Blake's 7 #45: Headhunter

"We can fulfill your every desire." "You wouldn't know where to start."

IN THIS ONE... The crew fight a killer robot.

REVIEW: Okay, what are we doing, here? Headhunter gets us into a story somewhere in the middle and we have to play catch-up. Lynda Bellingham is Vena, a woman who has a romantic affiliation with a genius cyberneticist Avon is trying tor recruit to the cause, and Vila and Tarrant have been sent to pick him - Muller - up. She's a strong guest-star, but the point of her character is to die by the villain's hands, and that's a real shame. It's not the only misstep the episode takes, either, though I'm perhaps largely reacting to Muller's outrageously dumb costume (but there IS an explanation for it).

But seriously, this whole thing seems out of character for the show. Yes, we recently had an android villain in Death-Watch, but Blake's 7 fighting killer robots just seems like cod sci-fi in place of proper plots (with so few episodes to go, why aren't they taking these characters SOMEwhere?). Avon is at his most compassionate, risking a computer virus infection on the base by refusing Orac's pleas to quarantine Vila and Tarrant. He HAS to save their lives, and well, sure, but also, really? Avon's dream of using the virus against the Federation is stymied by Dayna and Tarrant when they gleefully - and knowingly - destroy the robot, with no real explanation given for their actions. At least Orac and Slave have an excuse for being out of character - they've caught the virus! - and you know what? I like Slave better like this, unshackled and angry. Hard to know if Soolin is out of character or not since she hasn't been allowed to do much yet. She gets a bigger share of the action here, but she's mostly sarcastic legs for Orac.

At the center of this story, is a black box that, without prompting, everyone seems to want to pick up, bring with them, and open. There's no real reason for Tarrant to do it initially, and Avon succumbs to the same impulse EVEN WHILE Orac has warned him about contamination. The way it's played, with the real Muller found HEADLESS in his lab, you fully expect the show to pull a Se7en when the box is opened. The truth is actually more ghastly and takes us into rampaging Frankenstein's Monster territory. The Muller robot is eventually walking around without a head - requiring the big, bulky costume to hide the performer's - and it's goofy as all get-out. I like that they use the planet's power system (seen upon its introduction, but more interesting here, with towers, stations and a dam), but the whole affair still comes off as silly. As do, by the way, the unconvincing new spacesuits - fancy, but absolutely not airtight!

At least it ends on a good punchline.

NOT MY FEDERATION: Muller wanting to "join" with Orac, the creation of his creator's mentor, recalls NOMAD and V'ger's quests to join with their creators. Machine intelligences wanting to replace organic life was used extensively in NuTrek, with long storylines to that effect in both Discovery and Picard. That's not even counting the Borg.

WHO?: Lynda Bellingham will be a special guest-star for the Trial of a Time Lord season a few years after this, as the Inquisitor (and would reprise the role in Big Finish's Gallifrey series). Nick Joseph who plays the headless android also worked on a handful of Doctor Whos in uncredited bit parts, from the late 70s to the mid-80s.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-Low - It's not boring, but man, is it dumb.

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