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In episode four, Blake has plans. He has a ship, he has a crew, and he has a fierce determination to do battle with the evil empire. Why he's in charge, nobody knows. Why he thinks he's entitled to be in charge, nobody knows. Avon certainly doesn't, and he's royally pissed off about it. Unfortunately for Avon, he can't leave Blake's 5 without leaving the ship; which would not only make him a sitting duck for the authorities, but would also - and much more importantly - lose him any chance of snagging the Liberator for himself. In the meantime, Blake's ordering him around; and short of killing him, there's not a lot Avon can do about it. It's probably no great consolation to him that I find this highly entertaining.
A two-fold adventure this time. The gang find a ship of cryogenically frozen space travellers, and Jenna and Gan are left to watch over them. While they're doing that, to Avon's utter delight, he, Blake and Vila teleport down to Saurian Major, allegedly a hotbed of rebel action. There they meet Cally, a splendidly overly-dramatic telepath. So we're up to Blake's 6 then; or will be, once she's stopped trying to kill everybody. As Jenna and Gan battle hostile aliens aboard the Liberator, everybody else has a fine old time running about a power station, attempting to make their first proper strike against the Federation.
The battle aboard ship is quite nicely done. Gan, it turns out, was shipped off to Cygnus Alpha after killing the Federation guard who had killed his wife. The authorities have implanted a device in his skull that prevents him from getting violent - which renders him splendidly useless in a fight. (Except last week's, when apparently they hadn't thought up this bit yet). Effectively alone, Jenna veers wildly between being pleasingly tough, and a hopeless wet blanket. She does get a couple of good fight scenes, but the bad guys are pretty unspectacular. Might help if they had proper motive, or some personality. From a purely childish perspective, there's a lovely bit where she manages to trap one of them behind a fabulously cardboard door. Fortunately he doesn't try too hard to get through it, or the episode would have had a very different ending. Meanwhile, down on Saurian Major the plan is to blow anything and everything to kingdom come. A wholly admirable plan, if one that gets slightly scuppered by the budget.
Not a great episode. It mostly exists to bring Cally into the fold, and the plot, like the previous week's, is pretty minimal. There's still plenty that's worthwhile, particularly in the interaction between Blake and Avon; and Cally shows every sign of being a good addition to the team. She's doomed to ultimate pointlessness of course, but fortunately for her, she doesn't know that yet. For now she's thinking only of attacking the Federation. Blake has a companion in his single-minded lunacy. Isn't that nice.
The Liberator in flight. Deep space, it turns out, is made out of cardboard. Who knew.
His Majesty Blake surveys his less than merry subjects.
Avon is not impressed by his new role as minion. Poor Avon. If he was half as ruthless as he keeps claiming to be, he'd just shoot Blake and have done with it. Instead he's stuck simmering, with a megalomaniac lunatic as a self-appointed captain. Still, his loss is our gain.
Deep frozen space traveller. He has a twitchy nose, but I don't think I was supposed to notice that.
The famed law of British space travel. All alien planets look like quarries.
Quarries with strategically placed Fabulously Alien Foliage.
Cally. I can't decide whether she keeps flirting with Avon, or if she just wants to cut his throat. Although with Cally the two are quite possibly synonymous.
Jennadances with dispatches various aliens, whilst Gan cowers in a corner whimpering. Poor Gan. This must be the only adventure show in TV history that struggled to find a role for a man mountain. The violence limiter is quite a good idea, but ultimately they struggled to do much of anything with that as well.
Avon rigs the power station computer to blow up. It'll blow the whole complex off the planet, apparently. Hmm. Whilst that did provide a nice moment of drama, as there was no chance of them being teleported to safety at the time due to frozen space traveller theatrics, in future it might be best to avoid making such grand statements in a show with a non-existent budget.
Boom?
"And now we can really do battle!" announces Blake, to his wildly enthusiastic crew. Once again, Avon's joy is uncontainable.
You know, I'd forgotten how long it takes for Servalan to put in an appearance. She became so ubiquitous later, it's quite a surprise revisiting series one, where she's barely visible. I suppose it's good that we're getting to know the rebels so well first, but it is starting to feel as though the Federation is in sore need of a human face.
A two-fold adventure this time. The gang find a ship of cryogenically frozen space travellers, and Jenna and Gan are left to watch over them. While they're doing that, to Avon's utter delight, he, Blake and Vila teleport down to Saurian Major, allegedly a hotbed of rebel action. There they meet Cally, a splendidly overly-dramatic telepath. So we're up to Blake's 6 then; or will be, once she's stopped trying to kill everybody. As Jenna and Gan battle hostile aliens aboard the Liberator, everybody else has a fine old time running about a power station, attempting to make their first proper strike against the Federation.
The battle aboard ship is quite nicely done. Gan, it turns out, was shipped off to Cygnus Alpha after killing the Federation guard who had killed his wife. The authorities have implanted a device in his skull that prevents him from getting violent - which renders him splendidly useless in a fight. (Except last week's, when apparently they hadn't thought up this bit yet). Effectively alone, Jenna veers wildly between being pleasingly tough, and a hopeless wet blanket. She does get a couple of good fight scenes, but the bad guys are pretty unspectacular. Might help if they had proper motive, or some personality. From a purely childish perspective, there's a lovely bit where she manages to trap one of them behind a fabulously cardboard door. Fortunately he doesn't try too hard to get through it, or the episode would have had a very different ending. Meanwhile, down on Saurian Major the plan is to blow anything and everything to kingdom come. A wholly admirable plan, if one that gets slightly scuppered by the budget.
Not a great episode. It mostly exists to bring Cally into the fold, and the plot, like the previous week's, is pretty minimal. There's still plenty that's worthwhile, particularly in the interaction between Blake and Avon; and Cally shows every sign of being a good addition to the team. She's doomed to ultimate pointlessness of course, but fortunately for her, she doesn't know that yet. For now she's thinking only of attacking the Federation. Blake has a companion in his single-minded lunacy. Isn't that nice.
The Liberator in flight. Deep space, it turns out, is made out of cardboard. Who knew.
His Majesty Blake surveys his less than merry subjects.
Avon is not impressed by his new role as minion. Poor Avon. If he was half as ruthless as he keeps claiming to be, he'd just shoot Blake and have done with it. Instead he's stuck simmering, with a megalomaniac lunatic as a self-appointed captain. Still, his loss is our gain.
Deep frozen space traveller. He has a twitchy nose, but I don't think I was supposed to notice that.
The famed law of British space travel. All alien planets look like quarries.
Quarries with strategically placed Fabulously Alien Foliage.
Cally. I can't decide whether she keeps flirting with Avon, or if she just wants to cut his throat. Although with Cally the two are quite possibly synonymous.
Jenna
Avon rigs the power station computer to blow up. It'll blow the whole complex off the planet, apparently. Hmm. Whilst that did provide a nice moment of drama, as there was no chance of them being teleported to safety at the time due to frozen space traveller theatrics, in future it might be best to avoid making such grand statements in a show with a non-existent budget.
Boom?
"And now we can really do battle!" announces Blake, to his wildly enthusiastic crew. Once again, Avon's joy is uncontainable.
You know, I'd forgotten how long it takes for Servalan to put in an appearance. She became so ubiquitous later, it's quite a surprise revisiting series one, where she's barely visible. I suppose it's good that we're getting to know the rebels so well first, but it is starting to feel as though the Federation is in sore need of a human face.
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