Blakes 7: An Overview

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Blakes 7: An Overview
Summary by Executrix

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.

WARNING: Opinions expressed here are not typical of B7 fen. For an excellent mainstream view, see "Betty's Guide to Blake's 7," http://www.sdc.org/~ragan/Blakes7.html

PICS & BIOS



Roj Blake



The show begins, presumably some time in the 30th century, as Roj Blake (played by Gareth Thomas)--already convicted once of rebellion and mind-wiped as a punishment--gets inveigled back into the revolt against the tyrannical Federation. He gets caught again, convicted of false charges of child-molesting, and sentenced to lifetime exile on a prison planet. You can't keep a good rebel down, though. (The appearance of the thread about child molesting in the first episode is a clue that it isn't going to be all sweetness and light.)

Fortunately for Blake, the Liberator, a huge and stunningly equipped alien warship (the Liberator--the ship that launched a thousand faces), drifts up just before Blake can be executed for leading an abortive prison uprising. Blake is a beacon of hope in a discouraged universe, an optimist despite all odds, a charismatic leader, and a nervous wreck (there are numerous canon shots of him chomping on his fingers).

Even though the blasted show is named after him, Blake appears in only about half the episodes. He disappears after the Andromedan War, then appears in two more episodes.

Kerr Avon



Truly a great character. Cynic. Anti-hero or Byronic hero, your choice. Second-greatest computer expert in the Federation. Semi-skilled embezzler (which is how he ends up on a prison ship). Doomed romantic. Reluctant rebel leader. Intermittent beauty. Leather fetishist. He spends four seasons telling anyone in earshot that he's just out for himself, then doing pretty much what he would do if he were Sir Lancelot.

Arguably, The Pretty One, The Smart One, and the Ho. (A case can be made for Tarrant, q.v., as The Pretty One.) It's obvious that there's some intense dynamic going on between Blake and Avon; you decide its nature. A very high percentage of B7 fans are Avonfans, and there's precious little B7 smut in which he doesn't at least make an appearance. Much of this is due to Paul Darrow's intense and magnetic performance, although it's never clear if he severed his ties to the Scenery Eaters. He and Blake both have extremely sexy voices, so you could get aroused if you kept the picture turned off. However, some people watch with the sound off so they can observe the astonishing disparities between dialogue and body language.

Vila Restal



Vila (nearly always called by his first name) is a grown-up Artful Dodger, usually described as a thief although most of the time it would be more accurate to call him a safecracker, is the Ordinary Man character. Sort of Xander as a more larcenous grownup. Vila's always been poor, would be the first one to call himself a coward, and nips at the adrenaline and soma when given half a chance. I think Michael Keating delivers the best acting performance in the series. BTW Vila is the only character to appear in all 52 episodes. Vila and Avon spend a lot of time exchanging smart-ass remarks, and are the closest thing the series has to friends, which makes it especially painful when (…see Orbit…)

Jenna Stannis



Oh, you know, The Blonde (played by Sally Knyvette). Lt. Tawney Madison's foremother. She was arrested for being a "Free Trader" (smuggler). Mopes after Blake, but it doesn't do her much good. I suppose a ground-breaking feisty character for 1970s-1980s SF, but her character really doesn't get much to do. If you're into femmeslash, Jenna/Cally is the most common pairing.

Cally



The Girl--ooops, Alien Next Door. Played by Jan Chappell, Cally (just one name) comes from the planet Auron. She's the only person in the crew with the slightest interest in rebellion. Cally has telepathic powers (but sending, not receiving) and a tiresome tendency to be taken over by alien forces.

Orac



Silicon Diva. Orac is a super-computer that the crew, ummm, take by intestate succession when a brilliant but eccentric scientist dies before he can sell Orac to the Federation for a hundred million credits. (This is one of the few sums of money ever mentioned in the series; another one is "ten-credit touch," i.e., "cheap whore"--so presumably Orac cost as much as ten million blowjobs.)

I should mention two other AIs as major characters: Zen, the Liberator's computer (or, then again, the speaking part of a sentient spaceship), and Slave, Scorpio's unbelievably smarmy computer. The crew always trust Zen and Orac completely, despite the number of times that the computers fail to provide adequate information, flat-out try to kill them, or just generally dump them right in it. Peter Tuddenham provides the voices for Orac, Zen, and Slave.

Tarrant



Ummm. Well. I discovered halfway through preparing this essay that I had forgotten to include a picture of Tarrant (played by Steven Pacey). He has his own very vocal fandom ("The Tarrant Nostra"--a reference to "Shadow," an episode that name-checks the criminal organization TerraNostra). Personally I think he's the Riley Finn of B7. He's a pilot, who fetched up on The Liberator after the Andromedan War, after deserting the Federation military and having various canonically unexplored adventures as a mercenary and pirate. He and Avon then spend two series arguing, creating untold volumes of T/A.

Servalan



When we first see her, Servalan is the Supreme Commander of Space Command; she rises to become Supreme Empress of the Universe, then falls from power and begins a painful climb back. Servalan (just the one name; played by Jacqueline Pearce) has a serious problem with delegation, no access to the Evil Overlord Page, and spends a lot of time trying to capture the Liberator and Scorpio. She wears a very short Sassoon cut and for half the show she wears white evening gowns to the office and the other half wearing black evening gowns (with one red one in the middle). Imagine Margaret Thatcher as Queen Jadis of Narnia.

Travis 1



Travis is the Federation officer in charge of capturing Blake, although his enthusiasm for doing so leads him to lose his commission a couple of times. This Time It's Personal, because Travis lost an eye and an arm (the latter being replaced by a laser beam weapon--i.e., he can't tell his arsenal from his elbow) to Blake during a battle with the Freedom Party. Travis 1 was played by Stephen Greif, who, however, was replaced by…

Travis 2



…Brian Croucher, who really doesn't look, sound, or act very similar to Travis 1. Just another link in the B7 Suspension Bridge of Disbelief. Most B7 fen have a strong preference for one Travis or the other. I'm a T1 supporter myself. Classicists in the fandom assure us that the plural of "Travis" is not "Travii" but "Traves." But then, the plural of "Elvis" is not "Elves."

Other characters are: Gan - the Big Dumb Guy; he has a Limiter like Spike's chip to keep him from doing anything violent; Dayna - young, impetuous (well, actually I'd say sociopathic); and Soolin - a bodyguard and gunfighter.



OVERVIEW

Blakes7 (the series logo doesn't have an apostrophe) was a BBC science fiction series. Its 52 50-minute episodes were originally broadcast in Britain between 1978 and 1981, with sporadic showings since then at various places throughout the world. The episodes are available on 26 two-episode cassettes. The DVD release has been announced often, delayed oftener, and will no doubt arrive neck-and-neck with democracy in Iraq.

(Edit: the first three seasons are available in Regions 2 and 4, and the fourth season is due out in May 2006.)

The show is best-known for three things: "Oh, that's the show where they all hate each other," "[spoiler omitted]" and "Oh, that's the one with the wobbly sets." The sets aren't THAT BAD (it's the props that are really distressing). And, from our perspective, one can but admire a production that copes with having a budget of about 50 pounds an episode by spending half of it on specialty leatherwear. B7 is the forerunner of various "mismatched Space Rebels" projects, although its chronicle of unremitting disasters is hard to match. Its creators described it as both "Robin Hood in Space" and "The Dirty Dozen in Space."

The basic premise is that, about a thousand years from now, there'll be faster-than-light spaceships and hundreds of inhabited planets (most of which have only one building, an underground bunker). The leading political power is The Federation, an evil dictatorship. "Blake" is Roj Blake, a rebel leader who was previously arrested, mind-wiped, and returned to dutiful Federation citizenship. Then he gets drawn back into rebellion, is caught again, mind-wiped again, and given a life sentence on a prison planet.

En route to the penal colony, he meets Avon, Jenna, Vila, and Gan. Blake leads an unsuccessful mutiny, but before his summary execution, the Liberator, the galaxy's best spaceship, happens to drift by. The commander of the prison ship--unwisely, as it turns out--sends Blake, Avon, and Jenna to investigate. Of course they promptly establish contact with Zen, the sentient ship's computer, and hijack the Liberator. They rescue Vila and Gan (oh, you know…the Big Dumb Guy; he has a Limiter like Spike's chip to keep him from doing anything violent; played by David Jackson) from the prison planet and set off on two seasons' worth of ill-defined rebellious activity against the Federation.

The crux comes when the rebels attack Star One, the secret base controlling all computer communications in the Federation. Before they can destroy it, they discover that humanity is under attack by the alien Andromedans, so they fight against the invaders. In the battle, they are forced to abandon the Liberator. Blake and Jenna disappear (and Jenna is never seen again).

Eventually, Avon, Cally and Vila return to the Liberator, where they are joined by Tarrant and Dayna. Dayna, played by Josette Simon, is young, impetuous (well, actually I'd say sociopathic). This is an early example of nontraditional casting--Simon is black; it really isn't an issue in series terms.

Then the Liberator is destroyed (triggering endless arguments--when I first wrote this I meant among fen, although the crew aren't entirely unanimous on this point-- about whose damn fault it is); Cally dies; the crew appropriates Scorpio, a nasty little spaceship with a nasty little computer; and Soolin (Glynis Barber), a bodyguard and gunfighter, joins the crew.

The show really divides into two parts, Seasons 1 and 2 (where Blake is still in the cast) and 3-4 (when, with a couple of notable exceptions, he isn't). Bleak and Bleaker.
Fen usually prefer one half over the other--Tarrant fen naturally prefer the later episodes, which have Tarrant in them. Personally, I thought I didn't like Blake but I missed him once he was gone. Apart from the fact that a lot of the S4 episodes suck big rocks, it's really depressing to see horrible things happen to characters you care about.

Eventually, by any reasonable measure, Blake and Avon both fail, although it's less discouraging to watch Avon fail to live down to his own stated ideals than to watch Blake fail to live up to his.

JOIN THIS FANDOM OR I'LL SHOOT THIS DOG

B7 fandom has been in existence for 25 years, and is still active--there are two active mailing lists, dozens of Websites, hundreds of stories on line, and well over a thousand zines have been published. I love this fandom.

B7 has certain obvious flaws as a dramatic series (as well as some obvious virtues), but it's perfect as a fandom. It ended long ago, so you can't get jossed. There's enough of it to get your teeth into, but not so much that you feel you'll never catch up. There's a ton of fiction to read, and although it's a drop in the bucket compared to the streams of new Buffy or HP, there's a steady stream of new stuff to read.

B7 fandom is Fan Denial Central. There were four seasons broadcast; a plurality of B7 stories ever written are "Fifth Season" or "PGP"(Post Gauda Prime) stories--stories that assume that the events in the last season, on the planet of Gauda Prime, did not occur as depicted in canon. For reasons that become obvious once you've seen any episodes, B7 is a (Gauda) prime site for angst fans. If you like trust issues, betrayal, back-stabbing, and equivocal relationships, this is the show for you. As a counterbalance, there's a long fanfic tradition of flat-out farce, sexual and otherwise. There are a lot of shipperfics and a lot of smut.

Because the show was produced before VCRs were common, it's obvious that it did not have the kind of tight continuity we are now accustomed to. Because it was made in the late 70s and early 80s, one must be prepared to tolerate certain infelicities, such as the horrible trousers and worse shoes Avon wears in Bounty or Cally's atrocious fake-fur coat from the same episode. And because it was a BBC show, the standard of hand-to-hand combat is that of Gold-Chain-Belt Masters of the martial art of Handbags!Fu.

And it's certainly not their fault that they believed computers would always be gigantic objects that could only be propitiated by a priesthood of "computer technicians." On the other hand, super-computer Orac can communicate with any other computer that has "tarial cells," so 50 points for Gryffindor for envisioning the Internet way early. There's even an episode called "The Web," that includes the immortal line, "We have no life! We are servants of the Web!" which says it all. (Different Web, though.)

Star Trek translation notes: You don't "beam up/down," you "teleport." The Bridge is called the Flight Deck. The Federation are the bad guys.

BLOKES HEAVEN

I think it would be fair to describe the show as "slashy" (if you don't believe me, ask Jenkins). The NTSC video jackets say "Fast-moving space adventure" but what they really mean is "Interplanetary dick-measuring contest." The motley rebel bands spend at least as much time on intramural sniping as on engaging the enemy, leading to a splendid variety of Flight Deck Arguments (or, as I like to think of them, .tiff files).

Just as, in Cabaret's Kit Kat Club "even ze orchestra is beautiful," in B7 even the computers are in a snit 24/7. All the characters have obviously and permanently gotten* out of the wrong side of the bed that morning, with a truly wide dispersion on the question of "whose bed."

Right now, the predominant slash pairing is probably Blake/Avon, although at various times in the development of the fandom Avon/Vila and Avon/Tarrant have…I was going to say "dominated," but that's what the whole show is about. How do you make a B7 sundae? Take two scoops of ice cream, argue for 50 minutes about topping. One of the episodes is called PowerPlay, and there's a 14-issue printzine with that title, a sure contender for "Best Name for a B7 Zine" (although "Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience" is pretty good too).

There are quite a few het stories extant (with concentrations on Blake/Jenna, Avon/Cally, Avon/Servalan, and various pairings for Tarrant). And, because of the science fiction setting, people insist on going and writing gen stories. Can't really see the point of it myself. Still, the potential of the setting (sociological B7! Political science B7! Identity Politics B7! Military strategy B7! Spaceship neep B7!) creates many interesting opportunities for the filler between the sex scenes.

B7 is the kind of fandom that attracts well-educated, highly literate people. There are a lot of fanwriters for such a small fandom. Nearly all of them operate on a level of elementary literacy higher than that of fandom in general, and a startling percentage of them are good writers. It's also the kind of fandom that a) someone--the estimable S.E. Thompson--would compile a hard-copy "Guide to Blake's 7 Erotica". This essential reference work, unfortunately, exists only in the First Edition of 1996 and the May 1999 addendum, so it is far from up-to-date. Nevertheless, when I reached 100 pairings as listed by Thompson, I stopped counting.

*It's also a very British fandom, so if you include the word "gotten" in a fic, they'll all point and laugh. But this is going on a Yankee Website, so gotten gotten gotten. So there.

KEY FANFIC EPISODES

Well, apart from any of the numerous episodes in which Avon grabs Blake…
These are not necessarily the best episodes, but if you can only see a few, or only read a few scripts or episode summaries, these are probably the ones that are central to the generation of fanfic.

Duel (the Arena episode)
Deliverance (the one where Meegat hails "Lord Avon" who will "bring Deliverance")
Redemption (where the aliens who built the Liberator try to take it back)
Weapon (the one with the Blake Clone)
Countdown (where Anna Grant is mentioned)
Star One (the episode that launched a thousand flame wars; the last episode in the S1/S2 module)
Rumours of Death (the one where Anna actually appears)
Ultraworld (the one with The Human Bonding Ceremony and the one where Avon's and Cally's brains are put into cylinders)
Terminal (Zen dies. Waaaah!!!!)
Assassin (Servalan buys Avon in a slave market)
Orbit (Avon very nearly throws Vila out an airlock)
Blake (No Gauda Prime, no PGPs)

MAJOR FIC ARCHIVE LINKS

B7 is a zine-intensive fandom, so I'm afraid that getting the full scope of 25 years of B7 fics may involve spending money. But there's certainly enough online to get started with (NB: There are many other sites with fiction, fanart, and other sevenistical stuff--this is just a selection of sites; my Recs will feature a number of other sites):

A round of applause to Marian for compiling a gorgeous Webliography at http://homepage.mac.com/shelobmarian/handmade/b7_web_links.html
Covering fiction and everything else.

Major fic archive, including slash, het, and gen (as part of site that also includes mondo information about zines, a zine shop, essays, and much else):
http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/Library/SrchReq.cgi

Slash, mostly darkfics (my first reaction to Spuffy was "Hey, Oblaque for hets!")
http://www.oblique-publications.net/oblique.html

Genfics: Hammer to Fall, http://www.oddworldz.com/b7fanfiction/archive.html

PGPs, aka Fifth Season stories: Bang and Blame, http://www.pagerealm.com/seriese/index.htm

The wonderful Liberated slash archive: http://www.liberated.org.uk/index2.htm

Also see, e.g.,

Louise & Simon's Fan Site (episode guide, caption competition and the like) http://www.blakes-7.co.uk/

The Anorak's Guide to Blake's 7 (episode guide, games, character profiles) http://www.anorakzone.com/Blake/frames.html

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Any comments should be made on the original post so that the author, executrix, can respond to them.