Blake's 7 #4: Time Squad

"I'm breathless with anticipation."

IN THIS ONE... The crew comes across a sleeper ship and Blake goes after a juicy target... and recruits one final member of the 7.

REVIEW: So this seems to be a "standard episode", with a derivative science-fiction A-plot and a more interesting B-plot that advances Blake's cause. We'll take them in turns, but first some general comments. I'm just now noticing that the captain's chair isn't a chair at all, but just a plank one slightly leans on. That just makes me want to know more about the original owners. They do have backsides, because the other seats are more chair-like and there's a comfy couch right on the bridge - I love that Blake takes a nap on it, too. The color palette on the show is still very drab despite some new costumes creeping in. Avon went for a kind of weird apron - do they see him as the blacksmith of the bunch? But it terms of production values, they do a lot with little. The bridge is a giant space, as is the hold, contrasting well with the space capsule's cramped quarters. The planet stuff is the same old quarry (not literally, it's not the same as the previous episode's), but a color filter gives it a different feel (something amply used in Vancouver locations in Battlestar Galactica), and the real-life power station is immense.

When the ship detects a distress call emanating from a sleeper ship, I was ready for a bottle show in which Blake's mission is interrupted. But no, they do get to the Federation communications relay station he wants to sabotage and they split the party. The sleeper stuff of course recalls one of Star Trek's most famous episodes, "Space Seed", to the point where I find it quite bold that Terry Nation would rip it off (it's before Khan made it really big in Star Trek II, but still). Unlike "Space Seed", however, we don't get a charismatic villain out of it, just a few stunt men in piecemeal leather armor skulking around trying to kill Jenna and Gan and getting shot for their trouble. Jenna is super cool in this, a good hand-to-hand fighter, etc., and there are some interesting directorial choices from Pennant Roberts, like keeping her in the background as bodies fall close to the camera. But there's no denying the script falls short of its run time. There's a lot of skulking, soooo muuuuchhhh skulking. I also take exception to the some of astronaut docking procedures stuff that is very much Terry Nation. All the cracking lines are probably from script editor Chris Boucher, but he hasn't replaced all this cod sci-fi stuff.

While this plot is rather dull, with its stakes hand-waved away at the end (the stuntmen were guarding cells that could grow into more stuntmen within minutes, let's jettison the whole thing), it does feature a couple of interesting things. One is that Zen seems to be struggling with how much help it can give the crew. Some of this seems based on some kind of morality. The same way the same crew member can't take out more than one laser gun - and I note here that the gun fails to work for the sleepers - it seems hard put to accept Avon's commands specifically. We know it's telepathic, so... Have to keep an eye on these moments of what today we'd call "lag". The other is Gan's back story. While defending his "woman", he killed a Federation security guard with his bare hands and was implanted with a "limiter" that prevents him from killing. This is why he's loyal to Blake - he can't survive on his own, suffers from headaches, could never really defend himself if the authorities caught up with him (they need to find a stun setting on those guns). It's an interesting notion, slightly odd in the context of a society that has perfected brainwashing (why a piece of tech, when mental blocks should do?), and the way it's presented, I was initially confused. We see the limiter in his hair, which makes it seem like the sleepers put it there, but no, they only bashed his head in and made it visible. Another Pennant Roberts original here: When we transition from Gan's headache to Jenna in the hold, the video effect makes it look like his head is splitting open. I thought it was neat at first, but it's also foreshadowing.

Down on the planet, there's also a bit of faffing about - the script was definitely too short - before Blake, Avon and Vila make contact with the world's freedom fighters. Or freedom fighter, singular. All that's left is Cally, a sort of telepathic Major Kira from another planet who came to help the cause and is the only survivor. After a show of trust, she joins them on the mission and it's fun to see Vila suddenly cocky and confident when a door needs to be lockpicked. They set the reactor to blow and ask for beam up, but of course, the other two are fighting zombies on the ship, so we have a bit of suspense. But they do eventually return, take out the last sleeper, and watch as the entire planet(?) blows up, taking out a major communications relay that will blind the Federation to what's happening in this part of space. Annnd they've picked up Cally, who completes the required Seven (because Zen counts, Blake specifically says so, for the audience who's wondering by this point if the show really had the budget for the title's promised cast members). BUT YES, WE HAVE REACHED 7!

NOT MY FEDERATION: The other Federation does use relays, though they are not normally planetside and they create a communications network, they're not so centralized. The Liberator is more Starfleet, however. In this episode, we discover it has magical medicine that fixes bruises and broken bones instantly.

BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: Psionics are possible in Blake's universe, though I'm not ready to call them Jedi. And while it's common to think of Jenna as the Han Solo stand-in, because she's a pilot and a smuggler, the position could also be held by Avon who, over the last three episodes, has been the guy who only very reluctantly goes along with the rebels against the evil empire and would rather be out there making money.

WHO?: Let's talk quarries. Doctor Who also made use of them on a consistent basic. The one that plays Saurian Major here - Betchworth Quarry - played Skaro in Genesis of the Daleks, to name but one example. The Oldbury-on-Severn Power Station was made famous a few years earlier as a location in The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane Smith's final story. One of the sleepers, Mark McBride, would play a van driver in Mawdryn Undead.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium (but Medium-Low were it not for Cally's first appearance and the background on Gan) - The sleeper plot isn't a snooze, but it's kind of dead on arrival. The B-plot is better, but like the other story strand, needed more substantive scenes.