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April 15, 2005
Blakes 7
*** SPOILERS ***
As a kid, I somehow missed out on Blakes 7 until well after the eponymous one had died in the series. Avon, who replaced him as leader of the rebels, was a great character. I don't seem to have felt the loss of Blake at all in those early episodes.
Getting the first series on DVD however was a bit of a thrill, and so I sat down to finally find out what happened in the beginning.
The title screen looked excellent, the Liberator spacecraft approached me in crystal clarity flying through space, and I thought to myself "Wow, they really did a good job on the graphics in those days, much better than Dr Who". Then the real intro come up, and I realised that the Blue Peter team had probably made it on one of their days off. These low tech effects continue throughout of course, you don't watch BBC SF shows for that kind of thing. Unfortunately the juxtaposition of the specially made one for the DVD with the old credits really emphasises how far we've come.
Blake lives on Earth of the future. The population are imprisoned in a huge dome and drugged to keep them docile. There are rebels, but they are small in number and have to meet outside the dome. A recent rebellion was quashed, with everyone except Blake deported to a prison planet and executed. Blake himself was brainwashed so that even he doesn't remember his past.
A new civil disobedience initiative is starting, and they want to use Blake as a figurehead. They lure him to a meeing and reveal to him who he really is, but then the meeeting is infiltrated and everyone is killed. Interestingly the government are still scared of making Blake a martyr, and so keep him alive. They do however try him in court for false child abuse charges, and put him on a ship to deport him to the prison colony. On the trip, he mets Jenna and Vila, and then it ends.
It's a familiar plot really. The sets and effects are really bad. A lot of the acting is really bad too. A 20 second dream sequence is replayed in it's entirety three times, and it's not really very convincing the first viewing. And the accents are hilarious; everyone has a clipped BBC voice, even Blake. Imagine Noel Coward playing every part, it feels a bit like that.
And yet, is it just the nostalgia talking, or has it remained really very gripping drama? I think Blakes 7 has aged really well. Science fiction can easily throw up laughable visions of the future, but this dystopia is still a possibility for us. I know Blake will get his memory back soon and start fighting the federation back properly. I'm really looking forward to Avon and Servalan reappearing for some much needed maliciousness and sarcasm. And I'm introducing a new generation to the show of course, my daughter will be forced to watch the whole lot whether she likes it or not :-)
Posted by se71 at April 15, 2005 01:49 PM
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