Blakes 7 - Meh

**TheAbe** · August 2nd, 2011, 11:57 PM

Many spoilers ensue.

I picked up all four seasons of Blakes 7 on DVD and I watched them this past week and I've got to say that I'm a bit disappointed. This is supposed to be the sci-fi show that changed sci-fi shows, that made them serial, that developed characters, that had conflict between them, etc. While it certainly had conflict and a serial plot (sorta, while everything happens in order, a vast number of episodes are episodic in nature) it didn't have much in the way of characterization. Gan had none, Vila rarely had any, etc. Despite writers like Terry Nation and Robert Holmes, the whole thing was sloooooooooow. The first episode, great. The second episode, a bit show-horning in, but still solid. (I mean, come on, what;s the chance of a super-powerful ship just being marooned, in full working order, with only a minor bug thing causing people to die, and just after a failed attempt by the prisoners to take over the prison ship resulted in a enough wounded and dead guards that they had to send prisoners to the derelict ship, which they are able to get up and running in minutes). The third episode, meh. The fourth one, good. Then it went downhill, with little occasionally bouncing it back up.

Then, at the beginning of the third series, I started to get interested again. I liked the idea of freshening up the show with the introduction of an alien invasion fleet that Blakes crew radio the evil Federation to bring them in. While the major battle with losses of 80% of the Federation fleet and a weakened Federation were plotlines for the next two years, we never see the aliens again. We don't even see them on screen. What's up with that? So, while the third season began interestingly enough with the people trying to track down the crew after the Liberator and crew lost in battle against the aliens was new and different, I don;t feel that they continued down that path well enough. After the first few episodes and they have new cast members and retired two, they move on.

For example, one main character, Jenna, left. On screen, they mention she is safe aboard a hospital ship and says she shouldn't be a priority, so the Liberator heads to pick up Vila. Then that;s it, no more mention until the final episode says she died smuggling. And while they briefly mention that Blake was hard to track down once, they never really try to find him until the end of the season, with one of the worst cliffhangers of all time.

Season 4 was even more uneven. You would have thought I would have loved the idea of Avon and the new ship, the Scorpio (after the Liberator was destroyed at the end of 3) building up an Anti-Republic coalition of scientists weapons, and planets. However, there are two major issues:

1). During season 3, new character Tarrant is basically captaining the Liberator. Why is Avon all of the sudden in charge of the Scorpio? How did they switch places?
2). The things they do make very little sense, and aren't fleshed out much at all. For example, in one episode, we see Dayna trying to win over this very good geneticist to join their cause and try to come up with a permanently solution to a new drug the Federation developed that forces people be be complaint. Okay, I get that. But in 13 episodes, we still have way too many episodes that don;t seem related to this overall plotline, and the things they are doing rarely make sense. Only the one were they are trying to trade for a very powerful new gun makes sense in this perspective, and almost always we see these as just Federation traps and plots. It's a bit obvious, when almost every time we see that a new ally is actually working for the Federation. Plus, we don;t see any growth. Okay, so a neutral planet joins your cause, but what does that mean? Ships? Weapons? Troops? Medical Supplies? There's nothing like that. It seems very haphazard and unrealistic.

I do like some of the darker plotlines. For example, there is an episode where the Federation infects a person with a disease and sends them back to their planet to infect the rest, and then they plan to sweep in and take control. Makes total sense. However ,some of the plotlines to do so make no sense - such as two civilizations that war on each other by having two champions fight, and the winner has their side win the war. However, the Federation attempts to get one side to cheat, so that there will be real war, and then they can come in as Peacemakers and look like good guys while also taking in two systems. They do this by having one society have an android, instead of a human. He wins a fight against the current champion, and automatically becomes the new champion for them, despite having no history or anything. That doesn;t make anybody suspicious and no health tests were done ahead of time to make sure the people weren't genetically enhanced ,on drugs, artificial, or anything - it seems very unrealistic. Even if it worked, there is no way you;d know that the war would be vicious They haven;t warred, truly, for a long time, and it might take a while to build up, or one side might get a decisive advantage early over an unprepared other, or they may not go to war even if the android was found out after the battle, etc. It's way too much.

I feel like almost every episode would make a cracking half hour episode without losing much of anything, but they are just too long for one hour of tv (minus commercials).

Anyway, it's uneven, and it's slow as balls, and I just don't feel there;s enough good here to recommend it to anyone. I thought I was going to love this. I like dark, I like personal conflict, I like serial sci fi, but this just wasn't that good. Perhaps I;ve been spoiled by great serial sci-fi (B5), quite good serial sci-fi (DS9) and solid seriel sci-fi (Farscape) but this was just uneven and slow.

**kerbythepurplecow** · August 3rd, 2011, 02:25 AM

I've never even heard of this! I do still need to get around to watching Farscape though.

**TheAbe** · August 3rd, 2011, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by kerbythepurplecow

I've never even heard of this! I do still need to get around to watching Farscape though.

I picked up the whole seeries of Farscape for like 40 bucks, but I had to buy The Peacekeeper Wars, because that wasn't on it. 50 dollars for four seasons and a two episode mini-series. It's not bad, but like every show of Star Trek seems to have a conceit of plot that makes little sense but is repeated again and again.

Star Trek, TOS - Episodes set in a world that is exactly like Earth but...Modern Day Nazis, all of the adults have died, running into Apollo, Lincoln, gangster culture, romans, etc.
ST TNG - Holodeck episodes! We have tons of epiusodes that take place wholly on holodecks!
ST DS9 - Mirror universe! Despite the fact that there was precisely one mirror universe episode in the 60s, and none in the entire run of TNG< we have 5 episodes with the mirror universe in DS9.

Etc.

Well, the conceit in Farscape, which got really tiresome after a while, was episodes where some chemical, brain control, telepathy, doppelgangers, dream-drugs, control discs, or whatever was changing the crew's to make them horny, angry, suspicious, pissed off, or whatever, or heighten their normal tension to unbeleivable levels. It's annoying how many times they'll pull that plotline out and dust it off for another go.