"My problem was always women."
REVIEW: Ben Steed's The Harvest of Kairos was a mess, and this one is too. Even more so. Just too many ideas vying for attention, requiring what feels like script editor implants to explain things every so often (to the point of redundancy, such as when Avon concludes things we were already told by the villains) and yet still coming across as confounding. The direction and editing do it no favors, clipping moments to within an inch of their comprehensibility. I felt like I was going "huh?" every few minutes, and if a lot of time is spent on our heroes figuring things out, it's exactly because there's no way to give exposition to the people who need to know what's going on in anything but the clumsiest way.
At the center of this is an intriguing way to continue Servalan's story. Trying to rebuild the Federation, she takes a one-month "urgent" trip to a planet hidden inside an energy field to take command of the dangerous Fifth Legion. When she gets there, she finds most of the ships have been destroyed and mid-level officers have gotten rid of all their superiors, now attempting the ultimate coup by taking care of Servalan. The alien planet's technology would allow them to replicate a new fleet and take control of the galaxy. From there, we might have enjoyed an "enemy of my enemy" relationship between Servalan and Blake's 7, or just a good one-off episode where she gets rid of her competition in her usual slimy way. Unfortunately...
Steed keeps throwing things at us that can't possibly be developed. The planet has a native eugenic population we never see. Everything is run by a computer - Moloch - who is also an organic puppet thing that is the real master, even though the Fifth Legion thinks they are. The cloaking field seems to blank out enough space for 159 years at maximum speed, but their planet is right on the edge. The Legion is importing convicts from a prison planet on the other side of the field, which Vila seems way too happy to join - his motivations very hard to gauge throughout. He and Tarrant beam into their ship in a crawl space where they can't be detected and only Vila can get them out, except Vila materializes on the wrong side of the all, is caught and it doesn't matter, and then Tarrant IS able to get out. He gets shot but gets better, nothing to do with him being copied by the replicator machines. A lot of demonstrations for no real reason unless the Legion was trying to toady to Servalan, which they're not. A whole bit about Moloch punishing the superior officer by putting him in a water tank that amounts to nothing. Its punishments for female captives is to essentially make them sex slaves for the men, including Servalan who, had she not been thrown to Vila, was facing gang rape (I know this is more adult than Doctor Who, but some things are just gross, guys). Then we have a final showdown where everybody gets killed and you hardly know who's doing the shooting, and we end on Servalan telling the Liberator they're outgunned and have to surrender, but Avon gets out of it by telling his crew to run. Uhm.
NOT MY FEDERATION: The biggest connection is that Moloch's people have invented replicators. The Fifth Legion seems to be following Klingon rules of promotion, or perhaps those of the Terran Empire. Moloch is voiced by Deep Roy whom we've mentioned before (this is his third episode) - he was Keenser in the Star Trek films.
BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: Deep Roy also played Yoda and Droopy McCool in the Star Wars films.
WHO?: Annnnnd Deep Roy ALSO ALSO played Mr. Sin on Doctor Who, as well as a delegate in Mindwarp. His Moloch predates another one-eyed villain in a cupola - Davros as Dalek Emperor in Remembrance of the Daleks! Davyd Harries (Doran) played Major Shapp in The Armageddon Factor. Credited as stunt coordinator, Stuart Fell plays the guard who tussles with Vila and gets shot by Servalan - he was one of Doctor Who's most recognizable stunt performers and a Dalek operator.
REWATCHABILITY: Low - A confusing and sometimes distasteful episode, Moloch is a mess that hides a couple of good ideas.
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