Blake's 7

I rather like the fact that the females have strong roles in the show. Servelan is despotic, in charge and a very memorable character and both Jenna and Cally have quite a lot to do on the ship. They're active crew members who are deep into Blake's shenanigans.

Vila is good comic relief, but still has a good role.

Avon is still (minimal) and sinister. My favourite character by far.

Good theme tune as well. I remembered it, but for some reason, i remembered it in three separate parts.

I saw this image by Gerard Duffy of the Liberator compared to the USS Enterprise. Quite an interesting comparison, i thought.

liberator-780-m-london-55m-enterprise-288m-side.jpg
 
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Phew! I thought this had been removed from Britbox but it's just been dropped from "my list" for some reason. I'll start as soon as I've finished Brideshead Revisited. I don't imagine there'll be a lot of overlap.
 
Yes, it was unusual for the main villain to be female, with Travis very much second best. The real conundrum is whether Servalan and Avon had, or ever would, join forces.
 
Rodders said:
I rather like the fact that the females have strong roles in the show. Servelan is despotic, in charge and a very memorable character and both Jenna and Cally have quite a lot to do on the ship. They're active crew members who are deep into Blake's shenanigans.

Vila is good comic relief, but still has a good role.

Avon is still (minimal) and sinister. My favourite character by far.

Good theme tune as well. I remembered it, but for some reason, i remembered it in three separate parts.

I saw this image by Gerard Duffy of the Liberator compared to the USS Enterprise. Quite an interesting comparison, i thought.

View attachment 88068
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I think one of the best parts of Blake's 7 was the characters in general. I was young when I first saw it but I struggle to think of any core crew member or villain that I didn't like in some way. Vila was funny but smarter than he seemed to let on. Cally, Jenna and Dana were all strong members of the crew and active characters. Blake and Avon were both great characters for different reasons. That made them, for me, very different leaders when they were in charge. If it wasn't for them I think it would have been a very different show.
 
Christine Wheelwright said:
Off topic, but Brideshead Revisited is a fantastic piece of work isnt it.
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Amazing. Last night I watched the penultimate episode. Nikolas Grace as Antony Blanche has always been good, but his kindly demolishing of Charles's art was perfection.

Last night I also spoke with someone who preferred the 2008 film, and I was like, "Whaaa?" Not that I've seen it, but still, whaaa?

But yes, ahem, off topic.
 
Just don't tell Avon how much you weigh.
 
Just on to the fourth season now and I have to say that I’m very much enjoying it. Season 3 was a great cliff hanger. Shame about the Liberator and RIP Servelan.

Impressed with the costume design, which is varied and manages to be both retro and actually still quite futuristic.
 
mosaix said:
Part of the set was made up of the keyboard of an NCR Class 31 accounting machine. As soon as I saw it it ruined the whole series.
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Irwin Allen sued the same computerdispalys in most of his series and in some cased even the alien had the same computers. In fact some fonts computer boards and
Rodders said:
I rather like the fact that the females have strong roles in the show. Servelan is despotic, in charge and a very memorable character and both Jenna and Cally have quite a lot to do on the ship. They're active crew members who are deep into Blake's shenanigans.

Vila is good comic relief, but still has a good role.

Avon is still (minimal) and sinister. My favourite character by far.

Good theme tune as well. I remembered it, but for some reason, i remembered it in three separate parts.

I saw this image by Gerard Duffy of the Liberator compared to the USS Enterprise. Quite an interesting comparison, i thought.

View attachment 88068
Click to expand...

The Liberator was the inspiration for the Drazi ships in Babylon 5 .
 
I finished Blake's 7 this afternoon and it is one of the best bits of telly I've seen in a long time. I know there were some radio dramas based on the Blakes 7 story, but were there any books written? I think i'd like to read those.

I missed Zen and the Liberator in the 4th series and i'm still not sure how Servalan survived to come back as Commissioner Sleer. Was it ever explained? A lot of really great episodes strung together and what a finale. I'll have to re-watch this episode as i got the impression that Avon wasn't the turncoat i thought he was going to be and he still fought the Federation to his Death after the screen went blank.

I might have a look at Terry Nation's "Survivors" later.
 
Rodders said:
I finished Blake's 7 this afternoon and it is one of the best bits of telly I've seen in a long time. I know there were some radio dramas based on the Blakes 7 story, but were there any books written? I think i'd like to read those.

I missed Zen and the Liberator in the 4th series and i'm still not sure how Servalan survived to come back as Commissioner Sleer. Was it ever explained? A lot of really great episodes strung together and what a finale. I'll have to re-watch this episode as i got the impression that Avon wasn't the turncoat i thought he was going to be and he still fought the Federation to his Death after the screen went blank.

I might have a look at Terry Nation's "Survivors" later.
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Paul Darrow wrote a novel called Avon: A Terrible Aspect, but I haven't read it.

I love the show though. It's been too long since I've watched it.
 
HareBrain said:
Amazing. Last night I watched the penultimate episode. Nikolas Grace as Antony Blanche has always been good, but his kindly demolishing of Charles's art was perfection.

Last night I also spoke with someone who preferred the 2008 film, and I was like, "Whaaa?" Not that I've seen it, but still, whaaa?

But yes, ahem, off topic.
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Nikolas Grace is a tremendous actor. He was perfect in Robin of Sherwood, and I would be hard pressed as to say which was the better Sheriff between him and Alan Rickman.
 
paranoid marvin said:
Nikolas Grace is a tremendous actor. He was perfect in Robin of Sherwood, and I would be hard pressed as to say which was the better Sheriff between him and Alan Rickman.
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I think Rickman based his on Grace (half of Prince of Thieves was nicked from ROS, although Costner wasn’t a patch on the wonderfully Fae Michael Praed). For me, Rickman was the better,
 
Rodders said:
I finished Blake's 7 this afternoon and it is one of the best bits of telly I've seen in a long time. I know there were some radio dramas based on the Blakes 7 story, but were there any books written? I think i'd like to read those.

I missed Zen and the Liberator in the 4th series and i'm still not sure how Servalan survived to come back as Commissioner Sleer. Was it ever explained? A lot of really great episodes strung together and what a finale. I'll have to re-watch this episode as i got the impression that Avon wasn't the turncoat i thought he was going to be and he still fought the Federation to his Death after the screen went blank.

I might have a look at Terry Nation's "Survivors" later.
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Really glad you enjoyed B7, it truly is a tremendous series.I still find it incredible that we've seen reboots/remakes of Lost in Space, Star Trek, BSG etc but not Blakes 7 which has a great storyline and a great selection of characters. Interesting that there are a number of strong female characters in the tv series which was quite unusual for its time.

Survivors is a brilliant tv series which I first saw on UK Gold a couple of decades ago. It goes along at a pretty slow pace at times (compared to many shows of today) but I was hooked from start to finish. Obviously watching it now will bring comparisons with the Covid pandemic, but in many ways it delivers a message of hope that no matter how bleak the situation, people will adapt and survive. There are a few cameos throughout the series, notably Patrick Troughton, Brian Blessed and even Trigger. Far better than the terrible reboot of the show a few years ago.
 
Jo Zebedee said:
I think Rickman based his on Grace (half of Prince of Thieves was nicked from ROS, although Costner wasn’t a patch on the wonderfully Fae Michael Praed). For me, Rickman was the better,
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Yes, Rickman as a standalone bad guy was probably the better. It's funny that a movie that was meant to be all about Costner's good guy Robin Hood ended up unintentionally dominated by Rickman as Nottingham.

Grace as the Sheriff and Addie as the equally hapless Gisbourne did work so marvellously well together. It's sad to see that a quick look-up on Wiki shows that Robert Addie passed away at the far too young age of only 43.:(
 
There are a few genre programs on Britbox that take my fancy. I've never seen The Prisoner or The Day of the Triffids. :eek:
 
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