Having been quite ill recently I've had a bit of time on my hands and one of the things I've done to fill the void is to delve back into the old BBC show Blake's 7 which I adored as youngster.
What a great show. Sure, the production values were nominal and 99% of the FX shots hopeless (save for a few beauty shots of the Liberator) but the characters, dialogue and plots are still as cracking today as they were when the show first aired.
What was particulalrly notable about the show was the way lead characters were killed off quite mercilessly. Nowadays, that sort of plot twist is fairly commonplace in shows like The Walking Dead but in the 70s it was pretty unusual (Doomwatch did it as did Survivors, the latter also created by B7 creator Terry Nation).
The show went down hill significantly in series 4 but it was still good fun.
From this vantage point Servalen comes off like a precursor to Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. (That borderline ridiculous theme remains a guilty pleasure for me after all these years.)
Always counted myself as NOT a fan. Hated the production values so much. Couldn't understand why the BBC would consider trying to do an adult space opera when they couldn't afford decent production values for the sf series they already had, Doctor Who. And I always resented anything that might take away money from that.
Of course many Who fans are B7 fans too. It's that BBC video drama thing they all seem to love so much. Funny thing is, I didn't mind Who because I'd been watching since I was too young to notice the cheapness, so by the time I did I was well and truly hooked. Starting as a late teenager with a new poorly produced series had something in common with teaching an old dog new tricks.
But I also found the acting extremely wooden too. And yet.. I watched it every week!
It certainly beggars belief that with all the fantasy and family dramas that have followed in the wake of the Doctor Who revival, including the BBC's, and with those glossy production values they now all get, they haven't done Blake yet. For years it was the most requested series for revival after Who.
It certainly beggars belief that with all the fantasy and family dramas that have followed in the wake of the Doctor Who revival, including the BBC's, and with those glossy production values they now all get, they haven't done Blake yet. For years it was the most requested series for revival after Who.
I always found it surprising the series has never been released on DVD in the U.S. Fans of the series having to buy a region free player, or end up buying copies from the boot market.
Bizarre. I'm sure they'd sell well, especially if advertising was carried within the packaging for the Doctor Whos. Anyone with a liking for BBC 70s sf from watching Who would definitely find Blakes 7 entertaining.
Bizarre. I'm sure they'd sell well, especially if advertising was carried within the packaging for the Doctor Whos. Anyone with a liking for BBC 70s sf from watching Who would definitely find Blakes 7 entertaining.
Paul, It was listed on Amazon US some years ago, then it was pulled for some reason.
'fraid not ... I may have seen the odd 5 minutes when my wife was watching ...
... but I do hope you're fully recovered. We may not agree on much but I do (mostly) enjoy your forum contributions!
Mitch
Thanks Mitch, that's much appreciated. Still waiting for results from the docs to see if I need to be put down.
Hope you're feeling better. Don't go falling ill in the Dominican Republic. lol
If I recall ... you met with TG back in Feb ... it took me many months to recover from that experience (though in my case it was merely a strained neck)!
If I recall ... you met with TG back in Feb ... it took me many months to recover from that experience (though in my case it was merely a strained neck)!
Mitch
I do t think anyone truly recovers from meeting TG!
If I recall ... you met with TG back in Feb ... it took me many months to recover from that experience (though in my case it was merely a strained neck)!
Mitch
I do t think anyone truly recovers from meeting TG!
Always counted myself as NOT a fan. Hated the production values so much. Couldn't understand why the BBC would consider trying to do an adult space opera when they couldn't afford decent production values for the sf series they already had, Doctor Who. And I always resented anything that might take away money from that.
Of course many Who fans are B7 fans too. It's that BBC video drama thing they all seem to love so much. Funny thing is, I didn't mind Who because I'd been watching since I was too young to notice the cheapness, so by the time I did I was well and truly hooked. Starting as a late teenager with a new poorly produced series had something in common with teaching an old dog new tricks.
But I also found the acting extremely wooden too. And yet.. I watched it every week!
B7 was a hoot and done in the days when the BBC could actually put out more than one sci-fi show without breaking the bank - remember that all the while Dr Who was going out, the BBC had shows like Out Of The Unknown, Moonbase 3, Survivors, Hitchhikers Guide, etc. The public were a lot more forgiving about low production values in those days.
Blakes 7 had the advantage of well delineated characters and pretty good writing to keep people interested. Sure the plots might have been knowingly hokey, but the dialogue was witty, quite sophisticated and well up to, or even above, the standard of mainstream UK drama scripting of the period.
B7's writing was Oscar Wilde compared to today's TV dumbed-down but FX heavy sci-fi offerings. It also featured the most relentlessly sarcastic space crew in the history of Science Fiction. Should've called it Bitchy 7. Great show. Great SFX? Nope. But funny, charming and smart. Well... most of the time.
Currently re-watching it on DVD. On series 4 now, unfortunately, which is much weaker. The previous series have each had quite a few very good episodes. Now it seems the writers' faulty logic circuits are beyond the tolerance of the auto-repair mechanism.
I remember the episode in Season 4 where Avon is searching for Vila to throw him out of the ship, and thinking it was the best bit of tension I'd ever seen in the series. The Thunderbirds style model work was fun, and the very end of the series well staged and dramatic.
The less said about the creature in the first episode, which was an obvious thinly disguised Sea Devil from 70s Doctor Who wardrobe the better! Good job Soolin was such a pleasant distraction.
Not doing bad from a non-fan eh? Must've liked more than I think...
Apart from two tempos of the theme music, does anyone think there's enough material for a soundtrack album? Of course Dudley Simpson's recordings probably went the same way as his Who stuff. Heathcliffe......?
