Blake's 7 - The Web

The Web

Team Blake

They’re fighting for their lives.

Who isn’t?

We are Blake’s 7 at last! Having seven lead characters in each episode won’t always work. As previous episodes have already been doing, it is easier to split them up and take it in turns to go down to the planet each week. I’ll say one thing for Blake, as a leader he isn’t shy about getting his hands dirty as in The Web he heads down to this week's planet alone.

One great aspect of the series so far is that there is no gradual meandering towards the plot – we’re straight into it within the opening 10 minutes of each episode. Following the introductory ones, this is only the second 'proper' episode so I will be interested to see if that continues. Also, I think Terry Nation is the only writer on this first series, so I'm wondering if other writers would take a different approach.

At the start of The Web Cally has been sabotaging The Liberator. Endangering their lives is not the best way to start life with some new friends. Avon is conducting experiments on part of the ship and as she asks technical questions, they exchange a glance that makes me think there could be some spark between them, which I’m willing to dismiss as soon as we discover she was possessed. It’s for the best; I don’t think I’m ready for Avon the Romantic. New Romantic, yes – he’d comfortably rock the outfits and eyeliner - but we’re a few years too early for that anyway.

Cally hasn’t exactly been subtle so the crew quickly figure out who is responsible and that there is a bomb on board. Blake nearly blows himself up but Avon dives and knocks him out the way of the explosion. The first thing Blake says is, “Why?” Avon looks as stunned as him and claims it was an automatic reaction. The rest of the crew would have been surprised as well because let’s face it – Avon hasn’t made any effort whatsoever to hide his antagonism towards Blake. Only a few scenes before he’d said, “Blake won’t always be making the decisions,” before flashing a wonderful wicked grin. I'm not sure whether Avon is actively scheming or is just planning to bide his time.

The Liberator ends up in a web of material in space, unable to get out. Something begins to speak through Jenna and tells them to land on a nearby planet to provide "assistance". I thought the lip syncing with Jenna was pretty well done and the voice was bloody creepy.

If it’s the sort of thing you like, it should be noted that we start this episode with Gareth Thomas flashing his torso. Blake covers up his bare torso with a knitted green shirt. Within a few scenes he appears to have added a waistcoat-type thing with short leather sleeves. Finally, when he heads down to the planet he’s put a coat on.

Blake lands on a planet in the middle of a forest. As he works his way through there are several large white balloons that immediately made me think of Rover from The Prisoner, although the Blake's 7 ones are slightly smaller. I feel like Blake the escapee and rebel would get on well with Number Six.

The planet is home to little creatures who speak in a high-pitched tone. Their skin is greenish, partly smooth, with parts looking like leaves. They sound like child actors when they are making noises and I wonder whether in the costumes they are, but they must be dubbed when they speak as they then sound different. As Blake heads for a building, one approaches him, saying, "Help us" but before he has chance a man in silver steps out of the building and shocks it. Blake looks stunned as he's ushered inside.

He's introduced to a woman in silver as well and we learn that the creatures are called Decimas, have been genetically engineered and become increasingly aggressive. The latest generation especially has gone a bit rogue. These two, Novara and Geela, show no emotion about the experiments they are doing and so it is little surprise to discover that they too were genetically engineered.

Novara and Geela are decked out in silver jumpsuits made of what looks like tin foil, wrapped in what I’m absolutely certain is cling film. I remain undecided whether their wellies were nicked from redundant Cybermen. Combined with coiffed silver hair and a shit-ton of eye makeup, the pair of them look like they’ve stepped fresh out of a 1980s’ music video. As this went out in 1978, I suppose that just about makes it futuristic.

They need some power in the form of cylinder-shaped battery things and Blake gets in touch with The Liberator to ask Avon to bring some. However, he's clearly hesitant when he discovers they are going to use the power to destroy the Decimas. While Novara and Geela claim the Decimas are unintelligent life, the episode makes it plain that this isn't true. Hearing noise from outside, Blake looks out a window to see a crowd gathered around the Decima that Novara put down earlier. One of the Decimas is crying.

The Web is an interesting portrayal of the risks of attempting to genetically-engineer life. The Decimas continue to be regarded as primitive creatures, despite the fact that Novara and Geela describe them as having had several generations. They have developed beyond what was intended for the experiments and are now able to organise themselves enough to attack Novara and Geela's base, where they keep some of the Decimas contained for experiments.

It is a nice twist that Novara and Geela themselves are also experiments. They have no emotional range and speak very factually and logically about what they are doing. It must have seemed the ideal way to breed a couple of scientists. But it proves to be their undoing. The scientists' belief that unintelligent or primitive life would have no emotions means they cannot understand the bleeding obvious - the Decimas are angry and upset because their species is being tortured and killed.

It is ironic that the Decimas' behaviour is dismissed as aggression as this is what Novara turns to when Blake and Avon attempt to avoid handing over the power packs.  He uses a stick to shock Avon’s hand, telling them, “Understand your lives are totally unimportant to us.” The scientists' lack of emotional capacity and therefore lack of any empathy or compassion for others means that they fail to see the advantages of having Blake and Avon's support against the Decimas. All their threats, to both the Decimas and The Liberator's crew, are physical and therefore I suppose the only emotion they do understand is the most primitive one of all - fear.

At the episode's climax, the Decimas manage to get into the base. The creatures go utterly mental during this attack and the screeching - oh my god the screeching - is horrendous. It goes on forever. They smash the place apart, including a bobbing head on a body in red liquid that was Novara and Geela's controller. The attack does turn rather grim. Novara and Geela become mere shrunken bodies and skulls. The Decimas wade in and start kicking one of the heads around like a football.

It's Avon's only encounter with the Decimas and he gestures to them as they wreak havoc, saying, "These are what you wanted it to protect?" Blake snaps back, "They’re fighting for their lives." "Who isn’t?" responds Avon. It's the first time I think I've been on Blake's side instead of Avon's. With Blake we've seen what the Decimas have been through and Avon's remarks seem callous.

While I've been fairly unimpressed with the fashion choices of the Blake's7 universe up to now, I love the Liberator raincoats worn by Blake and Avon in this episode. Blake’s consists of a couple of shades of green, while Avon’s is the same in blue and both have white ‘V’ shaped piping on the front and back (It’s nice to know Avon can wear something that isn’t a shade of grey). The coats seem practical and while it’s entirely subjective, I think they look fantastic and are possibly the best fashion choices in the show. I also like the idea that The Liberator has a store of uniform outfits.

An added bonus to the raincoats was that  they caused me to cry out, “BLAKE HAS A UTILITY BELT!” and later, “AVON HAS ONE TOO!” Blake’s probably contains revolutionary bombs and reviving salts while Avon’s pocket has a box of poison with ‘Blake’s medicine’ written on it.

I enjoyed the plot of The Web and thought it was an interesting idea to explore. I was worried Blake's 7 could end up a tad too science-fiction-y for me and I would get bored in jargon, but that's certainly not been the case so far. It is also good to see that the programme's episodes don't always need to centre around being chased by and/or trying to attack the Federation.

Although I've spent the last few episodes wanting to see more from other characters, I thought The Web was a great one to have Blake on his own. With several people there we would have had plenty of moral discussion about how wrong the scientists are, when it actually works much better mostly left unsaid. Prior to Blake heading down to the planet, we do spend a good chunk of the episode on The Liberator. I worry I may get impatient with wanting them to get on with the story and get out onto this week's location. Yet as stated above, so far the series has been fantastic at just getting on with the story.

Blake's 7 - Time Squad

Time Squad

The Full Blake’s 7

“I'm just wondering how long we're going to live to enjoy our newfound skills.”

If we were in any doubt, in Time Squad Blake firmly asserts his leadership by dragging The Liberator’s crew to a planet so they can blow up a communications system. I gather this is Blake’s plan from now on – fly around the universe to find ways of pissing off the Federation as much as possible. Although we are still not a full Blake’s 7 at the start of the episode, this does feel like the first ‘proper’ episode of the programme following three episodes of setting everything up.

There are two plot elements to Time Squad. Along with the planned attack on the communications system, their ship, named as The Liberator, comes across another ship, seemingly empty. Jenna and Blake go aboard to explore and find a couple of cryogenically frozen men with cum on their faces. Sorry, but in fairness, it’s never explained. I think they are supposed to be veins but the production could have chosen any other colour.

This provides another chance for Zen, The Liberator’s computer, to show just how utterly useless it is. Zen refuses to do anything. If I thought Avon was a bit of a stubborn sod, he's starting to look like a ray of sunshine next to Zen, who randomly decides whether it's going to answer questions or do anything the crew requests. With oxygen running out on the other ship, Zen won’t allow Blake and Jenna to teleport back so Avon has to manually move The Liberator towards the ship.

There have been some costume changes over the last couple of episodes as the convicts remove the clothes they’ve worn while travelling from Earth. Jenna got a new outfit in Cygnus Alpha and I didn’t mention it because I couldn’t think of anything positive to say about it. In fact I couldn’t think of much besides just “yuck”. Her pink top has multicoloured bits stuck on below the shoulders and reminds me of a toddler’s ‘touch and feel’ toy. Meanwhile, in Time Squad Avon has ditched his grey for an outfit of orange, cream and brown - my favourite 1970s’ shades. Sometimes you can barely tell them apart. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to add about the other characters’ various costumes as the series goes on because so far I’ve found most of them impressively vile.

Brighter colours haven’t cheered up Avon. He isn’t happy about Blake making decisions for everyone. He’s slightly grumpy throughout most of the episode and in the opening scene he winds Blake up. He, quite reasonably I think, keeps bringing up Blake’s ignorance of everyone else’s wishes. Blake does seem to just say “we’re going to do x, y, x” and then expect everyone to go along with it. His response when questioned is that they can always leave The Liberator but it’s an unfair position because he knows that that’s not a realistic options for wanted criminals. He may claim to be providing a democratic system but he isn’t really.

Avon continues querying and wants to know why Gan, who’s expressed some interest, is so keen to go along with Blake. When we met Avon, we found out he got caught by the Federation because he “relied on other people” and it’s a satisfactory explanation of why he’s so cautious now. In fairness, none of the crew have known each other very long, making it even more unfair for Blake to force them to follow him.

Eventually, Blake has had enough today. He turns to Avon and viciously snaps, "Enough!" It’s the first time he and Avon have come close to an actual angry clash; they have disagreed but their previous discussions have all been reasonable with thought out arguments. To Blake’s sudden bark, Avon seems slightly shocked and gives a look that says, "I would happily leave a trail of your intestines from Earth to Cygnus Alpha."

It’s hard to decide if Vila or Avon look the most unhappy about being persuaded to visit the planet below. Vila because he’s used to being a coward or Avon because he’s convinced Blake is going to kill them all. His open cynicism was already displayed earlier when, as the others got to grips with the Liberator’s controls, he deadpanned, “I'm just wondering how long we're going to live to enjoy our newfound skills.”

Vila decides to touch one of the alien plants, which seems like the very first thing you shouldn't do on an alien planet. I'm pretty suspicious of dodgy looking plant life since reading Day of the Triffids and Blake confirms that some of the plants here are carnivorous.

They’re hunting for rebels to make contact with. There’s only one but Blake manages to find her by just standing around in a quarry for a while. It was dark when we saw the surface of Cygnus Alpha but that too looked quarry-like. It was probably the same quarry. I feel this could become a bit of a series cliché.

The lone rebel they meet is Cally, who quickly establishes herself as being hard as fuck, though clearly not an experienced fighter, falling for Blake's simple distraction trick. Nonetheless they convince her to help them destroy the planet’s communications.

While my attention was focussed on the new recruit (it’s immediately pretty clear she’s going to join Team Blake), this part of Time Squad does show us more of Vila. His cowardice is again brought up as Blake tells Cally that getting inside the Federation’s communications complex will be risky. I thought the dialogue was also a neat way of incorporating all three main characters in the scene.

Vila "I plan to live forever... or die trying."
Blake “If you can get us inside that complex, we'll provide all the destruction you want, and still get out safely.”
Avon “Or die trying.”

We also get to see Vila in action doing what he apparently does best – breaking into places. Faced with a locked door, Vila exudes confidence as he says to Avon, “Listen, Finger - computers are yours, door are mine, right?” I adore how proud he is at the chance to show off his skills, swiftly getting inside with the use of an electronic screwdriver tool-type thing. Vila has finally had the chance to contribute his skills to the team!

When Blake, Avon and Vila head down to the planet, Jenna and Gan are left with the two defrosting blokes. The whole cryogenic process seems to have gone awry though and sent them homicidal – it later turns out they were programmed to protect their own ship.

There’s a short conversation between the two crew on The Liberator that reveals Gan’s crime that got him sent to Cygnus Alpha. Apart from framed child molester Blake, the others are all thieves of sorts, so it makes quite a contrast to discover that Gan killed a man in revenge. It’s played very carefully to ensure we still think of Gan as one of the good guys, with Gan seeming a tad reluctant to admit it all while telling Jenna that "he killed my woman".

Now, the choice of dialogue does make this sound bloody awful, but in trying to understand what on Earth Terry Nation (the scriptwriter) was getting at, I had to reflect some more. I concluded that he was trying to avoid the word ‘wife’, probably thinking that marriage as the 20th century knew it would be outdated by whenever-we-are-set. The next obvious non-sexual word for me would be ‘partner’ but perhaps this sounded a bit too homosexual for Nation and the BBC in 1978, or maybe it still implied the missing word for ‘sexual partner’. I’m trying to be very generous.

We cut back and forth between Jenna and Gan and the others on the planet, but I found the action on The Liberator dull. Jenna and Gan feel like the least developed characters so far and though they do have a heart to heart, it’s mostly action so feels like a slightly wasted opportunity. We know bugger all about the thawed bodies, and any tension that may have been built into sudden shocks can’t be maintained because we keep cutting back to the more interesting events on the planet.

Although I’d have liked more of Gan, it was good to finally get some of his background. It really just leaves Jenna who still feels lacking in character for me. I liked Cally and like Jenna it’s good to see another female character who seems like she will be able to look after herself. I’m still not keen on Blake.

We conclude Time Squad with Blake declaring the crew to now number seven. He’s brought up on this and then, in what is undoubtedly the biggest cop out of the series so far, declares that the seventh crew number is sodding Zen. If Zen is part of the crew you should be considering him bleeding suicidal based on events so far.