To boldly go where the BBC had never gone before! (Blake's 7)

Member Name: Mauri

Product:	Blake's 7
Date:	11/04/02 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good story, Good characters

Disadvantages: Bad special effects

What have Hancock’s Half Hour (some of you 35+ will know what I’m talking about), The Daleks and Blake’s Seven got in common? The answer is Terry Nation. The Inventor of the Daleks first worked as a comedy writer for Tony Hancock before devoting himself to the world of British TV cult Sci-fi and creating Blake's Seven.

How do you describe this series? In one way it has echoes of films like ‘The ‘Magnificent Seven’. Seven characters brought together each possessing distinct skills and fighting a much stronger adversary against all the odds. There is also an element of the resistance fighters in occupied France during WW2. This idea of a resistance group or space bandits an intergalactic Robin Hood and this Merry Men, was crossed with a warped version of the Star Trek universe in which the federation is a force for evil instead of good, to produce the high camp space opera that was Blake’s 7!

THE STORY

Set in the 30th century, the fascist-like galactic federation rules the known universe from Earth. This is a violent and corrupt place whereby the authorities drug the population in to passive acceptance of the regime. Roj Blake is a rebel who tries to overthrow this regime by organising a resistance movement. This fails and Blake is captured and brain washed, his memories removed. However after witnessing the slaughter of innocent people by the federation police he once again discovers who he is. On the way to a prison colony he escapes and with the help of a group of fellow inmates, he steals an alien space cruiser ‘The Liberator’ and thus begins a crusade of sabotage and violent resistance against the Federation forces throughout the galaxy.

CHARACTERS- THE ORIGINAL 7

The characters in Blake’s 7 have all the elements needed for a successful outer space romp.

Roj Blake is the classic hero, he is not a rebel by nature but faced with the injustice he
sees around him he is forced to take the role. He has a strong sense of right and wrong and this gets in the way of making decisions that would make his task easier. It also brings hem in to conflict with the other less altruistic members of the crew, which makes for good drama.

The real star of the show, amongst the crewmembers at least, is Avon. We are always suspicious about him. Avon is a brilliant computer scientist who was caught trying to embezzle the federation out of a fortune. He joins Blake because it is in his interests to do so you know that he's only loyal to himself. His relations with Blake in particular are strained but despite his selfish tendencies we eventually see that there is some moral dimension to Avon and he is never quite as ruthless or as selfish as he likes everyone to believe. Once Blake leaves the series Avon is the natural person to take over as leader.

Vila is the cowardly thief He serves the function of the fool in any drama and is invariably the butt of most jokes.

Jenna is a beautiful, capable space adventurer hunted by the Federation for smuggling offences. At one stage we suspected that there might be some love interest between her and Blake but this never materialises.

Cally is from an alien race of telepath, from a race sworn to fight the federation. She is a fighter, tough capable and ruthless, her hatred of the federation is what drives her. Nice top see a strong female character in a Sci-fi show.

Gan is the strong man, with a federation brain implant that prevents him from killing. In some ways Gan is the least convincing of the characters. He doesn’t give the impression of being that strong and is really a softy deep down. He really is only a peripheral character in most of the plots.

Completing the seven was Zen the highly advanced computer that navigated the alien ship. The liberator that Blake and the rest steal. Zen had a close bond to the ship and his
primary function was to keep it safe above all else, sometimes to the possible detriment of the interests of the crew.

THE OTHERS

The death toll on the show was quite high and soon replacements were needed.

Tarrant was my least favourite. He had been a federation pilot but then fled after the end of the War. He again became a member of the crew out of convenience. He liked to act as the hard man, with a ruthless streak but it never quite convinced. Avon was far better at this.

Dayna was the daughter of a scientist specialising in creating new weapons. They lived on an isolated planet in exile from the federation. Federation forces under the orders of Servalan eventually kill Dayna’s father. Dayna a weapons expert herself joins the crew partly to avenge his death and kill Servalan.

Soolin, joins the crew late in the show run, she is an adept pilot and helps the crew steal Scorpio a replacement spaceship for Liberator. She also provides some wholesome sex appeal.

Orac was another computer to come on board. Apparently the galaxy's most advances computer with attitude to match. There were some great exchanges between him and Avon! I reality he looked like a portable Perspex filled with bits of wire and a few Christmas type lights that blinked on and off (which is exactly what he was)

The final addition to the crew was Slave Scorpio's on board computer.

All were great characters reminiscent of the players in a ‘Dungeons and Dragon’ game set in space each possessing distinct abilities and character traits.

However by far the best thing about Blake’s 7 is the seductively evil Servalan, Supreme Commander of the Federation. She is the Queen Bitch of TV Science Fiction and was probably the focus for a great many schoolboy fantasies in the late 70’s and since. Servelan is completely ruthless and will stop at nothing to hunt down and destroy Blake and his f
ollowers. She doesn’t start off as supreme commander but by a series of assassinations and betrayal she kills her way to the top. Although with the help of her main general Travis she does all she can to hunt down and kill Blake and all his followers dead there is an interesting subplot, just a hint of a mutual attraction between Avon and Servalan that surfaces in more than one story from the series. You feel they were made for each other!

The makers of Blake’s 7 did try and create a form of SF show that we don’t attempt too often in the UK. The setting of a galactic empire and the many alien races does inevitably require a big budget and it was obvious from the beginning that the BBC didn’t have that kind of money to spend. It was a risk for the BBC to make Blake’s 7 but by scheduling (by luck or design?) the first show on the same week that ‘Star Wars’ opened in British cinemas, it helped to make the show an instant success for hungry fans of the genre that wanted to see more science fiction on TV to prevent Star Wars withdrawal symptoms from setting in.

When we look back at the series now we can see how camp it all was, the sets and special effects made Dr Who look state of the art and the passing of time and our ever increasing sophistication as sci-fi fans when it comes to special effects has not helped Blake’s 7 age gracefully, the acting too at times was as wooden as the plywood control consoles that the crew had to hang on too as they simulated the effects of being hit by an enemy ship.
The first few episodes were quite poor in both script and design and I wonder if it hadn’t been for the ‘Star Wars’ effect, whether the viewers would have carried on watching. The script quality soon picked up even though the standard of special effects didn’t. The writers of the show did make an attempt to deal with serious issues in the stories and so we did have plotlines that t
ouched on themes of racism, environmentalism and the dangers of science out of control (very relevant now with all the worries about the possible dangers of genetic manipulation). Despite all this what made Blake’s 7 work was the strength of the characters and the overall idea behind the project.

Blake’s Seven was pure space opera and the conclusion to the final episode of the last series was as anticipated as any soap opera cliff hanger today, the shocking end to the series further serves to cement the reputation of the show as premier piece of British SF and a long-lived cult classic.

The show ran for four seasons a total of 52 episodes and still remains the only serious British challenge to Star Trek’s brand of intergalactic space opera.

THE CAST

Gareth Thomas....Roj Blake (1978-79)
Paul Darrow.... Kerr Avon
Michael Keating….Vila Restal
Sally Knyvette.... Jenna Stannis (1978-79)
Jan Chappell.... Cally (1978-80)
David Jackson....Olag Gan (1978-79)
Josette Simon.... Dayna Mellanby (1980-81)
Steven Pacey.... Captain Del Tarrant (1980-81)
Glynis Barber.... Soolin (1981)
Peter Tuddenham.... Zen/Orac/Slave
Jacqueline Pearce....Supreme Commander Servalan
Stephen Greif.... Commander Travis (1978)
Brian Croucher.... Commander Travis (1979)

AVAILABILITY

In total four series were made featuring 52 episodes. The original series can still be seen on UK gold and sometimes as repeats on terrestrial BBC. I far as I can tell, all the four series are currently available on video (two episodes on one tape) but not DVD.

You can buy audio editions of two stories:

‘The Syndeton Experiment’ ISBN: 0563558717 (duration time 1hr 30 min) and
‘The Sevenfold Crown’ ISBN: 0563382007 (duration time 1hr 50 mins)

Both are available from the BBC shop online.


Thanks for reading and rating t
his opinion.

© Mauri 2002

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