TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E13 Star One

It's all been leading to this one, and Chris Boucher does a Nation by writing the important episode himself. Blake's hunt for Star One, Travis' hunt for Blake and Servalan's hunt for greater power have coloured the second season. It's not been a Game of Thrones-level of intensity for sure, but these threads have been pottering away in a 1979 sort of way and here it all has to come off; aside from doing an arc on the budget of a mediocre police show within the rigid structure of the Beeb the other problem is you have to get the end right or the rest suffers. Thankfully Boucher gets it absolutely right. 

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E12 The Keeper

As mentioned before B7 didn't really handle arcs well because the BBC and TV in general of the time wasn't really set up for it. With few video recorders episode-to-episode continuity had to be crisp and clear, meaning that if any information was to be carried over it had to be the sort of thing that could easily be put in The Radio Times, so any sort of complexity was impossible. Each episode was effectively a mini-production with different crew, also leading to a certain amount of self-containment as Director A might be less than co-operative about compromising their episode to set something up for Director B's. The other problem was that a certain amount of flex was needed so stories could be reordered if there were production issues; Season 2 saw "Killer" and "Horizon" switched around and probably massive gratitude that there were some less arch-driven episodes to bring forward (and as it was it required late rewrites around both to reflect Gan's mortality). After that the crew would never try even the slightest link between more than three episodes ever again, and then only in the more controlled environment of season openers, before the money and time ran low.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E11 Gambit

Despite it only being four episodes since his debut script (well, to be fair "Killer" was meant to run second, getting bumped back when no-one could stop laughing at the costumes) Robert Holmes' second script is pretty damn confident, basically having the front to subvert the big "Search for Star One" plot to the background behind a comedy thread for Avon and Vila. Of course, as Doctor Who script editor Bob had effectively given Chris Boucher his big break, so it's perhaps not surprising he's given such a free range here. 

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E10 Voice from the Past

The third new writer added to the B7 staff was Roger Parkes, who would (like Bob Holmes and, sadly, Allan Prior) go on to contribute scripts up to the final season. Parkes had started out writing for ITC's film adventure series (most notably a decent episode of Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner) but probably came to B7 via his work on Terry Nation's Survivors, for which he wrote four episodes (though from memory none of them were all that good). He would write a story apiece for the remaining series, one of which was very good. The other two were utter piss, and "Voice from the Past" is one of those.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E09 Countdown

After his mammoth role in writing all of Season 1 Terry Nation only wrote "big" scripts for the series - the opener for Season 2 concluding the cliffhanger he'd set up, the death of regular Gan, the two linked episodes overseeing the cast reshuffle at the start of the third season and would-be series finale "Terminal". The one exception was "Countdown", on the face of it a run-of-the-mill mid-season actioner. 

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E08 Hostage

Allan Prior's debut B7 script wasn't without promise even if it was strangely unsatisfying and not anything like good. His second is an absolute unqualified turd, setting the tone for basically the rest of his input. The plot is wafer thin, it's unexciting , it adds nothing to the ongoing plot and is mainly remembered for the bad performances it draws from the cast and for one painfully awkward development for Blake.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E07 Killer

The second season of B7 saw three new writers added to the scripting team, all being TV veterans. Following on from Allan Prior came Robert Holmes, whose pedigree was much more suited to the show. Holmes had written for numerous telefantasy series and made a fair case for being Doctor Who's greatest writer; after several years contributing stories he was the script editor for the show's pomp Tom Baker era. At this point in his career he was actively trying to distance himself from Who, having finally managed to leave the script editor post in 1977. He would provide two scripts for Season 2 and both would show a certain freshness and zeal, easily making him the best new addition to the writing team for the year - and possibly outright of those who came after Terry Nation and Chris Boucher, only Tanith Lee and Simon Masters coming close.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E06 Trial

Chris Boucher is back behind the typewriter for an episode directly linked to "Pressure Point", dealing with the fall-out on both sides. You'll not get a starker illustration of the relationship between the show's two most prolific writers - Terry Nation sets up the big stuff, Boucher sorts out the person-level fallout. It's a system that works and the result is largely brilliant, notably the decision to make it as much about the repercussions for Travis as for Blake.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E05 Pressure Point

For a show that's known for killing off most of the cast there's only one occasion before five minutes from the end of the last episode that a regular crew member actually dies onscreen, and this is in "Pressure Point". The episode - written like several of the more "significant" ones over the next couple of years by a returning Terry Nation - effectively launches the season off on an arc that will technically run up until the finale, namely Blake's attempts to destroy the Federation's key computer Control. And it does a lot more besides.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E04 Horizon

Three new writers were added to the B7 pool for the second season, with the first script not by creator Terry Nation or story editor Chris Boucher coming from Allan Prior. Co-creator of Z-Cars, Prior would write five times for the series, with three of them in season 2. None of them are all that good; indeed, if you were to quickly scribble a list of the ten worst episodes there's a decent chance he would have half of it sewn up. "Horizon" is probably his best and it ain't great, though it is difficult to put a finger on exactly why.

TV Review - Danger 5: Series 1

A few years ago someone recommended I watch Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive and that went down so well I own a copy of the coat the lead character wears. When this person recommends I listen and when Danger 5, then on UK Netflix, was a suggestion I sat down and watched it transfixed. The work of Dinosaur, the successor to Alrugo (Italian Spiderman) and now the work of Dario Russo and David Ashby alone, the series is close to indescribable in its' brilliance.

Comic Review - The Ultimates Vol 1: Super-Human

In these days of the internet wanking itself into a frenzy over Vanity Fair photoshoots of Infinity War it's hard to remember how un-hip the Avengers were at the start of the century. The nadir of the book - being farmed out to Rob fucking Liefeld for Heroes Reborn - was behind it but while Kurt Busiek's run had won back the fans it was too nerdy for bringing in new readers. Indeed, the title's stock was so low that when it was chosen for the next property to receive the Ultimate treatment they didn't even use the name. The result was a smash hit however and a genuine first step back to the top for the characters and concept.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E03 Weapon

Chris Boucher's second consecutive solo script saw the reintroduction of Servalan and Travis to the series. The pair, trapped in their Saturday morning villainy loop with Blake always getting away while Travis swore he'd get him next time while Servalan rolled her eyes, had signified the staleness of the tail end of the first season but the episode makes a fair fist of redirecting them. This was also notably the episode that saw Brian Croucher debut as Travis, Stephen Greif having apparently decided the character had ran out of steam but more likely tried to bluff for a bit more money and been told to fuck off back to RADA.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E02 Shadow

After 14 straight episodes from the pen of Terry Nation B7 finally gets another writer - script editor Chris Boucher. Of course, Boucher had written substantial chunks of the first series, from dialogue retooling to entire subplots, and that he wasn't credited as co-writer for half of them was down to the archaic segmentation of BBC process. But this is the first one written by Boucher from the bottom up and while the quality isn't necessarily a seismic shift the mood and depth of it all certainly is. "Shadow" is technically a standalone episode but really it's the first step on Season 2's over-arching plot and themes, most notably the question of the lead character's fallibility.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S2E01 Redemption

The season opener of B7's second series solves two mysteries, uncovering the origin of the Liberator and resolving the cliffhanger ending of the first series. And it does this in a somewhat breathless way that belays the age of the show and the simplicity expected of genre drama at the time. If the show was made now the whole thing of where the Liberator came from would be a carefully teased out mystery while Orac's prediction would be left to hang over the crew for considerably longer than fifty minutes. However, on all three occasions the questions posed by the show's season closers are answered within the first episode to a large degree. To be fair this all happened before VCRs were owned by all but the really rich in the UK, let alone detailed online summaries (Blake's 7 wouldn't even get a dedicated magazine until the fourth series) and the like; questions needed to be answered while viewers still remembered them.

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. 

Toy Review - Machine Robo Series 08: Missiletank Robo/Gobots Masterpiece Blaster

Let's just get this straight from the start - yes, we all know about the Transformer of the same name. No, you're not big and clever asking whether he comes with any cassettes. You can cut that right out, don't make me get the Sit Down Gun out. Besides which the Gobot came first, so ner, Gobots is definitely better than Transformers, so shut up, you're gay, no comebacks. That out of the way, I wasn't especially enthused by the choice of Missile Tank Robo; I mean, I wanted him at some point but alongside Shuttle Robo it made for a less than enticing relaunch for the range and in a way a fairly brave one when series lead Blue Jet and the more obviously popular Supercar Robo are there for the remaking.