Blake's 7

Blakes 7 was a science fiction series on British TV which ran from 1978 to 1981. I personally came to it very late... About 20 years late actually, watching the end of the second season and enjoying the strange shift the series took into its third and fourth seasons. I rather enjoyed the later

It was craeted by Terry Nation who, of course, is most famous for creating the Daleks in Doctor Who as well as contributing one or two other non-Dalek stories to the series. Blakes 7 was darker in tone than Doctor Who generally speaking but Nation's gritty style is present in the likes of Genesis of the Daleks. Blakes 7 took some inspiration from the legend of Robin Hood featuring as it did the main hero character of Blake who was a criminal against a tyrannical society. He was the outlaw fighting for justice against the fascist Federation. Blakes 7 is remembered for many things but one key feature was that Blake himself was not the best thing about the series. Instead the secondary character of Avon proved the more interesting and tended to steal the show despite playing second fiddle.

The main villain of the piece was Servalan played by Jacqueline Pearce however one of the best aspects of Blakes 7 was that it blurred the boundaries between who was right and who was wrong and my persona favourite scene was in an episode called Orbit where it became clear that Avon would happily sacrifice the character of Villa in order to save his own life. Not the kind of sentiment you would see Kirk or Picard express in the happy world of Star Trek.

Blakes 7 offered a bleak future for mankind, dominated by unpleasant rule where even the heros were often anti-heroes and alien worlds which provided very little in the way of light relief or entertainment. Although having said that, the low budget of the series did result in the fact that the alien worlds were often intentially amusing. Like Doctor Who much of the location work took place in quarries, lending most alien planets a very grey feel. Not neccessarily unrealistic, but not particularly thrilling to the viewer.

The series starts out with Blake being moved on the prison ship London to a penal planet and it while on this journey that he bumps into the collection of criminal missfits who would become allies, or sorts. The prison ship is attacked by an unknown vessel and Blake's party are used as a disposable means of investigating the seemingly hostile ship. The ship does not seem to react badly to them, they are able to take it over and go on the run. The ship is given the name Liberator and Blake indents on using it to bring down the Federation but the actor playing him (Gareth Thomas) didn't wish to remain so only a short way in (and with echoes of Babylon 5 which was inspired by Blakes 7) the lead actor was lost. The way it was written, the Liberator faced off against an armada of invading ships from the Andromeda Galaxy and suffered enough damage to force the crew to escape, including Blake whose plight was not followed and Jenna who is also ignored. Instead the action continued around Avon and the other crew and a new character called Tarrant, a mercenary who takes a shine to the Liberator and appoints himself as new leader. This lead to a power struggle between him and Avon with Avon emerging as the star of the show.

At the climax of the third series there came another major change with the Liberator itself destroyed however a new ship, Scorpio, is soon obtained. It is established that the intergalactic war with the invaders (which sadly did not turn out to be Daleks has Nation had wanted) has taken its toll on many parts of the Federation. Servalan has now become Sleer, although no-one seems to notice that its the same woman. Imagine if Hitler had turned up for work as a receptionist shortly after WW2 had ended - Don't you think someone would have said something? Blake's 7 ended in a world of shock when all the main protagonists were apparently killed after Avon and crew discover Blake living on a planet and shoot him. The actually deaths of the main characters was suitably ambigious so that they could return if needed but Avon's death was markedly gruesome to show he really was dead.