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You've heard great things about Blake's 7, that edgier 1970s show from some of the makers of Doctor Who. You've heard it features darker, more complex characters, and it's like a warped mirror held up to Star Trek's utopian future — instead of the human Federation being this amazing force for peace and justice in the galaxy, it's evil and oppressive. You've heard it includes dialog so sharp you could shave with it. But how can you discover this show for yourself? Here are some handy tips.
This list actually came about because I had a friend who was interested in the wonders of B7, and I was starting to write her a long email with advice on discovering the show. Then it occurred to me that other people might actually find this useful. Anybody who has enjoyed shows like Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Firefly will find a lot to love about the anti-heroic Blake's 7, whose DNA is woven into the most daring SF on television.
- Find a friend who has the VHS tapes. Because of legal stupidities the DVDs aren't available in the U.S., but you could import them from the UK if you have a region-free player. There are also other ways to get the episodes, which we absolutely won't mention here.
- Go ahead and read spoilers. Blake's 7 is that rare show that's actually 1,000 times better if you know how it ends. I won't spoil the ending here, just in case you may disagree. But knowing the ending gives a new significance and poignancy to many scenes in the first two seasons.
- Feel free to skip the first episode. It's pretty good, but it's like a pilot for a different show. Pretty much none of the characters and threads from the pilot make their way into the following episodes, except for our hero, Blake. All you really need to know going into episode two is the show's main premise.
- And here's that main premise: it's the distant future, after humanity has colonized much of the galaxy. The evil Federation rules over most human worlds with an iron grip. Only a few rebels still hold out against the Federation, and their greatest, most legendary leader is Roj Blake, who gets stuck on a prison transport on a one-way trip to a prison planet. There, he has no choice but to team up with some unrepetentant criminals to fight for freedom. And maybe, over time, he can mould them into a force for more than just escape.
- Be willing to suspend your disbelief a bit in the first season. Blake and his crew have a run of good luck that's pretty hard to swallow, including stumbling on the greatest spaceship in known space and later inheriting the most awesome computer ever built. Just run with it, because it sets up some great stories later. And it's no different than lots of other science fiction shows, where the hero just happens to have the greatest time machine/spaceship/whatever in the universe.
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- The first season may require some patience, and you should feel free to skip some episodes liberally. The first season is a bit of a slog, because the show's creator Terry Nation wrote the whole thing himself. And this meant he was dashing off drafts as fast as he could, and then zipping to the next episode without looking back. Script editor Chris Boucher managed to add some sparkling dialog here and there, but there are also long stretches of padding and repetitive plot devices. The scripts improve a lot in season two, when Nation is no longer single-handedly writing them. Here's a compilation of some of the best quips and insults.
- The only first-season episodes you absolutely should watch are "Space Fall," where Blake meets his future band of criminals, "Cygnus Alpha," where Blake rescues some of his crew from a cult led by a scenery-devouring Brian Blessed, "Time Squad," where Blake meets a telepathic resistance leader named Cally, and "Seek-Locate-Destroy," which introduces the Federation's biggest villain, Supreme Commander Servalan. (It also introduces her lackey Travis, about whom more later.)
You may also want to watch "Orac," the season finale, which sets up some stuff in the next season. And three other episodes, "Mission To Destiny," "Breakdown," and "Bounty," are amazingly great, but non-essential. - Things to watch for: Servalan's outfits become more and more vampy as time goes by. Almost every episode has a cameo by someone who appeared on Doctor Who from time to time. The show's special effects get cheaper and cheaper, until some episodes actually just feature a cardboard cut-out of Blake's ship, the Liberator, instead of model effects. But the show scores points for having a teleportation effect that actually makes people have trouble finding their footing when it plunks them down.
- Blake's 7 reaches its creative peak, and becomes more of an arc show, in season two. Watch for the relationship between Blake and the morally dubious computer nerd Avon to become more complex and twisted throughout season two. Also, Blake himself becomes more and more of a morally gray character as the season goes on. He's more and more willing to go to any lengths — make dubious alliances, take ridiculous risks, even condemn whole populations to death — to defeat the Federation. Blake's 7 gets a lot of credit for being a show with an overarching story arc, setting the stage for show's like Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine and the new Battlestar Galactica, and much of that reputation rests on season two.
- Almost every episode in season two is amazing and worth watching at least once. There are a couple of exceptions: awful filler episodes that you should skip at all costs. They're called "Hostage" and "Voice From The Past," and you'll be much happier if you just give them a pass.
- You'll notice that Travis, the number two bad guy, gets a new actor in season two. He also suddenly becomes a much, much more interesting and complex character. In season one, he's all about, "OMG Blake hurt me, so I must hunt him down." But in season two, he's been through a "reeducation" process (which is how they explain the new actor) and is a little less sure of himself. And his allegiances become a lot less clear, especially after the Federation hangs him out to dry. "Trial," the episode where Travis is put on a showtrial for war crimes — which he actually commited, but which are just a pretext — may be the best episode ever. Travis stands up in front of a jury of his superiors and explains, in a ringing speech, that war crimes are a logical outcome of his Federation training, not the aberration the judges would like to pretend. It makes the trial of Baltar in Battlestar seem like Matlock by comparison.
- Without getting too spoilery here, season three takes a very sharp turn away from the solid arc-focused nature of season two. To be honest, if you haven't become totally hooked on Blake's 7 by the time you get to the third season, there's probably no hope. However, it does contain a few of the absolute best episodes of the entire show's run: "Aftermath," where Avon gets to know the evil Servalan a lot better, "City at the Edge of the World," where the cowardly thief Vila finally gets to be a hero, and "Rumors Of Death," in which Avon tracks down the Federation agent who killed the only person he ever cared about.
- A lot of the rest of season three is sort of filler, and ranges from pretty good to awful. Skip "Volcano," "Dawn Of The Gods" and "Children of Auron" at all costs. "Harvest of Kairos," "Sarcophagus" and "Moloch" are okay for camp value, but that's it. You can watch the best of season three in a day.
- And season four is much, much worse. Apart from a few episodes ("Traitor" and "Headhunters" come to mind) it's just pure camp and silliness. The producers didn't expect the show to be renewed for a fourth season, so this run was just sort of an added bonus, with some scripts that seem to have been rushed out.
- But of course the final ever episode of the series, "Blake," is a must-watch, and a return to the greatness of the second season. I won't spoil what happens in it here, but you should definitely check it out. You may even want to be daring and watch the final episode first, and then go back and watch the rest of the show from the beginning. The last episode is pretty self-explanatory, and will definitely leave you curious about these characters and how they got to this point. And here it is!
Comments
This is one of my favorite Sci Fi shows ever.
And it doesn't cop out at all.
Thanks for the run down. I'm ashamed to say it's a show I knew nothing about. Have to see if I can't procure a copy...it sounds wonderful.
I miss B7. It was definitely an anti-Trek and veddy British including the cheap ass SFX budget plus the bonus of the principles even hated each other's guts.
It is the precursor of B5 in many ways including the last season being a huge let down compared to the earlier ones.
Take an episode of Tom Baker Doctor Who and edit out all of the Doctor's scenes.
TADAAA ... Blake's 7.
I watched the show for an hour once waiting for The Doctor to show up and felt very ripped off when I looked at the TV guide and it said "Blake's 7". Never really could get into it even when I found out it was a legitimate show in it's own right, even though I now enjoy Torchwood and Sarah Jane which are essentially just Doctor Who without The Doctor as well.
I gave it a try when it aired here in the US -- late 80's? and HATED it. I love Bab5, DS9, and Firefly, but B7 just bored and annoyed me. I never gave a crap about any of the characters.
@Evil Tortie's Mom: You have no soul! Seriously, follow my tips and Blake's 7 will reveal its awesomeness to you.
@Dillenger69:
You're doing it wrong.
Fail.
VHS? A winking link to a Lifehacker how to bittorrent post seems easier and more effective.
@Tim Faulkner: Bittorrent? What is this thing you speak of?
Looks like I've got a weekend project: Track down some B7!
ZOMG Charlie, you have no idea how many memories this brought back. I so wanted to be Cally when I grew up. And I kinda had a crush on Zen. (I found Avon and Orac too shouty, although very funny.) (And Gan reminded me of my brother.)
@Charlie Jane Anders: Come on, Cory Doctorow would be so proud that you're encouraging media democratization, or some such shit.
Great. Now I have to drag out my KTEH-snarfed VHS tapes. And find a VHS player.
I do have to give bumps to a few extra eps in Season 4, though. "Orbit" - you know why, Charlie - and "Gold" is a nice caper yarn that gets even better when guest Roy Kinnear suddenly turns a comic performance into a coldly sinister one.
@Charlie Jane Anders: I was first given these tips 20 years ago, and they didn't work then. I'm just immune to B7.
However, I met the gal who played Servalan at a con, and she was a hoot. Delightful and funny, and snarky like her character (or vice versa). So I guess there is one character I liked.
@Miranda Kali: It seriously had some of the best dialogue in science fiction until "Star Cops" came along... which was written by the same guy.
Hey, I like this show & I've probably seen every episode, but I think you're over-selling it a bit (which is sort of obv. based on the number of episodes you suggest skipping). It's a hell of a lot of fun if you like really, really, awful TV, but it's pretty awful compared to almost any other sci-fi. Many of the actors are awful, the production values you've mentioned (& you weren't kidding--though you don't go far enough in explaining how incredibly cheap everything is). You don't mention at all that there are pretty much three kinds of planets that make up their galaxy: "English Quarry," "English Forest," & "English power station." If you've never seen an episode do yourself a favor and watch a little of the trailer above before you put a lot of effort into the show--it's not for the faint of heart. Or those with any particular taste. & I think it goes without saying it's best watched at 4:20.
I remember many a lonely saturday night, parked in front of my 13" tv, hoping the reception would be good that night. Wish they'd put it out on dvd over here.
***SPOILER ALERT***
I just remember the last ep when all the characters were killed off!
The first & probably last nihilist TV show.
servalan is alegedly a comentry on Thatcher - but much much hotter :-)
I love Blake's 7...
It requires a lot more patience than many people have these days though. The only slower-paced show I've encountered is New BSG.
-Kle.
Never saw it, but Charlies drives a good bargain. Consider me interested. :)
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: I'm holding out hope for all the principle characters of BSG to die, actually. Not because I hate them, and I won't be mad if they go the (98% likely) other way completely, but the moment I saw the ending of Razor that hope was born, and for some screwed up reason it remains.
I say that as one of the most devoted New BSG fans around.
As to Blake's 7, it looks fascinating. I would love to watch it, hopefully an easier method than old VHS tapes or poorly supported .torrents will emerge at some point. Is it a BBC show, and if so is there a chance they might make it available again at some point? Its not something most people would spend $20 on, but surely releasing it for much cheaper or online would be worth it in the good PR, right?
So much old stuff like this that needs to be cataloged and made available. Its going to make a historical treasure trove for some future society ;)
B7 was unique in its time - the characters were morally ambiguous, often weak, and the crew wasn't really together to fight the evil Federation - they were criminals in their own rights. I saw a lot of B7 in Firefly.
People may also be interested in the new Blake's 7 audio drama from B7 Media ([www.b7media.com]) though people may want to try WhoNA([www.whona.com]) so they don't have to pay shipping from the UK.
It's really great, and if you haven't grown attached to the original cast it is a wonderful re imagining of the story.
Personally, I loved B7, although I can see how it would be the kind of show you'd have to be able to ignore abysmal production values just because the writing is so great to really enjoy.
Oh, and it could have been a LOT worse, and I still would have come back every ep for another glimpse of Servalan!
Yummm...
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: Yeah, I watched it in the 80s, and I remember seeing that last episode late one night, and thinking, "I can't believe they just did that!"
I've always been meaning to watch this. So what I've taken away from this is to watch a dozen or so combined episodes in season 1 and 3, watch all of season 2, and watch the final episode. :)
Importing a DVD from Great Britian is NOT an issue of region coding - it's broadcast coding. The UK uses PAL, which IS NOT compatible with NTSC (that us) DVD players or televisions.
You should have someone check your work before encouraging people to buy media from overseas!
@Emmanuel Goldstein: Yeah, see, thus my contrary opinion.
I wouldn't want someone to rush out, watch a bunch of it, hate it, and never trust Charlie's recommendations again.
So, I guess I liked the last episode best, har har.
The premise feels very familiar. Evil Federation, super starships, prisonners? Is that where the Peacekeepers and Moya from Farscape came from?
As somebody who is wanting to get into Blake 7 and is too lazy to look this up right now, how many episodes are in each season?
I remember it being on, but never watched it. The premise sounds vaguely like "Andromeda." I'll have to see if I can find it. Yar.
@bdavis007:Who do you suggest should "check" their "work?" Actually, that's our job, but we should be nice about it. They do a hell of a job.
Never followed B7 religiously but always enjoyed it whenever I did catch an episode. Alistair Reynolds must have been a big fan the Liberator (which always looked like a Gothic cathedral) and its fractious back-stabbing crew. If he hasn't already, he should really thank Blake's 7 and John Carpenter's "Dark Star" for inspiring "Revelation Space".
Hmm. I don't remember this show fondly at all, Charlie, but will take a look at that final ep on YouTube and see if it's improved with age.
(But I suspect it would not only require a suspension of disbelief but of aesthetics, as well.)
Man do I hate this show. If it's not Roj being a pompous tit, it's Servelan being all purry-evil. Blakes 7 makes up for the U.S. sending Lost in Space to the Brits. Yuck. Give me Red Dwarf as my "cure" for Trek any day.
best effects ever!
+ Watch video
B7, seen as an entire entity, is more laudable for what it attempts, than for what it accomplishes. I remember seeing it, as a youth, a few times after Doctor Who and I had a friend who really loved it. So, I, ahem, somehow "found" all the episodes last year and had a good watch-fest over a couple of months.
Frankly, the pilot had me quite jazzed. It has a good, logical script and is well executed. Much of the rest of the series does not live up to that capable start. It is laudable for it's dystoian heroics. It has some good "Doctor Who" acting. It even has some good scifi scripts. However, some of it's stories and "monster" episodes are so bad I thought at points, "Hmmmm that would have NEVER passed muster on even Classic Who".
What also weakens the story is how BLAKE, you know, he's the Blake part of BLAKE'S 7, is gone, with weak explanation, after season two. I know it was an actor thing, but still, Blake was a good foil for Avon, and while it was fun to see Avon in charge and run amok, the actors brought in to fill in the cast were not as capable as those the replaced. Though, maybe that was the point. Perhaps Avon could not have controlled anyone but guileless youths.
The superintelligent computers are fun, though, sometimes zen is just a bit too conveniently powerful. The ending is wonderful, especially Avon's "wink" to the camera. And of course, Servalan is wonderful. She is the proto-Scorpius.
I think this series is worth watching for the good stuff in it, especially if 1) you want to see how it has influenced other genre material, 2) you can get past its many weaknesses. This show has influenced many others including (but not limited to): Farscape (especially), Firefly, Babylon 5, and Lexx.
I was going to point out Farscape as a modern-day Blake's 7, too. I hadn't even thought of Lexx, but that's a rather good catch. The "crew of people who don't get along" aspect reminds me mostly of Lost In Space. (Or, well, McHale's Navy.)
In my internal What-If world, I wonder what would happen if they re-approached this series with the same concentration as Life On Mars, and similar.
Actually from what I understand you can watch the PAL DVDs on your computer (as computers do not transmit in NTSC) though then the whole 'region free' thing becomes the problem...
The show ages about as well as anything from that era of British Sci Fi, the sets are reused to death, the locales described above (quarry, industrial plant, etc) pretty much cover everything you'll come across, and some of the acting IS ear-bleedingly bad, but OMG for its day it was possibly the most... DIFFERENT type of Sci Fi available out there. Having a group of morally ambivalent anti-heroes running amok in space is something people think is novel NOW, back in the 80s when this was produced, it was in its own way groundbreaking.
I <3 B7, warts and all :D
I have the entire run of the series on tape ... in Betamax format! Recorded off the air in the 1980s when the local PBS station started showing it after rerunning Doctor Who into the ground. Didn't like it as much as Doctor Who, but hey, it was the '80s -- there was nothing else! Nobody was showing the original Star Trek any more and ST:TNG was years away. And the cable box was steam-powered! "...And we LIKED IT!"
I *loved* and *love* Blake 7, being from the far-flung reaches of the Commonwealth. It was the original nihilistic TV Sci-Fi series. And complementing the hilariously cheap sets and costumes, contrary to Furiursa's 'ear-bleedingly bad' acting comment, you can certainly detect the influence of the RSC if you know what I'm saying. Epic Shakespearian brooding (Patrick Stewart eat your heart out) in tights.
I remember trying to watch Blake's 7 back during the Tom Baker Doctor Who days. Perhaps I was too young at the time to 'get it', thus this guide has me at least interested enough to go back and give it a shot....course I will have to wait until the current Who season is over. Heck if I could give Andromeda a go, I think I can give this a second chance ;)
@Cantonkid: I remember watching during the Tom Baker years too. It didn't quite click for me at the time because I was so young, but I still watched it. It's dark and thankfully not always happy endings were an interesting juxtaposition to all those nicely packaged Star Trek episodes.
I will be giving this show a try even though your article makes the show out to be a hand full of gold in a mound of crap.
Totally loved B7 in all it's cardboard crustiness back in the day. A fine companion to Tom Baker Dr. Who... I remember having a Corgi toy of the liberator that was about 3.5" long. totally deadly.
And as for Servalan, what can I say except: MAXIMUM POWER!!!!!!!!
@pkap:
You're the second person I've heard of who has it all on Beta, then...
Unless you're actually the other person, I already knew.
-Kle.
I loved this show back in the day.... ahhh the good ol' days...
Possible new series...
[news.bbc.co.uk]
-Kle.
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