"I like God's taste in servants!"
REVIEW: I'm trying to get the timeline straight here. If the trip to the prison planet was 8 months, and it seems like it's been a few days since the previous episode, I guess it took longer than I thought for Blake to stage his coup. Because he, Jenna and Avon are still making key discoveries aboard the alien ship, and changing clothes for the first time. That confusion aside, this third part of the set-up still intrigues with its various components. The ship gets a name, pulled from Jenna's mind after she makes telepathic contact with it - the Liberator - and a somewhat vague A.I. called Zen (so that personality fits) that acts as fount of knowledge (except when it doesn't). The ship is able of vast speeds, though it may actually just be slightly faster than the Federation's best pursuit craft (vastly faster than the old, beat-up London). It has want-like laser guns, but a kind of moral clause attached. Bracelet-enabled transporter technology. A screen that evokes a kind of 3D experience. And rooms full of clothes and jewellery. It makes you wonder just who the original owners used to be and whether the series will explore this at all (Zen is closed-lipped about it). Or did Zen "create" Jenna's new wardrobe and Avon's treasure because it saw these needs in their minds? A lot of unknown buttons to push, but luckily, Avon carried stickers with him. Still, there are some nice video effects here that set the show apart from others - the transport, the floating screen... and the villains' explosive decompression!
Blake is really coming into his own as a character for me. I love how, when Avon turns a gun on him, he barely blinks and igores it. And as shown when he tries the teleport, he's absolutely fearless to the point of coldness (though he affords Jenna a smile and a joke when he returns). A real badass as per his reputation. Avon's overt villainy continues to be fun, and he doesn't hide the fact that he'd love to have the ship (and its treasures) for himself, even forcing Jenna to initiate a ticking clock when Blake is down on the planet and he wants to leave him there. Her loyalty for Blake keeps growing, however. Is there meant to be a romance between them? The relationship feels pretty asexual. And yet, Gan gets a kiss down on the planet and the priestess played by Pamela Salem even tries to warn him at the end when he almost gets speared (sadly, she does instead... man, I would have loved to see "Kara" as one of the Seven somehow, because Pamela Salem, that's why) - well, he IS the most sympathetic member of the crew. Vila also makes it off Cygnus Alpha, and since I haven't managed to give anyone else the top quote yet, I'll have to register some official fandom for the character. No other prisoner makes it off-world, possibly for budgetary reasons...
The prison planet is a dank quarry (of course), with gory corpses crucified on X's and a castle set probably left over from some other production. A society has sprung up over the decades that's now led by a high priest played by Brian Blessed who, according to interviews, felt it was a mistake to play Vargas THAT big, and yet I think he's often much more restrained than his usual bombast! You know Vargas is in charge, because he has these bright white trainers that I don't think we were meant to see under his robes (haha). As the lore goes, every time a ship dropped off some inmates, chaos ensued, so Vargas' grandfather created a religion and a way to keep people under control (a "disease" that required special medicine). It's a clever idea that makes sense in the context of the Federation's practices (and the way fascist Federationites are trained to THINK). Where they got an old six-shooter, a sword and a Celtic-looking idol isn't clear, but the answers aren't too hard to imagine. We COULD have had some explanations for them, but we'd much rather watch a brutal fight between the inmates and the cultists, right? Kara is accidentally speared, which makes me wonder why we spent so much time on the internal strife of the cult, but I do love Blake's crazy leap over the guards' weapons at the end. But it does often seem like the episode had too much story to tell for its run time. What are Kara's feelings for Gan? What is the bit with the antique gun? And what about that 8-month gap?
NOT MY FEDERATION: The Federation hasn't cracked the teleportation of living beings yet, but the Liberator has a working transporter. Though Star Trek doesn't require communicators to home in on, this teleport requires bracelets that also have this function. While the Federation still seems to use firearms, the Liberator offers beam weapons that look like wands. While Star Trek's phasers look different at this point, Next Gen would introduce wand-like phasers less than a decade later.
BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: We know Star Wars' Empire uses prison planets, though they've mostly been featured in new material (Solo, Andor). THIS prison planet seems to have a monolithic ecosystem, like planets in the Star Wars universe.
WHO?: Doctor Who also has T-Mat technology and prison planets (notably, there's one in Terry Nation's The Daleks' Master Plan), and it's hard to see TARDIS "roundels" in the Liberator's armory. Pamela Salem (Kara) has had two important roles in Doctor Who - the pre-UNIT scientific adviser in Remembrance of the Daleks, and more importantly given the Boucher connection, Toos in The Robots of Death. Brian Blessed (Blackadder, Flash Gordon, Branagh's Shakespeare films) was King Yrcanos in Mindwarp (and where's my apology for THAT OTT performance?). Peter Tuddenham, the voice of Zen, also did voices for Doctor Who, notably on The Ark in Space, The Masque of Mandragora and Time and the Rani (he later appears in person on Blake's 7 as other characters). Robert Russell (cult enforcer Laran) had small roles in The Power of the Daleks and Terror of the Zygons. Among the inmates, Peter Childs (Arco) would be Jack Ward in The Mark of the Rani. Vere Lorrimer is the first director on the series not to have worked on Doctor Who,
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Though it could have spread out its quality guest-stars more, the show's final "pilot" episode sets up a lot of important bits and provides cracking lines and better-than-expected action and effects.
Comments
Congrats on getting through the 3 episode set up!! You are officially a Blakes 7 fan now!!
I remember this one. But your retrospective is making me want to rewatch all of these. So much I have forgotten about them.