Scorpio takes off from Xenon base for the last time (and as an aside what great model work we’ve had for the hero ship) and once in orbit, explosions tear through the base, destroying what they left behind. Vila says he never liked the place anyway, Soolin adds the caveat that he never liked it once the wine ran out. They don’t know if Zukan revealed the location to the Federation but they’re taking no chances, if he didn’t it’s possible one of the other members of the nascent alliance will, sooner or later.
The question is what do they do next? Vila, unsurprisingly, is all for running away but Avon has other ideas, he says they can find a new figurehead to unify the anti-Federation alliance (nimbly forgetting that Zukan wasn’t really a figurehead, he could just provide the raw materials for the antidote to Pylene-50) and that this person is strongly identified with rebels, and very popular with rabbles.
Avon strings the reveal out, but in the end Vila works it out.
Avon thinks he’s found Blake.
Blake is on Gauda Prime, a frontier world, working as a bounty hunter, which seems like a very un-Blake thing to do. One of Scorpio’s crew has personal experience of Gauda Prime. Soolin grew up there. Once it was a peaceful faming colony until valuable minerals were discovered under the surface and the rule of law was suspended. The rule of law is back now, hence the bounty hunters.
They set a course for Gauda Prime, but is their luck about to run out?
And so we reach the end, and I really don’t want us to. This rewatch has only served to remind me how much I love this show, and I wish there’d been series E, F and G. I wish it was still going now, however improbable that idea is. And sure, to borrow from another franchise, all good things must come to an end (but then when Next Gen ended it was hard to get too upset because they immediately started filming Generations, and hell, the Next Gen crew were back on our screens just last year!) and so it is with Blakes 7.
On the plus side, at least I can go back to watching random episodes in no particular order as the mood takes me again now, although watching it in sequence has been quite rewarding, and has forced me to return to those episodes I had a less favourable opinion on and, as a result, I have reappraised my opinion of some episodes I thought were duds.
Though is any episode of Blakes 7 ever a complete dud? Even Animals has the hilarity of Vila in the bilge tank after all.
Enough chit chat, let’s crack on with talking about Blake.
I think I had a very specific opinion of this episode, that the ending was genuinely iconic but that what led up to it was a tad ropey. I don’t think that was a fair assessment because in truth this is a very good episode. Would I rank it as highly as say Star One? Perhaps not, but then Star One is phenomenal. There’s great dialogue (“The fire was stupid. Putting Vila on guard was suicidal. What’s the matter, is staying alive too complicated for you?”) and a fantastic scene as Scorpio crashes. There’s also an overriding sense of mortality overshadowing everything. From Xenon base being destroyed to the dialogue:
Vila: “Sooner or later we’re going to drop into one of these holes in the ground and never come out.
Avon: “Sooner or later, everyone does that.”
There’s also a sense of things coming full circle. Blake returns. We get mention of Jenna, and we’re told she’s dead. Cally is referenced, only Gan and Travis don’t warrant a mention, and reference to Servalan is brief. Soolin’s characterisation may be wafer thin at the best of times, but there’s a certain synchronicity to her dying on the planet she grew up on.
If you think about it a lot about the episode doesn’t make sense, and its somewhat dishonest to the audience, trying to make us think that maybe Blake has gone bad. I was talking to someone about the moment when SPOILER Avon shoots Blake, and said it seemed a little contrived, but as my friend pointed out, Avon’s pretty paranoid by this point.
That Blake returns is wonderful. I’ll never be the biggest fan of the character, but he is the central focus of the show for much of its run, and the show retains his name even after he leaves. Servalan said she’d seen his body, but as Avon points out, she does lie a lot. Of course, she might have been telling the truth, there was a Blake clone running about don’t forget, maybe it was his body she saw.
Thomas puts a lot into his performance, partly because he was a true professional, but also, I suspect because, one way or another, this was going to be the last time he would ever play Blake. Hence why he got the special effects bods to make his gunshot wounds as gaudy as possible. The scar suits him, and he’s definitely not the clean cut hero we met four years ago, it’s safe to say that this is a far more interesting Blake than we’ve seen before. What might have been. I can see why they considered giving him an eye patch, but I think the scar works much better.
His plan doesn’t make a lot of sense though, and how does Arlen wind up working for his new rebel army when she clearly tried to dob Blake in to Deva? Surely that’s exactly the kind of person you couldn’t trust? Even setting aside that she’s a Federation OFFICER! She’s great, though I can see why Boucher and co were a tad disappointed that she wasn’t a bit less RP before the turn.
There’s a lot going on around the periphery of the story, mention of a lot more transports than usual. They think it’s maybe the Federation representatives, and I suppose it is, just not the ones they were expecting. I guess the only mitigation to Avon killing Blake is that the Federation were onto his nest of rebels, so chances are Blake didn’t have long left anyway.
After intentionally destroying the base, our crew now unintentionally destroy Scorpio. The moment where Tarrant points out it takes talent to fly a dead ship (even when he’s being noble Del can’t help bigging himself up) and Avon’s farewell lacks warmth, but I like to think contains a touch of respect at least.
Maybe.
It is interesting how concerned Vila suddenly is about Tarrant, but after Orbit I suppose he’s a little warier of Avon and half suspects he might have murdered him.
Given the financial restrictions they were operating under, the crash landing is nicely done, as is the internal destruction as the ship comes to rest. Much as in Terminal we have a section of flooring rising and a hapless individual sliding down it. That’s what you get when you hire the same director for both episodes, but Mary Ridge does a good job.
Tarrant’s survival is a touch miraculous, but it would have been a bit underwhelming if he died in the crash. We get a nice riff on Zen’s “I have failed you” from Terminal with Slave calling Tarrant by name. I guess if they had got the greenlight for another series, then the ship isn’t completely destroyed, and they might be able to salvage Slave, the teleport and maybe even the Photonic Drive. That would have made more sense than chancing across another ship with teleport capability.
Is it just contrivance that Blake finds Tarrant, or has he been hoping a Wanderer class planet hopper might drop by? I’d like to assume the latter.
Pacey and Thomas have some nice scenes together, again you wonder what might have been, and Tarrant does well out of the final episode, in fact most of them do to some extent, except Dayna. It’s noticeable that neither woman gets any dialogue once they reach the base. At least Soolin gets to kill a Federation trooper in the final battle, which is more than Dayna gets.
Vila gets some decent moments, a last cowardly huzzah.
Soolin: “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark?”
Vila: “Only when its unilluminated.”
But also a last heroic huzzah as well, avenging Dayna’s death, and his apology to Arlen after knocking her out is very on point for a character who, despite his dishonesty, drunkenness and occasional lechery, was never really a killer. When he says he was just along for the ride, and that he’s harmless, he has a point.
There are a hundred ways you could have ended the show, but a Wild Bunch/Butch and Sundance shootout works on several levels. Rationally it was unlikely Blake or Avon were ever going to topple the Federation, it draws a line under the show (though clearly any one of them outside of Blake could have just been stunned) and it feeds into Darrow’s love of westerns. One final showdown that none of them will walk away from.
In Terminal Avon told Servalan that he always thought his and Blakes deaths might be linked in some way, he probably never imagined he’d be the one to kill him, but in those final few seconds Avon does two things that feel very genuine for the character. There’s the half smile just before the screen cuts to black, even on the cusp of death he’s amused rather than fearful, but just before this Avon stands over Blake, quite protectively for a man he just killed. The inference is clear. If you want Blake, you have to go through me.
Any number of get outs would have enabled the show to carry on, but maybe this is the best way. You can’t fight city hall, and The Man (or rather The Servalan) always wins.
Talking of which, it might be blasphemous to say this, but I think if Servalan showed up it might have been overdoing things.
A truly iconic ending to a truly iconic show.
Next time…
Oh yes, there’s a next time, I haven’t quite finished with Blakes 7 yet…
werewolves on the moon 
Thank you. I’ve read along with interest.