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If Blake's 7 has any particular failing, it's in the characterisations. There were a lot of writers on the show over the years, and none of them seem to have got together to discuss what the characters were supposed to be like. The worst victim of this is Vila. Depending on who's writing, he can be a deeply irritating idiot, a hopeless coward, a Machiavellian genius, a ridiculously infantilised, childlike figure, or nothing but the comic relief. Sometimes he can manage more than one of those in the space of an episode. Then there's Avon, a ruthless genius all the time, but occasionally - apparently depending on what Paul Darrow had eaten for breakfast on any particular morning - a completely unhinged lunatic who should certainly never be allowed possession of a firearm. This episode is one of those. It seems to be a fan favourite, although I've never really understood why.
A scientific genius lurks in secret on a distant planet, having run away from the Federation for reasons of his own. He contacts the Scorpio, apparently intending to offer them something. Off go the gang to see what it's all about. Which, predictably enough, is where everything starts to go wrong.
Avon receives a radio message from Egrorian, yet another in the string of geniuses who seem to lurk on uninhabited planets all over the galaxy.
Since it's the fourth series, receipt of the message requires a long stare into the middle distance.
Expecting to be sent off to meet this latest lurking genius, Dayna and Tarrant get all dressed up specially for the occasion. Sadly it's all for nothing, as the deal is only for Avon. Why they've got dressed up is anybody's guess. You don't usually need a survival suit in somebody's living room; and certainly Avon doesn't bother with one. Possibly they're missing their series three spangles, and appreciated the chance to dress up again.
Avon negotiates terms. He's expected to travel in a special shuttle sent for the purpose, alone and unarmed, but demands to be allowed to take Vila along as well. Vila thinks that he should take one of the girls instead, which isn't a bad idea. Soolin, for instance, who went to all the trouble of joining the cast, only to have been given maybe half a dozen lines so far. And there's only a couple of episodes left. But no, Avon drags along Vila. Mostly, I suspect, because he likes having somebody around who'll look all wide-eyed whenever he's clever.
Just after they leave, Tarrant tells Dayna that there was a rumour back at the academy that Egrorian didn't run from the Federation after all, but was in the pay of somebody very high up in the government. Clearly the suspicion is that he works for Servalan. Might have been helpful to have mentioned that before they left, Tarrant. Granted Avon wouldn't have listened, but it would have saved the script from having to give him a truly terrible piece of deduction later on.
This week's blatantly insane alleged genius introduces Avon to his grand invention, which isn't a shelf of leftover BBC junk, no matter how much it looks like one. It's a tachyon converter, which can apparently destroy anything you tell it to, no matter where it is.
The little old fellow is Pinder, Egrorian's lab assistant, who's twenty-eight, but got prematurely aged by some techobabble radiation. When Avon arrives, Pinder calls him "ma'am", which allows Avon to deduce that Servalan is probably involved. I knew that you were paranoid, Avon, but it's going a little far to blame her for every slip of the tongue.
The deal is a simple one. The tachyon converter - and consequent galaxy-wide domination with the press of a button - in exchange for Orac. Avon considers the terms, whilst Vila plans the living arrangements in the palace that he'll build when the galaxy belongs to him.
I think Servalan is casting a spell. Not sure. I love this bit, actually. Egrorian is hopelessly in love with her, and her horror at this realisation allows Jacqueline Pearce a rare moment to break out of her ice queen persona, and show a bit of comic ability. I sort of wish she wasn't in this episode though. She's behind the scheming too often. How important can one small ship of hopeless pirates be? She wants to reclaim her presidency, but all she ever does is come up with increasingly Hooded Claw-like plans to rid herself of Avon and co. This one is particularly rubbish. She could use the tachyon converter to take control of the galaxy and demand anything of anyone. Why go to all this trouble to get possession of Orac? With the galaxy's most powerful weapon, you don't need Orac. And if you're really that desperate, grab the galaxy and get him later. This entire episode only really makes sense as the half-mad plotting of a lunatic scientist. Bring in Servalan and it all falls apart.
Servalan doesn't agree with my thesis.
In this week's ten seconds of plot time, Soolin teases Vila about his lack of knowledge of physics. It's good to see that extra gunfighter being put to such vital use, isn't it.
Avon and Vila return to the planet to make the deal, only for Avon, suspecting deceit, to pull a fast one. Instead of the real Orac, he uses a non-functioning replica that he just happened to build a few months back just in case. Vila clearly knows nothing about the plan or the replica...
... and neither do the women, however Tarrant is fully versed in everything. How do those two keep coming up with these secret plots together on that ship?! It's only got one room!
The gloriously hi-tec screen that displays the shuttle's progress on its return to the Scorpio. I love the apparent conviction that hundreds of years of scientific advancement will leave computers stuck resolutely in 1981.
Sadly, things are not going quite as well as assumed. The shuttle has been sabotaged, and is intended to crash into a marsh near Egrorian's base. It wouldn't have been simpler just to shoot them? The crash should not damage Orac or the tachyon converter, but will kill Avon and Vila. Always supposing they don't think of a way out of trouble in all the time it takes for this plan to play out, that is. See Servalan? Next time, just keep the weapon. Save the moronic ploys for people with long, twirly moustaches and annoying giggles.
The shuttle needs to lose weight in order to break out of orbit, so Avon and Vila jettison everything that isn't nailed down, including the galaxy's most powerful weapon. Despite this, they can't find a way to reach their target weight, until Orac informs Avon that the amount they need to lose adds up to one rapidly paling Vila. This brings on a monumental outbreak of unhinged glaring. And this is where it all falls apart for me. Back in the episode with the headless Smash robot, Orac told Avon that he had to let Tarrant and Vila die, or not only the Xenon base, but also the entire galaxy would face destruction. Avon did glare a lot, granted, but he refused to go through with it. Avon's a bastard, but never before has he been this much of one.
For this week only, however, he is. Off he goes, like the witch in Hansel & Gretel, calling sweetly to Vila.
Vila, who overheard Orac, is surprisingly unwilling to answer.
During his search for Vila, Avon stubs his toe on a small, plastic brick, which turns out to have some super-heavy matter embedded in it. Realising that it was planted by Egrorian, he chucks it overboard. Isn't the presence of super-heavy material just the kind of thing that Orac is supposed to notice?
Back on the planet, Servalan is predictably furious at the failure of the world's stupidest plan. She storms out, as only she can. Upset that Egrorian had been planning to leave with Servalan and abandon him, Pinder unleashes a blast of technobabble radiation, this time prematurely ageing them both.
This is why you should always be nice to lab assistants. Something that everybody seems to forget is that they're the ones with a key to everything.
Back on the Scorpio, everybody who wasn't on the shuttle celebrates the amazing escape of Avon and Vila. Vila is considerably less impressed. He doesn't seem to have told anybody what happened, though. Not sure why. Isn't it a good idea to tell everybody what a complete psychopath they're sharing a ship with? Even if it is only a twenty-four hour psychosis. It might turn out to be recurring, after all.
Perfectly happy with how everything turned out, Avon merely smirks and glares at the same time; his own special talent. I don't think it worries him in the slightest that Vila might tell the others what happened. Certainly for the duration of this episode, he'd probably just chuck every one of them overboard if they complained.
A mixed bag, this. The five minutes when Avon and Vila are trapped together on the shuttle is genuinely good. There's some lovely tension as Avon looks for Vila, and an increasingly grey-with-terror Vila tries to hide. That doesn't alter the fact that it's out-of-character, however, and that it should have been played out with a different antagonist to make it work. As for the preceding forty-five minutes, they're just played for laughs. Egrorian is deeply irritating, and Pinder's role seems to exist entirely for comic purposes. The pair of them are so over the top that they'd fit better in Galloping Galaxies! than in Blake's 7. Altogether a frustration of an episode. Maybe I am supposed to just turn off my brain and enjoy the entertainment, but whether or not it's good drama, Avon's complete personality change bugs me. The Avon I have been watching for four series would not throw Vila overboard. He wouldn't next week either. Good drama is not a good enough excuse to screw with characters like that. Not if you really care about what it is that you're writing.
A scientific genius lurks in secret on a distant planet, having run away from the Federation for reasons of his own. He contacts the Scorpio, apparently intending to offer them something. Off go the gang to see what it's all about. Which, predictably enough, is where everything starts to go wrong.
Avon receives a radio message from Egrorian, yet another in the string of geniuses who seem to lurk on uninhabited planets all over the galaxy.
Since it's the fourth series, receipt of the message requires a long stare into the middle distance.
Expecting to be sent off to meet this latest lurking genius, Dayna and Tarrant get all dressed up specially for the occasion. Sadly it's all for nothing, as the deal is only for Avon. Why they've got dressed up is anybody's guess. You don't usually need a survival suit in somebody's living room; and certainly Avon doesn't bother with one. Possibly they're missing their series three spangles, and appreciated the chance to dress up again.
Avon negotiates terms. He's expected to travel in a special shuttle sent for the purpose, alone and unarmed, but demands to be allowed to take Vila along as well. Vila thinks that he should take one of the girls instead, which isn't a bad idea. Soolin, for instance, who went to all the trouble of joining the cast, only to have been given maybe half a dozen lines so far. And there's only a couple of episodes left. But no, Avon drags along Vila. Mostly, I suspect, because he likes having somebody around who'll look all wide-eyed whenever he's clever.
Just after they leave, Tarrant tells Dayna that there was a rumour back at the academy that Egrorian didn't run from the Federation after all, but was in the pay of somebody very high up in the government. Clearly the suspicion is that he works for Servalan. Might have been helpful to have mentioned that before they left, Tarrant. Granted Avon wouldn't have listened, but it would have saved the script from having to give him a truly terrible piece of deduction later on.
This week's blatantly insane alleged genius introduces Avon to his grand invention, which isn't a shelf of leftover BBC junk, no matter how much it looks like one. It's a tachyon converter, which can apparently destroy anything you tell it to, no matter where it is.
The little old fellow is Pinder, Egrorian's lab assistant, who's twenty-eight, but got prematurely aged by some techobabble radiation. When Avon arrives, Pinder calls him "ma'am", which allows Avon to deduce that Servalan is probably involved. I knew that you were paranoid, Avon, but it's going a little far to blame her for every slip of the tongue.
The deal is a simple one. The tachyon converter - and consequent galaxy-wide domination with the press of a button - in exchange for Orac. Avon considers the terms, whilst Vila plans the living arrangements in the palace that he'll build when the galaxy belongs to him.
I think Servalan is casting a spell. Not sure. I love this bit, actually. Egrorian is hopelessly in love with her, and her horror at this realisation allows Jacqueline Pearce a rare moment to break out of her ice queen persona, and show a bit of comic ability. I sort of wish she wasn't in this episode though. She's behind the scheming too often. How important can one small ship of hopeless pirates be? She wants to reclaim her presidency, but all she ever does is come up with increasingly Hooded Claw-like plans to rid herself of Avon and co. This one is particularly rubbish. She could use the tachyon converter to take control of the galaxy and demand anything of anyone. Why go to all this trouble to get possession of Orac? With the galaxy's most powerful weapon, you don't need Orac. And if you're really that desperate, grab the galaxy and get him later. This entire episode only really makes sense as the half-mad plotting of a lunatic scientist. Bring in Servalan and it all falls apart.
Servalan doesn't agree with my thesis.
In this week's ten seconds of plot time, Soolin teases Vila about his lack of knowledge of physics. It's good to see that extra gunfighter being put to such vital use, isn't it.
Avon and Vila return to the planet to make the deal, only for Avon, suspecting deceit, to pull a fast one. Instead of the real Orac, he uses a non-functioning replica that he just happened to build a few months back just in case. Vila clearly knows nothing about the plan or the replica...
... and neither do the women, however Tarrant is fully versed in everything. How do those two keep coming up with these secret plots together on that ship?! It's only got one room!
The gloriously hi-tec screen that displays the shuttle's progress on its return to the Scorpio. I love the apparent conviction that hundreds of years of scientific advancement will leave computers stuck resolutely in 1981.
Sadly, things are not going quite as well as assumed. The shuttle has been sabotaged, and is intended to crash into a marsh near Egrorian's base. It wouldn't have been simpler just to shoot them? The crash should not damage Orac or the tachyon converter, but will kill Avon and Vila. Always supposing they don't think of a way out of trouble in all the time it takes for this plan to play out, that is. See Servalan? Next time, just keep the weapon. Save the moronic ploys for people with long, twirly moustaches and annoying giggles.
The shuttle needs to lose weight in order to break out of orbit, so Avon and Vila jettison everything that isn't nailed down, including the galaxy's most powerful weapon. Despite this, they can't find a way to reach their target weight, until Orac informs Avon that the amount they need to lose adds up to one rapidly paling Vila. This brings on a monumental outbreak of unhinged glaring. And this is where it all falls apart for me. Back in the episode with the headless Smash robot, Orac told Avon that he had to let Tarrant and Vila die, or not only the Xenon base, but also the entire galaxy would face destruction. Avon did glare a lot, granted, but he refused to go through with it. Avon's a bastard, but never before has he been this much of one.
For this week only, however, he is. Off he goes, like the witch in Hansel & Gretel, calling sweetly to Vila.
Vila, who overheard Orac, is surprisingly unwilling to answer.
During his search for Vila, Avon stubs his toe on a small, plastic brick, which turns out to have some super-heavy matter embedded in it. Realising that it was planted by Egrorian, he chucks it overboard. Isn't the presence of super-heavy material just the kind of thing that Orac is supposed to notice?
Back on the planet, Servalan is predictably furious at the failure of the world's stupidest plan. She storms out, as only she can. Upset that Egrorian had been planning to leave with Servalan and abandon him, Pinder unleashes a blast of technobabble radiation, this time prematurely ageing them both.
This is why you should always be nice to lab assistants. Something that everybody seems to forget is that they're the ones with a key to everything.
Back on the Scorpio, everybody who wasn't on the shuttle celebrates the amazing escape of Avon and Vila. Vila is considerably less impressed. He doesn't seem to have told anybody what happened, though. Not sure why. Isn't it a good idea to tell everybody what a complete psychopath they're sharing a ship with? Even if it is only a twenty-four hour psychosis. It might turn out to be recurring, after all.
Perfectly happy with how everything turned out, Avon merely smirks and glares at the same time; his own special talent. I don't think it worries him in the slightest that Vila might tell the others what happened. Certainly for the duration of this episode, he'd probably just chuck every one of them overboard if they complained.
A mixed bag, this. The five minutes when Avon and Vila are trapped together on the shuttle is genuinely good. There's some lovely tension as Avon looks for Vila, and an increasingly grey-with-terror Vila tries to hide. That doesn't alter the fact that it's out-of-character, however, and that it should have been played out with a different antagonist to make it work. As for the preceding forty-five minutes, they're just played for laughs. Egrorian is deeply irritating, and Pinder's role seems to exist entirely for comic purposes. The pair of them are so over the top that they'd fit better in Galloping Galaxies! than in Blake's 7. Altogether a frustration of an episode. Maybe I am supposed to just turn off my brain and enjoy the entertainment, but whether or not it's good drama, Avon's complete personality change bugs me. The Avon I have been watching for four series would not throw Vila overboard. He wouldn't next week either. Good drama is not a good enough excuse to screw with characters like that. Not if you really care about what it is that you're writing.
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