S01 E11 - Going Underground

On this episode Dylan is joined by Nigel Bromley to talk about the expanded universe of Blake's 7. Their first port of call is 'The Logic of Empire' a full-cast audio drama released in 1998 by Magic Bullet Productions. Written by Alan Stevens and David Tulley. Then they look at 'Warship' a 2013 full-cast audio drama produced by Big Finish Productions. Written by Peter Anghelides. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Welcome back to Too Hot for TV, we are the podcast that looks at all things expanded universe. This week I'm jumping into the world of Blake Seven, and I'm joined by a regular from Doctor Who Too Hot for TV, Nigel Bromley. Nigel, welcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Hello, hello, hello.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Hello. Can you tell I'm excited? It's wonderful to have you here in this alternative universe that I found myself in. But before we talk about the expanded universe of Blake Seven, we need to talk about the actual TV show Blake Seven, I think. So for those that don't know, Blake Seven is a British science fiction television programme that was broadcast on BBC One between 1978 and 1981. It was created by Terry Nation, who elsewhere created the Daleks for Doctor Who. The story follows the exploits of Rog Blake, who leads a small group of rebels against the forces of the totalitarian Terran Federation that rules the Earth and many colonised planets. I need to know, presumably, you're a big fan. How long have you been a fan, a lifelong fan? Do you love the spin-off media? Tell me.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Well, as we're in the dystopian Blake Seven universe, I've been I've not had anything to drink or eat for seven days, so the drugs are out of my body, and I'm ready to leave the dome. Yes, absolutely. Mad Keen fan. First saw it being discussed on Blue Peter with Max Irvin showing um the Liberator model, and they talked about it. Must have stuck with it because the first episode, first couple episodes are a bit of hard work, aren't they? But um as soon as it got a spaceship and turned into uh you know exciting stuff about our space, I was completely hooked. Yeah, it was like a dark, slightly depressing version of Doctor Who, so I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

With guns. Because I'm a Doctor Who fan, like inevitably you get into Doctor Who, and it's not too long before someone somewhere mentions Blake Seven. It shares a lot of the production crew, writers, directors, things like that. So it was inevitable that at some point in my life I would come across Blake Seven. Inevitably, it was that that Sunday morning on UK Gold, there'd be Blake Seven and Doctor Who. And it's like that was a double bill in my teenage years that I very rarely missed. So, you know, I I caught up with then. I have a bit of mixed feelings on it now. I think I love the idea of it more than I like a lot of the episodes in execution, but like it still holds a dear place in my heart, and I'm not quite as nostalgic about it as I am something like Doctor Who. And it's something that I will dip into and watch an episode, but I can't I can't do a marathon of the whole thing or something like that. But there's there's lots to love about it, and particularly some of the amazing cast members, I think, you know, are characters I want to revisit over and over again.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

You you just reminded me, I was going to agree with you and say a Doctor Who has the you know it's the jewel in the crowd. I uh growing up in that sort of late 70s, early 80s period, though, there was Blake Sebov, there was Doctor Who, there was, of course, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's my impressionable mama did the work. Um they were all filled on the same low budget, and you just felt that the whole of the universe all had grey painted floors and with fill and studios and bad lighting, really. So um, yeah, I I'm I'm very keen on it. I'll tell you how keen I am on it. It was a really lovely book. I can't find it there, but it was a Blake Seven sort of making of book that some fans produced 25-30 years ago. Um, and I took that on my honeymoon to read. Wow, classic still married.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Shocking, absolutely shocking.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

When Blake Seven came to big finish as an audio drama, I sort of fell in love with it all over again. And in many ways, I think I prefer Blake Seven the audio range to Blake Seven the TV series. I suddenly found myself engaged with a lot of the stories in a way that I hadn't been with a lot of the ones in the series. And I had a great old time when they first started doing those full cast audios to the point where I was looking forward to them much more than a lot of the Doctor Who's at the time, and there were good Doctor Who's. 100% agree.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

It was like it well, it was flat it was the ideal version of Blake 7, wasn't it? Because the careless bits from the TV series and the shit filler script were all removed, and you got a much purer version of the Blake 7 universe, and you had all the original cars. That run spoilers everybody. Warships, in my mind, is okay, but what followed it was fucking superb.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean And I go back and re-listen to them actually. Yeah, and you kind I kind of wonder sometimes. I mean, there's many reasons probably why it didn't happen before they were trying to get a TV show off the ground, but it's kind of like by the time Big Finish were doing it, Big Finish had been going for sort of well over a decade, and it's kind of like, why didn't they get there sooner? But I imagine rights issues, but I'm so glad they managed to catch them just before everybody started to pass away. I know obviously a couple of them had, and a couple of people didn't want to do it, but ultimately we got all the big hitters back for a few more stories, which I think and and what a pleasure to be in their company for for for a good few years, and we got series two, didn't we?

SPEAKER_04 6:21

We got uh series one, then we got a bit of series three.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

So yeah, absolutely yeah, wonderful. Uh what are we? Fans of cult TV. Yeah, let's call it. C who L T.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

I had somebody on discussing Dark Shadows the other day, which is not something I particularly know a lot about. But again, it was the same thing. It was this show from the 60s and 70s that finished, and very much an American show uh with an American fan base, and they just managed to capture all those stars for sort of five or six years of that show. Give the fan base that extra thing, before now they're either passed away or far too old. And so it's just nice that all the shows we love and that other people love get like a little bit of an afterlife.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

Yes, afterlife. That sounds like an episode of Blake Seven, doesn't it? Which of course I'm referring to aftermath, of course. Blake Seven watches out.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

So the first thing we're going to do today is The Logic of Empire from Magic Bullet Productions. This was an audio drama written by Alan Stevens and David Tully. It was released on the 27th of March 1998. Now, what I like to do is look at the general landscape of science fiction at the time. So we're a year off big finish launching at this point. Really? You know, this pipped it to the forefront. Then on television in the UK, there was actually a bit of sci-fi going on. None of it I've ever really seen. Uh, invasion Earth was a six-part mini-series that was running on BBC One. Ultraviolet was on Channel 4. Bugs were still running, Shock Horror, it was in its last year. Space Island 1, the British German co-production about a multinational crew operating a commercial research space station, was broadcasting on Sky One. And something I've never heard of called Aquilia was on the BBC, which was a children's sci-fi series based on the Andrew Norris novel of the same name about two boys who find a Roman flying machine. So, I mean, these are these are the dark days of British science fiction. They really are, aren't they? Like all these things, apart from Bugs, really only ran for like a season or two. And I don't remember any of them being massive hits. Bugs was reasonably successful because it got a few series, but it's not remembered fondly. But it feels to me at this point, science fiction's very much like it's not in mainstream culture. It's gone underground, how's it? It's gone underground and it exists in the pages of Doctor Who magazine and DreamWatch and things like that. And so we get this Blake 7 audio, which is actually, it's not even an official Blake Seven audio, it's essentially a fan production. But what they've done is cast all the members of the cast of Blake 7 that they need and just gone to well, to hell with you, copyright. I mean, I'm assuming they didn't non-for-profit, it was like a charity thing or something. Seven years after the massacre on Garda Prime, Kurt Avon, now living in seclusion, is approached through his companion Elise by a resistance leader named Leiden, who seeks his help in stealing a shipment of Federation gold. Although sceptical of the plan's value to the Anti-Federation cause, Avon becomes involved and uses Aurac to devise a broader strategy. As the operation develops, tensions grow within the group when evidence suggests that someone has betrayed them to the Federation. The mission collapses when Federation forces strike with suspicious precision. Convinced that Elise has betrayed him, Avon kills her, only to discover that the events have been manipulated by Federation psycho-strategists. Captured and bought before Servalan, Avon learns that the Federation's survival depends on maintaining the appearance of an organized resistance. Servalan therefore intends to use him as a controlled enemy whose actions will sustain the regime's grip on power. The story culminates in a psychological and political twist that links Avon to the legacy of Roger Blake, raising questions about identity, rebellion, and whether opposition to the Federation can ever truly escape the Federation's own designs. Have you heard this before? Well, when did you first hear it? Because you you picked this. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

Back in the 90s, around the time, I don't know where I came across it. It had been released for three, six months, I think, when I discovered I discovered it alongside they did something with Travis as well.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

And there was there was a tape that had an interview with Chris Boucher on. And I I might I might even have been at a convention, but I bought all probably with you. I bought all three all at the same time and consumed them very hungrily. And I was deter Dylan. I've got a confession to make. Go on. I was determined to be a professional person on your podcast, guesting for you. And I was determined to give a balanced, intelligent, and nay interesting uh review of this. Actually, I can't do that because I just love it so much. All I'm gonna do is tell you it's fing brilliant in every how they pulled it off spans, uh I don't know, but it is top quality all the way through, in my humble opinion.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

No, I absolutely agree. You've been banging on about this thing for bloody years, and it was only about 18 months ago I think I first heard it, where you were like, have you listened to it yet? Have you listened to it yet? Uh and I finally listened to it, and you were not wrong. I think because science fiction's not in the mainstream, I think anybody owning the rights to Blake 7 isn't getting a successful reboot off the ground, uh, and you know, neither did they continue to do so in the preceding 30 years. But uh I think fans got away with a lot more, like in Doctor Who terms, Big Finish obviously went out and did things professionally, but Bill Baggs was going every which way to uh make Doctor Who an all-but name. But you know, I'm I'm very much thinking of his audio series The Professor and Ace, starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. So it feels like copyright holders weren't really paying attention to fans because they were just a bunch of mad people, you know? Yeah. It was a bunch of nutters with a tape recorder somewhere, but actually they were sort of shaping the future of the genre, certainly in the audio format. So these sort of things get like I can't imagine now anybody being able to do a Blake 7 thing like this, even with the show sort of I mean, I know there's talk of oh, there's gonna be a revival, but isn't there always? Like, I just can't imagine the copyright holders just letting a bunch of people like if you and me decided to make a play and not charge anybody for it, I'm sure they'd be fine. But to get a bunch of the old actors back, they would stamp all over and go, what the hell are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 13:20

Yeah. It must have just been a quirk of the 90s that science fiction retreated underground and all of these creative people started to play with it and they were left alone and it enabled it to to it created a new momentum that then started to move into mainstream culture, yeah, probably culminating in the return of Doctor Who in 2005, which proved to filmmakers that sci-fi was cool again.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yeah, absolutely. So how does this continue the story of Blake 7? Because they all died.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Well well, well, well, well, well um, so it's it it picks up events from the end of the very last episode, Blake, from the last episode of series D, because they like to call them ABC D, didn't they, for some bizarre reason. We saw people shot mining shooting and they fell over. We don't know whether they were shot or stunned. But the only one we knew was dead for sure was Blake because it was all the blood, and that was obviously famously all written into contracts and what have you. I'm still scarred from it to be honest, just before Christmas. Thank you, BBC. And then this is set, I think, about seven years later. And somehow A Bon is still alive, but they say that everybody's died. And it's it's not explicit, is it? But it's left to the imagination that in the first episode of Series D, Dorian, the character, had not a picture in the loft, but a monster in the basement so easily confused that took all the evil and the nastiness from him and kept him young and Avon killed that character. So it's it's implied that the monster bonded then with Avon and then gave Avon whatever the mystical power was. Which is strange because Blake 7 didn't have any of this nonsense really normally. But it's sort of implied by the sound effects and and what uh in this play that he survived because they couldn't kill him effectively. They killed everyone, he didn't die because of this monster-y Dorian Grey uh type thing, and then he obviously killed all the iron guard because that's the make sure that they were all killed. Yeah so you've got a little bit of supernatural, but it's just the McGuffin to get you through that Avon's still about.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Paul Darren manages to do younger Avon voice and then sort of post-series D voice, doesn't he? Elise.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Yeah, absolutely. Like he he he plays it well. Do you think Avon is the most interesting character of Blake Seven? Well, many people might argue that it's Gan.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

No, they wouldn't, would they? Yeah, I do. I think he complicated and well, now actually, he's complicated, he's spiky, he's selfish, and he's got brilliant one-liners and he's very witty. And we all found that very interesting. Peter Capaldi's doctor came along and he was drumpy and angry and spiky and had really good bitingly satirical copy, and a lot of people didn't like him at first, so maybe television viewing tastes have changed. Would Avon be popular now in a in a leading prime time TV program?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Possibly not. But then I I what I like about Avon is that I think he works his best when he is up against Blake, who has got much more of the moral compass. And they're these two sort of co-leads, and one of them's the they're both anti-heroes in a way, but Avon is the most anti-hero of them all. And I think the appeal of Avon is that he is just a bit of a bastard. He's a bastard in space whose moral compass bothers him more than he'll admit. So he does quite often do the right thing, even though his brain's going, don't do it, take the money and run. And I think that's really interesting that he's not he's not Han Solo, who very much has his moment at the end of the first film where he's like, I'm throwing away my old life and to become as you he's like constantly battling of like, I just want to be rich and uh run away somewhere, and oh, I've got this amazing spaceship and everything's fucked, so really I should do something about it.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

And that's what I like about him. And then obviously the ambiguity of the ending of the final episode makes you go, oh, actually he was an asshole all along. And then but it's given us for 40 odd years, everybody sat around talking about what that meant.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

Yeah. He he was because of the there were enough moments, as you rightly say, through the TV series, where after all the talk, he actually then did the the right thing, the decent thing, and saved everybody. And then rolled his eyes and hated himself for doing it, and then went back to being grumpy again the next week. It's marvelous. A sort of there was an edge of dirty Harry, wasn't there, I think, about the way he was uh he was blunt and brutal and what have you. Yeah. Most interesting character, I think. Blake was interesting, more interesting in series B when he started to go sort of more mad and off the rails.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

And yes, you're right. I think less interesting when you have nobody to rail against. But we love him and we love his behaviour, and we don't know what he's going to do. That unpredictability makes him interesting, which is why to suddenly have him fully grown, three-dimensional in this audio tape, replete with witty dialogue.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah. Oh, it was brilliant. So so how do they handle the character of Averman in this? Because it's basically his story right here. Like we do get other characters show up. Is it a fitting sequel for him post-Series D?

SPEAKER_04 18:52

I think for me it was. I find it very satisfying. I mean, do we spoil the ending after the stuff? Oh, spoiler wave. It's a thousand years old. Much like myself. Yeah, it it's a replay of some of the events of the beginning of series D, and then there are some flashback sequences, and then Avon is brilliant and he's very Avon-y, and we get a bit of Blake, we get a bit of a throwback, we get the monster talking to him, we get lots of shooting, he's absolutely brilliant, there's great dialogue. He mistakenly shoots Elise, and um Lydon you know torments him, keep making the same mistake, which is a callback to him shooting his old girlfriend and just shooting Blake. It's just really consistent and lovely. And then suddenly from nowhere you get this really big twist that Serverland is actually gonna brainwash him and turn him into a new Blake because every Empire needs somebody to fight again. It's and then they're when they replay the events of the very first episode of Blake, my name's Rog Blake. It's just it's just spine-tingling me, brilliant! What a great idea! And it's a it feels a very dark, fittingly dark Blake Seven idea that there's the Federation away ahead of you all the time, and they they want some anti-heroes, they want rebels.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

And it suddenly gives you this thing of like, oh, was the more Blakes before this Blake? Yeah, and you're just like, oh god, what a horrible idea that the the freedom fighter was uh manipulated and brainwashed and controlled. Brilliant. Yeah, it's a bit like finding out your Labour government is funded exactly by the same people that fund all the other parties, you know? But uh Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

I mean, thank goodness, that's not the case.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

So Avon is the main character, Paul Darrow delivers the most Paul Darrow of Paul Darrow performances, but he's never that they've restrained him. We just get sort of the darker side of him here, and he gets a few on-liners, but I don't feel like perhaps occasionally in the TV series he was allowed to get away with a lot more, but it feels like the fans here who are making it know exactly what they want from their Avon. So they're restraining him slightly in the best possible ways.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

Yes, I think I think that's why it's so enjoyable. Feels like a Avon and not not an Avon that's gone and become the Paul Darrow show, which I think possibly in some episodes in the last series, it became Paul Darrow in space, didn't it? In space so they rain him back and he's quite sparing, and then eventually you start to see him as he uh has the shootout and what have you. But I like the interplay with Lydman. Um there's some lovely jokes in there, and I desperately just want to say on a podcast uh the Molyneux message. Oh, and my other favourite one, which I have tried to use in conversation, but it's never really taken off. My heart pump's pissed. So I recommend all of our listeners is to get out there tomorrow and find a way to say that to somebody.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

I certainly will. It would work. So Lydon is played by Ian Reddington, who fans may know as playing the chief clown in Doctor Who, the greatest show in the galaxy. And there's a few little nice names in here. So Trevor Cooper plays Kelso, who is in Starcops.

SPEAKER_04 22:15

Yeah. Great voice.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

We've got Peter Tudnam back as Aurax, Slave Zen, and then we've obviously got Jacqueline Pierce and Gareth Thomas in supporting roles in this, but they work really well, I think, as just sort of you're not going to get everybody back, I think, for a fan production. I imagine the pockets don't run that deep of the person who is funding this, which is Alan Stevens. But when I picked it up, I genuinely wasn't expecting Blake to be in it. And when we did hear a bit of him at the start, I was like, oh, they've pulled that from the episode, right? Like they're just being cheeky. But sure enough, you know, Gareth Thomas shows up at the end, as does Jacqueline Pierce. And I was like, to be honest, the second listen, I was still like, I've forgotten they're in it. This is fucking brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 23:00

It's lovely, isn't it? I think it's really very touching in the middle of the story when you get that flashback connect and and and that feels like a genuinely warm connection between Avon and Blake. And then suddenly you realise it isn't. And and I think it's very haunting the way that the monster character, which is using the form of Blake, just starts keeps saying the lightning raid. And it's really haunting. That goes off in my head quite often, actually, just for no apparent reasons. The lightning raid.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Marvellous. Yeah, it's I just think it's such a it feels like a coder almost to Blake's Evan. It's not setting up some massive like Series E or something like that. And it's just like a nice little or there is a little bit room to give a bit bit of closure. And because fans have been sat around for years going, this could have happened and that could have happened, and whether you consider this canon or not, it just goes, Oh yeah, there we go. That is that sort of puts a definitive end on it almost. It's the perfect full stop for me to the series. Were you uh satisfied with the end of Blake 7 at the time?

SPEAKER_04 24:10

No, hated it, broke my heart. Yeah. I uh we just had pressing Tom Baker disappear, and then we get this. And it was like everything I love is gone. At the same time, I went to big school and it was full of big scary boys, and I didn't like that either. So I I probably spent the whole of 1981 or two or whatever it was, being rather depressed.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

That sounds a very traumatic year in your life, to be honest. Yeah, it was it was actually, yeah. Because I only even when before I knew what Blake Seven, I knew it was the show where they all die at the end apart from one of them. It's just something that's you kind of go into the series knowing it, I think most people do now, which is kind of sad in a way, because you know it would it would have been nice to have experienced the shock for real. Because God, it was such a shock.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

Because you're watching most of the episode knowing that Gareth Thomas is back in it, and then he's there, and it and it's great with the scar and he looks older, but you're waiting for this kind of magic moment of a reunion, thinking, great, next series, Blake's back, it's God, it's gonna be brilliant, and then suddenly it all turns to shit and the craft crashes, and and then Tarant, I think, gets uh shot first, not the end of the world, and and it and it just unravels from there, and it's just and that haunting alarm noise at the end. Yeah, when all you nothing, and you just hear that wailing noise and the camera goes black, and then you hear all the gunshots.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Yeah. Yeah. Oh brilliant, but I I've never quite felt the impact of it. Whereas weirdly here, because I know the ending that's happened, I'm a little bit more like, oh, what's gonna happen? Like, I I'm I've suddenly I'm suddenly in unknown territory for the first time. The Blake Sevens always existed as this complete thing where they all die at the end. So it's nice to suddenly go and or did they, and just have have this little moment.

SPEAKER_04 26:01

And it feels it would have been all too easy for fanfiction to go, oh, Villa was stunned and it was a glancy shot on Sue Lin and they can come back and then Avon survives, and you know, you could it this doesn't feel contrite, it feels like it's a possible outcome. Yeah, absolutely. Which I bloody love. Have I mentioned that?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Uh no, he's not.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

No.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Oh, well, I think I should be honest about it's really a can we talk about the music, please, then. Yes, well, I wanted to talk about the music, production values, that sort of thing. Because obviously it is to all intents and purposes an amateur production. But tell me your thoughts on the music first of all.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Well, I've got this I've um now so I have zero musical ability or talent. I can't remember the words to my favourite songs that I've been listening to for 30 odd years. Right. So so please forgive me, people who are musical out there, but I really like the sort of melancholy, haunting theme that they have that that repeats throughout the production. And I'm absolutely convinced they picked that up and continued that into the big finish place. It comes around with Avon, it's almost become Avon's theme. But there's a really haunting serial darkness to it that I I think really fits the the whole production. So I I think I it just feels like every dimension that you could look at for this, they smashed it out apart, music being one of them.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Indeed, like it's not your typical Dudley Simpson score that you know obviously underpinned the whole of Blake Seven. But I think actually, because this is seven years later, and as you say, there's a slightly more supernatural element to it, you need something different to sort of go, oh isn't perhaps not as it seems, and move it on. Because I don't think, you know, bless Dudley, it was good for some things and not for others. But I don't know whether his music would have been suited for something like not not a marindering sound, was it?

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Thank goodness.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

But generally, yeah, the music's great. I think the production values are good too. It sounds a bit dated now, but that's because mainly it's on the internet as ripped from a tape, you know. But if if you listen to ghosts of end space ripped from the tape, it sounds about the same. So it's not like it's a bunch of fans in a cupboard somewhere. It's like it's a professionally produced production.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

Well, just to give it the nostalgic vintage uh appeal, what I did is So I'm a bit of a car nutter and I've got a number of crap old cars. One of which I've got a cassette player, so and it and the car in question is from the year 2000. So I Marvel is a magnificent booth. So I've driven around in that in the year 2000 listening to the cassette of Logic of Empire, and it feels like and it was just such a nostalgic lovely thing to do. Um you know, in the Harman Carden top quality stereo going on in the sort of around the car. It yeah, it the production sounded good. There was death, the sound effects were really good. They were they didn't again they felt slightly better than the TV show, they didn't feel amateur, and then to have Peter what Tugnam's uh is it Peter Tugnam? Peter Peter Tugnam. Peter Tugnam. I've never said it out loud before, and it sounds slightly strange, doesn't it? Peter Tugnam's voice across all of his three characters would you but I think that was the real treat as well, which you know we don't get like going forward because he sadly passed away, but to hear Zen again, oh brilliant marvelous. Yeah. When is Siri gonna be when are we gonna be able to get Siri to talk? Like in Zen's voice.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

It's only a matter of time. If AI is good for one thing, it's changing Siri's voice to that. Exactly. There are other adventures in this. While this does feel like a coder and an end, there are a couple of other stories in this fan-made run, and they've been doing them every few years. So you mentioned there was another play called The Mark of Kane, which to my shame I have never listened to. And that features Brian Croucher as Travis, Gareth Thomas is back as Blake, Peter Miles plays a part in it, as does Terry Malloy. So have you ever listened to that one or not? I have, yeah, I've got it somewhere. Yeah. But it didn't blow your brains out like this one.

SPEAKER_04 30:20

No, no. I'm I probably should listen to it to it again. I think compared to this, it was just okay, but less good. And I I'll I can I can't quite remember what happened, but it's Blake meeting Travis at some point later. But um I'll get it out and re-listen and I'll report back. Shall I do that? I'll drive around in my old car again and listen to it.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Please do. And they've done a couple more sort of short trips, sort of 15-minute. There's one called iTravis, uh, which only came out a few years ago. And they're free to download on the Magic Bullet website. It's not like they're charging any money for them. There's another one called The Next Life, one called Prodigal Son, one called Travis, the final line. When Travis met Blake. Yeah, well, maybe that's the one I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

And there's one where there's uh an interview with Chris Boucher. Right. And and the interview is really good, really good. Haven't listened to that for a long time. That's brilliant, that's worth listening to, folks.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

So Alan Stevens, who's behind this, is behind a company called Magic Bullet, and they still started with these, but I think perhaps what they're best known for is they did a range of six audio CDs called Caldor City, which linked up Chris Boucher's Doctor Who World and his Blake Seven world, and it starred Paul Darrow as someone who may or may not be Avon. Later in life.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Castoniago. It was that that was the theory, wasn't it? It was Avon landing on the planet and assuming the name Castoniago.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Yeah. Either way, he gives the sort of performance that only Paul Darrow can give in it. Yes, he does. Absolutely. I mean, we'll talk a little bit about perhaps the future of Blake Seven at the end, but uh that the thing that I think you can recast pretty much every part in Blake Seven, but the Avon one what worries me, I'd almost go, just leave him out. It's it it's well, I just don't like I can I can absolutely cast all the other roles with many different actors, but it's a it's a tough one.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

It's it's it's casting somebody with the right demeanour and you know physicality as well as a performance with a gravitas that probably belies their age, actually.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:36

What was Paul Darrow when he first started? He looked quite young, but he's probably late 30s when he was cast.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

He had real gravitas right from the get-go. That first scene when they first meet him in in the sort of holding cell, he he grabbed my attention and held it. He so he was, you know, some actors just have that, they yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

I love the evolution from this through to Caldor City, and then they do a faction paradox range as well afterwards, which is full of people like Philip Maddock and Julian Glover giving like fantastic performances in big, high concept sort of sci-fi fantasy stuff. But I mean, I think the thing that Magic Bullet do so well is they just get what we call the Chris Boucher universe now. Yes. But like and his take on both Blake Seven and Doctor Who was unique, and the characters were all very murky grey in both his Doctor Who's and his Blake Sevens, and so to have them all thrown together in one audio. He doesn't see the sunny side of life, Chris Boucher, when you look at the things he produces. No, he doesn't, does he?

SPEAKER_04 33:38

But he he does do really clever witty biting dialogue, which I like. And he's I think most often he's good at the motivations behind.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

But unfortunately, I I feel Brian was not not Brian who played Travis 2, yeah, not necessarily the best actor. Possibly not. But the motivation for the character development of Travis I really enjoyed, and I think I think uh the writers got that right, that that it that descent into madness, and it was the fact that he started to realise he was being betrayed and betrayed by his family, which was the Meluxary. And that ri that that was really interesting. I think that was yeah, great writing.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

I mean, I think about Robots of Death, and it's in many ways it's quite a generic Doctor Who story. But there's something about his script that you get who all the guest characters are. He writes the regulars brilliantly, and then everybody goes, This is a great script, so they want to do a good job with it, I guess. And so the design work, and you're just like, all of a sudden, the whole show's elevated, and it's just a whodunit in a on a sand minor. It could be a a ship in the ocean or a spaceship in the sky or whatever, but it's just every element of that world has sort of been thought about, and I think that's what he he he does so well, and that's what he does really well with his characters, which is why you can then spin a whole audio series about Kaldor City, which is just a mention, isn't it, in Robots of Death and maybe in Blake Seven too. You're absolutely that's such a good observation. I wish I'd make it.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

You're absolutely right. There are he builds a a bit like Holmes does, a throwaway line builds a whole world. Yeah. You don't need to know any more than the throwaway line about the sewer pits on Caldor City. That's all it is, isn't it? And the founding families. We don't know what that means, but it sets up a world, a world of privilege and poverty.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

That you can play around in.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

And those sewer pits make an appearance in Chris Batcher's novel corpse marker. They do. You know, so we get to we get to see the sewer pits, we get to see the the founding families, and uh he throws some fendals in there too. It's just an intoxicating mixture, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Indeed. I can't remember the uh I doubt when did that book come out?

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Oh, that was that was the it was BBC Books. It was probably about the same time as this, to be honest. It was maybe a couple of years actually. Because 98's when BBC Books start doing the past Doctor and Eighth Doctor Rangers. So yeah, within a couple of years of this. It's not the best book, but it does again paint much more of an image of uh The Boucherverse. Yes, the Boucherverse. Do we have much more we want to say on this one before we move on to Warship? I've I mentioned that I really love it.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

I think it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

You have indeed.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

Oh, okay, well.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

So we're going to rate it a as a clanger, a banger, or an average meander. I can't imagine what you're going to say. Well, dun dun dun dun dun d. It's a cl no, no, it's a manga. Excellent. What a surprise. It's a banger from me too. This is the second time I've heard it, and I've taken away more on this listen. And I imagine I'll take away a bit more when I jump into it again in a few years' time.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

I think Lydon is a play on the member of the Sex Pistols, because he's got the same sort of accent. Maybe just one for me. Excellent. I love I love the idea of the Molly New Messica, which is obviously for people in the UK, it's a famous football ground for a continually bad performing team. So there's lovely little nudges in there as well. So I yeah, it's delightful. Absolutely. Don't get it now.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, and if you're doing your Blake Seven watch through or something like that, and you get to the end and you're a bit disappointed, just stick this on and it just wraps things up slightly nicer than the TV series.

SPEAKER_04 37:30

Yeah, and thank you to everybody that was involved in it. It's one of those few things I think it's just it's a triumph.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

So, the next thing we're going to cover is Warship from Big Finish Productions, written by Peter Angelides, directed by Ken Bentley, released on the 24th of January 2013. Now, a little look at the state of science fiction in England and beyond at that point. Doctor Who was celebrating its 50th anniversary, so that was bigger than ever. And we were very much in a second age of um cult television. Black Mirror had launched, the Tomorrow people had got a short-lived revival, Arrow was in its first season, The Walking Dead in its fourth, and The Fringe in its final season. Doctor Who had been back for a while, there was science fiction everywhere. And I I guess Blake Seven had a slow road to audio at this point. We'd got those fan-made ones we discussed. There was the Barry Lett's radio plays. Then there was the reboot that they did that was like a full cast thing where Benedict Cumberbatch is in it. It's written by I think Mark Platt, and it's just this bizarre. Oh yeah. They released it on the internet in like five-minute chunks when you know everybody was trying new ways to do things. Yeah. And that never really went anywhere. So Big Finish got a license and did the Liberator Chronicles. Which I remember not being that fussed on and just thinking, well, I want full cast Big Finish.

SPEAKER_04 39:06

I was exactly the same as you. I listened to that reboot thing and thought, hmm. I'd like it to be an average Meander, but I think it was probably a clanger. There's a free review for you. And then, yeah, Liberator Chronicles, it was like, oh no, I read I want Proper Blake Seven, that's what I want.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

I wonder whether they were just testing the waters to see if there was enough demand out there and they sold well enough that they went, we could probably get to more than one actor in one of these things.

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Because I suppose you've got to at that at this point, it's been 30 odd years since Blake 7's been on, and while there is a big fan base for it, it's nowhere like the Blake 7 conventions have sort of stopped by that point. So I guess you'd have to be slightly cautious and go, does it have the appeal of a Doctor Who audio play or something like that? Yeah. But fortunately, it turned out that it did. And that's when I was just like, okay, they're full cast, I need to jump in here and see what they're like. With Blake, Jenner, Avon, Cali, Villa, and Dana aboard the Liberator. A full-scale intergalactic war erupts. An invading alien force launches a devastating assault, overwhelming military defenses, and threatening to conquer vast regions of space. The Liberator becomes one of the few vessels capable of striking back effectively, drawing the crew into the center of the conflict. As the invasion spreads, they undertake a series of increasingly dangerous missions, gathering intelligence, disrupting enemy operations, and working alongside forces they would normally avoid in order to halt the advance. The scale of the war grows rapidly, with entire fleets committed to the fighting and the fate of countless worlds hanging in the balance. As the campaign reaches its climax, the Liberator takes part in a desperate operation intended to stop the invaders from securing a final victory. The mission succeeds, but only after fierce fighting that leaves the Liberator badly damaged and the battlefront in chaos. During the confusion, Blake becomes separated from the rest of the crew while pursuing his own objective. And Jenna also disappears amidst the disorder, with communication shattered and the war still raging around them. Avon, Callie, Villa, and Dana are unable to locate either of them. In the aftermath of the victory, the surviving crew are forced to abandon the search and concentrate on escaping aboard the crippled Liberator. Blake and Jenna remain missing, their fates unknown, while Avon reluctantly assumes command of the remaining crew as they depart the devastated war zone and face an uncertain future. So can you remember what did you think when you heard that the full cast audios were coming to be?

SPEAKER_04 41:51

I was super excited because it was the full cast and it what you know, Blake was back, Paul Darrow, Gareth Thomas, and everybody pretty much. So it just felt really exciting. And I was full of confidence for it because it finished they did such a good job with different eras of classic Doctor Who that you just felt they could recreate this era successfully. And Ken Bentley had got a track record of being a really good producer. So yeah, I was full of confidence for this.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Um so where does this this story pick up from in the Blake Seven mythos?

SPEAKER_04 42:31

Oh well, at the end of the second season, the whole of the second season actually almost has what would they call it today, Dylan? An arc or a wood? Yeah. Um it almost has that, which is the search for in the attempts to really destroy, do real damage to the Federation, they decide to look for Star One. And along the way, that causes Gan to get killed. You know, that was a bit of a big first, which made the show even cooler because they kill their own car uh leading characters off. And at the end of that season, they find Star One, Travis is there ahead of them. Travis has betrayed the Federation and Humanity to the to an alien race, and suddenly Blake's team and the gang go from have trying to destroy uh Star One and the Federation to trying to save it from the alien awards pouring in through some kind of complicated landmine system, a satellite array in outer space. How that would work, who knows. But the idea that that star one is at the shortest point between this galaxy and the nearest galaxy and Andromeda, that was rather f lovely. And then at the beginning of the following season, Series C in the episode called Aftermath, which we've already mentioned, boys and girls, that one is set after the battle. So there's this gap between the alien or about to come through the satellite um grid, and it's All over. There's been a war, half the Federation's gone, but the aliens have been defeated, and we've lost the Liberator, and what's happening? And there's this gap, and it and it was designed rather neatly to fill up some of the events of that battle and that gap.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Yeah, it's Blake Seven's time war, isn't it? It happened all off-screen, and everybody was like, no.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

Yeah, because again, great script for uh Star One, great story, brilliant performances, but we did end up with four hairdryers and uh some other piece of uh airfix kit stuck together asn't the alien horde, and it was less than completely and utterly convincing Terrapart. However, on audio, it's much better.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Wasn't it a case that at one point Terry Nation was like that alien horde is going to be the Daleks. That's what he wanted.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

I so I've read somewhere, I don't know how true it is.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yeah. Even if it's apocryphal, it's a good story.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

It would have been a hell of a cliffhanger, wouldn't it, if you'd have just heard exterminate over the speakers on the Liberator? But I think it probably would have destroyed Blake Seven and all it had built up. I think it would have ruined it. So that that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

The problem is the moment you throw the dialeks in there, you go, well, the doctor needs to come and sort this out. Why is the doctor let this tyrannical federation spread out from earth and beyond? Surely he would have done something about it. So i it's a nice idea that I'm sure Terry Nation and Chris Boucher discussed after a few drinks in the BBC bar, but uh it probably doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

And I read Tom Baker and Gareth Thomas said they'd like to sort of cross paths in an episode somewhere. So yeah, I'm glad that didn't happen. Because otherwise we might have got some kind of re- a revisited version of the frontier in space, and we know that that was a little bit dull.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

What 70s Doctor Who really misses, and indeed Blake Seven, is children in need where they could have a little five-minute Blake Seven Tom Baker crossover scene. What uh on the East Enders set.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Exactly, that's all you need, you know. Well, they could just be in the Queen Vic. Yeah, even running amok in the Queen Vic and killing everybody, that would have been marvelous. Get out of my pub! He's a veneration agent. So, how do they fill this gap then here with worship?

SPEAKER_04 46:23

On the good side, Dylan, they fill it with good performances, they sound like mostly like themselves. I think uh Gareth Thomas's voice is a little bit more rich and fruity. There's an okay story, and they get out at the end and it and it nicely excites us about Lake Seven and it tees up the the new series, which as we've already established was fantastic. Yeah, however, it it feels a bit the the aliens that were incredibly organic in Star One are suddenly metallic Olympic minds, and that yeah, that sort of jars with me. And Jacqueline Peirce doesn't really sound I don't know, she doesn't feel like Servalan to me. She's got her voice is different, but she's also a bit too warm and caddy, really.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:12

It's a bizarre in, and I'm glad I remember hearing it at the time and being very excited, but I think my fond memories come from the things that happen after this.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 47:24

And well, you you the yin, as you say, it feels like a one of those NAF Star Trek captain's log updates, doesn't it? You know, Gareth Thomas giving us a recap. And I'm I was just thinking I just caught myself thinking, you know, because this is quite niche from a niche supplier who's going to buy this who hasn't got a fucking clue what Blake 7 is and needs to have a captain's log update or what happened in the events of Star Wars. I just that was a misstep for for me.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Yeah, it was never going to be a jumping on point for anybody. You know, it's different with something like Doctor Who, where you go, there's different eras. Blake Seven is an ongoing series. The only jumping on point is episode one, really.

SPEAKER_05 48:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

You can watch episodes out of context and sort of get the gist of it, but ultimately you need to start at the beginning, and whether you choose to do big finish audios or not, nobody nobody should be starting with a warship.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

No, no, it is it is the answer to a question that nobody really asked, doesn't it? Unfortunately. But but within that, great performances. Villa and Avon, I really like then they got some great dialogue that felt part of the bouncer with us with the idea when when and Avon saying, Would you feel safer on the flight date with me? And oh no, actually, on reflection, I'll go outside. So that was good. There was a nice idea in using the shield to get rid of everything off the outside, and Villa, you know, as he always does, can only open the door when he's frightened enough. So there were some lovely touches that were very reminiscent of of TV Blake Seven. Yeah. And the sound effects again were excellent, I thought, and put placed you back. And I think the voice for A for Zen is in Aurack is good enough that it didn't take you out of the drama. So lots of good stuff. And I really I did like the ending. I think what the ending did was just enough of a nod to the tension between Blake and Avon with the whole who shit that'll do for now. I like that as well. So there are lots of good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Yeah. And also at the end of it, the Liberator is destroyed, right?

SPEAKER_04 49:29

Well, it's damaged at the end of the war and they all have to evacuate it. So that sets up the events of aftermath at the beginning of Series C. Yeah. Nicely.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

Absolutely. I felt it gave Callie and Jenna a lot more to do than some of the episodes on TV. Yeah. Considering it's an hour long, inevitably, with a show like Blake's Heaven, with five or six or seven uh regular main cast members, there's always a couple that sort of tend to miss out. And I think it always felt like a lot of the time it was the women back in the day. And here I think they they managed to find interesting enough little plot lines within this hour for e everybody to have their moment.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

And I liked it when Jenna went off on her own and and stole a ship and um she was going to go off and attack the aliens. And do you know? I kind of thought, why don't you they should have just let her go?

SPEAKER_03 50:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:22

Because we from this moment on she doesn't reappear in the series, and no one ever knows truly what's happened to Jenna. So that would have been an interesting way of her leaving the ship rather than her going off in an escape pod, and then she's got lost with Blake somewhere on the other side of the moon. So yeah, that was that was a lovely idea, which I wish I'd had the balls to follow it through with and so we talked a bit about the cast.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

It's nice to hear them back. I think I do think you're right, Servalan is a little bit off. It's always nice to hear Michael Keating back in the role as Villa. Like there's something I just enjoy his performance. He's not somebody that's ever going to carry his own series, you know, like the character of Villa, but he I I think he is a nice when you've got Blake's bravery and Avon's considered bravery, it's nice to just have an out and out coward within within the team.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Yeah, and I think he was inconsistently written during a TV series, and and he got better dialogue through the through the big finish world, but he's got to win the award for the most consistent delivery of a character. He's Villa all the time, he does it so brilliantly. Yeah, and his voice is ageless, and his performance sparkles. Yeah, what a great performer he is.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

And like Gareth Talbot sounds a bit older. I I can deal with it. Like I think also I've I've heard him being interviewed for years, so he just sort of sounds like Gareth Thomas sounds. Yeah. And yeah, I think they all slip back into their roles really well. And yeah, it's just fun to hear them kick this thing off and go, oh, wonder where it's gonna go from there. And it, you know, it's sort of it's they spin it out, don't they, into a sort of a season B2, you'd call it, or something.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Yes, yeah, they do, yeah. And it's it and there's some really good episodes in that with the Liberator getting damaged and crashing under the water. Yeah. I I've gone back and listened to that a few times, but I must do it all over again, actually. It's so good. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Absolutely. I do think the script works. It's just a little bit it's feels like it's got a lot to cram in before they can go off and tell the stories they actually want to tell over the next sort of X amount of releases.

SPEAKER_04 52:31

It it feels like a proof of concept in a way, doesn't it? You know, we've got the music, we've got the sound effects, we've got all the actors, gel together, we can make it work, and it sort of sounds a bit like Blake Seven at the time, so we know it works. Let's go on and do a do a series.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

What do you think of the music? Does it capture old Dudley well here?

SPEAKER_04 52:51

Well, no, I think it evolves it on, but um yeah, it w it was sympathetic to the music of Dudley and the atmosphere of it it the whole thing did have the atmosphere of Blake Seven about it. The plasma expansion wave sound effect, I thought, on audio was a great, it was a really lovely conceit to give you an audio experience, and I think that was that was nice, and it and um and of course if they then surf that plasma wave uh you know out and it damaged the ship. So it that would that was a a a really lovely part of the story and an idea, and it and it demonstrated what the audio world could be like for us all. And it felt really immersive. There are moments in this where it feels like you could be watching a a big screen movie, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Yeah, absolutely. I I think Alice Delotte does a thing with the m the music where for a few seconds you're like, oh, it's the old school Blake Seven music, but as you say, enhances it and goes, We need to get a bit more drama out of this than the the four instruments that Dudley was working with. And yeah, I think you're right. If they'd gone, we're gonna do Blake Seven the movie now, it would have felt a lot like this. Yes. It's the old cliche about audio, but the special effects are better, but the sound effects are better. Like the explosions sound like massive explosions, and the threat of outer space feels like the threat of outer space, not somebody floating on some Kirby wires in that. Yeah. So as much as it's a cliche, you're hearing that cliche for the first time in Blake 7.

SPEAKER_04 54:20

Oh, and and it's lovely, isn't it? I mean, and the last 10 minutes actually, probably the very best. It feels really like the characters are in the swing, they're in the middle of a drama, and they're pulling together and and the stakes are high, and the cost is the damage liberator and them all having to eject. So and it's quite a nice conceit that Blake and Jenna go out, or whatever it is, port side, and the others go the other way, and that's maybe why we lost them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Yeah. And I think as you say, the liberator gets damaged. You could have almost you destroy it. That like you you could almost get to the point there and go, well, that's sort of it, and you know, we'll come back for the actual next season. But the fact that they managed to spin it out into this great mini-season that is brilliant. Do you think it was it was the right decision to fill the gaps rather than try and carry on the story some way, somehow?

SPEAKER_04 55:13

I don't know why they needed to do it, really. I think if they'd just started with a new series 2.5, we'd have all been on board because it was a full cast audio drama of Blake Seven, and we've been waiting 30 years for it. So they didn't really need to do this. That said, it was a good proof of concept, it's it's very good, and it also stands alone as a nice little little bit of a twinkly jewel, something to come back to, and just have that little brief moment of I wonder what happened at the end of Star One.

SPEAKER_03 55:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:42

To the organic monsters that have become metallic limpet lines.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

That is the oddest, the oddest choice within it. But I love all that stuff of like this this, you know, the flotilla of spaceships coming to save to sort of save the galaxy and then it not quite working. And there's a real sense of panic throughout this that I think is quite present within Blake Seven. It is quite unusual for a sci-fi show in that nothing ever seems to really go right. They may get out of things, but largely they're always on the run, and there's always another danger just around the corner.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Yeah, things generally end up turning to shit, don't they? And the and the federation are often one step ahead of you. And even in this, the flotillera ships are heroically coming to save a day. Meanwhile, the Federation are kicking the heels on the boundary, going, no, not yet, no, we'll see if McGiddo does its job first. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Which is a great use of the Federation as well, just sort of going of course they would see what happened with everybody else first, might as well get them destroyed, and then we'll come and pick up the pieces and hopefully win in the end. Like it just captures their malevolence very well.

SPEAKER_04 56:55

It really does, yeah. And and the malevolence of the world that they live in, whereas we follow the drama of Blake 7, but generally they get people killed and they don't make a jot of difference.

SPEAKER_03 57:05

Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

And it's yeah, depressing, dystopian world. Fortunately, not like the one we live in.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Exactly. It's all smiles, happiness, and everybody's rich. Absolutely. And our leaders listen to what's good for everybody.

SPEAKER_04 57:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Do we have much more we want to say on Warship?

SPEAKER_04 57:24

I don't think so. No. Good. I love it, but not quite as much.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

So is it a clanger, a banger, or an average meander?

SPEAKER_04 57:33

I think still an absolute banger because of the effects, because of the cast, because of that last 10 minutes, and because, of course, it sets up a really brilliant series.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Absolutely, I would call this an imperfect banger.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 57:50

I've heard that before, dude, but I can't remember where. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

Yeah, I had a great time revisiting it, and it is making me want to jump into the rest of the series because it just reminded me of that brief time 10 years ago or so where we got some new Blake 7 and it was completely out of the blue almost.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

And I remember driving to work, listening to uh the first few stories in this in that new season, and slowing down so I could listen to a bit more before, do you know, and couldn't wait to drive home and to listen to the rest of it. And if somebody phoned me, it was a real irritation because they were brilliant, they were really immersive. This is a an imperfect banger, as you excellently described. It's like you've done this before. Hell marvelously described. What happened then was perfect banger after perfect banger, and it just got better and better, didn't it?

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Yeah, absolutely. For a couple of years, it was a golden age of Blake 7.

SPEAKER_04 58:50

It really was, and that was what, 2013 to 2015, something like that. Exactly. And then we've had a decade of stuff, and I mean, you know, people dying, and it and it changes the nature of what Big Finish can do. And now there's rumors that it could come back.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

How do we feel about that? Well, I was about to ask you the same question. Great minds, eh? I think there's been many rumours over the years that it could come back, and I think the most positive thing that's happened recently is that it's always been with the same company developing it, B7 Media. And whether they're still involved or not, I don't know. But it seems to be with a new company of people who actively work in the industry. So I think now's as good a chance as any as it's had to come back. But whether it will, whether the industry and the television landscape is ready for it, whether they've got the right take, I don't know. But I do think it's a fantastic idea that can be rebooted and done again. Maybe I mean this was 20 odd years ago now, but like the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, everybody loved that. And I think that's probably the sort of tone you might want to aim for. And I think you can do some nice sort of political allegory stuff with it, as long as it's not too much on the nose about dystopian worlds and crazy dictators and manipulation of the media, all your stuff which is very, very present in that that that first series at least.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

Yeah, and I think I I agree entirely with with that. I I I I look at it and I think if you look at the first two series and you cut now, bearing in mind we're never gonna get a 13-episode run anymore because modern TV, as you often say, has changed a lot. But the first two series, if you cut out the filler episodes and you focused on the freedom fighters against the federation, so you get you get the way back, a shorter version of that, you get the Project Avalons uh and and trials, and you move towards a Star One. There should be six or eight episodes that are very tonally consistent of them against a a dystopian, controlling, evil federation. And you could ask the audience the question about are they freedom fighters, are they terrorists? Yeah, how do you you know all the questions that Blake Seven wrote uh created back in the day, that's still relevant today, and the way the what geopolitics is changing the world perfect timing, you would think, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

Yeah, absolutely. It just takes a smart writer with a smart take on it, and I I think it could do something really, really interesting. And like I think for many years, the people who wanted to bring it back, it was all very much like it's going to be a sequel, and for a long time in the late 90s and early noughties, somehow, somehow Paul Darrow was going to be involved. I think now you can go the way of a complete reboot. Or if you wanted to sort of go the original series happen, you can call it Blake 7, and it's a bunch of people inspired by the idea of Blake in that in that universe. But I don't think there's really any room to bring bring back any of the characters. I mean, a lot of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

No, there was a rumour, wasn't it, that they were going to do a reboot where Avon inspired a young group to and he was an old man living like a hermit with Aurac and Yeah, I think that was the pitch.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:17

Yeah. Isn't that what happened in Star Wars or something with a very old link sky walk?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Yeah, pretty much. I think that was the 90s pitch. I mean, I'm sort of glad it didn't happen. I think we get a better version of that with just what happened in Logic of Empire as a as a little coda.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:32

Yes, we do. Um let's just have a reboot and go again.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Yeah, I'd much rather them just cast a new bunch of people, see what we get. As I mentioned earlier, I think Avon is possibly the only one that I would struggle with, but then a whole new audience isn't going to know who Paul Darrow is, so it's like they cast the right bastard as Avon.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

They've got good actors is what make what what really helped Blake Seven, because it was the 1970s studio bound, not great special effects, not enough time taken over it, you know, Dudley Simpson's three instrument music, all of that was was really good scripts and really good actors, you know, Gareth Thomas, a Shakespearean actor. Paul Darrow played Avon so well.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:17

Michael Keating, you had some really good performances. I mean, gosh, didn't Jacqueline Pierce create an icon in Serverland from nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

From nowhere. Serverland could have been quite plain on the page as she's written in the first couple of episodes at least. And once they get a feel for Jackie Pierce, you know, all of a sudden it becomes it becomes this much bigger character. But you what you read those first few episodes and it's her delivery that's selling that, not the sparkling dialogue.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:44

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, great actors. That's what we need for a reboot, is really proper, brilliant, quality actors, and they'll bring it to line.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Yeah, and some great quarries, because you can't do sci-fi without quarries.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

Of course. You can't. And and the ability to say down and safe.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

I genuinely hope that somebody somewhere has got a great take and somebody takes a chance on it. And in two years' time, we're sat down watching a brand new series of Blake Seven and going, oh, but Daniel Craig is playing Avon. Stranger things have happened, my friend. Stranger things have happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:23

Let me know if you get involved in it in any way, shape, form or form.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

I mean, that's the one, isn't it? That'd be the one for me to get involved in. Yeah, that would be brilliant. This was years ago, but Hammer were trying to make a new Quater mass. I said to my agent, if there's any way you can get me involved in that, uh because they don't really know I'm a nerd. But I've mentioned I'd like to do Doctor Who from time to time, and they're all like, oh, they only use Welsh people. Yeah, if there was a Blake Seven reboot happening somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:47

Hang on, your name's Dylan. Oh, well? Yeah, fairly fairly.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

Right. Well, look, thank you for joining me today and jumping into the expanded universe of Blake Seven. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as it helps people to find the pod. Look for TooHot for TV on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at TooHotTheNumber4 Pod. That's Too Hot the number four pod for the latest updates and additional content. Next time I'll be joined by J.R. Southall and we'll be jumping into the expanded universe of the tripods. But until next time, I've been Dylan. I've been Nigel. And this has been Too Hot for TV. At this point, we've heard enough Doctor Who audios that if um Gareth Roberts is not Gareth Roberts, he's he's not there.