Be Excellent To Each Other

I've only ever watched the first three episodes of Blakes 7, and that was about eight years ago. It had Brian Blessed in it, and an underground car-park, and a lot of people in turtlenecks being shot by curling tongs if I remember correctly. So, I was shuffling about the place like a time-lagged zombie yesterday, and I found myself unable to get the image of evil tiny giggly chess playing man out of my head, and saw Blakes 7 Series 3 on the shelf of the library. It's the only volume we have here.

Should I dig it out and watch it then? What say you Beexers? Is it actually any good? Who the hell is this Servalan anyway? Is evil tiny giggly chess playing man in that series? Does Blake know he has a Jeremy Clarkson white man's afro? Will I ever get over this horrible jet-lag, get a decent night's sleep and have time in our dynamic, busy, never get a moment to myself library to post on this forum again? All exciting questions, I'm sure.

I quite like Blake's 7. The stories are often pretty good even if the effects are super low budget. But jumping into it at series 3 seems a little silly to me. You can probably still just about get to grips with things there though. I say go back to series 1 and enjoy it all properly.

Predicting Chinny in 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1...

Malc

Down and safe.


Yes, you should watch Blakes 7. It's a fantastic sci-fi series quite unlike Star Trek. In Blakes 7 the good guys don't always win and the good guys aren't really good guys. They are more anti-heros.

It can be hit and miss at times and the budgets were low. I say "low", but actually they were quite reasonable. Problem was that the BBC would assign B7 and Who a standard BBC drama budget. However if you are a standard BBC drama you don't need sets producing from scratch, costumes designing from scratch, props designing from scratch as well as a load of model shots.

I'm not that mad keen on the first few episodes. They just scene set. The series really gets going towards the end of the first series and in season 2. Series 3 starts of superbly but then tails off a tad before rediscovering itself as Avon's 7 into series 4.

It has a great cast full of RSC actors who don't play it for laughs. Yes they do go OTT but even Mrs Chinny is willing to watch the later episodes for Paul Darrow in full Avon mode (he really doesn't get going until Gareth Thomas is out of the picture).

In short it's a gem and is the kind of show no TV company in their right mind would attempt today. Yes there are episodes where you wonder "why am I watching this crap" but the vast majority is excellent and the lead characters play off each other superbly.

And you need to watch the entire 52 episode run so you can fully enjoy the final episode which has one of the best endings in TV history.

If Star Trek and Doctor Who taught us that the good guys always win, Blakes 7 taught us that in the end, the bad guys always win.

Chinny's on his way but remember that Blake isnt really around in the later series , they ditch him for the real leader :-)

The sfx is dodgy as anything but they are quite fun and the writing is good - if you liked Dr Who of a similar time/age you'll probably like them.

Ah but what is the ending (dont click if you havent seen the end)

You know, a lot of people have said how they weren't really heroes and all that but I can think of very few episodes where they don't act heroic. Even the supposedly ruthless Avon usually does the right thing in the end. For me he never got as ruthless as he should have done. It's still great though. I've only seen up to about episode 6 or 7 of series 4 though. I can't remember what was happening now as it was ages ago.

I notice nervouspete says it's season 3 he can borrow. Only problem with season 3 is that it picks up from a cliffhanger where the entire main cast are in jeopardy. Although you can pick the series up from that point, if you've seen the final few episodes of season 2, that would help.

Season 3 has some good points but also a few of the worst episodes of the entire run. The one with Colin Baker is good though (City At The Edge Of The World).

The one where Avon is seconds away from killing Villa to save his own skin near the end of season 4 is genuinely chilling. Michael Keating plays it superbly and looks genuinely terrified, one of the few times in the series where he gets to properly act.

However he's not above being a b*stard at times :-)

I remember one about connecting bits of the engine togther and he sets things up so that when they do the engine starts so the person who's fixing it will die ...... or one where its just him and Villa on a small shuttle and he needs to empty everything out of it and ....... seriously considers chucking Villa out (although he finds the smallest heaviest thing in the universe and uses a very small toy truck to move it - or thats what my memory says :-)

"The Cult Of Blakes 7" (part of the BBC 4 series) is on Youtube and provides a reasonable overview of the series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0jCd0GCpPQ