BLAKE'S SEVENemail
3. Survivors. Terry Nation created this post-apocalyptic series
three years before Blake's 7 came about. It features many Nation hallmarks
such as strong female characters (while Terry Nation was around, anyway),
grim plotlines and little optimism. Terry Nation disagreed with the show's
Producer and left the series after the first year, as did Carolyn Seymour,
the series' star.
It continued on for two more seasons, each season having a completely
different feel to what had gone before. Recommended.
.
4. Star Cops. Chris Boucher attempted
to do his own Blake was the BBC's last one hour SF series, coming at a
time when the people in charge of the Drama department had a pathological
hatred of any fantasy series not made for children. Star Cops' only season
(9 episodes, a 10th was scuttled due to a strike) is the 'police in space'
show that Blake was originally meant to be, though set in the near future
around Earth with our heroes being the establishment rather than revolutionaries.
Star Cops is very similar to Blake's 7 (even down to an Orac clone) and
you might say it happened in the same universe. The characters always ready
to argue with each other and everyone with their own agenda, this series
helps keep the Blake blues away. The great pity is this show was never
given time to grow.
Just as a curio, and probably offensive to much of Blake fandom, a large
number of the female regulars have appeared nude on screen. Which ones
and where? There's Jackie Pearce stepping out of the bath in the movie
White Mischief wondering "Who wants to *u** me?" Then there's Glynis Barber
in "The Wicked Lady," which also features a topless Marina Sirtis whipping
Faye Dunaway. Or Josette Simon in "Child of the South, among others. Josette,
who now looks rather anorexic compared to her time on the series, also
had some scenes as Paul McGann's wife in Nice Town.
I haven't searched these out rather you see an actress is in
a film and you watch it the same you watch, say, Paul Darrow in Timelash
or in the Saint with Roger Moore. The nudity came as a shock. They just
flopped out.
____________________________________________________________________________
Four directors were to work on a few episodes each spread over
thecourse of the season, Michael E. Briant, Pennant Roberts, Douglas Camfield
and Vere Lorrimer- though Camfield only directed one episode as it turned
out and David Maloney assisting Briant on Deliverance.
Of the lot, only Lorrimer never worked on Doctor Who. He ended up being
not only the most prolific director on the series but also ended up producing
it in the end. So while the Doctor Who connection helped, many of those
didn't want to be typecast as SF directors having a lot of both Who and
Blake on their resumes.
Of the writers, Terry Nation of course created the Daleks and
is wrongly credited with creating Doctor Who, when he had no part in it.
His creations secured the show in its initial stages and he later went
on to create the BBC's Survivors which ran for three seasons from 1975(a
very good show if you get a chance to see it). Boucher wrote Face of
Evil, Robots of Death and Image of the Fendahl for Doctor Who
and would go on to create his own SF series in 1986, Star Cops, a show
with a lot of potential had it been given a second season. Robert Holmes,
who was Doctor Who's best writer also provided four scripts for Blake's
7. James Follet didn't write for Who but did write his own SF series for
radio- Earthsearch. So why the hell did they keep commissioning Allan Prior
when his scripts where all so unworkable within the resources available?
Season One was a set-up for the characters and overall probably
has the strongest storylines, plots that didn't over-reach themselves like
many in the second and third seasons. Only Timesquad is truly dull
and despite the padding in later episodes, the concepts behind the episodes
are strong. Towards the end of the season, the need for padding was apparent
to all. Terry Nation, writing 13 episodes, was unable to flesh out the
episodes enough with first draft of the episode Bounty running around
23 minutes. Terry Nation once asked his anxious script editor what he wanted
most, a second draft or the next episode. In the end, Nation provided a
first draft with all the actions and Boucher added much in the way of dialogue,
hence you can see the carping which feels like a Boucher touch (look at
Star Cops). Boucher maintains that for a while Paul Darrow never said a
line that he hadn't written or at least altered to make sharper.
SEASON TWO
The second season, with the influx of new writing talent, showed that
few writers had a good hold on the format. Chris Boucher, now writing several
scripts himself, didn't do as good a job of editing the new writers, hence
the best episodes were either written by Boucher or Nation with the others
being mostly disappointing- Robert Holmes' two scripts being the exception
(the direction is at fault in Gambit). The new season brought a
completely new batch of directors with only Vere Lorrimer carrying over
with his work standing above those of the newboys (Hostage being
one of his few average jobs). Producer David Maloney also handled Star
One with aplomb while another former highly regarded Doctor Who director,
Derek Martinus, handled only two stories with some flair. Johnathan Wright
Miller's two stories can be said to be average while George Spenton-Foster
would have to be, without doubt, the worst director ever to have worked
on the series. It isn't a case of lacklustre scripts (two of his are by
Terry Nation and Robert Holmes), just direction that misses the point and
is too much like "that'll do."
With the new writing blood in season two, the gene pool became
contaminated. Allan Prior's three stories this season are mainly terrible,
with only The Keeper offering anything interesting and well-written.
Boucher's four stories are mixed, with all bar Weapon being quite good
or excellent (Star One). But in most of his stories there is a feeling
of everything including the kitchen sink being thrown in, particularly
Shadow
and Weapon- way too many plot strands, almost as if Boucher was so sick
of having to edit Terry Nation for a year without being able to tell his
own stories he just channelled for a few stories. Terry Nation's three
scripts are very Terry Nation with lots of action but Countdown actually
offers us insights into Avon's character (how much was the writer and how
much was the script editor is tough to call). Robert Holmes two scripts
showed he had a handle on how to do a solid story (though Gambit was
ruined by the guy in the johdpurs). Roger Parke's sole contribution,
Voice from the Past, was both badly written and directed.
SEASON FOUR
Season 4 saw Ms Ridge contributing another four episodes, all
bar Animals was handled well and in that one lame story it can be
said that the script is the source of the trouble. Viktors Ritelis only
directed one story (He was the man who volunteered when Ian Russell didn't
want to have ants crawling on his arm in Doctor Who back in the 60's),
and that story Warlord has some of the most stylish directorial
work ever seen in the series. In fact season four is much better produced
than any of the first three with a much more professional product (Strong
scripts don't mean you can get away with everything) that stands up better
than most. 1981 was the Beeb's best year for SF with some of the Best Blake's
7, Doctor Who episodes ever as well as Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
and Day of the Triffids. The gun battles are handled much better, even
the ones in the studio (compare Avon's battle on the Liberator in Volcano
to
similar scenes in Power, Games or especially Blake). The
episode Gold is the only one episode that suffers particularly
from weak direction with the production very loose, particularly the location
work which harks back to the standard of season two's location filming.
Location work was again carried out in blocks this season and for this
reason, costuming was simplified so that overall the crew only had two
uniforms each, a winter uniform at the beginning of the season and a summer
uniform (the latter half of the season would have been filmed in the summer
of 1981- hence the brighter locales compared to the first half which seems
to have been filmed in a totally overcast gloom). The exceptions are the
carry-over costumes from season three, Avon and Soolin's flight suits in
Warlord
and
Tarrant and Dayna's Helot clothes.
The last few seasons altered the formula, The final episode of each
season had a short location filming block just for the one episode.
Unless Red Dwarf continues on for a couple more years then Blake's 7
is still in the number two spot in episode numbers (though Red Dwarf has
run for twice as long). So while the sf comedy has probably the poorest
internal continuity of any British series (worse than even Space:1999),
Blake's 7 remains remarkably consistent. We aren't talking about things
like the ever changing sound effects or new designs of the Federation helmets,
but the Universe in which the series occurs.
Soolin's origins were perhaps the most-widely recognised blooper
with Dorian originally stating she was from Darlon IV when later she revealed
she grew up on Gauda Prime. Another case of planet' names changing happened
with Travis. In Seek-Locate-Destroy Travis was said to have ordered a massacre
on Auros when during his trial it was Sircaster. Unless he was very trigger
happy then we assume they are the same events for which he was originally
suspended and those for which he was on trial.
In a series in which practically all the recurring characters were
the Liberator/Scorpio crews, Travis and Servalan, recast actors was not
a major problem. Ignoring the Travis recasting, the only other characters
to appear in more than one episode were Leyland and Artix from Spacefall
and Cygnus Alpha where the same actors appeared in both episodes
and Ven Glynd from The Way Back and later in Voice from the Past,
though this time the role was recast, the gap being more than a year. More
than likely there was no attempt to get the same actor again, Directors
on Blake's 7 manifested a great deal of competition with each other. Whilst
seeming like a good idea, it had a detrimental effect on the show with
new directors rejecting expensive pieces of library footage of the Liberator
because "that was done for him."
Two aspects of continuity are explored further in Timeline. These
cover the inconsistencies about the length of time it took for the London
to reach Cygnus Alpha and the Intergalactic War.
Apart from the recasting of Ven Glynd in Voice from
the Past, the episode's concept is flawed with Ven Glynd saying Blake
has a good reason for not trusting him because he took part in his show
trial. Ven Glynd oversaw it, and he was in a good position to quash Blake's
exile so to have him say that he was getting ready to defect even then
is ludicrous.
STAR ONE
The Keeper has a few holes in it but the most glaring
is Travis' assertion that Blake may know about Lurgen. Travis was
there when Docholli blabbed to Blake! In fact the second half of the season
is full of problems with a few 'non-arc episodes' like Hostage, Killer
and Voice from the Past wherein the search for Star One is quietly
forgotten about. But the big problem is the relationship between Servalan
and Travis. In Trial there is an agreement between them and when
they next meet during Hostage, their attitudes to each other tallies.
In Voice from the Past they're working together as if there was
no problem between each other yet in Gambit she wants him dead and
puts a bomb in his arm yet in The Keeper he's yet again by her side.
If it wasn't for the Star One elements of the story you'd think the episodes
were written for a different transmission order. The whole concept of Star
One has a few problems, more to do with logic than continuity. If Star
One is so secret and no one knows its location, and some technicians decided
to stay behind to maintain it- what happens when they die? No one knows
where to send replacements and if the crew transmitted directions they'd
go obviously insane. Lurena would obviously have been a busy woman stretched
to the limit.
ANNA
Avon's past is a particular source of confusion. In season one, all
we knew was that he had been arrested after his attempted fraud due to
his reliance on others. But it seems that it wasn't Anna Grant, though
Avon had planned to escape with her. It might have been Tynus, although
the relationship between them suggests Tynus and Avon's fraud was an earlier
one. For continuity's sake, it's best to assume Tynus and Avon attempted
the fraud which went wrong. Before Anna and Avon could flee, Avon was wounded
and Anna supposedly captured as far as her brother Del Grant was concerned.
But Anna was later revealed to be Federation spy Bartolomew and that Anna
Grant was a cover. The best explanation was that Anna Grant was her real
name and her brother Del had no idea what her sister did for a living.
Shortly before the Intergalactic War, Servalan deposes the President.
When Avon attempts to learn information about Bartolomew from her it seems
that since her coup, there was one short lived coup against her before
she restored her position and yet another during the episode Rumours
of Death. And then another, perhaps after she went missing after the
Liberator's destruction.
WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
The Intergalactic War is probably the biggest source of confusion,
an event that would affect the entire third season in a big way (see Timeline).
We see it as being a relatively short event, perhaps lasting a few hours
with only a short on-screen encounter that would seem to be the final battle
rather than anything else. Over the course of series three, the scope of
the war increased and by Season Four, they're talking about the war a long
time ago, or that it lasted at least a few weeks, if not months or years.
I suspect that the War itself took place over the course of a few weeks
at least, the Liberator unable to stop the majority of the fleet moving
into Federation Space. The viewers were cheated out of a continuing (but
expensive) storyline for seaon three. On the other hand, the War itself
may have taken only a few days but even after the slim victory, there may
have been many smaller battles in Federation Space with Alien vessels making
it far into Federation territory. In short, the War proves to be the biggest
source of continuity problems in the entire series.
The more the series went on, the more chance that when minor details
established in past episodes were referred to, small mistakes were bound
to occur (despite Chris Boucher's presence behind the scenes throughout
the series). In the first episode of the final season, two small errors
creep into the proceedings. One is the shape of Terminal, though is easily
explained by a different orbit, but why change it? The second is Avon's
statement that Ensor spent the last 20 years of his life in exile when
the figure established in Orac was double that.
XENON: WARRIOR BASE
The first two episodes of season four pose something of a problem.
In Rescue, Dorian tells how he found the installation and adapted them
to his needs. He arrived 200 years before the Liberator crew arrived and
found the room there.
But the next episode introduces us to the Hommicks and the Seska who
had been fighting a war which seemed to turn against the Seska 20 years
before the events shown in Power. Xenon base may have been a remnant
from the Pre Seska/ Hommick days, unknown to the latter. Dorian assisted
the Seska campaign but seemed immune from Hommick retribution meaning the
disc showing a younger Nina captured may not have been recorded in the
Base or that the Hommiks and Dorian had some sort of understanding (or
that Dorian was too clever to be captured). I've got to stop now. I've
got a headache.
VIOLENCE-
season by season.
One of the things I found interesting is that
by the end of season one Avon had only killed one person ( a primitive
in Deliverance). At that point Vila had knifed a monk on Cygnus
Alpha. Blake may have killed a monk but his first kills seemed to have
Vargas, then a sleeper (more of an accident), a Federation guard
in Seek-Locate-Destroy as well as a ship full of pirates (Mission
to Destiny), some Amagons (Bounty) and a few Federation guards
in Project Avalon. But Jenna is the first season's psycho. She shoots
two sleepers, a few Amagons and a lot of Federation guards whilst rescuing
Avalon (the bodies literally pile up). The odd thing is Travis and Servalan
don't kill anyone!
The second season is a different matter.
Redemption
sees
Blake go on a wild killing spree during his escape from the really rather
vicious Altas. Shadow sees Avon playing catch-up when, along
with Blake and Jenna they make an assault on "The President's Garden,"
they pop caps in the arses of a few paunchy guards. Weapon sees
more death at Blake's hands but Hostage sees Avon embark on his
career of wholesale slaughter wiping out the Federation guards while Blake
only takes out the Assistant Kommisar. Blake and co are the victims until
Liberator attacks Space Command. Avon killed Tynus while Blake killed Provine.
Blake and Avon took on the Crimmos, leaving Jenna her last 'kill' of the
series with the teleport. Voice from the Past and Gambit see our heroes
rather passive in the killing stakes but The Keeper has Blake killing a
few goths with Avon playing panto with a pursuit ship before giving it
the photon.
Star One has a fair deal of killing by
Blake and Avon but this is the first time we've ever seen Cally kill someone.
Strange since she was fighting a guerilla action for longer than anyone
else in the crew.
Season Three opens with Dayna killing a few Sarrans
but missing Servalan. Mellanby is the first person we see Servalan kill
and she only bumps off two underlings in Children of Auron and a
guard in Moloch. Powerplay sees Tarrant as a murderer of at least
three Federation guards but it isn't clear what happens to the ones they
fight at the end. Dayna, however clearly chokes the life from Klegg. Avon
bags himself a few Federation troops and Dayna claims a few with her grenade
on Obsidian. Dawn of the Gods sees Avon and Tarrant take on a guard
each and City at the Edge of the World has Avon, Cally and Dayna
all adding to their respective totals. Children of Auron sees our
crew fairly subdued but Rumours of Death with its full complement
of battles only has our heroes deal with a few of the revolutionaries
who would appear to be on the same side! Avon also kills the love of his
life when a card would have sufficed. Sarcophagus
only has one casualty
but considering she was already dead we won't count it. All of Ultraworld
is
destroyed by Orac and Vila, though the Ultras' deaths are helped along
by Tarrant. Moloch's a pretty violent episode but most of the guest
characters get whacked in one scene by Moloch, Tarrant again doing the
honours on behalf of the Lib crew. And again in Deathwatch beetle, Del
is also responsible for Vinni. The final episode of season three only sees
our crew shoot a few links.
Rescue sees Avon killing Dorian and in
Power, it's Avon again, dispatching a Hommik or two before finally
seeing off Pella on-board Scorpio. Dayna is half-responsible for Gunn Sar's
death. A couple of Federation guards get swatted by Tarrant and Dayna on
Helotrix and a large number of Space Rats are shot or blown up by Soolin
and Avon on Caspar with Dr Plaxton zapped on board Scorpio to avoid a collective
plasma bolt enema.
Animals is rather nasty. And it;s rather
violent, too, with Dayna killing one of the creatures and a rescue
party of Avon, Tarrant and Soolin zapping a few mutoids. Headhunter's
only casualty thanks to our lads was Muller's android, twice. While in
Assassin
Avon only kills Benos and Soolin finds a cure for Cancer.
Dayna and Tarrant each deal with three Federation
personnel with Vila claiming another on Mecron 2 (Games) and on
Virn (Sand) Tarrant shoots Reeve. All bar Vila claim a fair few
guards in Gold. Warlord sees Soolin and Avon take out a few
Federation guards and in Blake, well...
SPECIAL EFFECTS
Teleportation
Blake's 7 has a reputation for having particularly
cheesy special effects and while it is sometimes true, I think the overall
standard of effects was quite high. The Liberator teleport effects were
both memorable and while there were a few times where the effect was less
than satisfactory, these are exceptions to the rules.
The effect from the Liberator was uniformly
well-executed since it was always on the same set (Redemption being the
only exception but considering the context it's basically the same)- the
actors teleporting were chromakeyed onto a blank set, the blue screen image
rippled (an effect the BBC had had for ages) and dissolved though
in certain episodes, particular those in season 3, the effect was reduced
to a mild rippling. Apparently the full effect sent new studio cameras
into a tizz. This was in the days when dedicated video effects machines
weren't able to manipulate the picture, only add to it. If the picture
was distorted, it was usually a reflection in a sheet or Mirrorlon (such
as the Liberator when it passed through the vortex in Breakdown and
a few occasions in season three).
The surface effect was more complicated
but had the advantage of working with video or film. On video tape the
effect worked well, being a variation of the technique used for the first
effect. The outline of the actor was produced automatically compared to
a filmed location (B7 never used OB like several Doctor Who stories between
1975 and 78 and again post-hiatus). In theses circumstances, a silhouette
had to be drawn by hand, hence the often distorted outlines, particularly
in the first season. This was worsened by the camera often having been
moved noticeably. I reckon the ship-board effect was easier to set up though
there was talk by David Maloney in changing the effect to something simpler
to create but it was too popular with viewers. There were several occasions
when the duality of effects got mixed-up. Characters would teleport from
one studio location to the ship or vice versa and the camera stays
on the shimmering teleporting character a la shipboard effect
(even if not on the ship), the background changed with a dissolve rather
than the teleporting actor (who doesn't fade away) with the actor rematerialising-
all with the shipboard effects. It is supposed to be cool but is just cheap.
It may have worked had the background shimmered and the proper sounds used
to simulate teleportation from the traveller's point of view. The episode
Countdown
which in every other way is a well-made episode, has a strange flaw in
that most of the teleport sequences have sound effects either out of sync
or the wrong sound used.
Season Four's effect was simpler but no
less effective. The 'curtain' was actually a physical effect CSOed onto
the actor and set and the location effect was a variation on the Star Trek
effect (as was the sound effect) though more static. Teleport effects were
always done better in Blake's 7 than Doctor Who's transmat effects which
were usually limited to roll back and mix dissolves. The Scorpio sound
effects were open to variations with the same sound used for dematerialisation
regardless of location and another effect for rematerialisation. The location
effect colour varied at first but towards the end of the season tended
to be two colours, green and red. The nicest execution of the location
effect would have to be Dayna's dematerialisation from Virn with a seemless
transition, ruined only when the same effect is attempted at the conclusion
with Servalan jumping noticeably.
During the first season, the majority of the modelwork was specially
shot footage created by fx designer Ian Scoones at Bray Studios (who had
worked extensively with Gerry Anderson). But there also many space scenes
animated by graphic designer Bob Blagden. The space scenes of the Liberator
in the first half of the season are uniformly excellent and while the also
excellent animated scenes were used less and less (the Liberator is either
yellow or there are way too many stars and brightly coloured planets),
the model footage was used throughout all three seasons. Towards the end
of the debut season new footage was created with a bleached out look, usually
against a starless black background and while it is good footage, the lighting
is terrible - Scoones' original reasons for filming at Bray in the first
place (the Beeb cameramen weren't specialised in model work).
The Liberator was almost always filmed properly and rarely wobbled,
perhaps because the models were large. But the Federation pursuit ships
didn't fare well from the second season when much of the new footage featuring
them, particularly during static camera shots and a moving model, showed
wobbly ships as if piloted by mutoids whose blood serum had a alcohol reading
of 0.05 or more. Other new shots where the model was stationery and the
camera moved worked better. However, shots with static models and camera,
but a moving back-projected backdrop look so fake as to negate their effectiveness.
The plasma bolt launch from the front of the pursuit ship was so effective
it became the most used piece of stock footage in the series. Continuity
wasn't helped in the second season when a green beam fired (using the season
2 Liberator neutron blaster sound) from any pursuits ships filmed in profile.
The third season saw an upswing in space battles and featured for the
first time, both the Liberator and its attackers firing in the same scenes.
Some of the pursuit ship footage is a little dodgy but edited together
in a dynamic way that is missing from season 2.
Season 4 saw the introduction of Scorpio and with it a new way
of filming model scenes. Almost every scene of the Scorpio flying (either
in the atmosphere or in space) was filmed against a blue screen and composited
against a background. This approach looked more professional, despite a
tell tale matte (not just the blue screen haze but the so called garbage
matte- usually an elliptical shape around the composited object) around
every object composited, Look at a pre-special edition video of Star Wars
and you'll see it wasn't uncommon). In fact the whole season saw only a
few pieces of stock footage from previous years used (the pursuit ship
firing a plasma bolt). In Stardrive we had new footage totally (when
they weren't depicted as red U.F.O.'s on the scanner) and in Animals
(the
last time we saw them in the show), they were mostly animated by zooming
Quantel machine digital stills of the ships (they never moved so fast before).
Space Command was usually the same shot of the revolving space
station from season one, except when it was damaged by the Liberator in
Trial. Servalan's cruiser from the third series is supposed to be of
a more organic design but is never filmed or lit in a way that hilights
its features and when Servalan became Sleer and got the Defiant, her new
ship looked much better. Aside from the beautifully filmed footage, the
new plasmas bolt effect was well handled. In fact, all the ships featured
in season four are well done with the number of crappy model shots seen
over the last 13 episodes can be counted on one hand- One single shot of
Cancer's ship shot on video tape is disappointing compared to the filmed
footage. The number of ships has increased with the only designs seen more
than once being Sleer's cruiser and of course, Scorpio. Stock footage from
earlier seasons is limited to the famous shot of the pursuit ship firing
a plasma bolt, Coser's ship exploding from Weapon being used
for Servalan's booby-trapped ship in Rescue and some early footage
of planets and asteroids to depict the flight simulator in Games.
Other season 4 shots that are worthy of comment are the Scorpio
landing bay along with scenes of it approaching base. Launch scenes against
real sky as well as establishing shots with model on location. Scenes of
Scorpio attempting to match velocity with the asteroid and docking with
the Space Princess are extremely well done but the accolades must go to
the crash landing in Blake, an effect which looks better than similar
scenes in Star Trek: Generations.
Finally, while the various Liberator models looked markedly different
from each other, you couldn't tell which Scorpio model was being used such
was the craftsmanship of its maker, Ron Thornton, who went on to handle
the computer effect for the first three seasons of Babylon 5.
Season two saw a big change in the costuming policy with
everything going wild- look at Blake's sleeves. The women got more glamorous
costumes with Servlan's getting more and more outrageous (though
not as effective as her season one gowns). The surface clothes were ditched
although on a few occasions when thermal suits were needed, a new design
was used and are not half as effective (they simply give the male leads
eating disorders). Some of the cast's outfits weren't so succesful such
as Vila's crossing guard look on Pressure Point and some of Blake's less
bulkily-sleeved outfits in the second half of the season. I have to say,
while the flared sleeves look strange at first, they look much better than
the turtleneck look in later episodes. Jenna and Cally wear dresses almost
exclusively when they aren't called to teleport down somewhere (there
are one or two exceptions but this season sees the girls chained to the
teleport). Avon's look is yet to be defined and Gan's two outfits show
what you can do when you try (though the platforms are a worry).
Season Three starts off okay (simply because
only Dayna's outfit isn't from stock), but most of the crew's costumes
from this season are bland. Cally's are good though Dayna gets lumbered
with some strange arse-showcasing stuff (not that there's anything wrong
with that). Tarrant and Vila are stuck with some strange 50's B-movie garments
and Avon's choice of fashion is Blake cliche. The Piratey outfits don't
so much as swash but buckle under the resources.
Unlike last season everyone else the crew encounter
aren't dressed like entrants in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Except
maybe Servalan who's looking a lot older than she did a few years back.
Sets were a major improvment, though some
of the really SF ones didn't work too well (Such as those on Sardos and
Servalan's new bilious green ship interiors. The Teal Star set from Deathwatch
was a good one though the arbiter set was as pathetic as they come. Ultraworld,
one of the less satisfying episodes did at keast feature some very good
sets, nothing special (though there are many sets, they are all quite small.
The stylised look of Tharn is rather more effective than similar sets used
for Freedom City last season but the best SF sets of the season would have
to be the Keerzarn interiors. The Terminal interiors and the Chengan sets
with Mellanby's space station still hold up well.
Season Four saw the return to a more utiltarian look to the
sets and costumes, though still decorative they haven't dated, unlike costumes
seen in seasons two and three. Servalan's outfits here are the best since
the first season, outrageous as ever, yet much more flattering to Jackie
Pearce (when you see her as a guest artist in TV shows from the sixties,
you realise she wasn't as young as she often looked).
The Scorpio crew were only limited to two costumes each, a winter
and summer outfit, not counting carryovers form the third season, space
suits and disguises. The summer outfits are timeless, Dayna's summer suit
perhaps a little disco-ey but that's groovy. Avon's jacket is the best
costume he's ever had in the series. Despite costume designer Nicholas
Rocker's known flamboyance, the wardrobe is rather subdues with practicality
being the order of the day. The only fashion victims here are Cancer (the
woman) and Zeeona's ridiculous wig, the Space Rats and at a pinch the 'ZVC'
guards from Gold.
Sets were uniformly excellent with one very important exception,
the Scorpio interior. In a word, it's a little disappointing, with it looking
too much like a milking shed. Apart from that, the sets this season are
the best the series has seen. The Xenon base interior is a nice design
that looks as though it could have been part of a space ship. Several episodes
are written so only the Scorpio set is needed- the Xenon sets only appear
in five episodes- Rescue, Power, Headhunter and Warlord with
the lounge set making an oddly dark cameo in Sand.
Of course, there's Babylon Five, which many readers have taken to their
hearts as the keeper of the flame (overshadowing, it seems, Blake's 7).
But there's other shows with similar atmosphere if you can live without
the space opera trappings. BBC tv's hardhitting Doomwatch, which ran for
three seasons from 1970 (and a 1972 feature), about a scientific watchdog
group; Terry Nation's Survivors (1975-78) about the survivors of a plague
trying to rebuild, the David Maloney-produced Day of the Triffids BBC mini-series
from 1981 and lastly, Chris Boucher's own Star Cops from 1986. All are
recomended viewing if you don't mind the odd down-beat ending (but after
52 episodes of Blake, you'll have been well prepared.
Watching every episode in such a short time span was like Melbourne
weather- four seasons in one day.
George Stamatiadis.
If you'd like more information, check out the bibliography.
1. Blake's 7- The Programme Guide, Tony Atwood, Target
Books
2. Blake's 7- The Programme Guide(revised). Tony Atwood,
Target Books
3. The Making of Blake's 7- Adrian Rigelsford. Boxtree
Books (which fall apart between Heathrow and Brisbane)
4. The Guiness Book of Classic British TV, Cornell Topping
Day. Guiness Books
5. Inside Blake's 7- Joe Nazarro and Sheelagh Wells,
Boxtree
6. DWB Interview File- Dreamwatch Publications
7. If you're reading this, you must really like Blake's
7. Either that or you've nothing better to do now
that you've just finished watching 52 episodes of Blake's 7.
Now why you take a trip to the Sh*t-St*rrer's
Guide to Blake's 7?