Science Fiction (and Fantasy) on Television

External Links

Blake's 7 is still hugely popular even two decades later and there are some good web sites that continue to be maintained.

Official Blake's 7 Site at the BBC.

Judith Proctor's pages - if you want to know about B7, this is the place to go. It is home to the B7 encyclopaedia.

Horizon - The official B7 fan club.

4th series crew (left to right) Soolin, Dayna, Avon, Vila
and Tarrant, gathered around Orac the computer.

The nasty Federation has expanded to take what used to be the Empire. Blake (Gareth Thomas) wants to bring them down somehow. He teams up with a group of renegades and crooks who follow along with him in the hope they'll get something out of it. They luck into the Liberator - an alien starship of superior power and quality, (with an intelligent computer with personality, called Zen {voice: Peter Tuddenham}). This is how they manage to become a serious thorn in the Federation's side.

Initial antagonist and effectively the leader after Blake departed was Avon (Paul Darrow), one of the top computer experts in the galaxy, unfortunately caught embezzling. Darrow gives one of those superb larger-than-life characterisations that makes Avon as memorable a character as William Shatner's portrayal of Captain Kirk. Clever and conniving, out for number one but still always saving people, wicked and sarcastic but basically good.

Apart from Avon, assisting Blake in his escape at the beginning are Vila (Michael Keating) who doesn't like to fight, but is good at locks and various other tricks. Then there is Jenna (Sally Knyvette), a smuggler who is a good pilot and Gan (David Jackson), the big man with a violence inhibitor in his brain. They escape a prison ship and get the Liberator where Zen becomes the "sixth". And the seventh is Cally (Jan Chappell), a telepath who they rescue in their first "mission" together.

Many adventures ensue, plus changes to the team as there is the odd death and various people go their separate ways. By the fourth season, they have lost the Liberator, but capture another small ship. The crew still has Avon and Vila. Along the way they have been joined by Dayna (Josette Simon) who is headstrong, knows weaponry and likes to use it. Tarrant (Steven Pacey) is the ex-Federation space captain. And then there is Orac (voice: Peter Tuddenham) the ultimate computer with the personality of its inventor, making it arrogant and patronising, dismissive of simple problems and loathe to work, but when it does, capable of accessing computers anywhere. Responds to Avon. At the beginning of the fourth series they are also joined by Soolin (Glynis Barber) who is a mercenary.

Arch enemy in the Federation is Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce), the most glamorous and ruthless villainess ever created! (What other SF villainess can you think of that swans around the universe in elegant evening dresses?) When the Federation suffers implosion at the end of the third series and she dies on the dissolving Liberator, well let's just say the new Federation comes back stronger than ever under the leadership of Sleer, who turns out to have a very familiar face ... The relationship between her and particularly Avon, is quite fascinating. Hitman for Servalan is Travis (Stephen Grief/Brian Croucher) - him of the eyepatch - caused by Blake.

After four series, they decided to end in a way that meant they couldn't possibly carry on. The adventurers meet Blake again, as well as Federation troopers and everyone shoots everyone in a farcical parody of the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - the freezeframe with continuing sound ensuring we don't actually see every one of our favourite characters dying ... notably we don't see the death of Avon ...

Great clothes and some great ideas - we're convinced that many American TV SF writers are fans of this show because many of the ideas used in B7 have been reinvented for many American SF shows. Indeed the whole underlying premise and structure of Andromeda seems based on B7! Now if only the BBC would get over its peculiar and very condescending attitude to SF&F it has had over the last decade or so and make the great SF shows again.

Talks of possibilities of a new B7 have always remained mired in the mud. However, Paul Darrow is working with producer Andrew Sewell to make a Blake's 7 TV movie. It is a slow process and we probably won't have much news until the end of the year, but here is what we think we know: Avon survived the gunfight at the end of the series and as the movie will be set 20 years later, Paul can reprise his role. Of course, there will be a group of excited younger actors doing what the B7 crew used to do. And although the emphasis will still be on the characters, the special effects WILL be state of the art.

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What would you like to drink? I'll have a ...

Adrenalin and Soma - a favourite of Vila's - stimulates and relaxes you at the same time!

Doctor SciFi is in.