ever since then, I have occasionally sought the series.  At long last, I have found all the episodes posted on YouTube.

 

Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas) is a former freedom fighter in the distant future who finds himself being shipped to a prison planet.  As chance would have it, a starship battle between unknown belligerents results in damage to the prison transport.  While assessing damage, the prison ship notes that one ship is drifting.  If they could get control of it, it would be worth a fortune!  The captain sends some of his crew and they fail to return.  Unwilling to risk more of his crew, he sends prisoners, Blake among them.  Blake overcomes the alien ship's defenses and bolts with his new crew mates aboard the Liberator.  Over the first set of 13 episodes, Blake assembles a crew.  There is Kerr Avon the computer genius with an immense ego and mostly interested in what is best for him.  Jenna Stannis is a 'free trader' who was bound for prison for smuggling.  She is a competent pilot.  Vila Restal is a cowardly thief, a man who can open any lock, especially if he is in danger.  Olag Gan is a bear of a man who proves quite amiable.  He has an inhibitor chip in his head to prevent him from killing.  Cally is an alien who looks entirely human.  She can send her thoughts telepathically but cannot read minds.  Lastly, there is Zen, the Liberator's computer.  That makes seven crew, Blake's 7.

 

The show is a cross between Star Trek and Robin Hood.  Blake is an idealist who wants to use the Liberator - which is far superior to any Federation ship - to destroy the tyrannical government.  The rest of the crew would as soon find someplace to hide.  As such, the episodes are a mix of achieving Blake's objectives (e.g., blowing up a communications array, rescuing a rebel leader, etc.) or alien encounters (e.g., all powerful aliens mess with the ship or crew).  Viewing it today, I am reminded of Firefly.

 

The production values show great frugality, looking very like the Doctor Who episodes of the era.  Star Trek, a show that was canceled almost a decade before this one started, has better special effects.  Battlestar Galactica, a contemporary, is vastly superior.  However, the stories are solid, and the characters are fun.

 

The final episode of the first season has the crew acquire the ultimate supercomputer, an AI that is called Orac.  No sooner is Orac aboard the Liberator than it predicts the destruction of the ship in the near future, even providing a graphic detonation on the view screen.  Nice cliffhanger.