TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E13 Orac

One of the Blake's 7 trademarks - along with often not having Blake or a 7 in it, being cheap as chips and lots of people dying - was the big end of season cliffhanger. At the time it didn't really happen much in TV, let alone British TV - a mix of the need to make narratives as loose as possible for overseas markets where episodes might be shown out of order or series might not be ordered in full, and that quite often even popular and successful shows wouldn't be commissioned for a further series until after the current one was written, filmed or even broadcast. So ending the first series on a cliffhanger might not have been a first but it was certainly innovative and unexpected in 1978 and still a long way from being de rigeur for most ongoing TV shows. 

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E12 Deliverance

After a cycle of episodes that - the debut of Servalan and Travis happening ahead of any of their other appearances aside - could have been shown in any order Blake's 7 returns to a plot arc for the first time since its' formative episodes. "Deliverance" has the same A/B plot format as the previous episode but here one of the plot-lines is actually kept open at the end of the episode, leading directly to season closer "Orac". After the variable quality and tone of recent adventures it's actually well-placed and gives the season a thread to follow through to avoid just petering out as the money and ideas ran out. On paper.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E11 Bounty

As touched upon before with B7, there's a tendency to credit Chris Boucher with anything good in Terry Nation's scripts and blame anything rubbish on El Tel. This can be a bit unfair; Nation can be a pretty decent writer though historically he's had a habit of getting a bit lazy when his feet are under the table, most famously selling the BBC exactly the same Dalek story several times. But there are occasions in B7 when the script editor's clearly had to work on the screenplay hard. and "Bounty" is one of those. It features a return to the A/B plot structure (which isn't in the first season as much as I remembered, mainly because Nation had enough problems coming up with 13 plots, let alone 26, and "Bounty" is one of the most frequently referred to as needing extending, with various tales of some parts being spontaneously extended during filming) and the clue is that the episode title only really refers to one of the plots - and it's the worst and least subtle of them.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E10 Breakdown

Part of the problem with standalone episodes like "The Web" and "Mission to Destiny" was that they rapidly established that the Federation wasn't all that far-reaching considering the crew could fly beyond its' clutches with relative ease and meet people who either didn't know or didn't care about its' existence. "Breakdown" however is a largely Federation-free episode (pursuit ships and voice-overs only) that features a neutral station fully aware of all involved; the different degrees of neutrality is a theme that will be revisited from time to time. 

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E09 Project Avalon

The alternating Federation/non-Federation pattern was short-lived (which is code for me forgetting "Project Avalon" was before "Breakdown") and this episode gives Travis an almost immediate rematch with Blake, though this time he's got Servalan on his back. In many ways it's the quintessential Season 1 episode, featuring a raid on a power station, Servalan, Travis and an over-complicated plot. It is the first sign that the 7 (or six, I was never really convinced Zen gave much of a shit) weren't the only ones fighting against the Federation, though the "other revolutionary we've not mentioned before and won't mention again" device would get a workout in several episodes before the end.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E08 Duel

After the blatant rejected Avengers/The Saint/The Baron script of "Mission to Destiny" Terry Nation's solution to writer's block extended to thieving from stories he didn't even write with "Duel". While an American series from the days when the things didn't have the best reputation in dear old Blighty, Star Trek had debuted on the BBC in 1970 and rapidly became just as much of a cult hit as it had in America; when B7 began it was due for the big screen treatment as Star Wars had suddenly made sci-fi very big but the series was probably already being endlessly repeated. Of course, most people can only remember about a dozen episodes but "Duel" quite shamelessly rips off the famous "Arena" - which was of course based on a forties short story, though I personally think it's highly unlikely Tel ever read a book.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E07 Mission to Destiny

After introducing Servalan and Travis as the effective face of the Federation in "Seek-Locate-Destroy" the series initially alternated encounters between them and the crew for six episodes with self-contained stories that took a more peripheral approach. Actually, the next five would all be self-contained and could work in any order before the twelfth episode, "Deliverance", sets up the first season finale. This is one of the Federation's episodes "off", the second and last of the season to not feature them in anything other than a parting reference. There seems to be a simple reason for this; having taken the money to write all 13 episodes of the series himself, Terry Nation often used to retell with some humour how draining this was, and of pacing around his house telling his wife there were no more stories to tell. "Mission to Destiny" presumably comes after all the stories ran out.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E06 Seek-Locate-Destroy

The final part of the B7 jigsaw slots into place in "Seek, Locate, Destroy" - that of regular recurring villains. Aside from Leylan and Artix (and they were only in it as a recap, with extant footage of Rayker, and if the couple of London crew members seen at the end of "The Way Back" are in "Space Fall" I haven't spotted them) no-one outside of the Liberator crew had been in more than one episode so far and only two non-crew characters (one of whom was recast) would be added to the list over the rest of the series (though both John Bryans and Michael Wisher's characters, Bercol and Rontaine, would return for one other episode. "Seek-Locate-Destroy" however would introduce a pair of regular Federation characters in the form of Servalan and Travis. The former would go on to appear in 28 of the remaining 46 episodes, the latter in 12 of the next 21 - basically just over half of each character's lifespan.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E05 The Web

"The Web" is a first for B7 for several reasons. It's the first with a settled crew, an entirely self-contained adventure - allowing for a brief moment where the crew are unsure of the procedure for firing the neutron blasters it could be switched with a later stand-alone like "Bounty" or "Mission to Destiny" with no problem. It's also the first not to actually feature the Federation, which would go on to be an occasional feature of the show. And finally for the first time and not the last something tries to use Cally as a telepathic conduit to take over the ship - it's also not the first or last time it will be some long lost creature from Auron that does it either. Considering Jenna's initial distrust of her that this happens straight away is either very smart or very dumb. Or would be if her remarks from "Time Squad" were ever followed up on as the pair instantly become pals because they're both women. Both Terry Nation (Abby Grant) and Chris Boucher  (Leela) can write strong, well-rounded female characters but for B7 most of their energy was quickly drawn towards the Blake/Avon dynamic.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E04 Time Squad

"Time Squad" is often grouped with the opening trilogy of episodes due to the debut of Cally, the last of the original crew but that aside the format is much closer for what will become the default template of the first season and the opening episodes of the second - part of the crew teleport down to do something proactive against the Federation while the remainder face some minor crisis on the Liberator which may or may not dovetail with  the surface action - but more likely will just result in the ship not being on station at some crucial point to provide a getaway, allowing for people to be locked up. Indeed, the only real difference between Cally and the later guest allies is that she survives and gets offered a slot on the crew.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E03 Cygnus Alpha

The last of the opening arc, "Cygnus Alpha" marks the end of the initial imprisonment/escape arc and the beginning of a shift to more episodic traditional sci-fi adventuring. It also marks the beginning of what would be a recurring format for the show, that of "A" and "B" plots; with five to six human regulars at any one point in order to give everyone something to do the crew would be split in half, typically with one group teleporting down to the surface of a planet on some mission and the other half staying on the ship and typically having some kind of minor drama. The general rule of thumb was that this format would only be eschewed for big episodes, though it would also come into play when the writers ran out of things to give the female characters to do.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E02 Space Fall

"Space Fall" is a direct continuation of the first episode of Blake's 7, part of a tightly plotted trilogy that opened the series. Few episodes later would be quite so closely connected either in the narrative sense or in the tonal sense; while Season 2's quest for Star One nominally provided a longer arc it was more of a macguffin chase with a sometimes questionable connection. Here though we catch up with Blake on the transport ship London as per the end of "The Way Back", and most of the action would take place on the vessel. The rough gist is that Blake is being transported to the penal colony on Cygnus Alpha, soon banding together with a few allies - the previously introduced Jenna and Vila plus the new additions Avon, Gan and Nova.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E01 The Way Back

The first episode of Blake's 7 is probably the most unique. It's all about Blake for one; while both Jenna and Vila debut they don't actually get much more work than most of the other supporting characters. It's also entirely set on Earth - only the Season 2 episode "Pressure Point" and Season 3's "Rumours of Death" would actually directly visit the planet again. And finally it actually looks moderately expensive; it's not the most original of observations but the opening episode wouldn't need much work to function as a one-off play. 

Comic Review - Shogun Warriors

In 1972, inspired by imported Dinky toys based on Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds, the Japanese toy company Popy decided to put out a licensed figure of the anime character Mazinger Z. Unlike most Japanese toys of the period it eschewed tin in favour of a mix of diecast metal and ABS. It was so successful that Popy followed it up with a string of other super robots licensed from popular kids cartoons, the range becoming known as Chogokin after the fictional alloy Mazinger Z was constructed from.

Film Review - An Enemy of the People

Following the success of The Towering Inferno, Steve McQueen was technically the biggest actor in the world, wanting $6m for a role. Sadly, between his laziness (well, to be fair he was screwing Ali McGraw, which probably made time fly) and various bouts of bad luck he ended up not being in anything and, after four years of inactivity (which included turning down roles in Apocalypse Now and what would become Heaven's Gate), began to lose his standing.