Blake and his band of would-be dictatorship-toppling cohorts returned to the BBC's airwaves in January 1979 as a bona fide hit. This meant that they could finally throw off their low-budget shackles a bit - though a lot of the money seems to have gone to June Hudson's extravagant costume design, dressing many of the cast in head-to-toe leather - and for the first time, writers other than series creator Terry Nation had a chance to guide the Liberator crew's adventures.

And in rewatching the second season of Blake's 7, one can see this was both a blessing and a curse. Toward the end of the first season, there were hints that this pre-Straczynskian effort to write the entire show by himself was starting to have a drain on Nation; the second season benefitted greatly from the addition of some writing talent such as Robert Holmes and script editor Chris Boucher (who more recently has fessed up that he had done quite a bit of polishing on Nation's material in season one). But there are installments that don't quite stand up - there are more abrupt changes in tone and overall plot direction in this season than in any other.

The DVD set presents all 13 episodes across five discs, with some lively commentary on three of them. Boucher, cast member Jan "Cally" Chappell and producer David Maloney talk us through Shadow, and those three are joined by Brian "Travis" Croucher for Trial. And on the all-time fan favorite episode Gambit, Croucher and Maloney are joined by Michael "Vila" Keating and Jacqueline "Servalan" Pearce. Last time around, I complained a bit that most of Jackie Pearce's commentary consisted of her repeating the word "Darling!" in a shocked tone, but here she actually dishes a bit of dirt, including the fact that, as much as every male fan of the show liked her slinky red dress in that show, she wasn't a big fan of it.

Speaking of dirt in commentaries - and since I already invoked the name of Babylon 5 creator (and self-confessed Blake's 7 fan) J. Michael Straczysnki, I have to say that something in the Trial commentary bugs the heck out of me. In a rather colorful discussion about the show's ever-changing retinue of guest directors, at one point Jan Chappell brings up the notion that some of the directors had less than flattering attitudes toward the female cast members, and seems ready to pursue that line of discussion fully - and then the conversation abruptly ends and there's quite a long silence. Maybe it's just unfortunate timing, but one gets a whiff of the kind of editing that plagued the soon-to-be-scarce commentary for Straczynski's series Crusade. There's been nothing on the 'net to confirm or deny this either way, but it certainly seems suspicious. Did she name names, something which might have set someone's legal alarm bells ringing? Did someone in the editing room decide the comments just weren't relevant to the episode at hand? Or did she actually clam up after that?

The extras this time around are an interesting mix of recent and vintage clips; Gareth "Blake" Thomas and Jacqueline Pearce make a 1979 appearance on the BBC's Multi-Coloured Swap Shop show, and then reappear, circa 1994 or so, for a lunchtime talk show. (Both, by the way, are quite entertaining in their own right, including the latter-day clip's acknowledgement by Thomas that the Liberator guns were, perhaps, just a little bit phallic.) Mat Irvine also gets the then-and-now treatment, with a vintage appearance from a children's show called Small World, and a more recent interview - likely conducted by Kevin Davies for the still-absent Making Of Blake's 7 featurette (which remains verboten thanks to the show's new rights-holders, who still have yet to announce any progress on the revival front) - discussing the rationale behind many of the show's models (and the fate of a few of them as well).

There are a few jokey additions to the features too, with "The Ballad Of Travis II" leading the charge, setting scenes of Brian Croucher's Travis against a western song. The Series 3 preview trailer isn't quite as exciting as the Series 2 trailer featured on the first season; it focuses on the space opera elements of the show rather than any particular plot elements (though the third season really was devoid of an overarching story for the most part). There's a widescreen version of the trailer which hams it up even more, turning the whole exercise into an overblown mock-1950s movie preview. Elsewhere in the set, there are some easter eggs salvaged from Davies' interview footage.

Despite the variable quality of the episodes themselves, and a mixed bag of features, I can't say that I'm less than delighted to have another season of Blake's 7 on DVD, this set bringing us to the show's halfway point. Of all of my well-worn tapes of the series, recorded from its run on Oklahoma's PBS station circa 1987-88, the second season fared the worst, so it's nice to have crisp, clean digital copies with detail that I've never seen before. Here's hoping that the mooted June 2005 release date for the third season isn't yet another case of the BBC jumping the gun in announcing a release date for my reigning favorite SF series.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief