“I am glad we never learn what happened to Blake because it leaves me room to ponder. I notice that, like Travis, it’s his left eye that was injured, enabling me to imagine a vengeful confrontation between the two.” – except that Travis died at Star One. However, I do wonder if Blake was involved in some of the rebel fighting on Earth mentioned in “Rumours of Death”. He tells Tarrant that “most” of what happened to him hadn’t happened on Earth, but that leaves the door open a little. Shrinker threatens to damage Avon’s eye at the start of the episode. He points a laser probe at Avon’s left eye, and it is Blake’s left eye that is damaged. Of course, the comparison with Travis is a good one because it was intentional. Gareth Thomas didn’t want to work with an eye patch – too cumbersome or too obvious, I can’t remember which – but the scar is much better, I think. I love the way his one eye bulges as he speaks to Deva: “Indulge me.”

Unless the Master’s sonic signal could somehow make the recorded footage display things that weren’t there, security cameras would have recorded the actual events taking place rather than what the humans and Draconians thought they were seeing!

Also, I find it a bit hard to swallow that every single human’s greatest fear was of Draconians, and vice versa. Surely at least one human should’ve seen gigantic snakes or spiders or clowns?? 😉

The episode’s lush set decorations, focusing on the Regency and other decadent periods of history, mask the fact that “Gambit” is essentially a space Western; “Docholli” is an obvious riff on “Doc Holliday” and the female saloon owner “of a certain age” could’ve wandered off the set of many a Western pic.

The cat-and-mouse interactions of Krantor and Servalan are delicious, and the queer-coding of Krantor and Toise was rather bold for a 1978 BBC1 television show.

All in all, one of Series B’s highlights and definitely one of my favourite episodes of BLAKE’S 7 overall!