NEW IMPROVED BLAKE'S 7 Episode Guide and Gallery Threads MERGED

[michaellevenson]

Series 1

1. The Way Back
Before the series starts, Roj Blake had been a resistance leader against the totalitarian Federation that had murdered his family. Instead of killing him as a martyr, the Federation erased his memories and reprogrammed him into a content citizen. One day, Blake is led outside the city dome by a friend who is really a fellow resistance member. Blake then attends an illegal meeting to protest the unpopular government policies where he is told of his past and what the Federation did to him. In disbelief, Blake walks off to think—just as a Federation security squad arrives and efficiently shoots everybody down. As Blake witnesses the horror that unfolds, it re-awakes his suppressed memories. When the government finds out his memory has returned, he is arrested on trumped-up charges of child molestation and sentenced to the prison colony on Cygnus Alpha. Blake urges Tel Varon, a public defender at his trial, to dig deeper for evidence of his innocence. Varon hesitantly does so and learns the victims' statements were indeed fabricated. He then goes with his wife Maja to the site of the massacre, and records evidence of the slaughter. However, he and his wife are killed by a Federation agent as they return to the city. Meanwhile, Blake is put aboard the transport ship London, and sent on his way to Cygnus Alpha. Along the way he meets the talented thief Vila Restel and the smuggler pilot Jenna Stannis.



2. Space Fall

Blake is introduced to Kerr Avon who used his technical prowess to nearly get away with stealing five million credits from the Federation banking system. Knowing he has a good pilot (Jenna), a lockpick expert (Vila) and now a computer specialist (Avon), Blake devises a plan to hijack the London. He also gains the help of a physically imposing man, Olag Gan who agrees to be his strong arm. When the London enters a battle between unidentified ships, Blake unleashes his mutiny plan but fails to take over. Later, the London comes upon an abandoned unidentified vessel and the first officer, Sub-Commander Raiker, persuades the captain to capture it for a salvage reward. Losing some of his men to lethal traps on the ship, Raiker sends Blake, Jenna and Avon in. Blake disables the trap and Jenna is able to control the ship, allowing their escape.

 

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3. Cygnus Alpha

Blake, Jenna, and Avon commandeer the alien ship and discover the mind-reading control computer Zen who renames the ship the Liberator after drawing the word from Jenna's thoughts. Exploring the ship, they find a wealth of advanced technology including a fully functional teleportation system and an armoury of weapons. Next, Blake follows the London to Cygnus Alpha and mounts a rescue to save Vila and Gan from the sadistic religious cult that runs the prison world. Blake infiltrates the complex only to find that his friends and the other prisoners have succumbed to the "Curse of Cygnus", a medical condition caused by the planet's atmosphere; the only treatment is a drug controlled by the fanatical cult leader Vargas. Blake eventually leads a breakout with Gan and Vila, while on the Liberator, Jenna and Avon consider abandoning Blake after losing contact. Jenna holds out for Blake—who makes it back with Vila and Gan, but along with Vargas who holds them prisoner. While Vargas rants about using the ship to rule the universe, he steps back onto the teleport pad and Blake beams him into the vacuum of space.

 

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4. Time Squad

Blake decides to destroy a Federation communications complex at Saurian Major as the first major strike against the Federation. Along the way, a distress call leads the Liberator to an escape pod with cryogenically frozen beings aboard. Arriving at the Saurian complex, Blake teleports down with Avon and Vila and searches for other resistance fighters to help him take out the installation. They meet an Auron woman named Cally whom Blake convinces to help them. Back on the Liberator, Gan and Jenna deal with the thawed beings who turn out to be dangerous killers conditioned to protect the genetic stock aboard their pod. On the planet, Blake and his team successfully infiltrate the complex where Avon overrides the safety protocols of a reactor; seconds before the explosion an injured Gan teleports the team to safety. Blake rescues Jenna, and they dispose of the pod in deep space. Cally accepts Blake's offer to join the Liberator crew.

 

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5. The Web

Under psychic control, Cally sabotages the Liberator bring it to an uncharted world, where it becomes trapped in a cloud of strange web-like strands encompassing the planet. Jenna is momentarily possessed and relays a message from the inhabitants of the planet, a group of people known as "The Lost", descendants of Cally's home planet Auron. Blake teleports down to meet The Lost who offer a means to escape the web, but require energy cells from the Liberator as payment. Blake gives them the cells, but discovers The Lost will use the energy to destroy another race of creatures known as Decimas whom The Lost created through genetic engineering. Not wanting to be party to genocide, Blake tries to stop them and to free his ship. Eventually the Decimas invade the complex and destroy their creators. In the midst of the confusion, Blake and Avon succeed in activating a fungicide beam which creates a clear passage through the web, enabling them to escape ahead of the oncoming Federation Pursuit Ships.

 

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6. Seek Locate Destroy

Blake and his crew infiltrate a Federation base on the planet Centero to steal a decryption cipher. During their escape, Cally is separated from them and loses her teleport bracelet during a struggle. The others learn she is missing only after returning to the Liberator. As news of Blake's exploits begin to spread, Federation Supreme Commander Servalan under pressure from the Federation High Council, appoints Space CommanderTravis to eliminate the fugitives, although this is met with disapproval by her colleagues. Travis, however, takes personal pleasure in accepting the assignment as he had lost both an eye and an arm (having replaced the latter with a cybernetic limb) during the original confrontation to capture Blake on Earth. When Travis finds Cally alive, he uses her as bait in a trap for Blake. Blake initiates a hit-and-run attack to rescue Cally, during which he manages to damage Travis' cybernetic hand before escaping; Travis vows revenge.

 

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7. Mission To Destiny

The Liberator encounters the freighter Ortega drifting in uncontrolled circles in space. After boarding, Blake, Avon and Cally find most of the crew unconscious, one of the crew murdered, and the flight control systems deliberately smashed. When the survivors awaken, their leader Dr. Kendall explains their important mission to deliver a valuable energy substance called the neutrotope to their home world of Destiny, to halt a fungal contamination in the food supply. Blake decides to deliver the neutrotope himself with the Liberator, while Avon and Cally remain to help repair the Ortega and identify who is behind the murder and sabotage.

 

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8. Duel

Space Commander Travis and his three Federation warships have tracked the Liberator to an uncharted planet where Blake, Jenna, and Gan are investigating the surface. After the three explore the ruins of an ancient civilisation, they hurriedly return to the Liberator as Travis closes in to attack. With the Liberator low on energy reserves, Blake decides not to run but to face his enemy head-on. Suddenly, a powerful being named Sinofar, who is intolerant of war, cripples the ships and sends Blake and Jenna back to the planet. There they are forced to fight Travis and his "mutoid" pilot in mortal combat so they will learn the meaning of death.

9. Project Avalon

Space Commander Travis has captured a resistance leader named Avalon, and holds her captive in a Federation lab located underground on a frigid planet. Avalon had earlier contacted Blake to take her to a newly constructed resistance base, and Blake is determined to rescue her. After pulling off the rescue, Blake discovers he has instead saved an android clone of Avalon, which is programmed to kill everyone aboard the Liberator by releasing a deadly, fast-acting virus.

 

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10. Breakdown

A behavioural "limiter" implant in Gan's brain malfunctions and he violently threatens the lives of the crew. Once he is captured and sedated, Blake rushes to get him to a nearby medical facility called XK-72, but the route takes the Liberator through a dangerous gravity vortex. The suicidal manoeuvre causes the argumentative Avon to declare that he is quitting Blake's team for good. Once at the medical facility, a surgeon named Kayn and his aide teleport to the Liberator to operate on Gan, but Kayn delays the procedure when he becomes suspicious of Blake. Meanwhile, Avon stays behind on the station to negotiate with the staff for sanctuary, but soon discovers that someone has already alerted the Federation to Blake's arrival, and gunships are on the way.

 

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11. Bounty

Blake locates President Sarkoff, the deposed leader of the planet Lindor, which is on the verge of civil war. If war breaks out, the Federation will send in "peacekeeping" forces and easily annex it. While Blake urges the president to take back his leadership, the Liberator answers a distress call from another ship; it turns out to be from a notorious bounty hunter, Tarvin, a former colleague of Jenna, who hijacks the Liberator and tries to cash in on the 13 million credit reward on the crew's heads. Jenna seemingly switches sides and teams up again with Tarvin. Sarkoff, confidence shot after being deposed must regain his mental strength to help Blake defeat Tarvin.

 

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12. Deliverance

After the Liberator crew witnesses a small ship explode above the planet Cephlon, Avon, Vila, Gan and Jenna teleport down to the surface to locate two jettisoned escape capsules. In the process, Jenna is abducted by the planet's Neanderthal -like natives and the others search for her. On the Liberator, a mortally injured survivor, Ensor, is brought aboard, but he holds Cally at gunpoint and forces Blake to take him to the planet Aristo, where his father awaits urgent medical supplies. Blake learns that Ensor's father is the creator of a device called Orac , which is something the Federation wants very badly. Once Ensor dies from his injuries, Blake turns the Liberator around and races back to rescue his friends. Back on Cephlon, Avon, Vila and Gan discover an ancient stasis capsule ship called Deliverance and a mysterious woman named Meegat, who tells Avon that it is his destiny to launch the ship into space. Meanwhile Servalan has re- instated Travis after his suspension following the Avalon fiasco, and reveals that she is responsible for the exploding ship carrying Ensor Jnr. Servalan and Travis set off to Aristo to get Orac.

 

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13. Orac
Back en route to Aristo, Avon, Vila, Gan and Jenna begin to suffer from the radiation exposure they received while on Cephlon, and require anti-rad serum to survive. Arriving at the planet, Blake and Cally go to the surface to find Professor Ensor and deliver the medical supplies in hopes he will have serum to trade. Unbeknownst to them, Servalan and Travis have also arrived to get to the professor, but the two must find his lab, which is hidden within a maze of underground passages inhabited by hostile creatures. Blake eventually procures the serum for his crew and gets his hands on the mysterious "Orac", an advanced computer that gives Blake a daunting prediction of the future – the destruction of the Liberator.

 

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Series 1 Quotes.
Seek-Locate-Destroy

Blake: [Over communicator to Liberator] I'm down and safe. I'm somewhere inside the main complex. Is Vila ready?
Jenna: [Over communicator] Hold on, just checking. [To Vila] Are you ready?
Vila: Tell him I've just worked out a completely new strategy. It's called Running away.
Jenna: [Over communicator] He's ready.
Vila: There isn't a lock I can't open... if I'm scared enough.
Blake: Are you scared enough for that one?Vila: What do you think?
Cally: They're taking too long.
Avon: That's the trouble with heroics, they seldom run to schedule.
Jenna: They'll find it. There's not going to be a sign up there saying This way to the cipher room.
Gan: They may need help.
Cally: I think so too.
Avon: They would have called in.
Jenna: Avon's right.
Avon: I usually am.
Vila: Hello there. How are you? Excuse me wandering about your premises but I wonder if you can help me. I'm an escaped prisoner. I was a thief but recently I've become interested in sabotage, in a small way you understand, nothing too ambitious, I hate vulgarity, don't you? Anyway, I've come to blow something up. What do you think will be most suitable?
Blake: You don't matter enough to kill, Travis.
Doctor: She's not yet well enough to submit to intensive questioning. She must have rest.
Travis: Yes, thank you very much indeed, Doctor, you are relieved of your responsibility for the prisoner. She is now the property ... the concern of the interrogation division.


MISSION TO DESTINY
Cally: My people have a saying: A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken
.Avon: Life expectancy must be fairly short among your people.
Blake: You're quite sure about volunteering to stay?
Cally: Well, we must help these people.
Avon: Must we? Personally I don't care if their whole planet turns into a mushroom. I shall stay because I don't like an unsolved mystery.

DUEL

Vila: Have you thought of another plan?
Avon: Yes. I'm going to get some sleep.
Vila: How can you sleep with all this happening?
Avon: With all what happening? Blake is sitting up in a tree, Travis is sitting up in another tree. Unless they're planning to throw nuts at one another, I don't see much of a fight developing before it gets light
.Gan: You're never involved, are you Avon? You ever cared for anyone?
Vila: Except yourself?
Avon: I have never understood why it should be necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care, or, indeed, why it should be necessary to prove it at all. [Exits]
Vila: Was that an insult or did I miss something?
Cally: You missed something.

PROJECT AVALON

Blake: Avalon has started resistance movements in a dozen Federation planets.
Avon: Another idealist, poor but honest. I shall look forward to our meeting with eager anticipation.
Blake: Does it support any intelligent life?
Avon: Does The Liberator? [pause] There are creatures called "Subterrons". they live in caves, quite what that says for their intelligence I really wouldn't know.
Vila (having been volunteered to go down): Me? Oh, no, wait a minute, it's cold out there and I'm very susceptible to low temperatures. I've got a weak chest!
Avon: The rest of you's not very impressive

BREAKDOWN

Avon: I'm finished. Staying with you requires a degree of stupidity of which I no longer feel capable.
Blake: No, you're just being modest.
Jenna: Hello.
Renor: Hello, hello, hello!
Vila: Ah. Jenna, this is Professor Kayn's assistant, his name is -
Renor: Renor. And I had a feeling this was going to be a good day.
Jenna: Yes, well, don't let your feelings run away with you
.Renor: Oh, a sense of humor, too. I love girls with a sense of humor.
Jenna: Yes, I can see where that would be an advantage. This way, please
.Renor: Do you believe in love at first sight, Jenna?
Jenna: Not yet.

BOUNTY

Vila: I'm entitled to my opinion.
Avon: It is your assumption that we are entitled to it as well that is irritating.
Vila: I don't want data, I want to know what's happening.
Zen: It will be necessary for you to make a personal investigation
.Vila: Oh, you're a big help. Personal investigation... Personal investigation... The next time Avon wants to make a personal investigation on how you work I shall make a personal point of handing him the instruments. Personally.

ORAC

The Crew activate Orac for the first time. He sounds like Ensor]
Blake: It's exactly as though Ensor were speaking.
Orac: Surely it is obvious even to the meanest intelligence that during my development I would naturally become endowed with aspects of my creator's personality.
Avon: The more endearing aspects by the sound of it.
Orac: Possibly. However similarities between myself and Ensor are entirely superficial. My mental capacity is infinitely greater.
Jenna: Modest, isn't he?
Orac: Modesty would be dishonesty.
Vila: What's wrong with being dishonest?
Orac: Is that a question?
Vila: Yes.
Orac: The question is futile. Were I to say that I am incapable of dishonesty how would you know if I was being dishonest or not?
Blake: A question for a question. Well, you're capable of evasion, anyway.
Vila: I think I've heard enough, I don't like him. Orac, be a good junk heap; shut up.

 

[michaellevenson]

Series 2
1. Redemption

Blake becomes obsessed with Orac's prediction of the destruction of the Liberator. However, there are more pressing matters when the ship comes under attack by its alien creators, "The System", who want their property back. After fleeing, Liberator's control systems shut down; Blake heads to engineering to fix the problem but is attacked by a "living" wire cable with a mind of its own. Meanwhile, Liberator is remote-piloted to The System's space station and the crew are taken prisoner. With Orac's help, the crew escapes The System who send out another attack ship which looks exactly like the Liberator; Blake now wonders which Liberator Orac had predicted seeing destroyed.

 

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2. Shadow

The crew arrives at Space City where Blake seeks contact with the criminal organisation Terra Nostra as possible resistance allies, but their leader Largo may have loyalty to the enemy. Meanwhile, an alien entity takes possession of Orac through his dimensional logic circuits and disrupts Cally's empathic powers, driving her to madness. Blake and his crew then rush to the desert planet Zondar to seek the heavily guarded source of the drug known as "Shadow", which is the basis of Terra Nostra's power and the only help for Cally.

 

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3. Weapon

The Federation is in pursuit of a powerful weapon called the IMIPAK, (Induced Molecular Instability Projector and Key), a beam rifle that marks a living target with a point of unstable matter that the firer can use to kill the target later as they choose with a special hand-held remote. Its designer, a paranoid defector named Coser, is on the run; Servalan hires a "psycho-strategist" named Carnell to profile Coser and determine where he is hiding. Servalan also has beings called the Clone Masters create a living copy of Blake, with whom Coser is expected to meet in order to steal the weapon for her. Once in possession of it, she marks Blake, Avon, and Gan so that their only hope for survival is to outrun the IMIPAK's million-mile triggering signal.
First appearance for the " recast" Travis.

 

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4. Horizon

At the edge of the galaxy, Liberator nearly collides with a Federation freighter. Blake is curious to know why the ship is so far from home and decides to follow it to a mysterious planet called Horizon. Teleporting down, Blake and Jenna discover a secret mining operation and are captured for interrogation. Gan and Vila go down to find them but are captured as well. All are forced to work in a dangerous mine while Blake tries to urge Ro, the planet's leader, that the Federation is manipulating him and enslaving his people. Meanwhile, Avon considers taking the Liberator and leaving them all behind, but Cally won't hear of it and goes down to find the others. Avon asks Orac what his chances are of surviving against the Federation alone.

 

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5. Pressure Point

Blake decides to strike a major blow to the Federation by going to Earth and destroying "Control", the main computer nerve centre for the entire government. Blake hopes the act will allow the resistance groups led by a former Federation officer, Kasabi, to launch an all-out attack against the Federation command. Blake's plan gets under way, but the Federation has discovered the plan and captures Kasabi, forcing her daughter Veron to liaise with Blake, but trapping him with most of his crew. They eventually escape and manage to break into Control, only to discover that the building is empty and the computers housed there were removed 30 years previously.

Spoiler

Gan

is killed during their escape.

 

[michaellevenson]

6. Trial

Servalan must answer to the mishandling of the Blake affair, and she tries to have Travis eliminated by setting him up on charges of mass murder before he can testify against her. Elsewhere, distraught over losing a crew member, Blake goes to an uninhabited planet to "think". Believing Blake has run out on them, Avon tries to persuade the others to abandon him once and for all. Down on the planet, Blake encounters a creature called Zil who warns that he will be "absorbed" by "the Host". In space, Zen detects unusual tectonic movement on the planet; Orac determines the entire planet is a living entity, which feeds on its surface lifeforms. After being rescued, Blake decides to send a clear message to the Federation that he has not given up, by launching a bold assault against Servalan's headquarters. The attack ironically allows Travis—who has been found guilty of the charges and sentenced to death—a means of escape, and he forces Servalan to help him get away.

 

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7. Killer

On the planet Fosforon, Avon and Vila sneak into Q-Base, a Federation com-station, looking for a crystal needed to decrypt new Federation pulse-codes. In space, Zen detects a 700-year-old Earth vessel on approach to the station, and Cally senses something "malignant" aboard. Blake anonymously warns the station of the ship despite objections from Jenna that he is helping the enemy. On the planet, Avon blackmails Tynus, a former associate, to help Avon steal the crystal. Tynus arranges for a diversion that will allow Avon to slip past security, but it may be a ruse. Meanwhile, the base tows the derelict back to the planet whereupon Blake teleports down to warn them in person, but he is too late as the base unwittingly releases a swift-killing alien virus.

 

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8. Hostage

The Federation sends out twenty pursuit ships to hunt Blake down and destroy him, but the Liberator withstands the assault and manages to get away. Blake then receives a message from his nemesis Travis, who has escaped the Federation and taken Blake's cousin Inga hostage on the planet Exbar. Travis makes the peculiar request to join up with Blake's crew since Servalan has made him a wanted criminal, but Blake believes it to be a ruse. He teleports down to the planet to rescue Inga, and meanwhile, unknown to Blake, Avon sends a message to Servalan with Travis' location. Concerned about Blake, Avon also teleports to the planet and later Vila joins him. The three are eventually rounded up by Travis, and his gang of "crimos" (criminal psychopaths), and Travis reveals his intention to take the Liberator after he kills them. Inga and her father Ushton manage to trick Travis and release Blake and his team, who eventually leave Travis to be found by Servalan. When Servalan arrives, she agrees to spare Travis' life, and officially list him as dead, as long as he continues to hunt Blake for her.