"Sooner or later, we're going to drop into one of these holes in the ground and never come out."
REVIEW: The series finale is one nobody walks away from... except Servalan, I suppose, and it's a crying shame the show doesn't go out with her in the mix, neither getting her comeuppance, nor being darkly triumphant except through a distant agent of hers. The Seven get a bad feeling about Avon's newest endeavour since "finding Blake" is what got Cally killed two seasons ago. And they're right. They've also lost Xenon Base, which they destroy in case any of the warlords told the Feds where it was (hardly worth sending Tarrant's paramour to die decontaminating it), and then Scorpio when they're forced to crash on Gaunda Prime, Soolin's old planet that's currently being cleansed of criminals by bounty hunters. The space fight is just okay, but the crash is tense, and has Avon abandon Tarrant to his fate (he survives, but you really don't think he will). Yes, Slave's last light blinks off, but you won't see me crying about it.
For most of the episode, we're being lied to. Blake appears to have fallen on hard times and become a ruthless bounty hunter. He's got a nasty scar over his eye that's supposed to evoke Travis' eyepatch. He's capturing people in the woods for some kind of local government. This is largely told through his capture of Arlen, but he does the same to Tarrant whom he seems to rescue from the wreck. A pacing issue here: Whenever we're in the woods, everything seems to slow down. Vila and the girls finding shelter. Avon using them to lure a flyer. Blake building a fire... It gets so slow, you lose hope that the episode (and therefore series) will get a proper resolution. Of course, the unwary viewer doesn't realize it's going to end very quickly indeed.
Because the truth is, Blake is still Blake, and he's only capturing fugitives so he can add them to his rebel army. And he has to test each one personally, because there's a purity test in this business. But he's so cagey, Tarrant doesn't know to trust him. And so lost at this point that he doesn't spot that Arlen is actually a Federation officer. The last scene is essentially a shoot-out that's almost as laughable as The Departed's, where every one of our anti-heroes is shot, sometimes by some rando trooper coming round the corner. It's pretty shocking, especially with the slight slow motion. The first shock is Avon repeatedly shooting Blake, his old friend, thinking he's betrayed them all. Has he effectively killed the Rebellion? But then Dayna is shot, and okay (well, not okay, she's my favorite), the show can still survive this. Vila responds by finally getting physical with Arlen, but HE gets shot, and now you know the series ends on a bloody massacre. At least they end on Avon, committing suicide by trooper, with a defiant grin on his face, and the shots only heard over the end credits. Great ending, if it had to end this way. The dark ending makes sense for Blake's 7, but it does feel a little cursory. Having them die doing different things would have been more satisfying - some of them don't even get any lines in the scene - but might have required a longer running time. Maybe less running through the woods would have helped. But yes, this is still a cool ending, if only because shows very rarely go this audacious route.
NOT MY FEDERATION: Scorpio's crashlanding has shades of the Enteprise-D's saucer doing the same in Generations.
BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: Avon wants a new figurehead for the "Rebel Alliance". Pretty overt. This is the Rogue One of the series.
WHO?: David Collings (Deva, nominally in charge of the Gauda Prime base) was Poul in The Robots of Death, and would play Mawdryn in Mawdryn Undead. He also played a ruthless version of the Doctor in Big Finish's Unbound series.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High: It's kind of the perfect ending for this show, I suppose, but still a downer!
Comments
Avon's attempt almost certainly fails; the troops know that Orac is forever lost without him and will suffer any number of casualties to take him alive.