Liberation

Blake's 7 (sometimes styled Blakes 7) is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC. Four 13-episode series were broadcast on BBC1 between 1978 and 1981. It was created by Terry Nation, who also created the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. The script editor was Chris Boucher. The main character, at least initially, was Roj Blake, played by Gareth Thomas. The series was inspired by various fictional media, including Robin Hood, Star Trek, Passage to Marseille, The Dirty Dozen, Brave New World and classic Western stories, as well as real-world political conflicts in South America and Israel.

Blake's 7 was popular from its first broadcast, watched by approximately 10 million in the UK and shown in 25 other countries. Although many tropes of space opera are present, such as spaceships, robots, galactic empires and aliens, its budget was inadequate for its interstellar theme. Critical responses have been varied; some reviewers praised the series for its dystopian themes, strong characterisation, ambiguous morality and pessimistic tone, as well as displaying an “enormous sense of fun”, but others have criticised its production values, dialogue and perceived lack of originality, with broadcaster and critic Clive James describing it as “classically awful”.

In this book, each of the show's four seasons is given a short behind-the-scenes overview. We get production and cast listings, a brief summary and a fairly thorough analysis. The main selling point of the book is the authors' own analysis of the episodes. Stevens and Moore have scripted some of the commercially available spin-offs themselves, and they certainly know their subject. Any reader who's ever puzzled over an uncharacteristically charitable act from Avon, or wondered why the show had to end in a massacre, will find the answers here. Stevens and Moore's thoughtful dissection of plot and character is probably the most scholarly examination of Blake's 7 I've read. It's an intelligent, well written critical analysis, packed with details about production problems, script alterations, and acute observations of characters and sub-texts.

Recommended for fans.