Blake's 7 - Series 4 [DVD]

I've so enjoyed revisiting this, the fourth and final season of Blakes 7. As other reviewers have noted, it is much more enjoyable and consistent than its own somewhat tawdry reputation would suggest - although it is true that it only truly gets into its stride from about the half-way mark. But when it gets going, boy does it get going. For my money, the final 10 minutes of 'Orbit' must rate as some of the most gripping psychological drama ever broadcast by the BBC, in any genre. Other highlight episodes include Rescue, Sand, Gold, and the final (nearly) two parter Warlord and Blake, where our heroes' journey is brought to an abrupt and terribly brutal end.Special mention must go to the regular cast (even Glynis Barber is OK, folks), with Paul Darrow and Michael Keating giving particularly fine performances on the "goodies" side. However, the show-stealing performance here is certainly the wonderful Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan - quite simply she lights up the screen in every scene she's in, very much in the same way that Tom Baker (at his best) always did in the Beeb's rival Sci-fi behemoth Dr Who. It's completely inexplicable to me why this fine actress never went on to a notable career post-Blake - if you only need one reason to check out Blakes 7 as a series, she is it.As for the series' climax, it is undeniably great although I've always found it a little odd. Ultimately, the extent to which viewers can make any sense of what goes on hinges on their interpretation of Avon's motivations, as the pressures on him mount. Does he seriously start to lose the plot? Does he have some dastardly scheme of betraying everyone and leading them through the gates of hell? Or is he simply doing his best under immense pressure, and having a run of truly rotten luck? You decide.In 'Warlord' he makes the stupendously foolish decision (inexplicably one which the other members of the group go along with too - whatever else is the case, Avon's somehow garnered their implicit trust) to reveal the whereabouts of his ultra-secret hideaway base to a motley collection of warlords, in the hope that they will team up with him and fight the federation. Why would he do this, unless he was not thinking straight, or had some weird ulterior motive, or death wish? Of course, he is betrayed by one of the warlords (the wonderfully creepy, punk-hairdo'd Zukan)and the base has to be abandoned and destroyed.So what does Avon do then? He decides, apparently out of the blue, to go and find his former, despised comrade-in-arms Roj Blake, even though he knows Blake is hiding out on a supremely dangerous planet full of bounty hunters who are highly likely to want to capture/kill the entire crew on site. And when, after the ship disastrously crash-lands on the planet, marooning the whole crew, Avon inexplicably chooses to invade Blake's base in a spirit of murderous abandon, gunning down an innocent technician (who, like nearly everyone else on the base is actually anti-federation) and then killing Blake himself in cold blood even though he only has Tarrant's (as it happens, mistaken) word that Blake has betrayed him. He then stands there, gun at his side, while federation guards mop up the rest of the crew, after which he levels his gun at his captors and smiles. As TV series endings go, it's legendary stuff, but it's very very hard to get your head round it all in any rational sense.In many ways, the ending is a logical culmination of the increasingly murderous and psychopathic nature of much of the group's adventures in season 4. They've been getting more and more trigger happy for some time now, and by the time we get to 'Blake' they're really just getting their just desserts. When you consider that they could have entered Blake's base in a spirit of "OK, let's see if we're in the presence of friends or foe here" and act with some caution, they in fact just act like federation killers themselves, opening fire at harmless potential allies almost as soon as the door has closed behind them. And this is AFTER their flyer has encountered no hostile forces - on the contrary, an open door - on the way in. You can only wonder what's in their minds - given that they've supposed to have come here to find Blake and hopefully form a new anti-federation alliance, it's a rum way to behave.All of which possibly highlights the overall moral subtext of Blakes 7 as a whole - spend too long on the run, presuming everyone is your enemy and sooner or later you're going to turn into the bad guys yourselves. That is presuming you were ever really the good guys in the first place.Let's face it, you just don't get TV like this nowadays. If you've never seen it, make sure you do.

The final series of Blake's 7 contains, fittingly, seven of the best episodes of TV SF ever made. With the exception of Animals, which is slightly below par, these are supported by five eminently watchable episodes - Rescue, Traitor, Games, Gold and Warlord.At the time of broadcast, this series held the UK gripped to its seats -- more than one person in every five in the whole of Britain watched the final episode. During the '90s, though, it suffered an unfair reputation as being low-budget space opera that did not compare with American offerings such as Star Trek the Next Generation and Babylon 5. Both of these series were milestones in television science-fiction, and millions of viewers enjoyed them and continue to enjoy them. However, Blake's 7 was actually _better_ than either of them in terms of its script and acting, with vastly more memorable dialogue. Naturally, the earlier Blake's 7 had weaker visuals than either of the later series -- just as these now compare unfavourably with more recent offerings such as Voyager, Lexx and Farscape. But this is the inevitable fate of all television SF - to be visually superseded by the next generation of effects.I recently rewatched this boxed set, and, as an experiment, asked a 23 year old who had grown up with all the assumptions of the '90s to watch it with me. From a sceptical beginning, he was absolutely astonished by how good it was.First, the visuals are nowhere near as bad they are reputed to be. The modelling of the ship Scorpio was excellent, and the use of real-world landscapes for most of the action means there are few visual gaffes. There are some issues with the special effects and the space backgrounds, but these are short sequences and don't distract greatly from the overall effect.Second, the stunts are extremely good. The fighting is largely restrained, but all the more convincing for it. Blake's 7 was never meant to be a hand to hand combat adventure, but some of the combat is extremely well done.Third, the characterisation is without equal. One occasionally hears the accusation that Paul Darrow overacts -- this is a surprising claim: the Avon character he presents is entirely convincing. This crucial scene in 'Orbit' which brings to a head the long tensions between Avon and Vila is drama at the highest level. Avon in more restrained form ('If you didn't want the answer, why did you ask the question?', at the end of 'Power') is hugely memorable and eminently quoteable.Fourth, the range of the series is extremely broad. No two of the episodes are alike, ranging from espionage ('Traitor') to psionics ('Power') to engineering ('Stardrive')to a hard-core problem in Newton's laws of motion ('Orbit'). The Tanith Lee-scripted episode, 'Sand', broke new ground, while 'Headhunter' brings an effective twist to the Frankenstein motif.Finally, the series is ruthlessly written. Probably the real reason that Blake's 7 enjoyed such a bad reputation is the way it finished: no other SF series before or since ended with the deaths of all the major characters. For years there were rumours that the series would revive, and the final assault would turn out to have been stun guns. But, in ending as it did, it remained true to the bleak, '1984' atmosphere of the very first series.If you are already a fan, you will enjoy this boxed set. If you've never watched it, then all I can say is that you will _not_ be disappointed.