Blake!

Wow! Massive typo or what? 'Bleak', this should be called. Charles Dickens had nothing on Chris Boucher. Bleak House, you say? How about Bleak Planet? You’re on a quest to find Bleak. Bleak is waiting for you. Bleak has built an entire base that’s a magnet for pain, betrayal and anger. Bleak wants to enlist you. Bleak is back and stronger than ever. Do you recognise Bleak? Does Bleak know you? Are you prepared to shoot Bleak in the tummy? Oh no, now there’s Bleak everywhere, all over the floor, all over the TV screen. Bleak death. Bleak last words. Bleak last look at the world.

Buzz. Beep. Woop. Whoosh. Cue theme tune.

Before I knew how this show began, I knew how it ended. Whether it was in TV Zone or Dreamwatch or some book about cult telly, or maybe from my Dad, who watched the show with my Mum when they first set up house together, and who once saw that woman who played Jenna in Marks & Spencer's. I knew that they all die horrible meaningless deaths in the last reel, Blake included. I always wondered how that would be shot (if you know what I mean), what the last images would suggest, what the big idea was.

My expectations were fairly low. This season, like every season of Blake’s 7, has been so variable that a graph of relative episode quality would resemble a line of jagged teeth. 'Warlord' was a turn off too, and looking back to the previous season cliffhanger didn’t inspire huge confidence, despite some fun bits like the Liberator turning into a poo, “Blake is dead” and of course, “Maximum power!” I do like that at its big dramatic moments, the show returns to Blake. He was never used quite as he should have been, but he was a good character and a good actor and he provides a pivot for Avon and Vila’s aimless characters to work on.

Gareth Thomas is brilliant here: unpredictable, dangerous, even a little scary, but still with a little sweetness. I enjoyed the plot reversals and double crosses, and it was brilliant to see David Collings in the show at last. A Doctor Who Guest Star who could have/should have been the Doctor. It would have been good to see him alongside the rest of the crew, even joining them for a few episodes. Sad to hear about Jenna’s somewhat meaningless death too – like Cally, a great character thrown away and then blown up offscreen.

And speaking of off-screen characters, what the hell happened to Servalan? Did Jacqueline Pearce have an emergency dentist appointment or something? You could say that Boucher cleverly suggests her power by hinting at her arrival throughout, that she is more suggestively omnipresent through our anticipation of her, right up to the last minute. But really, that’s bollocks. She’s the star of this show. She’s been trying to engineer a situation like this for years. Leaving her out of this coda – so we don’t know if she’s satisfied or saddened, even if she’s in power any more – is just writerly cowardice, I think.

I mean, what was going on with that Commissioner business? Was anything supposed to be made of it at all? Not even an aside from Blake to Deeva: “I’ve made contact with a Federation official. It sounds like we could rely on her. Her name’s Sleer…”

And yet it’s a great story. It's clever and gripping and packs a huge punch. In the extremes of the episode, we see all the characters come completely alive for one last half an hour, and I found Dayna’s death particularly shocking. Seeing Vila die is just horrible, likewise Soolin. Tarrant I could just about handle, if I’m honest.

It could have been told slower, perhaps. Two episodes would have made Gauda Prime a more convincing locale, and Avon’s journey a little less rushed and hard to follow. And really, even in silhouette, we should have seen Serv again. But perhaps they were aiming for a cliffhanger ending? Whatever the intention, there is a lingering feeling of unfinished business. One last conversation, one last glass of green, one last evening dress.

It was never purely a show about the central battle, Blake vs Federation: at its best, it was about Avon and Vila’s seduction by power, their inability to trust even one another, about Servalan’s obsession with Blake and then Avon, and the many triangles of resentment and desire that tied these egomaniacs together and made them fight for others (frequently in vain, it must be said). So for me, it feels as if one whole dimension of the story’s conclusion remains as yet unwritten.

But come on, – how brave, how deft, what a punch in the kidneys this story is. Perhaps what Servalan did or wanted was never the issue. Perhaps she was never more than the lip-gloss on an essentially faceless operation of power, ideology and fear. From the first episode to the last, the so-called Federation has been messing with people's heads. Nobody really has to pull the trigger. Sometimes that's the reality of fascist ideology, that people tear themselves apart in the midst of their own blind terror. Perhaps it’s the most faithful episode to the original, 1984-style episodes of the series. 

Strange, though, that we never found out what brought about the monolith of the Federation or what its objectives are. We never truly made it back to Earth. Never explored the mysteries of the Liberator, either. It’s a show full of shadowy mysteries, ambiguous motivations and unresolved questions, so perhaps the final cut away from Avon’s grin fits well.

Maybe I need to check out some of that fan fiction... 

Thank you more than most weeks to the Blake's 7 Image Library. I like how the blurry image of Max Boyce in this snap of the Radio Times listing looks like Roj Blake with an acoustic guitar. Thanks for joining me on this fluff through eternity. Next week -- my top ten...

Gold!

Always believe in your soul

You've got the power to know

You're indestructible

This little blog post should really be entitled ‘Why On Earth Wasn’t Roy Kinnear Ever in Doctor Who?’ But we’ll get to that. I need to preface everything by saying that this story was hugely enjoyable. It’s the perfect fulfilment of, I like to imagine, Terry Nation’s vision for the series: that is, an ITC Saturday night drama of the kind he spent many years scripting improbable adventures for: The Avengers, Department S, The Baron, The Persuaders. All these shows are crime dramas with a fantastical twist, bold characters but little continuity, and a healthy respect for the intelligent viewer. ‘Gold’ perhaps overestimated the intelligence of this particular viewer – I got a bit lost amid the triple crossing and whether the booty was legit or not – but it was all great fun. Four series of this sort of episode would make total sense: amoral professionals get into a con, react smartly to every development, and narrowly escape a show-down with the perpetual villain.

Glad that you're bound to return

There's something I could have learned

But like I said last week, Blake’s 7 is never at its best when it behaves like it should. There’s something inconsequential about ‘Gold’: it entertains you, you go home, and what was it about again? Its biggest problem is how it handles Servalan: at one point Avon reads Roy Kinnear’s curriculum vitae and sees that he did some work for ‘the President’. “But which President…?” snarls Avon to himself. This is like a production of Cinderella where Baron Hardup and the Ugly Sisters, on receiving an invitation from the Prince, turn to the audience to say: “But which Prince…?” (Perhaps the Wicked Queen from Snow White would have been more appropriate.) ‘Gold’ could at least play with its audience’s anticipation of Servalan, rather than making it a plot twist that immediately untwists itself with some sexual tension and a quadruple cross.

I hope you find a little more time

Remember, we were partners in crime

It’s a great scene though. The leader of the rebels meets the dark heart of the establishment, and magnetic waves are whirling. Will they draw irresistibly together, fly apart, combust? We’re into the home stretch of this series, and I find myself wishing it was all about these two. Kill the Scorpio crew now: then where would our stars be, what would they do? If there was no chance of Servalan becoming President once more and she was just like Avon, on the run with a small gang, subsisting and seeking revenge or just money and sex. What an amazing, unpredictable conclusion to their four-year arc that would be: it makes you long for a remake, to do it ‘properly’. But they can’t remake it, not really. The secret of this show is, however good the ideas and scripts are, if it wasn’t Darrow and Pearce it wouldn’t really be Avon and Servalan.

The cast has always been central. If Blake, Gan or Cally are sometimes dull, you know it’s nothing to do with the casting and everything to do with scriptwriters struggling to provide material for ‘nice’, ‘principled’ and ‘sensitive’ characters. Even the more interesting characters only truly come alive when, say, Sally Knyvette or Michael Keating get to play outside of their ‘type’. (Decades later, Russell T. Davies talks in ‘The Writer’s Tale’ about ‘turning’ characters, but you see instances of it in all the best Blake’s 7 episodes). ‘Gold’ benefits from having the characters undercover and out of their comfort zone. It’s another great showcase for Glynis Barber as Soolin: probably the best ‘goodie’ the show has produced, besides Avon.

The man with the suit and the pace

You knew that he was there on the case

The guest cast has been top throughout this series, though once again, they’re frequently under-served. Kevin Stoney, Valentine Dyall and Michael Gough are all amazing character actors, miscast as worthy heroic figures. Female guest stars are relatively thin on the ground (correct me if I’m wrong) but we do have some treasurable appearances by Betty Marsden and Sylvia Coleridge. But if this story sticks in my memory, as I think it will, it’s all down to Roy Kinnear. It’s a brilliant performance: it feels totally natural, but it’s heightened enough for him to be in conversation with the other characters without breaking the thread that the audience’s suspended disbelief is dangling from. Right from the start, you’re fascinated by him, entertained, suspicious. He’s pitiable and deadly at the same time.

It had me checking back over Kinnear’s screen history. He’s one of those faces, one of those names, but I could only think of one thing I’d seen him in (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). Then of course there was Help!, alongside the Fab Four and the even fabber Eleanor Bron and Victor Spinetti. Lots and lots of TV comedy. The Three Musketeers. Taste the Blood of Dracula. Watership Down (yes, Watership Down). Superted. And much much more. So why wasn’t he ever in Doctor Who? What was JN-T thinking? Imagine him in ‘The Leisure Hive’, ‘Meglos’, ‘The Keeper of Traken’, each of them instant classics. Imagine Tom Baker’s deep joy at sharing the screen with him.

My love is like a high prison wall

But you could leave me standing so tall

So, Servalan and Avon (and Tarrant). The President Sleer storyline. Robert Holmes. Blake. Dayna’s father. I think I’ve got three episodes left. What will they be? Bronze? Silver? Gold? See you next week…

Once again, blurry snaps of the Radio Times are by me (thanks to the British Library). Screencaps are from this excellent site (thanks to Lisa).