Rebels and rescues “Another idealist. Poor but honest.” Until I encountered this Blake’s 7 episode, Avalon was simply the name of a Roxy Music song and album. Here she is an anti-Federation enthusiast that Travis uses to try to lure Team Blake into a trap – this is becoming a running theme. While Blake has …
A psychopath and bloody Blake the Hero. “I shall enjoy taking your life, Blake.” TRAVIS IS BACK. I had loved the introduction of the sadistic Travis in Seek-Locate-Destroy so was delighted to see him return so quickly. His confrontation with Blake enables us to glimpse further into both Travis and Blake’s characters. Elsewhere, I pondered …
Marple in Space “I don’t like an unsolved mystery.” Someone described Blake’s 7’s Mission to Destiny as ‘Marple in Space’. Avon is definitely playing the role of little old sweet detective. With a spaceship as isolated as any country house, the programme’s step into murder mystery made perfect sense. The episode opens with the murder …
A sadistic sod. “The man who killed 20 of my friends.” This was undoubtedly my favourite story so far, primarily because we meet a marvellous villain called Travis. I was also pleased to see some more worldbuilding as we start to learn about the Federation’s structure when we are introduced to Servalan. Once again Blake’s …
Team Blake They’re fighting for their lives. Who isn’t? We are Blake’s 7 at last! Having seven lead characters in each episode won’t always work. As previous episodes have already been doing, it is easier to split them up and take it in turns to go down to the planet each week. I’ll say one …
The Full Blake’s 7 “I’m just wondering how long we’re going to live to enjoy our newfound skills.” If we were in any doubt, in Time Squad Blake firmly asserts his leadership by dragging The Liberator’s crew to a planet so they can blow up a communications system. I gather this is Blake’s plan from …
Blake’s 5 “I’m free. And I intend to stay that way.“ It’s hard to pick one single aspect, but this was the episode that finally grabbed me enough to say, “This programme is brilliant and I am loving it.” The bizarre Blessed-led religious community, the vileness of Cygnus Alpha, the emerging contrast of Blake and …
Blake’s 3 “Wake up, Blake! You may not be tranquilised any longer but you’re still dreaming!“ With Blake having failed to escape the Federation’s swift and efficient justice, he’s on a spaceship with a group of fellow convicts, on their way to a penal colony on the planet Cygnus Alpha. In Space Fall we meet …
Blake’s 7 is something I have been planning to look into for years but I didn’t actually know much about it – a BBC science-fiction series with a bunch of people on a spaceship. Was it just going to be a duller, dryer, version of Red Dwarf? I’d first come across it in the pages …
Armchair Theatre was one of several anthology series on television during the 1960s and 1970s. Others include The Wednesday Play, Play for Today, Theatre 625, ITV Playhouse and Thirty-Minute Theatre. Upon first hearing about these, I was rather bemused because there is little resembling an anthology series on television today. Also, they are referred to as ‘plays’, which made me imagine them …
A few years ago I stopped binge-watching television. It wasn’t an entirely conscious decision. I had begun viewing a few programmes and they were so good that I wanted to drag out having ‘new’ episodes of them for as long as possible. I didn’t want to race through them, be done with it and then …
