A Guest Blog by Hevy782

The dreaded security robot returns in this week’s Blake’s 7 episode, Project Avalon. Now it’s well known that the budget for Blake’s 7 wasn’t that big but I’m sure a little bit more money could’ve been spent on the security robot to at least make it look competent. But other than that the effects and sets were quite good this time around. By today’s standard they’re nothing amazing but to judge them by today’s standards would be unfair given that it’s a product of the late seventies. I’m not sure whether they had more money for this episode or just made better use of what they had but either way the episode looked better for it. But anyway, the episode itself was once again written by the sole writer for the series so far, Terry Nation, and is directed by Michael E Briant. Briant had previously directed the first and fifth episodes (The Way Back and The Web) and will return one last time to direct the penultimate episode of the first series, Deliverance, but we’ve still got a few episodes to go before then so for now let’s focus on Project Avalon.

The episode takes place on an unnamed planet where Travis wipes out a group of resistance fighters and captures their leader, Avalon, who has started similar rebellions on many nearby planets. Prior to this, she made contact with Blake and had arranged for him to come and take her off world. With Blake on his way, Travis’s trap was set. Blake arrives and teleports down with Jenna and Vila to find all but one of the resistance dead. They then decide to rescue Avalon from the Federation’s underground facility but unbeknownst to them the real Avalon has been replaced by an android duplicate. Federation Supreme Commander Servalan then arrives to oversee the operation and brings with her a deadly and fast acting virus for Travis to use on the Liberator. Blake then infiltrates the facility, rescues Avalon (unaware that she is an android) and teleports back to the Liberator. He then becomes suspicious of the ease in which they escaped and then, after a brief struggle, stops the android Avalon from releasing the virus inside the ship. Blake then has Avon reprogram the android and teleports back down the planet with it. He then forces Travis to hand over the real Avalon while the android holds the virus and allows them to escape. Travis is able to stop the android releasing the virus but Servalan tells him that there will be a full enquiry into his failure and until that time he is relieved of command. He then once again swears that he will destroy Blake, even if it takes all his life.

When we took a look at Duel last week I commented on how Travis seemed rather incompetent and more of a pantomime villain than anything else. Not wishing to repeat what I said last week, let’s just say this episode didn’t really help that too much. He’s so sure of himself all the way trough the episode until the final moments where he is outsmarted and then swears that he will destroy Blake once again. Now this formula worked the first time in Seek-Locate-Destroy but started to feel a bit repetitive in Duel and now in Project Avalon it feels tired and predictable, something which Blake’s 7 should never be. But while Travis may be failing as a villain, Servalan is excelling. This episode marks the return of the Federation Supreme Commander who previously appeared in Seek-Locate-Destroy and sent Travis on his mission to destroy Blake. Jacqueline Pearce does a great job at playing her and really gives a subtle sense of villainy. Villains are always more fun when they’re calm and collected which is probably why I prefer Servalan to Travis as the latter often has great outbursts of emotion which only make him feel more incompetent, but maybe slightly more interesting as a character in his own right. It’s also the little things which make these characters interesting as villains. The Mutoid having to pick up the map dropped right at Travis’s feet, the way Servalan questions the Mutoids choice of the word demanded when refering to Blake’s request and the subsequent fear in the Mutoid’s reaction, things like this say a lot about the characters and the society they live in. We then have Servalan calmly telling Travis that he is relieved of duty which at least shows there are consequences to Travis’s actions and that Servalan isn’t as foolish as Travis can be at times. We also get to see Blake and Servalan meet for the first time which provides an interesting scene to end the episode on.

The episode itself is also another action packed one in which everyone gets something good to do, even if it’s only a little. Gan is the one with the least to do however which is unfortunate given that he hasn’t had a chance to do much since Time Squad. Admittedly Avon and Cally are stuck up on the Liberator for the whole episode too but they’re not really in need of any action for the time being and do actually have a decent role to play here with Cally’s character being explored further by her admiration of Avalon and Avon making the tough call of retreating from their position when Federation ships show up. Then there’s Jenna and Vila who get to accompany Blake down to the surface so that they can rescue Avalon. Admittedly Jenna doesn’t get to do too much on the emotional side of things but does at least get to be involved in the action. Same with Vila who exercises his usual wit and charm, the scene where he puts his arctic gear on is a particularly memorable one. Then we have Blake who is very possibly the focus once again but at the same time it could be argued that Travis is or maybe even Avalon herself is, after all she is the titular character. But Avalon doesn’t have too much to do and I would say is more of a macguffin than an actual character. Everything that happens in the episode revolves around her and her presence very much drives the story forward but everything that is revolving around her is actually more interesting than her. So it’s back to Blake and Travis and who wins? Well I would say neither. It goes back to that issue of moral ambiguity and while it is clear who’s good and who’s bad you still get to see the story from both points of view equally. Chevner is the last character to talk about and he’s basically the main supporting character since Avalon spends most of the story imprisoned by the Federation. Chevner is a good enough character and serves his purpose well enough and it would’ve been interesting to see whether or not he’d of joined Blake’s crew or stayed with Avalon if the android hadn’t killed him. Also, the idea of Travis using a deadly, fast acting virus to wipe out the crew of the Liberator was a fairly gruesome one and this was made even worse by the fact that they showed an innocent person die from it purely to show the ruthlessness of the Federation. It’s an effective scene made all the more so by Servalan’s presence in it.

Rounding off this episode, it’s another action packed one right off the back of Duel but where it differs from the previous story is that the scale is much greater and the episode is all the better for it. This means it gets a nine-out-of-ten from me, one mark higher than Duel got last week, but I’m still yet to give full marks to an episode. Hopefully that’ll change soon, maybe even with the next episode which is titled Breakdown and it looks as if it’ll answer my wishes and focus more of Gan but until we find out for sure be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

A Guest Blog by Hevy782

As the title would suggest, this episode focuses on a duel to the death between Blake and Travis. The latter has only appeared in one episode prior to this one and it’s amazing how well defined a character he is already. However, this isn’t a complete success for writer Terry Nation as at the moment Travis feels a bit too much like a pantomime villain to me, I can’t really see him ever catching Blake and this episode only helped to enforce that. Blake’s final line pretty much sums it up with him saying he’d prefer to have someone chasing him who he knows he can beat. This doesn’t establish Travis as a threat, it makes him seem like more of a nuisance and an incompetent fool. Thankfully, Stephen Greif’s performance helps save the character and makes him seem quite threatening at times but the writing itself often ends up not really supporting this. Now maybe this is the way that Terry Nation envisaged the character or maybe Travis will improve over time but either way I feel that something’s misfired somewhere along the line. Blake is suffering from a similar problem in that he’s almost too good to be interesting. Gareth Thomas makes up for this by really sinking his teeth into just about every line he’s given but it goes back to the issue that the merry men are always more interesting than Robin Hood himself. I think that just about every crew member of the Liberator (with the possible exception of Gan) is more interesting than Blake himself which is sad but true. Anyway, the episode itself is directed by Douglas Camfield who is a veteran director who had previously done loads of work on Doctor Who and is a really good at action, making him the obvious choice for an episode titled Duel. He directed some great Doctor Who stories such as The Invasion and Terror of the Zygons, all of which have a great sense of atmosphere thanks in no small part to Douglas Camfield’s directorial decisions so I went into this expecting great things.

By the start of this episode, Travis has managed to drive Blake into orbit around an uncharted planet and is preparing to go in for the kill. Meanwhile, the Liberator’s continual escapes from the Federation have drained the Liberator’s power and so Blake, Jenna and Gan take a trip to the planets surface while they wait for the power to recharge and from there they spot Travis’ ships going in for the kill. They teleport back up and prepare for battle. Seeing no other option, Blake decides to ram Travis’ command ship but just as he is about to do so both he and Travis are teleported to the planets surface where they meet Sinofar and Giroc who decide that the two must fight to the death to settle the dispute. Blake is joined by Jenna who helps him in his fight while Travis’ mutoid pilot is sent to help him. Meanwhile, the two ships sit stationary in space and can do nothing but watch the battle take place on the planet below. Travis and the mutoid set a trap for Blake but it fails and so Blake and Travis face off in single combat. Blake gets into a position to kill Travis but instead shows him mercy. He and Jenna are then teleported back to Sinofar and Giroc who congratulate him on his victory and also question his act of mercy. He then replies by saying that he’d rather have Travis chasing him as he knows he can beat him. The Liberator is then freed and allowed to escape. Once the Liberator is safely away Travis is also released and warned never to return to this planet.

In the review of the previous episode I did mention that Jenna and Gan were in need of more focus and development. So imagine the pleasant shock I get when Blake goes down to the surface of an unidentified planet accompanied by none other than Jenna and Gan. Unfortunately they all return to the ship not long after this and Gan returns to the background again. Thankfully though Jenna does stick with Blake which gives her a much needed chance to shine after quite a few episodes stuck up on the Liberator. There’s also one very interesting scene up on the Liberator between Avon, Cally and Vila which is both moving and funny. Avon basically admits (in his own special way) that he does care for his fellow crew members which is quite an interesting turn of events for the character and while it was obviously coming sooner or later (as you need to soften these types of characters up at some point) it’s still a great moment in an episode not really about Avon at all. Some great stuff, shame about Gan being left out again though.

We also get an interesting look at how the Federation runs it’s operations with the inclusion of the mutoid pilot who is sent down to help Travis. The idea that she exists only for service is an interesting one and the vampire side of things is also quite dark. The relationship between her and Travis is an interesting one also it’s almost as if Travis feels morbid curiosity towards her. It shows a different side to Travis and his threat to court marshal her at the end was also quite a dark moment. However, two characters I weren’t too keen on were Sinofar and Giroc who’s motivations are confusing and they ultimately feel like a poor plot device simply to get Blake and Travis in a duel scenario. The way they’re written feels clunky and disjointed and they ultimately drag the whole thing down for me. However, one we get beyond their main part in the story and move on to the duel in the forest itself I was able to forget about them and enjoy that fight for what it was. The fight itself was standard stuff but everything that was leading up to it was very strong and quite tense at times. Not knowing where the characters were in relation to each other helped to build up this tension immensely and when Jenna was captured by Travis the tension was at its peak. Finally there was the space battle at the start which was a nice way to kick the episode off and was also quite tense. Things feel quite helpless on Blake’s side of the battle and the attempted ramming of Travis ship made it even more suspenseful.

To sum up, we have yet another great episode here although there are some story telling elements which left me feeling rather cold. Nevertheless, it was probably the most suspenseful of all the episodes so far so Duel is getting an eight-out-of-ten from me because of that. Coming up next is Project Avalon and we’ll be taking a look at that very soon but until then be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

A Guest Blog by Hevy782

After the introduction of Space Commander Travis and Federation Supreme Commander Servalan last episode, you’d be forgiven for seeing this episode as merely a filler due to it’s much smaller scale and lack of development in the overall story arc. But if you were to skip this one because of that then you’d be missing out on a real gem with Mission to Destiny. Writer Terry Nation has given us a murder mystery this time around, and a very good one at that. As ideas for fillers (and I hate having to call this that but in all honesty that’s basically what it is) go, this is a very unique one. Avon and Cally (and to a lesser extent Blake) step into the roles of the investigators while the crew of the ship serve as the suspects. So that’s what’s going on in front of the camera but what about behind it? Well, Pennant Roberts returns to direct his third episode for the series after previously being at the helm of Space Fall and Time Squad and also (since I actually paid attention to the credits for once) Chris Boucher serves as script editor for not just this story but the entire four year run. For those unaware, Boucher had previously written three Doctor Who stories, one of which, The Face of Evil, was directed by Pennant Roberts and another, The Robots of Death, was a murder mystery. Amazing what you can find out while watching the credits.

Read the rest of this entry →