Blakes 7. Series B, Episode 8: Hostage

Cue some nice shots of Liberator in space. On the flight deck someone remarks that it’s very quiet.

It doesn’t stay quiet for long. Pursuit ships are closing in, and on the lead ship Space Commander Not-Travis is preparing his attack.

Liberator is hit by multiple plasma bolts but survives by flying into a dust cloud to shake their pursuers off. They think they’re free and clear but are unaware that one pursuit ship is still following them, because Space Commander Not-Travis’ ship has a detector shield. He calls in reinforcements and suddenly Liberator has twenty pursuit ships to deal with (it’s not so long ago that Orac told Avon that Liberator could survive anything except a direct assault by three pursuit ships!)

Liberator takes more hits but flies right through the pursuit ships and its course is too fast and precise for the Federation ships to turn in time. Liberator escapes and Servalan has Space Commander Not-Travis place himself under arrest. (She gives no one a second chance, apart from Travis who’s on chance 418  by the end of the episode.)

On Liberator Avon is unhappy that the Federation have created their own detector shield as he’d hoped to sell them his (really, Kerr?)

Liberator then receives a message from Travis. He wants to pool their resources against the Federation, and makes it clear that this isn’t a trick (Morgan Freeman voice over “It is a trick”). To compel Blake to come to the planet Exbar he’s taken Ushton’s daughter, Inga, hostage and will kill her in twenty five time units unless Blake arrives. (I’ve no idea what a time unit is, presumably it’s not seconds or minutes, Liberator isn’t that fast. Hours at a guess.) Ushton is Blake’s uncle, which makes Inga his cousin and we’re leaning slightly into Game of Thrones territory here because Blake seems very fond of her.

Despite knowing it’s a trap Blake rushes to the rescue. Meanwhile Avon seems awfully guilty all of a sudden…

Hostage is another of those episodes I didn’t have fond memories of, but it’s better than I remembered, not lots better, and it has some big flaws, but it’s a solid enough episode.

The space battle at the start is really nicely handled, and Liberator finding itself under a second attack when they think they’ve escaped is a nice rug pull, their escape from both attacks makes sense and reminds me of the best of Trek.

Exbar as a low security penal planet is interesting, this isn’t another Cygnus Alpha (prisoners could even receive visitors) and the notion that the Federation abandoned the prisoners to their fate is predictably cold blooded. As an interesting side note Blake says that as a boy he visited his uncle, which poses a couple of interesting thoughts. Firstly, was Ushton’s imprisonment and young Roj’s trip to the penal planet a formative moment in the young freedom fighter’s development? It seems likely. The second point relates to Inga. Was she a prisoner too, or was she born on Exbar? Blake is very fond of her, but you have to wonder how old they both were last time they met.

The conversation between Servalan and Councillor Joban is interesting, and it’s a lovely little performance by Kevin Stoney. So good in fact that I had to check that we hadn’t met him before because he seemed such a familiar presence. It’s always nice to see some tension in the Supreme Commander, as powerful as she is you get the feeling that power is fragile, certainly at this point though maybe not for much longer.

I’m not sure quite what the point of Ushton’s limp is, surely he could go up the mountain with Blake and then betray him to Travis?

You have to love Travis’ colour coordinated crimos, only Molok is allowed a personality (and so doesn’t have to wear a mask) It makes sense that Travis might recruit such men but I wonder what happened to the Mutoids he was given by Servalan though? Talking of which we get some slightly different looking examples of mutoids in this episode, though the subservience is no different.

Avon dobbing Travis in but then not telling anyone he’s done this is of course very on brand. Cally sensing what he’s done but not telling anyone is not. Teleporting down to Exbar to keep an eye on Blake is fair enough, but when he wants backup why oh why does he call on Vila? Don’t get me wrong, I love Vila, loved him as a kid and still love him now, but do you really want him as backup?

And we get to a recurrent problem as we head into the latter half of the season, as yet again Jenna and Cally are left on teleport duty, they even have a conversation about how they can’t teleport down with Servalan on the way. At least they get a flicker of agency when Molok teleports on board. Cally kicks him and then they teleport him into space, where, much like BRIAN BLESSED, he explodes.

I actually like the scene of Travis threatening Vila. His repetition of “The word! The Word!” is actually really menacing, and Vila holds out for a few seconds at least before screaming for teleport. That said, if the bracelet is active wouldn’t Cally and Jenna hear Travis? It lacks logic.

It’s nice that Ushton and Inga save the guys from asphyxiation, but you do wonder why took Ushton so long given he seems to be Rambo at the end, taking out crimos left right and centre.

As excuses for not joining the crew go, Ushton and Inga’s is actually quite decent. Because Travis broke into the old tower, they now have access to huge amounts of food, certainly enough to start feeding those who remain on Exbar and I guess its implied that this planet might end up another bolthole for Blake and co (even though we’ll never see it again.)

Blake and Inga’s romance feels very forced, and oh look, Sally Knyvette does get something else to do this episode, look jealous!

A bang average episode but there’s some nice Vila and Avon bits, Servalan dominates despite not doing very much and as I said the space battle is really rather good. Jenna and Cally, Space Housewives is less impressive.

Next up. Can anyone else hear ticking?

Blakes 7. Series B, Episode 7: Killer

Liberator is in orbit of the planet Fosforon. Avon has Cally slowly set the teleport coordinates to waste some time and then he and Vila teleport to the surface where they find themselves on a riverbank near to a secure Federation base.

Meanwhile Blake and Jenna have spotted an ancient spaceship drifting into the system. It’s a Wanderer class from 700 years ago (Scorpio is clearly a different kind of Wanderer class) and looks abandoned but when Cally comes onto the flight deck she detects life aboard it, and something malignant. (This pretty much concludes Cally’s participation in this episode).

Avon and Vila sneak inside the base using a sewer pipe. Surprisingly Vila is not keen on this. Inside they find the base populated by individuals who’ve made bold fashion choices. Despite standing out like sore thumbs, the two men are able to infiltrate the base further.

Up on Liberator Blake has become obsessed with the mysterious ship and suggests they warn the Federation base that there’s something dangerous aboard it. Jenna isn’t keen on this idea but Blake points out that those on the planet are human beings.

“I need proof of that,” says Jenna. Literally the only cool thing Sally Knyvette is allowed to do all episode!

Avon and Vila have found Tynus, an old “friend” of Avons who, because he’s an old friend of Avons who’s also played by a man who’ll one day play an evil Nazi, can’t be trusted.

The Federation scientists have brought the abandoned spacecraft down to the planet and Blake has teleported down to help, but the dead body inside the ship might not be as dead as it appears…

A few years ago, if you’d asked me what I thought of Killer I’d have probably said it was ok, maybe even better than average, but one of the advantages of a run through in order is that we can reappraise things, which is why Time Squad went up in my estimation, and Killer has gone down…

Partly it’s the reliance on a familiar plot device, stealing a communications device by blowing it up so no one knows its missing (*cough* Seek-Locate-Destroy!), partly it’s because many of the outfits are really bad, and partly because Cally and Jenna get so little dialogue they might as well have been Gan…

Seriously, at one point Blake basically tells Jenna not to worry her pretty little head about it and she replies with a subservient “ok” like a nervous secretary in an 80s teen comedy rather than the kick arse smuggler we know she is! It’s an appalling moment.

Which isn’t to say the episode doesn’t have its plus points. Lacey is always good value, although why on Earth Avon remotely believes he can trust him is anyone’s guess, luckily Vila’s around and he trusts no one.

Talking of Avon and Vila I was wondering, is this their first actual team up? We tend to think of them as a double act but I’m not sure they’d had much time purely as a duo before and it’s a shame because Darrow and Keating are great together. Vila actually manages to be snide, almost malevolent. “You don’t like Blake much do you?” he says before implying that maybe they should ditch Blake before he ditches them.

It’s an odd moment but makes more sense when you realise this episode was supposed to air much earlier. So much earlier that apparently it was Gan who teleported them down, which maybe explains the odd Cally scene. Vila’s comments would also make more sense if this were the second episode of the season rather than the seventh.

On the one hand it’s nice to see people working for the Federation who aren’t evil villains, and Bellfriar and Gambrill are decent characters, both of whom come to tragic ends, but Blake can’t know that they’re willing to turn a blind eye when he teleports down and brazenly introduces himself! It doesn’t make a lick of sense. Robert Holmes was a great writer, but I don’t think this counts as one of his better scripts.

That said, the central premise, of some mysterious alien presence sending out a disease to confine humanity to Earth, is intriguing, even if again it defies logic. For a virus to spread through humanity the infected person needs to be infectious without realising it, for a time at least, but this bioweapon incubates very quickly, and so people die very quickly. Logically a disease like that wouldn’t spread very far because it would burn out. All the Federation has to do is quarantine Fosforon, and the disease is going nowhere. (And let’s not get started on Blake potentially being in contact with the disease! There isn’t even some handwaving around the teleport system having a Star Trek style biofilter.)

We also have to talk about the costumes. Sci-Fi is a tricky business, especially when you’re working on a budget, and it’s hard to predict what people will be wearing in ten years, let alone eight hundred, but sometimes you do have to wonder what the makers of shows like Blakes 7 and Dr Who were thinking? Sometimes the radical can be pulled off (take the crazy headgear in Dr Who’s Robots of Death—an infinitely better Holmes’ story) but sometimes it falls flat.

Like here. The weird brown plastic capes look awful, but worse than that they appear to be incredibly uncomfortable as well. Maybe they provide some kind of radiation protection but if so a line of dialogue could’ve explained that.) And then we have the recovery team sent to pick up K-47. If they look a little like the Michelin Man, it’s because they were actual Michelin Man outfits! Again, it isn’t so much how they look, but how impractical they would be.

In the end it’s an ok episode, there are worse, but it feels very much like a Dr Who idea shoehorned into the Blakes 7 universe (Blake even feels a tad Doctorish at times.) Not one to return to in a hurry.

Next up. Crimos!

Blakes 7. Series B, Episode 6: Trial

We’re at Space Command and two Federation troopers guard a courtroom. A couple of bureaucrats (Bercol and Rontane) arrive and are challenged by the guards. After they’re inside Trooper Par tells his colleague that if one of the bureaucrats had run, they could have shot him. Another visitor arrives, Fleet-Warden Samor, a high ranking and well respected officer. Once he enters the room Par tells his colleague that they look after their own.

Meanwhile Servalan is talking with Thania, a Federation officer who we learn is the defence counsel for Travis, and it’s his trial that Samor (old Starkiller as Servalan calls him) is to be the judge of. 

Later Travis arrives in the courtroom. The prosecution evidence relates to over fourteen hundred unarmed civilians who were butchered on Travis’ orders on the planet Zircaster. The prosecution wants this data dumped into the justice computer, but Thania insists the name of each victim and their cause of death be read out.

Meanwhile Liberator is orbiting an apparently deserted planet where Blake teleports down, scrambling the coordinates so the others don’t know where he is. They think he’s run out on them but then they discover a message. In the aftermath of Gan’s death Blake is giving them all time to think. He’ll turn on a homing beacon in a few hours, and if the others have decided to stay then they can pick him up. Avon shocks no one by saying they should leave, the others aren’t so sure.

Down on the surface however Blake is about to discover that the planet isn’t as uninhibited as he thinks…

There’s a lot going on here, and while the two halves do complement each other, they’re very different. The sub- Dr Who shenanigans of Blake and Zil are but fun, but the real meat of the episode is to be found elsewhere, in the Shakespearean manoeuvrings of Space Commander Travis’ trial. Whether you think Greif or Croucher is the better Travis is irrelevant, all that matters is that this is the best Travis episode and probably his last hurrah before his descent into panto villain territory.

As Servalan says. “It’s a pity he’s got to die, he’s so much better than anyone I have left.”

Bringing back Bercol and Rontane, last seen in Seek-Locate-Destroy, is interesting today with our ability to rewatch the show. I wonder how many people back in the day (outside of those who could afford one of those new-fangled VCRs) remembered the two side characters?

If Bercol and Rontane are politicos, then we also have Fleet Warden Samor (and the next time we see John Savident in Series D he’ll be playing a VERY different character) representing the armed forces.

Servalan of course sits somewhere between the military and the government and plays both ends against the middle.

Another reminder that this show went out early evening, yet here a man is on trial for his life for ordering the murder of 1400 civilians, and the interesting thing is that no one denies it happened. Travis’ defence is not so much that he gave the order (As Par says, “He gave the orders, we just did the shooting” which has to be one of the most brutal lines uttered in the show) but that he was conditioned by his training to give the order. It’s a defence that many soldiers convicted of war crimes still cite today, and the worst thing, especially in a fascist dictatorship like the Federation, is that there is a kernel of truth to it. What’s intriguing at this point is that, for all its jackboots, the Federation plays at being a democracy, look at us, we even put our own on trial when they do wrong. The fact that the only reason Travis is on trial is due to his failure to capture Blake in the last episode is irrelevant. If he’d succeeded likely the massacre on Zircaster would have been swept under the carpet. After all, we know full well that it isn’t the only such slaughter staining Travis’ record.

Even as we accept Travis is a psychopath there is a tiny hint of humanity. He could kill Par, but he doesn’t. As Par said, Travis wasn’t a lovable officer, but he didn’t waste troopers. Apparently when you’re up to your neck in slime and lasers that’s the only thing that matters. None of this should ever excuse Travis, but a sliver of humanity makes him a better villain.

Meanwhile down on the unnamed planet Blake meets a curious creature named Zil who can, for some reason, speak English. It’s all quite silly, but the notion of a living planet choosing to kill the parasites infesting its surface is interesting, and teaches Blake an important lesson. Resist the host!

In fact though very different there is a certain duality to both Blake and Travis’ stories here. In the beginning at least it appears both men have given up, but by the end each has regained his mojo.

Blake’s trip to the planet is all very passive aggressive. As Avon says later, “You played them beautifully.” Of course, they could have run, but Blake was counting on Jenna and Cally at least sticking with him, and Vila probably falling into step with them.

Avon of course wants to leave, but he goes with the flow anyway (perhaps because at heart he doesn’t want to leave Blake down there?)

As always there’s some cool dialogue on the ship.

Avon: “Is it that Blake has a talent for leadership, or that you have a talent for being led?” Though my own favourite is Vila’s “Avon’s gadget works!” followed by a look of horror disappointment on Darrow’s face.   

Using Gan as the trigger for Blake’s message is a really nice touch. It’s shame he won’t ever be mentioned again after this point.

Avon’s detector screen allows Liberator to make a fast strike against Space Command, to restore their legend. On the one hand it’s a heck of a blow. Striking at the heart of the Federation, and killing two of presidential advisors and a highly decorated officer into the bargain. The downside of course is that it also inadvertently allows Travis’ escape. This will have repercussions all the way to the end of the season.

A quick word about Kevin Lloyd’s wonderful turn as a Federation squaddie. For those of a certain age he’ll always be Tosh Lines in the Bill and he left us too soon. He was a Derby lad like myself, and though I never met him he and my father were passing acquaintances who occasionally chatted with each other on the train. Maybe that’s why I’ve always like the character of Par, but also because we get few opportunities to meet the grunts of the Federation (and when we do they’re usually a lot more psychotic)

The final words on this episode go to Avon and Blake. Avon snarkily suggests that the others were almost ready to leave. “One more death will do it.”

“Then you’d better be very careful. It would be ironic if it were yours” 1-0 to Roj.

Ok not quite final words, cue stock everyone laugh at Vila ending!

Next time on Blakes 7…what the bloody hell are they wearing??

Who Goes There?

By John W. Campbell

John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982 has long been one of my favourite films, and yet it struck me that I’d never read the original novella upon which both The Thing, and The Thing from Another World in 1951, were based so when I saw this collection I pounced.

Who Goes There?

For saying this was written in 1938 it doesn’t feel as dated as you might think, and the isolation of the Antarctic base covers a multitude of sins, there’s only vague anachronisms (they have planes not helicopters) and some of the science is of course very old school, but much like the icebound setting, the story itself is so good that it covers any flaws in the prose or characters. What’s really interesting is just how much Bill Lancaster took from this when he wrote the script for The Thing (and conversely how little was taken from it for the 1951 version).

Character names are familiar, and an awful lot of story beats as well. The biology of the thing is spot on, Blair’s insanity plays out the same, even the famous test scene is very similar. If anything, Carpenter’s version goes further, and has much more of a downbeat ending, but other than that it makes you realise how faithful The Thing is.

Campbell’s prose if a little dense at times. The large number of characters doesn’t help, and few of them stand out from each other. He delves a little too much into science and not enough into character, but all things being equal you can see why this story has continued to resonate.  

Blindness

This is a somewhat turgid tale about a talented researcher and his assistant who spend three years in a spaceship orbiting the sun at close range in order to unlock the secrets of atomic power, they’re successful but when they return to earth there’s a surprise in store for them. There’s a really neat Twilight Zone twist at the end of this story, it’s a shame it takes soooo long to get there and spends so much time focusing on the “science”. This needed to be a short sharp shock, instead it’s a drab squib that, unlike the titular story in this collection, feels very much of its era.

Frictional Losses

This is a little better but still feels creaky and old fashioned. Earth suffered an alien invasion some time ago. The aliens were defeated, but only at great cost, and the world is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which a few million survivors scrape a living. Everyone fears another attack by the aliens, because the original invaders talked about a second expedition that was following in their wake. While most of humanity has given up, one man scavenges in the ruins for parts to make a weapon. There’s a hopeful edge somewhat at odds with some of Campbell’s other work, again though it feels very much of its time, although given it was written in 1936 the image of what are effectively Japanese Kamikaze pilots attacking the alien craft seems very prescient.

Dead Knowledge

I really liked this one. Three astronauts travel to another solar system and find a planet that harbours advanced cities, the only problem is that the entire populace seems to have committed suicide.

There’s an eerie dreamlike quality to the story, and you could see it working really well as a Twilight Zone episode. As is often the case, the revelation doesn’t quite live up to the mystery itself, but the central theme is so enticing that this doesn’t ruin your enjoyment, and to be fair I didn’t remotely guess why the planet’s population had killed themselves, so that’s something.

Outside of the titular novella this is the best story in the anthology.

Elimination

An interesting story about two inventors who try to patent a machine that allows them to view possible futures. This must count as one of the earliest storis about the concept of many worlds theory and whilst clunky, it’s evocation of parallel worlds and it’s exploration of free will versus determinism make this seem ahead of its time. 

Twilight

There’s more than a hint of HG Wells’ The Time Machine here as in 1932 a man picks up a hitchhiker who says he’s a time traveller from the year 3059. The man claims to have travelled seven million years into the future and seen a world where machines had become so advanced that they could perform any function and so humanity had become complacent and lost its drive to grow, lost its curiosity and zest for life, regressing both socially and intellectually.

This is no world of Morlocks and Eloi but it’s a depressing future nonetheless, a time when entropy has engulfed the human soul and it’s a mournful story with just a hint of hope.

Night

Campbell pulls the same trick again in a story that might almost be a sequel to Twilight. This time an experimental aircraft disintegrates in flight, but its pilot mysteriously disappears. He reappears later in a farmer’s field with an amazing story to tell. He was hurled forward in time, to a point where the solar system is dying, and where humanity has died out. All that remains are the machines, there are not even the echoes of people there were in Twilight and so it’s an even gloomier tale. I still can’t quite figure out if having Night follow Twilight in the anthology was a good move or not because they are so similar.

Unlike some writers Campbell’s prose has dated, and most of the stories would work better if they were shorter. His characters don’t exactly leap off the page, but his ideas are incredible and that’s where the real strength of the anthology lies.

Blakes 7. Series B, Episode 5: Pressure Point

Earth, and somewhere called the Forbidden Zone. Two men in camouflage fatigues are scouting a bunker. One of the men is terrified of the area they’re in, and says their leader, Kasabi only told them to scout the edges of the zone. His comrade isn’t afraid though, there are no guards so what is there to fear? This may be the most secure place in the Federation but it doesn’t look like it.

There are cameras inside a nearby ruined cottage though, and from here Mutoids are watching them. Also inside are Servalan and Travis. Servalan is unhappy because they’ve been waiting 18 days with nothing happening. They knew Kasabi was coming but Travis is convinced that Blake is coming too.

Kasabi’s men try to get across the zone and find themselves paralysed, moments later the ground beneath them explodes!

Meanwhile Liberator is just three hours from Earth, a fact that comes as a shock to everyone on board except Blake, and possibly Cally, although Avon seemed to suspect as Earth had been on Blake’s mind for some time. Blake explains that it’s time they really hurt the Federation, and how better than by destroying Control, the supercomputer that controls activities on every Federation controlled world. Control is no secret, it’s been there 200 years, and in all that time no one has been able to destroy it, but Blake has been researching it for the last year and thinks he knows more about Control than anyone, he’s also been working with Kasabi to aid in his attack.

Unfortunately, down on Earth Kasabi and her troops are ambushed by Servalan.

Is Blake walking into a trap?

Terry Nation returns to writing duties for the first time since the series B opener for an episode that will have major consequences for the characters, and leave them struggling to come to terms with the death of one of their own.

It’s a curious episode, there’s a lot that’s fairly generic about it, lots of characters wandering around the woods and some deserted buildings, a secure bunker that never seems quite that secure, and some very low budget set design; look you can tell it’s a different level, the lighting’s different!

And yet despite this Nation pummels the characters, and us, knocks the ground out from under us not once, but twice. It’s an episode that will provide the spark for a quest that will take us up to the end of Series B, and perhaps lay the groundwork for the show’s titular character to leave.

It also provides some excellent material for Jaqueline Pearce as we learn about Servalan’s younger days. Her interrogation of Kasabi is ruthless, and clearly Servalan is enjoying getting one over on her former nemesis. Let’s start with the ambush though, it says a lot that Servalan doesn’t take Travis, but also that she has a gun but never raises it, she is content to let her Mutoids do the killing, and never feels under any threat. This is the Supreme Commander at her most supremely commanding.

We learn that Kasabi was an instructor at the academy, until her dangerous teachings were reported by a very bright cadet. Travis is a trifle dumb not to realise who that very bright cadet might have been of course!

Kasabi is nicely realised by Jane Sherwin, you can imagine her sneering in Federation uniform, and her final barb to Servalan, that she should have tried to help her, possibly wounds the Supreme Commander more than all the insults she used earlier ever could.

It isn’t implicitly stated, but I wonder if Servalan planned to take Kasbi’s daughter for her own, brainwash her into becoming Servalan’s heir? That would be the ultimate revenge on Kasabi after all, and certainly something I could imagine Servalan doing.

The crew deciding to back Blake in his assault on Control is interesting, even Vila seems to agree, but the best part is Blake asking Avon and Avon replying that as course he’s going, because clearly they can’t do it without him. Avon being Avon of course he has no interest in freedom and democracy, he just wants the Liberator if Blake succeeds.

Avon: Sooner or later I will have my chance.

Blake: There’s no hurry.

Another in a long line of great scenes between the two.

Using Veron to betray Blake and co doesn’t make a whole heap of sense. I get that Servalan want’s Liberator, and possibly Orac, but surely Blake is the main threat so why not kill him while she has the chance? Yolande Palfrey doesn’t really convince, but she isn’t given a lot to work with and she ends up becoming just another in a long line of people who couldn’t join the Liberator crew because, you know, reasons.

Constrained by the limitations of a 1970s BBC budget the Forbidden Zone isn’t that forbidding, and much as I adore Darrow, his ‘trip’ when he flings himself to the floor is hilarious. As Deeta Tarrant will tell is next season, it’s hard to fake a fall.

The bunker itself, as I’ve said, is ridiculous, and providing handy grab rails above an electrified floor is lazy writing. Control might be an illusion but it should still be impregnable, no one is supposed to get as far as Blake does.

But he makes it, bursting into the main control room with every ounce of arrogance and victory on display.

“We’ve done it!”

“I’ve done it!”

Except you haven’t Roj, and there’s some lovely acting from Thomas here when he realises it’s an empty room. Blake just collapses.

I might snark at some of what led us here, but credit where credit’s due, Nation’s conceit that Control was moved twenty years ago is simply wonderful. Travis gets some nice material here about how giving credence to an empty room allows the real thing to become invisible.

Nation’s first gut punch hits hard.

This being Blakes 7 (and not being the last episode) Jenna and Veron show up to save the day. Thank goodness Jenna at least was allowed, finally, the leave the ship this episode. It’s more than poor Cally got.

The escape from the bunker is just more corridor running but does feature one of the most unintentionally funny moments in the series when Travis throws his strontium grenade. “You fool!” screams Servalan. “You’ll bring the roof down,” she adds, before she and Travis run…in the same direction he just chucked the grenade!

And then the second gut punch.

The grenade does indeed cave the roof in. Gan holds the door open for the others but is then buried in rubble.

“I’m not worth dying for,” he says, just before dying.

It’s sudden and unexpected. David Jackson always gave it his best, but Gan was too often the fifth wheel. It’s a shame because episodes like Shadow gave him purpose, and he could be the conscience of the crew, but if someone had to go, he was the obvious choice. I still shudder at the thought that it could have been Vila.

That said, the focus on Gan’s empty seat at the end really hits you in the feels. Farewell Oleg.