Blake's 7

For those of us weaned on Doctor Who, shows like Blake's 7 are instantly appealing. But for today's audiences, try this trick:

Listen closely to the dialogue and notice how the acting--unlike the SFX--is quite good. Then imagine that George Lucas, Jerry Bruckheimer and any actor you admire collaborated on a faithful remake, line for line, with top-level effects. Can you see it? (May require more than one viewing.)

Good. Prior to Battlestar Galactica on TV and Star Wars on the big screen, this is about all we had in terms of production values. (We were lucky if the boom mics were not showing at the top of the screen.) We had to make do with fascinating story ideas and characters we could inhabit each week. If the monsters were made of rubber, the spaceships made of cardboard, well, we lived with it.

Note to Spielberg, Bruckheimer, Lucas, et al: Keep the script stet and consider giving these back to the world.

This is quite simply the coolest sci-fi series of all time. It is easy to laugh at the sets and effects in these days of CGI, but it was good entertaining fun when it came out. Gareth Thomas played the Blake of the title, who whizzed round the universe with his crew of outlaws, trying to avoid the Federation. The leader of the Federation, Servalan, was a strong, scary woman who thought nothing of stabbing her allies in the back. In contrast to series such as Doctor Who, the female cast members werent just "screamers" - they all had their own specific and useful skills, such as Cally (Jan Chappell) who had psychic powers and Jenna (Sally Knyvette), an expert pilot. Watching it now brings back many memories, but it does stand up even now. Inspired!

I discovered "Blakes 7" (though it ought to be "Blake's 6," methinks) when I was five years old - and I dismissed it. I thought it looked boring and corny, and when I got hooked on "Doctor Who" shortly thereafter, I forgot all about it.

Well, like a wayward son, I have returned to "Blakes 7" all these years later. I've just finished the season one DVDs, and I enjoyed myself immensely. In some respects it's a very familiar show that borrows terminology and ideas from much older genre entertainment, like "Star Trek." But it's quite revolutionary in terms of structure - the arc plot is ahead of its time - and characterization. "Blakes 7" also features a surprisingly cynical world view; the Federation in this series isn't a league of whitewashed good guys, it's a corrupt organization that controls its subjects through military force and "1984"-like brainwashing.

The best character of the season is Avon, who is played in a wonderful sneering fashion by Paul Darrow. Blake is my second favorite; he's an idealist, but he's tough and he's not preachy (thank goodness). The other crew members, truth be told, are a little bland. I'm not sure why people seem to like the cowardly thief character Villa so much, since his role mainly consists of whining and cracking flat jokes. Jenna the smuggler is a pretty foxy lady, but she doesn't do much but get tied up and possessed - both staple pastimes for women in these semi-sexist old shows.

Certain plot elements are recycled in a tiresome fashion; in several episodes, half of Blake's crew is stranded on a planet while the other half contends with a problem in space. And of course, there's always a moment when the ground team is in mortal peril and needs to be "beamed up," but nobody's at the controls to do it. I complain too much, though - there are several genuinely surprising plot twists in the first season. And, even when the stories are a little clichéd, a great cast of British character actors is on hand to pick up the slack. Cool guest stars like Brian Blessed and Julian Glover reliably provide rock-solid support for the regulars.

The show is still easy to dismiss due to its low budget. But does it really matter that Blake's laser gun looks like a hair-curler? Not a bit. Flawed production values do very little to detract from "Blakes 7," which in the final analysis is clearly one of the more thoughtful and exciting sci-fi series I've had the pleasure to watch. The very first episode, which concerns Blake being framed for child molestation, is particularly gripping. It's highly recommended stuff.

In 1978, America had "Battlestar Galactica" and Dirk Benedict. England had "Blake's 7" and Paul Darrow. England had the better deal.

Sure, "Blake's 7" had a shoddy budget and clunkier sets than "Doctor Who", but the show had more interesting characters. You could not find a more diverse bunch of criminals, freedom fighters, and guns-for-hire - and these were the heroes (or anti-heroes)of the show. Almost every week they fought Servalan, Travis, and the evil Galactic Federation (boo,hiss!) while sometimes barely getting along with each other. The show flagged a bit in the last season, but it had the best series finale of all time in my opinion.

This has to be one of the best--perhaps THE best science fiction serials ever produced. It is a true serial in that the story goes, stage by stage, through a complete, novelistic sequence. Even though the fourth season was not planned when they finished up the 3rd (originally designed as the finale), the ideas, themes, and characterizations continued as a logical (if sometimes twisted) culmination of the history that had preceded it. Blake's 7 inspired what is undoubtedly the finest American sci fi series ever--Babylon 5, which in some ways surpassed B7, certainly in terms of quality effects and production values. If you look carefully, I believe you can spot a ship closely resembling the Scorpio in some of the battle formations in Season 4 of B5.

My personal favorite performer on Blake's 7 was the extraordinary Jacqueline Pearce--surely one of the most gifted actresses of our day. In one way it is a shame that she will always be remembered for his work on this series, but, from another perspective, her creation of Servalan has a truly legendary quality, larger than life and yet intensely human. Jackie imbued Servalan with a wit, grace, and elegance that made her absolute evil all the more intriguing. Paul Darrow as Avon provided the perfect complement to Servalan's infamy. Coldly self-aggrandizing and exquisitely poised in his own right, Darrow's performance is often tinged with streaks of frighteningly believable psychosis, especially during the memorable final season.

If this series had had a wider airing in the US, it would have attracted a massive cult following over here. Grab this on tape if you can find it!