Orbit!

FROM: dirtydozen@hotmale.co.space

TO: pres.sleer.valan@gmail.co.smic

SUBJECT: Room on top?

Dear Servalan,

Hope you are quite well. Or, to be absolutely consistent, quite mad, bad and dangerous to know as ever you were. Sorry to have missed you on down there on the planet Malodar, a world that lived up to its name by stinking to high heaven. And yes, I got your scent, right enough, amidst the stench of deceit, regret, frustrated eroticism and Deep Heat. That evil genius Egrorian had certainly pressed against somebody who wears ‘Suspiria’ perfume, and in these circumstances at least, it wasn’t his ex-boyfriend Pinder (it was him with the Deep Heat). I wouldn’t have thought Professor E. was your type, but I can hardly talk, having taken myself and my colleagues to Malodar and the brink of destruction on nothing more than the promise of his giant weapon.

So yes, I got away, and more than that, I know it was you who tried to kill me, and more than that, I know that you know that I know, in fact: you know that I know that you knew that I know that you knew that I know that you knew, and so ad infinitum. I don’t think there’s anything we don’t know about each other. Never was the chance of a mate allowed to grow so stale.

For a long time we’ve been in the same orbit, you and I, going around and around. To an observer, it might look as if you were in pursuit; to a political theorist, it might seem that I’ve been deliberately giving you the runaround. Only an astrophysicist would know the truth: we’re both swinging in circles because that’s how the universe holds together. But whose orbit is holding us, Servalan, and if he’s not around anymore – are we free to go our own way?

To be frank, I’m writing to see if you’ve got any jobs going free at the Federation, or wherever it is you work at the moment. If you can get away with an assumed name, not even growing your hair out, I’m pretty sure I could slip into some secret niche. No, it’s not a trap. What would be the point?

Once upon a time, I’d have scorned to ask such a question. You were the enemy, pure and simple – well, not at first. Servalan, you were a target. You made yourself our opposition, pursuing and antagonising us and generally looming large. You and Travis put a face on the forces that Blake and Jenna were set against. We all came to obsess over that face, one way or another.

Nowadays, I’ve no idea what you stand for or what you want. You’re hardly in power any more, and all your schemes generally come to naught since my leather-trousered arse is still sitting safe and sound on board the Scorpio as I write this. You’re no opposition and certainly no target. If you want to get anywhere, you’re going to need better allies than Pinder and Egrorian.

More to the point, and speaking off the record, I’m not entirely sure what my place in the universe is any more. I don’t need money or glory. The woman I loved, as you know, is dead. My old friends sell me out, my new friends make me sick. Somewhere in the middle is Vila. I’ve never quite been able to make up my mind about Vila, but last Monday evening in the heat of the moment, everything to play for… to my surprise, I found my mind was made up. Oh, we laughed about it afterward, but since then, it’s given me pause. I’ve caught myself staring into space with even more gravity and melodrama than usual.

I can’t keep flying around in circles, Serv. Something has to give. You know what I’m talking about: you nearly made it out, left for dead twice, and you clambered back onto the horse and where did it get you? Pressing yourself against Egrorian, hatching another pointless scheme. I know you know what I’m talking about. You know I know, and I know that you know that I know.

Sooner or later there has to be a decisive move on someone’s part. I could send along my CV but I suspect you have all the salient details.

See you next Monday,

K.A.

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).

Sand!

It’s the singles bar at the end of the universe, and now that Servalan has arrived: it’s ladies’ night…

I’m several stories ahead of the blog. By the time you read this, I’ll have left the dusts of Virn behind. (I’ll have passed beyond Blake’s 7 and a little way into whatever comes next. Edge of Darkness? Emu’s Pink Windmill?) I happened that, just after I watched ‘Sand’ and before I wrote this, I posted my blog about Tanith Lee’s first contribution to the show, ‘Sarcophagus’. (Click here to go back and read it if you like: you are now spiralling in time, try not to trip over that hat-stand). And rereading that was interesting.

It strikes me that I started the review talking about character. Character continuity has always beset this series. It looks like a character-driven show, and perhaps it is, but it’s driven like a go-kart round a track: however fast they go, they circle around to the beginning again. After a while, I got used to this: the same way new viewers get used to the fact that Tom never goes back for Sarah after ‘Deadly Assassin’: it’s a convention, a necessity, a loveable quirk.

In ‘Sarcophagus’, the episode pivots on an understanding of a romantic kind between Cally and Avon that might be there if you dig in the subtext of previous episodes. It’s a small fire generated by the friction of knowing glances, and the most knowing of these is shared between the viewer and the writer. Tanith Lee, like Chris Boucher before her, reveals herself to be viewer-as-writer: she doesn’t know the characters like Terry Nation, but she writes with the implicit authority and insight that all we viewers take for granted.

The Cally-Avon romance basically peters out after the end credits of ‘Sarcophagus’, but for the duration of the episode, along with some of piquant stylistic touches (cosmic folk, especially) Lee convinced me she was sharing a personal insight into the world of these characters.

I used to bemoan the huge number of regulars in the show: now I see them as multiple viewpoints on a world that needs exploring in multiple dimensions (City at the Edge of the World is a great example). And in a show like Blake’s 7, it’s not location work or special effects that create your world, not backdrops and backstory. It’s about how a character sees the world, how they inhabit it, and how they try and shape it. Lots of writers beam the characters down to the ‘planet of the week’ and have them act as disinterested participants, like gamers or tourists. It ought to be more like Chaucer: there’s a reason this story happens to this person.

This charming, brittle, beardless youth of a Federation Captain, who spends a night with the most dangerous woman in the galaxy on a planet of ghosts. This grumpy, battle-weary genius, half-seduced and half-sickened by the President’s power, hanging powerless in her orbit. This planet that engineers a story, divides and destroys and draws together its victims, and heaps up along the windows like a gestalt voyeur, as they gulp their green-ade and blue-ade and get up to who knows what. Obviously, this turns out to be a story about Servalan, and doesn’t Jacqueline Pearce shine, but Tanith Lee’s approach to Serv isn’t through a new world but a man who knows her, in every sense. Two of them, in fact, although one of them is dead as the story begins.

Green dust, black evening gown, dead man in the next room: that’s Blake’s 7.

This is the reason we have Season Four, then, to give Servalan a story in which the mask slips, if only a little. ‘Power became my lover,’ she says. And so Don Keller, the man who dumped Servalan, the warm corpse next door, becomes the reason for the events of the last three seasons. Yes, for the duration of this story, the power games of Blake, Tarrant and the rest all boil down to a lost love and a confrontation with the past in a world – a situation – where such things are briefly in focus. What else does drama do but invent the one world where one unique story can be told?

Next week, it’ll be another world, and maybe another viewpoint will open up. Somehow I doubt it - stories like ‘Sand’ don’t come along very often - but we watch on optimistically. I expect Servalan will be back, and the crew won’t mention Tarrant’s betrayal: he’ll seem to forget, and so will she. As usual, the viewer will fill in what they can remember and what they suspect, and tell their own story. One shaped forever by the particular insights of this richly beautiful, bizarre and chilly alien world…