Another one of those programs that I used to watch religously as a kid. Think the last ever ep where they found Blake and they all died was brilliant television. Okay, so the sets and effects, like Doctor Who, were dodgy, but the storylines and acting were top notch.

Pity they don't seem to make them like that anymore really....

I uses to be alowed to stay up late too watch this when i was a kid. waytchignt he re runs on uk gold one has to ask why ???

Ohh do you remember their weapons? Looked like a crazy straw wrapped around some hair curling tongs

Oh also their transport wristbands *giggle*

I used to love Blake's 7 I also had a mega crush on Avon & also Villa even though he was a bit of a wimp! Used to enjoy these but I haven't seen them since I saw them on telly first time around.

This was compulsory viewing when it was on, and yet I struggle to remember much about it. I remember that the villain(ess) had really short dark hair and a snooty attitude - but what was her name? Wasn't she Empress of the Galaxy or something equally unlikely?

The sets were definitely a bit dodgy, but the shows really had us hooked. I can remember being horrified at the way the second series ended - being brought up on American comic books, I assumed there would some (unbelievable) way to re-incarnate the team for a third series! Hey, it's not too late - surely we can come up with a plot device between us! Mind you, I guess the actors don't look quite the same now...

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by Alibi
I remember that the villain(ess) had really short dark hair and a snooty attitude - but what was her name? Wasn't she Empress of the Galaxy or something equally unlikely?

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Wasn't it 'Servalan' or something like that?

That sounds about right

Bless you, Red! I may sleep tonight now!

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by Alibi
The sets were definitely a bit dodgy, but the shows really had us hooked. I can remember being horrified at the way the second series ended - being brought up on American comic books, I assumed there would some (unbelievable) way to re-incarnate the team for a third series! Hey, it's not too late - surely we can come up with a plot device between us! Mind you, I guess the actors don't look quite the same now...

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The show ran to four series (seasons) - the first ended with the crew seeing a projection of the future showing their ship, the Liberator, blowing up. The second ended with aliens from Andromeda about to invade our galaxy. The third ended with the Liberator actually blowing up, stranding the crew on a hostile planet, and the fourth with all but one of the crew being gunned down, and that last one, Avon, standing surrounded by enemies. As the credits rolled on the final episode, all we hear is gunfire....

There has been talk of a revival on and off for years - for the record, the gun Avon had makes a different sound when fired than the ones his enemies carried, and the last shot you hear in the show came from HIS gun... (No, I'm not that sad that I can tell the difference, I used to have the programme guide for the show). There have been a couple of sequel novels written, but they are hard to find.

The sequel novels were dire. There was some twaddle called 'Afterlife' which I think I still have somewhere and then Paul Darrow (Avon) wrote one and that was REALLY bad.

I liked the show though, enough that (hidden behind my Buffy boxsets which I get quite enough stick for from my mates!) I've got the lot on pre-recorded!

I think some radio plays were done recently with some of the original cast... has to be on radio as most of them do NOT look the same now...

You are forgetting kally the telepathic one, then there was Tarrant who took over from Blake as head perm.

Also there was Dayna, and later Soolin who almost noone remembers.

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by Sweet-Sange
sooooo anyone else a Blake's 7 fan

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Oh yes. In fact, Blake's 7 was my first active fandom. I even co-wrote a B7 role-playing game and served as events manager at a bunch of cons!

The grimness of the setting and murky grey shades to the characters all just struck a chord. I guess it all came across as very plausible. Even Blake the idealist hero is shown to verge on obsessiveness as the prospect of destroying Star One and the Federation looms and the entire crew gets wiped out not simply because of a misunderstanding between Blake and Avon, coupled with lousy timing.

That said, I wasn't very keen on the fourth season, with Blake being one of the few good episodes in it.

I also have rather mixed feelings about the proposed film. In some ways, I'd prefer the series was left as a finished story with a tragic end.

This show was excellent. It was much darker thanj any other scifi that i can think of and the acting was almost perfect. The BBC started to show re-runs of the first series on sunday (or was it saturday?) afternoons least year. It's a shame that they stopped it again
Also, does anyone know where to find copies of the original pre-recorded vids? I've got volumes 1-9 and also vol 17.

Used to watch it regularly -Cult TV at it's best!!!

Remember the last episode - thought it was SOOOOOOOO cool, and still one of my all time faves

Doesn't anyone watch it at the weekend? 2 episodes every Saturday and Sunday morning on UKGold straight after Dr Who.

They are near the beginning of season 3 at the moment so Dayna and Tarrant have joined replacing Jenna and Blake.

(Tough choice of what to watch on a Saturday morning now Soccer AM is back.)

Well now, having just joined this forum it's interesting to see the comments on one of my two favourite shows (Dr. Who being the other one! )

Having been a fan of the show from the very start - second episode (SPACE FALL), infact, although, we watched the first one that introduced BLAKE (THE WAY BACK) - it wasn't till our cold-hearted, cynical computer genius - KERR AVON materialised that we really got hooked! (VILA being our other favourite male from the show - with CALLY favourite crew member and, SERVALAN/TRAVIS Mk I favourite villains of the show)!

Yes, there are plans for a revival called "Blake's Seven: A Rebellion Reborn" - (by B7Enterprises - which is: Andrew Mark Sewell, Simon Moorehead and Paul Darrow). AVON will be the only original character to return - although, possibly ORAC (and maybe SERVALAN too). As, they were the only characters still alive at the end of the events on Gauda Prime, in that final shoot-out between AVON & BLAKE in the episode "BLAKE"! They have a official site/forum etc: hptt//www.blakes7.com

Hard to believe that fans are still interested and still discussing that last episode - after 22 year's but, we are!

What made it special wasn't the "SFX" which were bad - (but, considering the BBC budget that the show inherited was for an axed cop series and not an SF show - and, it was the BBC in he late '70's/early '80's! They did the best with what they had). No, it was the storylines, and especially the characters and brilliant/memorable dilogue of the show and of:
"AVON, VILA, BLAKE, CALLY, JENNA, TARRANT, DAYNA, SOOLIN".

"SERVALAN, (two versions of TRAVIS)".

Plus, the ships: "LIBERATOR/SCORPIO". and the computers:
"ZEN, ORAC & SLAVE"! "CONFIRMED!"

Incidentally, AVON'S weapon was different because it was specifically needed to kill BLAKE! (Plus, AVON killed a technician called KLYN in that episode, just prior to you-know-who, which was memorable, in that, in "real life" the actress playing KLYN (Janet Lees Price) is married to PAUL DARROW!

In 1998 we had two pretty awful BBC radio plays - that had AVON,(Paul Darrow) VILA, (Michael Keating) TARRANT (Steven Pacey) & SERVALAN (Jacqueline Pearce). (With DAYNA now being played by ANGELA BRUCE and, SOOLIN being played by PAULA WILCOX)- because (DAYNA/JOSETTE SIMON) and (SOOLIN/GLYNIS BARBER)the original actresses weren't available at the time!)

The first was released on a BBC radio collection double cassette called THE SEVENFOLD CROWN and, the second was released on a BBC radio collection CD called THE SYNDETON EXPERIMENT! (Both pretty bad - a fan one called THE LOGIC OF EMPIRE was much better (with Paul (AVON), Jacqueline (SERVALAN) and Gareth (BLAKE) in it!

(Edited by Kerr Avon 11/09/2003 14:51)

Heh. My first episode was Trial, shown the second week I first arrived in the UK! I'd seen a newspaper summary for the previous episode which had intrigued me "Blake attempts to crash his cardboard spaceship into Federation HQ" (!) but was so jetlagged I missed it.

Anyway, Trial: Boy that threw me. Even then I'd watched enough TV to be confused: a major character died last episode and they're actually referring to it?!? Travis' defence speech about duty, training, responsibility and war crimes was also pretty heady stuff for that time of the evening.

Certainly enough to get me hooked. By the next week I thought I'd figued it out - it was clearly one of these quest series where the characters would never actually complete it. So, imagine my surprise when they actually found Star One!

After all these years, B7 still occupies a major place in my heart. Yep, the SFX were always dodgy, even when first broadcast but for me, the key thing was the characterisation and storylines which were superb. Well, until season 4 anyway...

Now, if the BBC could just trouble themselves to actually get round to releasing those dmaned DVDs...

True the SFX were always a little below even those on Dr. Who - but the stories and characters are, what made most fans get addicted and, continue to watch - even the 4th season had it's good episodes - most in the second half, as it was rushed because initially the show wans't going to have a 4th season!

From "HEADHUNTER" to that final shoot-out in "BLAKE" it had some good episodes, "ASSASSIN/GAMES" and especially, in - "ORBIT"! "AVON" trying to get rid of "VILA" is, creepy yet sad, because AVON shows that even VILA's life is not worth his own Survival! The remaining weight to save the shuttle from crashing, is 70 Kilos! When "AVON" asks or, is merely thinking out loud and,therefore, not specifically asking "ORAC". It is "ORAC" who tells "AVON" - that "VILA' weighs 73 kilos!" (Therefore, even "ORAC" has a self-preservation instinct of his own!)

Still, luckily for VILA - AVON found out the trouble and didn't throw him out of the shuttle airlock! (As Mike said - if he had he'd have AVON/PAUL would've probably lost a lot of fans as a result!

(By, the way the official B7E/B7.com Forum has been closed rather suddenly without them even bothering to tell those folks who were registered on the Forum, that they'd shut it down, in favour of an online-chat set-up
Doesn't exactly endear them to the Fans, being underhanded like that, or exactly make us wonder what other "nasty surprises" that "B7E" may have in store with the planned new "B7" revival, does it???)









































































































































































































































































(Edited by Kerr Avon 01/10/2003 13:41)