"From here on, it's downhill all the way."
REVIEW: It was supposed to be the series finale, so they brought Terry Nation to put the show to sleep. And the audience, at times. I'm quite used to Nation's short scripts being padded beyond measure, but there's an awful lot of flying, scanning and running in the first half of the episode (as well as Space Monopoly) and it takes FOREVER to clue the audience into what's happening. Even details like the apemen (or Links) living on the artificial planet Terminal being quickly-evolved beings that predict humanity's future form (while blond people lurk in the bushes) seems like a pointless Dalek-Thal riff. And then part of the episode is a drug-induced illusion, well...
Blake's 7 being the show it is, it has to end on a downer (only Avon cracks a smile after being dour all episode), so as originally planned, they bring back Blake (in the dream) and tell us he actually died (don't believe it). They blow up the Liberator after a run-in with a cloud of acid/fungus, and Zen as a result (he gets a pretty good death scene where he suddenly affirms his personhood, in a way). Servalan is seemingly killed in the fracas (but we don't see a body, so don't believe it). And the crew is stranded on Terminal with a damaged Federation ship they might be able to repair. They at least decided to end it with some hope - "the story continues", so to speak - and Vila grabbing Orac at the last minute, for example, does speak to possible plans for the future.
Once we DO get an explanation, it shows Servalan at her most duplicitous. She sent coded messages to Avon, luring him there with the promise of freeing Blake and following him to some secret weapon. Once he's there, she knocks him out and induces a dream of Blake to create a fake bargaining chip, then leverages it to get the Liberator. (There's a set with people molds, but neither Blake nor the Links were cloned, so this is a weird bit of set dressing.) Ironically, it's falling apart, and she and her men look very foolish for not noticing all the gross slime everywhere (especially since she's been aboard before). There's plenty of stupidity to go around, of course, with Avon absolutely refusing to tell anyone anything of his plans, their not listening to his orders anyway. Avon even brought Orac's key with him so they can't use him to interfere (contrived, but it DOES give Zen a bigger role in his final appearance).
Quick mention of some nice effects held for the finale... The liquid in space, the death of the Liberator, and some mechanical bits of set design on the planet, but my favorite part is one of Servalan's stooges getting sucked out of a hole in the ship's hull, sliding down a huge piece of flooring. Unlike Doctor Who, this show knows to keep some money for the end.
NOT MY FEDERATION: The accelerated evolution on Terminal is similar to what happens on the Genesis Planet). The Enterprise went all goopy in a very similar way in TNG's Cost of Living. Deep Roy is one of the Links (we've often mentioned him in all three bonus rubrics); he's the one Tarrant flips over (be broke his collarbone doing that stunt).
BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: Links aren't as smart as Wookies.
WHO?: This is wild, but Mary Ridge directed both this episode, Terminal, and later Doctor Who's Terminus.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium, but really Medium-Low - Important happenings that might have been truly definite, but we waste so much time getting there, it's almost unbearable.
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