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Blakes Seven To Return
Clownfush writes "Blake's 7, magnificent UK low budget high drama Sci-Fi from the early 80's is to return, as a former star acquires rights to the show. "
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According to the FAQ, essentially they have no money (yet), no script (yet), no cast (yet) and no broadcasting rights (yet).
Trading on the nostalgia zeitgeist? The plan sounds as shaky as one of their sets!
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One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I was young and impressionable when Blake 7 first came out, I really liked it at the time, but why bother trying to revive it now.
Anyone under 25 or most Americans will have no idea what it is. I can't remember much about it myself. So it is just playing on the sentimentality of a few.
Considering the state of SF in general nowadays it would be nice to get something new rather than rehashes of old ideas, we have plenty of them already. As far as I can see this is just £7M down the pan.
Avon (the character played by Paul Darrow) was a huge influence on me, altho' I was too young to realize it at the time. He was a dark and complex character, a technology expert who could clearly and rationally see that he could make the most money and wield the most power by betraying his comrades... but he could never quite bring himself to do it. He'd always set off with the intent of doing so, then change his mind at the last minute and use his superior intellect to save the day, then hate himself for it afterwards. He got most of the best lines too. Oh, and he may or may not have been shagging Blake's arch-enemy, the head of the secret police. Certainly they were both up for it, and even avoided killing each other for that purpose while remaining nominal enemies otherwise.
There simply aren't characters with this kind of depth in modern scifi, even in relatively intelligent shows like B5. I can't wait to see the new episodes.
This programme was so cool! Not for the fact that it was a top notch sci-fi soap but that it had great characterisation. The first anti-hero in Avon. The D&D rogue character in Villa. Now obviously, its almost certain that the new show will be a pile of steaming... but let me just wallow in dreams that it will be good... P.S. Not nostalgia, got all the vids!!
the rights were not purchased by that perspex box with the flashing lights or they may have trouble getting the project off the ground
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
When the show ended there were arguments over whether or not Avon actually dies in the final scene. He is surrounded by guards, it cuts to black and there is a lot of gunfire....
:)
Presumably he is gunned down like the rest of his crew BUT he could have survived... Somehow? Surely? Maybe?
According to the article the actor that played Avon (Paul Darrow) will be the only actor to return. Set 25 years after the last series hopefully the question of Avon's survival will be answered.
Apologises to anyone that didn't no what happened to Avon at the end and has been slowly working their way through the series
Sigh of relief when I saw that it was Paul Darrow. To be honest, I'm not really a fan of Blake's 7, but I worked with Paul on the CGI voiceover that he did for Deathtrap Dungeon and I was impressed with his professionalism and enthusiasm. He seems genuinely to care about the projects he works on, and I'm content that this will be a labour of love rather than a cash-in. Huzzah.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Don't give them too big a budget, otherwise it'll turn out like Red Dwarf series 7...
Humour, good characters and a neat set of sub-plots is all it take to make a good, fun Sci -Fi romp. CGI special effects and shiny costumes? Naaah!
Its be like remaking Space 1999
:-)
Frankly, given the situation on Moonbase Alpha in the original, the chances of them doing a Next Generation are looking pretty slim!
-MT.
They've set up an official web site for the revival here.
Unfortunately it uses Flash but there's more information about the plans and there's a cool new Blake's 7 logo.
John.
C'mon, surely you realise that Blakes 7 is just the legend of Arthur (and the classic medieval character cast) relocated to the future? I mean they "stumble" on The Liberator (Excalibur) and it is only Blakes "purity" that enables him to defend against Zens defences (ie pull the sword from the stone). The other characters start with the basics, the giant, the maiden (originally Dayna), the rougue the anti-hero and then the wicked witch )Servelan.
Having said that, love the show, and the best settings are always ripe for a revisit. IMHO, the Liberator must be involved for it to succeed.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
If you consider Canadian SF - The cube didn't have a big budget.
Blakes 7 with good sfx would seem wrong somehow. If were willing to suspend disbeleif enough for FTL travel we may as well suspend disbelief that a red platic esky is a high tech tool kit. The strength of the show was in the characters (well those that were at least 2D), and since it worked well as a radio play recently, lots of expensive visual effects are not required.
I think it stands as one of the few self-consistant SF TV programmes ever made. I also liked the digs at the Trek utopian federation - the trek symbol at 90 degrees and the federation as a police state.
According to the FAQ, essentially they have no money (yet), no script (yet), no cast (yet) and no broadcasting rights (yet).
Trading on the nostalgia zeitgeist? The plan sounds as shaky as one of their sets!
No money?
Well, I can think of a few fans who'd like to see a new series based in the Blake's Seven universe. And if there are fans willing to see it then there will be production companies and broadcasters willing to back it. %5-6 million for a TV show, especially one that already has a cult following, is peanuts - do you have any idea how much the rubbish that fills the channels right now even costs?
If nothing else, it has a particular resonance right now, thanks to the Orwellian Federation, etc. Just like Star Trek's morality matched the 60's, the new Blakes Seven series is tailor-made for the times that we live in.
No script?
Well, jeez, that's the end of the world. How will they ever make anything?
But wait, here's some news just in: apparently, there are these things called scriptwriters. Throw them some cash and give them some time and they'll write a script for you! What a stroke of luck!
No cast?
OMG, another disaster! How will they cope?
Huh, what's that? There's an original cast member involved already? And there are these guys and gals out there - we'll call them actors - constantly looking for new work? And even people - let's call them casting agents - who'll pick the right actors for your production! Genius!
No broadcasting rights?
Well, perhaps you should RTFA. What bit of "Paul Darrow, who played the ruthless anti-hero Avon, is in a consortium that has acquired the rights to the show", didn't you get?
Seriously, money, a script and a cast can be found. But the first step was always going to be getting the rights. If you have the rights you can find the money, a script and a cast. But if you have money, a script and a cast but no rights then you're screwed. It really is that simple.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The trouble is, most remakes are a letdown.
Even if the films/shows are good in their own right people remember the original serties' with great fondness and nothing can live up to that memory.
Take Randall and Hopkirk Deceased for example. The original show was fab, and the remakes with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer were rahter less than fab.. However, I knew people who had never seen the original and actually liked the recent series.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
This was simply the coolest show: not the decor or effects, which were brutally minimalistic, but the characterisation and writing, which was so good that it felt real, every time.
The day that the series was killed was so traumatic that I almost kicked off TV: the show's producers simply, and without warning, arranged for the entire cast to be killed in one gruesome and bloody ambush.
After years of arranging narrow escapes for our favourite characters, this was just incredibly insensitive.
Glad to see the show will be back.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Series one is supposed to be released on DVD in a couple of months in the UK: don't know if it's available anywhere else already.
When you think about it, or at least when I do - most future spaceships must be almost completely controlled by computer - not with some gits standing on a bridge for effect like they do in the thoroughly rung out Star Trek. At most a human would be suggesting the general strategy of any sort of engagement, and then wiping their brow 14 nanoseconds later when it was all over. Generally this is what happened on the original series of Blake7, with the occasional 'manual control' for dramatisation. They let the computer get on with driving the hardware, and they got on with the scheming on how to overthrow the corrupt Federation and each other.
I really hope they spend most of the money on good script writers who give the characters the depth that they had in the original series, and just enough on the sets/cgi to get by.
Hey, and model the new ship on the old one, I thought it was cool!
Two alternative explanations: ...Gunshots...Servalan/Sleer saunters in...
"How could you all miss?"
(resumes bicycle tour)
or
Soldiers gather in circle around Avon, aim laser rifles, Avon ducks, soldiers in circle all shoot each other...
(resumes bicycle tour)
From
this page - so good it had to be posted.
* Trust is only dangerous when you have to rely on it.
* Reality is a dangerous concept.
* There is no logical reason why aliens should be hairy.
* I am not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going.
* No good deed goes unpunished.
* It is frequently easier to be honest when you have nothing to lose.
* Civilization has always depended on courtesy rather than truth.
* On Earth it is considered ill-mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide.
* The art of leadership is delegation.
* All that patience gets you is older.
* Show me someone who believes in something, and I will show you a fool.
* Regret is part of being alive -- but keep it a small part.
* He who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.
* Infallibility depends on your point of view.
* There are times when even the most cynical must trust in luck.
* Heroics seldom run to schedule.
* Dignity, at all costs, dignity.
* The choice is very simple -- either you can fight, or you can die.
* In the end, winning is the only safety.
* Power usually makes its own rules.
* Some days are better than others, Section Leader.
* It is not necessary to become irrational in order to prove that one cares; indeed, it is not necessary to prove it at all.
* While there's life, there's threat.
* Luck has nothing to do with it.
* Strategic withdrawl is running away, but with dignity.
* Idealism is a wonderful thing; all you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use.
* Nobody is indispensible.
* Everyone's entitled to one really bad mistake.
* In the end, your word is all there is, really.
* There are other rules, but you'll find out what those are when you break them.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
B7 challenged TV viewers by constantly focusing on the dark themes surrounding unbeatable opression. And in the end they had the guts to finish it on a minor chord which solidified its distopian vision. With that ending it became a noir classic, and I don't want to see that screwed up by adding a "Phantom Menace" years later
SINARS is not a recursive sig
And Red Dwarf actually started to suck (as in "chest wound") the more budget it got. With no budget, you have to rely on obsolete FX like "plot", "dialogue" and "acting".
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Surely they just needed 1/8th of a cube and a couple of mirrors?
Did Zen run lunix? That might be why nobody could understand how he worked, and why the (clearly Microsoft using) Federation was so keen to track him down. ORAC was prissy, self opinionated and not half as smart as he thought he was. Clearly a Mac.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Richard E. Grant as Doctor Who shouldn't be wasted on animated web cartoons. This should be on the big screen as Withnail in fucking space! It's ideal - Withnail was already dressed up suitably as the doctor. It would certainly liven things up if the Doctor turns up drunk in Skaro demanding the finest wines known to humanity^W Dalek-kind. Another episode could have the doctor and assistant searching for 'matter' in the Tardis kitchen sink. Of course plastic bags wrapped around the feet would provide suiable protection from harsh alien environments.
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Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
I don't see it as the Arthurian theme. If anything, it was more of the Robin Hood theme.
The problem with either of those comparisions is that Blake is not in a lot of the episodes.
I guess you could make a "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" comparision. But that has problems because there isn't an original story for the characters to be from. Just a theme.
I liked it because it was different. In Star Trek, the crew is always right and good and more enlightened than everyone else in the universe.
In Blake's 7.....
AVON: Only seventy kilos... Vila, strip off the insulation material in the cargo hold. [Vila turns.] Vila! [Avon takes some small object from a panel and hands it to him.]
VILA: But that's plastic. It weighs nothing.
AVON: Get rid of it anyway.
VILA: A kilo and a half if we're lucky.
AVON: Do it! We've got five minutes. [Vila turns and heads out.] Not enough! Not nearly enough! Dammit, what weighs seventy kilos?
[The door can be heard opening.]
ORAC: Vila weighs seventy-three kilos, Avon.
[The door closes.]
[ Avon fetches his gun and gets a determined look on his face]
AVON: [Whispering] Vila!... Vila?
I was actually thinking of Blakes 7 when i saw Farscape - don't know why really, its not that they have that much obviously in common - apart from a group of people on the run from the police state.
Blakes 7 was also unusual in that our heros were usually dealing from a position of strengh. Usually writers hate to make their people to strong because then they can't write their way out of it later (bad writers perhaps?) - but the ship "The Liberator" was the fastest ship in known space (only its sister ship was as fast, and it was only see twice and quickly met an untimely end), the ship has regenerative properties and could restore itself even after the most heavy of attacks. It had teleportation ability over wast distances, something that the federation had never been able to work out. The (almost) sentient computer Zen had wast amounts of knowledge about most things they ran into, and the ship was well stocked with copious amounts of food, clothes and valuables (in the form of gems, precious medals, and currency) - and at the end of season one they manage to aquired "Orac" before the federation does. A supercomputer of a special kind, its dying inventor originally invented the chip and computer principles that all computers in exsistance are based on - because of this the sentient Orac is able to tap into any computer system at all and control it.
But that didn't really stifle the creativity - perhaps because there was always a certain amount of internal strife.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating