"I've been a wanted man all my life. What I need now is to be unwanted."
REVIEW: The episode starts with some furious rebel on Federation action on planet Albion, a sequence ending with an evil officer on the run inside the walls, and a self-destruct set to blow the entire planet in about an "hour". That's your countdown. And its execution is the episode's biggest flaw. It starts at 1000 seconds, which is shade above 16 minutes. The time units COULD have been longer than seconds - and are treated as such - but whenever we see the clock, it counts down one second at a time. It's very distracting, and lets the episode down. Otherwise, it would have stood out as an episode that played in "real time".
Sadly, the girls are left on the ship to act as secretaries and clothiers. Blake is the strong leader, worrying about such things as friendly fire and on a mission to get the location of the Federation's new Central Command (now code-named Star One) from clever Space Major Provine (which is a stretch, and just an excuse to go to Albion), who makes a good foil for our heroes. He's basically living a reverse Die Hard. Vila gets some stuff to do there too, but it's really Avon's story. The mercenary who's helping the rebels is Del Grant, a man who has vowed to kill Avon the next time he sees him. As we'll find out, Grant is the brother of a woman Avon loved and who he failed. To Grant, this was a callous act, but there were mitigating circumstances (like Avon being unconscious for half a day while she was being tortured and killed). They have to bury the hatchet temporarily to deal with the crisis - a neutron bomb that will wipe out the planet's population, leaving its infrastructure intact - enough time for Grant to better understand Avon and leave the hatchet there.
Cue some Terry Nation techno procedural as the two of them get the bomb out of a block of ice, drill holes and disarm it at the last possible not-a-second-we-swear. Props to prop masters who built the device and gave the actors something to do, even if it's very much in real time and a little turgid. Certainly doesn't help that they stand around and talk when they should be getting down to it. And for that matter. what's all the fuss about turning on the heating and risking a cave-in when they specifically wear heated suits? It's just to engineer a problem and make Avon save his possible brother-in-law. Avon sure comes off as heroic in this one. Though Blake stands firm in the control center, refusing to transport up until Avon can (for no reason), we don't see it. I imagine he beamed up not-seconds before. So a bit of a confused ending there, contrived to unjustifiably raise the stakes.
BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: Without the helmets, Federation officers look even more like Imperials, don't they? There's a whole discussion about the other guy shooting first.
WHO?: Tom Chadbon (Grant) is most famous to Doctor Who fans as Duggan in City of Death, but also played Merdeen in The Mysterious Planet. Paul Shelley (Provine) was Persuasion in Four to Doomsday, a role Chadbon had been considered for. The rebel Arrian is played by Nigel Gregory who was Sergeant Vince Wilson in K9 and Company.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The execution is flawed, and the script could have benefited from another pass, but it's a pretty solid story overall.
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