Review Blake: Episode 52

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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1083b3e5014386c13416beaca31f27aa--fandom-avon.jpg


Your thoughts on this episode....

Orac has pinpointed Blake's location and reveals to Avon and the crew of Scorpio that he is on the lawless planet Gauda Prime, where Blake has given up fighting against the Federation and is now a bounty hunter. But the crew of the Scorpio suspect Blake has betrayed them and has sold out to the Federation.






Your way back to.....

THE WAY BACK

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/your-fight-against-the-federation-starts-here.3309/



Back to the previous episode....

WARLORD

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/warlord-episode-51.3502/



Return to......

"BLAKEWATCH": GURUS OF TELEFANTASY....

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/blakewatch-gurus-of-telefantasy.4624/
 
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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
The episode that cemented the legend.

I really don't think Blake's 7 would be what it is, in people's minds, without this piece of the puzzle.

But. sad to say, to my mind, the whole 52 episode saga has been, ultimately, for nothing.

Who actually benefited from Blake and his rebellion?

Not many.

All of Blake's plans had ineffectual or short lived results. Let's steal a cypher machine! Oh, look, they've changed the code now. And lots of people died. Good people. Allies.

Even after an alien fleet - not Blake - destroyed Star One, the Federation merely regrouped and came back with Pylene 50. The drugged citizens of Warlord, being in an even worse state than in Episode 1!

Also, Avon and his crew have been gradually dehumanised by their experiences. They enter the Gauda Prime base, killing unarmed people such as Klyn. Yes, I know that that guy was having a tussle with Tarrant, but did they need to kill him? Why not wound him, then ask questions?

,Then one final, horrible misunderstanding between Blake and Avon. Blake brings it on himself because he now finds it "difficult to trust", just as Avon does. His games are, indeed, stupid as Deva says. And he shows himself to be a crap judge of character, as he cannot see through Arlen's masquerade.

One nice touch on the audio commentary is when Chris Boucher points out that the final filmed moment of Blake's 7 ever was the line "It's getting light. Shall we go?"

As a kid I denied that this could be finale. Surely in a year, or two years, or three years, the Beeb would see sense and make that fifth season that would put everything right. Blake wouldn't be dead and he and Avon would be friends again and the crew would get another ship and they would overthrow the Federation and Servalan would lose.

I thought that this massacre on Gauda Prime was the wrong ending.

But now I am happy that that never happened. I now feel that this ending of this murderous bunch that had once been sincere freedom fighters, was entirely appropriate. They had come to live by the gun and were now dying by the gun. It was poetic justice.

I am also glad that fans never got hold of it. at any point, to continue the saga on television, with badly written, smart arse scripts. Although they tried to recast and remake it on audio, which was about as effective as Gan in a karate tournament. Utter rubbish.

All attempts to revive it post Gauda Prime have failed.

Even Big Finish have wisely kept their audios set before this finale.

Only one surviving man has had the right to say what happened next and he did so in his trilogy of novels, based on what he discussed with Terry Nation.

So, if one must see what happened next, I would recommend the Lucifer Trilogy by Paul Darrow. No franchise building in these books though. It is very much a conclusion.

And those three books, should one even choose to read them, should, I think, be the final word on Blake's 7.

No revival can ever, in my opinion, match the original.

A classic show and a television legend.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Yes, I have enjoyed this too. I am thinking Star Cops next, but will have to dig out my dvd's.

Thanks for sharing the journey!

Stay tuned! :emoji_alien:
 

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
I thought this episode was great, sad but great! You really didn't want it to end the way it did but if it hadn't then it wouldn't have had that impact! Blake returns at last and confronts Avon, his friend/enemy for the final time! Was it really a set-up, the ending by Blake's people to see if Avon could be trusted or were they really Federation troopers?
A friend of mine always claimed that Servalan turned up in the final episode and smiled as her men shot Avon, it took me years to convince him otherwise!
JB
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
2276907-b7_23.jpg


Blake made a little guest appearance in the final issue of BLAKE'S 7: A MARVEL MONTHLY, with the final comic strip serving as a premonition/dream that Avon has leading into the last episode.....




b7-23.png


The Omen
Issue 23

Art: Phil Gascoine
Script: Ken Armstong
Letters: John Aldritch
Editor: Bernie Jaye

Opening words:
Federation Trooper: ‘Death… Death…!’

Story:
Avon wakes from a nightmare involving Federation troops and the voice of Blake. Attacked by Federation ships, the Scorpio attempts to spin out of their range, somehow causing them to pass through time. Avon gets more visions of a scarred and portentous Blake, warning him of some danger to come…

Incoming Data:

  • Despite the title of this strip, there are no demon children, and David Warner’s head doesn’t come off.
  • Blake! It’s Blake. His first appearance in the comic strip, and we’re not making this one up, either.
  • The story begins with Avon dreaming about death. He sees Federation guards coming for him, then Blake appears and Avon wakes up screaming. It’s gone all psychological.
  • Avon says he’s had dreams about Blake before.
  • When he hears Avon calling out in his sleep, Tarrant enters Avon’s bedroom and wakes him up. We reckon he’s in there all the time. Any excuse.
  • Hang on, where exactly is Avon sleeping on the Scorpio? The bunks are all on the pressurised flight deck, aren’t they? So why has Avon got a bedroom?
  • When attempting to drive Scoprio down into a spin, Orac claims ‘the time-related continuum would be destabilised’. By flying in circles? What is this, Superman: The Movie?
  • Phil Gascoine can’t draw the back end of Scorpio. We’d have mentioned it earlier but we were hoping he’d get better.
  • When the ship is spinning through time, Avon gets another vision of Blake (the Season D version, with life jacket and scar) who tells Avon they will meet soon, and it doesn’t sound like the meeting will have a happy ending…
Notable Lines:
‘Suffer or Die, Tarrant! That’s the choice!’ You can probably guess who said this.

Blake: ‘You’re coming Avon, I told you you would… It had to be, Avon. But if only you’d known. If only…’

Special Sound:
‘SHTANNNG!’ – a Federation ship flies into a delay charge in space.

Closing words:
Avon: ‘Back…? Xenon…? Ah, yes. That’s where we’re going. At least for the time being… Then we have another appointment to keep. One from which there seems no escape…’

Aftermath:
Essentially the standard ‘flying around in space being chased by Federation ships’, this story is raised above others by the appearance of Blake in Avon’s mind, calling him to a meeting. The story basically exists to set up the last episode of the television series, and does work nicely. Presumably it fits late in Season D, sometime before Warlord. As the last episode of the strip (at least for twelve years), it does round off the series well, with the inevitability of impending danger. And at least the strip manages to get Servalan into the last episode, which is more than the series did.
 

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
I never bought the B7 comics as cash was pretty tight back in those days and I had enough lay outs for other things! Did the comic continue after the show had finished? I think that it did and that's probably why I never got it, although I did get the two specials of B7 that marvel produced!
JB
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Yes, the show ended by about issue 4, but the magazine carried on valiantly, campaigning for a new series. Then they seemed to throw in the towel when the BBC craftily announced "Due to popular demand, the show is coming back folks! A repeat of the entire season 4!! It is intended that this will be the last showing of Blake's 7 though." Typical BBC slight of hand.

The last issue (above) was a double length issue, as if they were throwing all they had left scheduled into it.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I doubt that a Blake's 7 NEW YEAR'S DAY 1982 special would have been any more cheerful....



SLEER: And you are certain that they are all dead?

GUARD: (Handing Orac to her.) Yes commissioner.
 
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