Blake's 7 - Series 4

At the start of Blake’s 7 Series 4 The Liberator has been destroyed, and it’s crew are left stranded on planet Terminal. Avon, Vila, Tarrant and Dayna survive, but the episode begins with the death of Cally. The crew are then rescued by another ship, “Scorpio” which they then acquire as the series progresses. Scorpio looks very similar to the Imperial Star Destroyer from “The Empire Strikes Back” – has the BBC ripped off George Lucas here?

The ship Scorpio is housed in an underground missile silo with a secret base where Avon and the rest of the crew operate from and hide in. As well as getting a new ship the crew also get a new crew member: Soolin, an attractive blonde who is very good with a gun. Zen, the Liberator’s onboard computer has also been replaced with another onboard computer on Scorpio – named Slave. The rest of the first six episodes feature our gang running away from The Federation, having various run-ins with Servalan and doing some dodgy dealings with some shady characters (the late Roy Kinear pops up in one episode). In the episode “Sand”, which is similar to David Lynch’s film “Dune” Servalan is stranded on a hostile planet with slimey old Ken Masters from “Howard’s Way”. Another episode “Assassin” runs into “Alien” territory as the crew lurk around dark corridors on the assassin’s spaceship.

The last episode on Disc 5 is the best. “Blake”: with this episode you really get a sense of closure for the whole series. The crew deliberately blow up their underground secret base and missile silo while escaping in Scorpio. Avon has received a tip off that Blake is on planet Gauda Prime – a hostile world. Scorpio then comes under attack and is critically damaged so that it crash lands on Gauda Prime (Avon, Soolin and Dayna beam off by teleport) and Tarrant has to crash-land it manually. The Scorpio is totally wrecked on impact (much like The USS Enterprise-E was when it crash-landed in “Star Trek: Generations”).

Slave, the computer dies and Tarrant is found by Blake, who is now battle-scarred and masquerading as a bounty hunter on Gauda Prime in order to recruit people to join his army of freedom fighters against the Federation. At Blake’s base it all comes to a head as Blake and Avon and the rest of the crew are reunited. But due to a misunderstanding, nobody knows anymore who is Federation and who isn’t, and it all ends in a shootout, bloodbath, massacre which leaves everybody but Avon dead as the Federation troops close in. Cut to black, more gunfire shots ring out over the end credits and we assume Avon (in a last stand against the Federation) is killed too. End of series.

In closing Blake’s 7 wasn’t a bad series, it was just poorly made due to BBC budget constraints, over-acted sometimes and with bad special effects, but good for anybody who grew up watching it at the time. After having seen all 4 seasons, I would say “Terminal” (with it’s constant, disturbing thumping sound on the planet surface) and the series closer, “Blake” are the two best episodes. The last series tries to look more like “Star Wars” in it’s set design, and planet Gauda Prime sounds too similar to planet Guidi Prime, from Frank Herbert’s Dune, filmed by David Lynch. But on the whole, not bad.

In the DVD extras you have Paul Darrow and Jacqueline Pearce on voiceover, recalling about the series. This is quite amusing since over 25 years have passed since and they can’t remember what episode they are doing the commentary for and they can’t remember the name of the director either. Pearce calls everybody “Darling”. Also, on the extras you have old footage from Pebble Mill and other shows from the BBC archives and interviews with key Blake’s 7 crew personnel.

Killing everybody off at the end of the very last episode was a brave move – something that has never been done in British television either before or since. Blakes 7 is good for anybody who watched it the first time and has fond memories of the show.

Whilst season 4 of this classic show is not up to the high standards of seasons 1 and 2. The final episode more than makes up for this.

I think the show began to lose its direction with the loss of the Blake character as there was nothing for Avon to bounce off from. It does get annoying after a while that Avon is always right, particularly as Servalan is sidelined in this season also in many respects. Without having the Federation behind her she comes across as a bit pointless.

The final episode however, is groundbreaking - as has been said many times - killing the crew off is a brilliant way to finish the show- no other programme has had the guts to do this quite so starkly in my opinion. But not only that but they turn Blake into a common mercenary at the end - brilliant.

So the season overall is a disappointment, but is almost redeemed by the final episode.

Still good for the time it was made, and though they seem to be running out of ideas I still have fond memories of it from when it was shown on telly. Don’t anyone dare try to remake it; that would only spoil it!

Still can’t understand though how in disc 3 of series 4 Dayna (Josette Simon) and Vila (Michael Keating) could hear a window smash on the planet while their in the middle of a storm and inside the ship!