I just finished watching Blake's 7

[Uraniun235]

Some thoughts:

- I never really fully accepted Tarrant. I think part of that was I got the impression that the producers were trying to pass him off as a Blake-replacement, right down to the curly hair, when I didn't feel he worked well at all in that regard. I spent most of third season hoping (futilely, I figured) that Blake would eventually come back.

- That said, Tarrant was infinitely superior to the terrible replacement actor they got for Travis in the second season. For fuck sake, if you can't get the original actor back, why not just kill him off-screen? Hell, he'd failed again last time we saw him, there was plenty of reason for Servalan to off him.

- 3rd season felt weirdly aimless. Maybe I'm not remembering it well enough, but it felt like they were just ambling around doing whatever. Which contrasts oddly with 4th season, where Avon seemed for whatever reason to take up the revolutionary ardor and bust his ass towards trying to mount a rebellion against the Federation.

- The part where Zen dies was touching.

- The "Servalan gets away in the end" supervillain routine started to wear thin. I could sort of accept it in the early part of the series - the notion that the (seemingly inept) enemy you know is less dangerous than the enemy you can't predict - but into the third season and most especially the fourth season it was just annoying after she'd proven she was too dangerous to let live. (And Servalan seemed somehow more deadly after the galactic war.) The "oh the teleporter magically saved me" save was also a bit too much - I would have been satisfied with her kicking it shortly after "Main drive: maximum power!"

- holy FUCK what is with that hilarious 4th season credits music?

- The BBC sure knows how to blow up a starship bridge. Although I noticed they did the tilting deck again for Scorpio; someone must have wanted to get their money's worth out of that hydraulic lift.

- Maybe I'm just still a bit psyched out by the "everyone dies" ending, but... is it just me, or did they do the "Blake's dead - oh no he's not that was just another lie ha ha" bit just so they could kill him off on-screen in the final episode?
--WAIT WAIT I JUST REALIZED: is the slow-mo 'everyone getting shot' thing in Galaxy Quest supposed to be a reference to the last episode of Blake's 7?? (It seemed familiar, is why.)

- It seemed like some episodes had some really terrible pacing issues, specifically footage of people walking here to there, or otherwise background exposition or character development that really dragged. And I seem to recall having similar complaints about Doctor Who episodes from roughly the same era. Is there some kind of directing or editing concept that I'm unaware of that was all the rage at the time but didn't really pan out, were they really bad at tightening things up overall, or were they just willing to resort to wasting time in order to pad out an underdeveloped script?


- AND FINALLY THE BIG ONE*:
Is it just me, or was this series sold on the premise of "okay there's these guys and they get captured each week..."? At least they eventually reeled in (to some extent) the terrible "okay let's split up so we can be more conveniently isolated and captured" shtick.



*there may be other thoughts later



Let's discuss! I've been (mostly) holding in for the past month or so for fear of someone accidentally spoiling something awesome.

[Stark]

How about the whole 'I'm totally not the old president ha ha no way' thing

[Uraniun235]

I didn't even see the point of that.

[B5B7]

The ending was ambiguous enough that a novel 'Afterlife' by Tony Attwood has a couple of the characters surviving, one of whom is Avon.

[DaveJB]

- Maybe I'm just still a bit psyched out by the "everyone dies" ending, but... is it just me, or did they do the "Blake's dead - oh no he's not that was just another lie ha ha" bit just so they could kill him off on-screen in the final episode?

If you're referring to the bit in the season 3 finale, then they probably intended that Blake really was dead. You see, that episode was supposed to be the last-ever Blake's 7 episode, but they commissioned a fourth season while the S3 finale was airing, and during the course of S4 they apparently changed their minds about Blake's fate.

- It seemed like some episodes had some really terrible pacing issues, specifically footage of people walking here to there, or otherwise background exposition or character development that really dragged. And I seem to recall having similar complaints about Doctor Who episodes from roughly the same era. Is there some kind of directing or editing concept that I'm unaware of that was all the rage at the time but didn't really pan out, were they really bad at tightening things up overall, or were they just willing to resort to wasting time in order to pad out an underdeveloped script?

That was just the general style used by multi-camera BBC dramas at the time. They didn't really shake up their style until the 1990s, hence why you get so many fans of the classic Doctor Who series complaining about how the post-2005 series is too fast-paced.

[Stark]

I dare U to read that Tony Attwood novel. It isn't just fuck-awful, it's fucking BIZARRE. I have no idea what the point of 80% of the novel was at all.

Blake got blasted a heap with actual gore squibs because the actor was fucking onto them and wanted absolutely no way for the character to come back.

Heaps of shows of the period had massive padding - whole DW episodes were essentially useless, sometimes a B7 ep would have maybe 15m of endless walking or long-shots, etc.

[Uraniun235]

Oh, I couldn't read that. I realize (after doing some internet reading) that the "if there's a fifth season..." plan was for any returning actors to have been miraculously only wounded, but that ending pretty unequivocally says to me "everyone died."

Grimmer than that though is the implication that the Federation is not only returning with an even stronger grip on its subjects, but will now also have Orac, and will face virtually zero organized resistance from here on. The future of the galaxy in Blake's 7 appears to be 1984, in space.



That said, it was hilarious to read that Gareth Thomas had it in his contract that Blake was to be definitely, absolutely killed, going so far as to use so much gore it startled the director.

[Stark]

Orac is conspicuously lacking from Blake's base, so who knows where it was. I think the best part was that faceless agents are shown to be more effective than cackling megavillans - Blake's entire operation was watched and allowed to grow by the security forces, which wiped out Avon's bunch as an afterthought. The federation isn't just more evil and oppressive - it's far more competent. There's equally no place for the likes of Servalan or Travis than there is for Blake.

I mean using typical plot elements like 'bitch a lot on the flight deck' and 'get captured only to talk your way out of it' and 'Avon is a nervous wreck' only with brutal results instead of camp ones was a cool way to end the show.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah, that was kind of a tease for me at the beginning of the show. I figured we'd be seeing a futile struggle against the faceless forces of the Federation, and then suddenly oh wait we need a supervillain or two. You're right, having it be much like a normal episode except that their luck has run out was a fun way to play it.

(EDIT: Admittedly, if I had had to write it, I would have had it be more gradual - the group getting picked off here and there, until it's down to just Avon and Blake. Then Avon mistakenly shoots Blake, and he's all alone when the Federation comes storming in. There might be a flaw in that approach that I'm missing, though.)

Maybe my memory is biased towards the last couple of seasons I watched, but it seemed like there was an uptick of problems caused by people irrationally refusing to listen until it's too late. I mean I can understand "no I am irrationally disagreeing because I don't want to believe I am wrong", that's fine, but when it's "hey i have something important to say" "lol nope too busy" "but" "NOPE! it'll have to wait until it's too late!" then that's just godawful.

But as you say there was a shitload of padding back then, so if they're doing that it's not unforeseeable that shoddiness would manifest in other ways too. Did they not have enough time to develop scripts? Was it "oh we were supposed to do this but turns out we haven't the money, think of something on the fly"? It's not inconceivable that they'd run into issues (I mean hell, Star Trek had at least a couple of episodes where Roddenberry was furiously rewriting an episode while the episode was being produced), I'm just curious as to what/why/how it exactly happened. (and this is more general, you understand, it's not as if I'm banging my fist on the table and yelling "STARK! GIVE ME ANSWERS!!" )

[Stark]

To be honest I think it's just that production sucked. Like you say, the shift in tone from the first episodes to even the fourth or fifth episode is pretty dramatic, and it go so bad that the third season is bascially a bunch of random shit they get up to. The episodes that attempt to cover politics are often deeply bizarre (like Travis in bandages, etc) or outright terrible (like Zukan's brigade of bizarre hair people). Terry Nation is a pretty terrible creator, and I think he just ran out of ideas and the show quickly became more about the characters pissing and moaning than anything else. Even the fourth season, with a much tighter concept, is still all over the place with bizarre plots and characterisation.

But it had Gold and Orbit, so it's all fine. Fat people being strange = good episode!

[Uraniun235]

Terry Nation is a pretty terrible creator, and I think he just ran out of ideas and the show quickly became more about the characters pissing and moaning than anything else.

I saw somewhere that allegedly his original idea for the second season cliffhanger was going to be "lol then the DALEKS show up!!", and I'm really glad they didn't go that route.

[Darth Tedious]

I thought the story arc of the second season was quite good. Almost every episode served a definite purpose, and I loved Pressure Point. The whole OH NOES IT WAS ALL POINTLESS of it all was fantastic, particularly Gann's death on the way out.
Then having the alien invasion at the end of Star One save the Federation. What other show gives the villains a deus ex machina/get out of jail free card like that?

Re Travis: I can't agree more that Brian Croucher sucked, but given how much less badarse Travis was in season 2, I couldn't picture Stephen Greif doing most of it. Especially not HAHA IT WAS ME UNDER THE BANDAGES! That was insane.

Notice that the only time Zen ever referred to himself in the first person was as he died?

[Stark]

I saw somewhere that allegedly his original idea for the second season cliffhanger was going to be "lol then the DALEKS show up!!", and I'm really glad they didn't go that route.

Yeah, and you only have to look at how terrible the Terry Nation Dalek stories were in DW to see hwat a horrid idea that was.

It's a shame that since I don't own S2, I don't have a great recollection of some of the episodes. At least they tried to have an arc, they showed Blake as actually a crazy revolutionary, and had spaceship bondage. That was all good stuff. And the India epsiode! Great shit.

But I'm a giant softy for Tarrant frowning and saying mean things. Even if he IS dressed like Robin Hood or a goddamn pirate.

[Uraniun235]

I thought the story arc of the second season was quite good. Almost every episode served a definite purpose, and I loved Pressure Point. The whole OH NOES IT WAS ALL POINTLESS of it all was fantastic, particularly Gann's death on the way out.
Then having the alien invasion at the end of Star One save the Federation. What other show gives the villains a deus ex machina/get out of jail free card like that?

Re Travis: I can't agree more that Brian Croucher sucked, but given how much less badarse Travis was in season 2, I couldn't picture Stephen Greif doing most of it. Especially not HAHA IT WAS ME UNDER THE BANDAGES! That was insane.

Notice that the only time Zen ever referred to himself in the first person was as he died?

Why yes, I did notice Vila pointing that out when Zen died.

But wasn't there a scene where Zen says he isn't allowed to intervene in the affairs of the crew, or something like that? Not that it's a big sticking point for me.

[Stark]

Yeah, there was wildly inconsistent limitations on his behaviour throughout the first season. It was a cool idea initially to have his conduct be bizarre and unhelpful, but later on it just gets silly.

I mean, this is the computer that Avon orders to blow up a bunch of dudes by hiding the order inside an otherwise normal sentence. Turns out Zen is paying attention to EVERYTHING anyone overacts? :V

It's a laugh to think about all the characters that never really went anywhere; like a year of Jenna doing basically nothing, cold hard brutal guerrila Cally being the fucking therapist, Tarrant apparently being king of space combat but not really, etc. And man, Soolin, what a laugh - good thing that guy had a security system based on QUICK DRAW SKILLS, right?

[Darth Tedious]

I think there were a few occasions in season 1 where Zen had information that would have been quite useful to the crew, but insisted he couldn't give it to them and they had to figure it out for themselves.
This seemed to cease after Redemption. I got the impression that the crew took proper 'ownership' of the Liberator once they dealt with the System.

[Stark]

You mean they just forgot about it, right? It's more likely they just Orac-raped the machine to do what it's told anyway.

[Uraniun235]

Heh, I could tell the writers couldn't deal with Orac when there were a couple of episodes where Orac basically said "yeah, I know the answer, but I'm not telling because the writers need you guys to look slightly more useful". Turns out giving your characters a nigh-omniscient hypercomputer might not be the wisest choice in a series built around falling into and tumbling out of traps all the time guile and misdirection?

Although to be fair, at least they recognized at some point the danger of having regular sessions of Twenty Questions With The Computer. One of the worst things Star Trek TNG, and later Voyager ever did were those occasional "ask the computer a whole lot of questions until we solve the mystery" scenes.

[Stark]

It's a laugh how the EXPOSITION DUMB alteranates randomly between Zen and Orac; sometimes Zen knows stuff (somehow) and other times Orac needs to be cajoled into stealing it (usually badly). But this is the show where Avon hacks computers with soldering irons... so....

[Darth Tedious]

You mean they just forgot about it, right? It's more likely they just Orac-raped the machine to do what it's told anyway.

But Orac wasn't able (or didn't do anything) to stop the System's recall order.

I was pretty certain that it stopped completely after that specific episode. But I guess even if it was just the writers forgetting about it, there's a nice in-universe explanation for it.

Could have even been a combination of Orac and blowing up the System. It works any way you slice it, really.

[Stark]

That's the dumbest rationalisation ever. 'That thing I bought up doesn't matter because it works any way you slice it'. Thanks for that.

U, did you watch it all in one go? Do you have any favourite stretches of terrible episodes?

[Darth Tedious]

That's the dumbest rationalisation ever. 'That thing I bought up doesn't matter because it works any way you slice it'. Thanks for that.

I already pointed out that it all stopped in the second season.

An even better possibility is that it was because of the System, Orac knew this would work (being able to accurately predict the future and all) and this is why he chose not to override the System's recall order.

I never said that my thought didn't matter because there are a bunch of different explanations, just that there are a bunch of different explanations, most of which work.

Anyhow, if it was all Orac, there's no good in-universe reason he would have let the System take control.


And yeah, U235, favourite episodes?

[Uraniun235]

U, did you watch it all in one go? Do you have any favourite stretches of terrible episodes?

I mostly watched it one episode an evening, but yeah I plowed through the whole series. Terrible episodes - well, aside from season 3's aimlessness, that last half-stretch or so of episodes in the first season was pretty dull. That's honestly the biggest sin a show can make, in my opinion; silliness and absurdity can sometimes be forgiven, but never dullness.

Oh, there was also a stretch in S3 where it seemed like the writers somehow got worse at handling women. City at the Edge of the World was mostly fun, but the way Kerril went from RAR HARDNOSED KILLER MERCENARY to helpless damsel was utterly retarded. And the episode where Servalan lets herself get picked up and tossed around by that big lunkhead was around that time too, and it was also pretty awful.


Actual episodes I like... I tend to remember the great moments more than anything else. The climax of Pressure Point was amazing.
"I've done it! I've done it!!"
"Blake... there's nothing here!"

I loved the scene in Trial where Avon's detector shield (admittedly a bit outlandish itself) was first used; the dark, pounding synth music as we see a heretofore-unseen six Federation warships in formation was thrilling.

Servalan coming on screen in the big auditorium in Voice from the Past was pretty rad.

Heh, there's Avon's rejection of Servalan. "Imagination my only limit? I'd be dead within a week." Actually, Avon in general seemed to steal the show. It was interesting how he seemed to get a bit perkier in the last season.

[Stark]

The change in tone from the first 2 eps to the prison planet and the bondage pod was pretty jarring. The sexism was just sad.

Avon's change from 'must steal Liberator and make teh moneys' to 'will lead revolution' was neat, coupled with his outrageous descent into madness. It's just a shame most of the regulars never had anything to do, and so Avon boiled down to 'play off Vila' and 'sneer at Tarrant'. I liked all the heist episodes, though.