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Have a look at the Blakes 7 fan club
here
- Paul Darrow (Avon) has detached himself from the B7 revival

This really is fantastic news, B7 was far far superior IMHO to Star Trek. In B7 the Federation are the baddies - an evil authoritarian fascist state ruled by a corrupt oligarchy, full of Borgia-esque backstabbing and politicing. The troopers are often sympathetic characters sketched in some depth (as opposed to disposable extras whose only role is saying "Arghhh!!!" and falling off something clutching their stomachs after getting shot. The crew are all highly imperfect; a lot of the drama comes from the dramatic tension between the imperfect rebels; Avon (untrustworhty, devious, very clever, arrogant as fsck) Blake the wannabe hero, cowardly drunk Vila, the moody Cally (ah! how I fancied Cally at the age of 10... me that is, not her), the stupid but amiable Gan, and so on. No shortage of 'dark'ness. The last episode features the entire crew but Avon dying in a brief shootout - much more realistic than 'small group of mercenaries overcomes entire galactic government'.

And samples of Zen saying 'Confirmed' and Orac's "state your program requirements... they will be implemented when capacity is available" make great Windows sound effects. If you're a sad fanboy like me that is ;) (yes folks that's where my login iD comes from) Horizon has much more info.

There have been some quite strong rumours about a coming Blake's 7 movie. (google rocks :)

//rdj

Somebody else has already brought up the other shows I was going to talk about (Andromeda, Dr. Who, Red Dwarf)... but where's Blake's 7?

Unfortunately it wasn't particuarly popular, but it did run for 4 seasons on the BBC. I think that the character development was quite good, especially in the first half of the show. The characters were usually out for themselves first and for the group sort-of when it was convienent. Plus no ridiculous pseudo-philosophical problems.

The overall story line was very believable too -- a group of unlikely outlaws rebelling against an tyrannical Federation -- and not any of the silly utopian nonsense you get with ST: The Marxist Generation. And major characters would often die, making it more realistic.

Of course the series did have its downfalls. Towards the end it seemed they ran out of stories and the episodes got pretty silly. Plus they suffered from the typical BBC attention to special effects. On most occaisons you couldn't see the strings on their models..

I don't know about a new TV episode; AFAIK the movie is about curently in pre?) production, starring Paul Darrow as Avon... set five years PGP (p[ost Gauda Prime.) Dr WHo I can take or leave (although I gre up withit); it's B7 that I've obsessively collected on video. 25 tapes at $25 a pop... worth every penny. I'm a fan, does it show? ;) (google for my username for further evidence...) Some random B7 resources from my bookmarks:

http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html
http://www.horizon.org.uk/
http://lcw.simplenet.com/b7lib.html

For the benefit of anyone unfortunate enough to miss out on on B7, it absolutely rocks, being a cheesy low-budget BBC take on Star Trek - except the Federation are an evil repressive authoritarian state and the good guys are outlaws on the run - and they all argue/distrust/betray each other. A refreshingly cynical worldview...
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"

Blake's 7 was always much better than Star Trek, because

• Permanent state of tension between the crew
• The Federation (the galactic government) are the baddies. The main characters are outlaw freedom fighter types, and
• The coolest computers /ever/ in TV or movie SF.

  And finally, 20 years on, they're going to film it :)