Since finishing Blake’s 7, I’ve been enjoying Tim Dickinson’s Watching Blake’s 7 blog and his post on Sarcophagus mulls on a rejigged episode order for Series C. “I did wonder what would happen if this was the penultimate episode of season C.  It felt like a late series episode.  A coda.  A summing up of …

Looking for the start of Blake’s 7? The Way Back It’s been 19 months since I sat down with The Way Back. That’s a relatively long time to spend, almost non-stop, with a series and its characters. They have lived in my head between episodes, between writing these blogs, between doodling them in notebooks, and …

After realising I may never entirely recover from Orbit, I decided I was going to have to press on with Warlord eventually. The trauma was one reason holding me back, but I also know I’m nearing the end and I don’t want there to be no more new episodes of Blake’s 7 for me. The …

I had known there was another episode by Robert Holmes to come and I needed him to redeem himself after Traitor let me down. The word ‘enjoyed’ feels ill-suited for Orbit because it left me disturbingly shocked. Its final act has haunted me and the execution was utterly brilliant. A complete aside, but I loved …

By the start of Gold, no one on the Scorpio seems to care anymore that Tarrant shagged their mortal enemy and I was intrigued by some viewers’ suggestions that the sand in Sand had influenced him and Servalan. Maybe the rest of the crew came to think this too, or perhaps they all decided that …

After a couple of debuts, Blake’s 7 is back to a proven writer with Sand penned by Tanith Lee. Despite needing to watch Series C’s Sarcophagus twice to understand much of what was happening, I had enjoyed it for being so interesting and different. Sand would provide something equally weird. I like that Tanith Lee …

With Games I noticed we had another new writer in Bill Lyons. I felt Avon and Vila were written well, with the latter getting the sort of humour that’s felt somewhat absent. I also loved the character of Belkov and Stratford Johns provides a wonderfully entertaining performance, which helped make Games such fun. Another scientist… …

Until Assassin, Series D has relied on writers who have written for Blake’s 7 before. Positioning a new one in the middle of the series probably felt safer, especially as Rod Beacham was not an experienced television writer, but looking back at the first half of Series D this hardly mattered. Considering the overall series …

Headhunter was the most fun I’ve had all series. I loved that even the title confounded my expectations – I was expecting a bounty hunter to come after Team Avon, so to have an actual head was marvellous. I really enjoyed Blake’s 7 as a horror film, with various familiar aspects from the genre to …

After watching Animals, I discovered that I appear to be in a small minority of Blake’s 7 viewers who got some enjoyment from this episode. Lucky me! I tend to use the term ‘least favourite’ for episodes lower down my rankings of anything because there is usually more good than bad. Series D isn’t exactly …

This is the first time I’ve ever struggled with Blake’s 7 and I needed something from Stardrive, just a little bit, to liven up Series D. Just a machine I’ve given up entirely on Orac, whose personality increasingly resembles his creator: a grumpy old man who wanted to be left alone to get on with …

After the last episode I mentioned that there were a couple of writers I was hoping to see again – Robert Holmes was one of them. What the plot One aspect I liked from Robert Holmes’ previous stories was his ability to write two separate but fun, compelling plots. This worked particularly well in Gambit …

I approached Power with a degree of trepidation as I had been frustrated by Ben Steed’s previous Blake’s 7 scripts. It had been reassuring to learn from other viewers that I was not alone, but I was also informed that I had another of his stories to come in Series D. Blake’s 7 Monthly delivered …

The Blake’s 7 fans of the 1980s had a long wait between Series C and D, with the former finishing in March 1980 and the latter not starting until October 1981. This was longer than the usual 12 months or so between series but I actually think it’s impressive, having been informed since I finished …

‘Terminal’ is associated with death and can be where a journey ends, so I was curious about this episode’s title. The reveal that is was simply a planet’s name was initially underwhelming. But overall ‘terminal’ stands for an endpoint and this was Blake’s 7‘s most emotional one yet. Avon’s deception Avon’s change of character was …

Early on, I thought I could happily observe the combatants, with the Liberator crew sipping cocktails while commenting on proceedings, for the entire of Death-Watch – a kind-of Blake’s 7 version of Gogglebox. But when the crew did teleport from the ship, more fun was to be had and I wanted it to last longer. …

Ben Steed? That name is familiar. Have we had one of his stories before? Oh, we have. Oh no. I was frustrated by how Ben Steed wrote Servalan in The Harvest of Kairos and after viewing Moloch it’s abundantly clear that the word ‘feminism’ has never registered. I did not find Moloch as bad an …

I’m unsure why Dayna says she doesn’t like the look of Ultraworld as I don’t think there is anything inherently nasty about a spiky silver disco ball. It matches several of the crew’s outfits. I do feel the crew should be less trusting of the universe by now. As Cally’s voice came over to them, …

There have been some strange episodes of Blake’s 7 up to this point but Sarcophagus takes the trophy. It’s not unusual for there to be some mystery about where an episode is going but I spent almost the entire of Sarcophagus absolutely baffled. I struggled, got bored and walked away slightly disappointed with the story. …

Rumours of Death feels like a rare privilege to learn more about Avon’s emotional past, and I daren’t look away in case we never get such access again. It’s another strong character piece from Chris Boucher, whose scripts have been my favourites in Series C so far. The opening scene had me gripped from the …

I find it fascinating when programmes reflect contemporary events or appear prescient of future ones, either by intent or sheer coincidence, but I haven’t had that with Blake’s 7 – at least I haven’t noticed it. One attractive element of the series is that its setting makes it somewhat timeless. 40 years on, film-making techniques …

After being disappointed by Harvest of Kairos, I was just hoping to find City at the Edge of the World less dull. The title got me thinking about the other cities we have encountered with Blake’s 7 – Space City and Freedom City, but this one turned out quite different. I deployed some expletives exceptionally …

The Harvest of Kairos has ideas with good potential, but it doesn’t work well for me overall. Despite some high stakes, I found the episode dull in parts. Intersecting the space pursuit with the introduction to Jarvik slowed the pace and it did seem to go on for a long time, but without the usual …

It’s so fantastic to watch Blake’s 7 with no preconceptions about fan consensus on episodes. Dawn of the Gods seems like a potentially divisive one because it is vastly different from the usual action adventures. While there is plenty early on, it’s much slower and stranger once they enter the other universe. In some ways, …

We return to a regular type of Blake’s 7 adventure with a planet of the week that even Cally gets to visit now. The opening act of Volcano had me solely by the intrigue of having no idea what was going on plot-wise, which I thought was better than the crew finding a planet and …