Category: Blake’s 7

At Star One, the Liberator alone stands guard at the recently-breached energy barrier protecting the Milky Way galaxy from an onslaught of aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy. With only one gap in the barrier, the Liberator is able to hold most of the invasion fleet at bay, long enough for a fleet of armed civilian ships from the outlying Federation colonies closest to Star One to arrive and take up the fight. The fight hasn’t been without cost, however; the Liberator urgently needs to withdraw to allow Zen’s auto-repair systems to bring the ship back up to strength. Blake finds it difficult to stay in the Liberator’s medical unit, but Cally has other concerns – namely, whether Blake would have risked widespread civilian casualties just to destroy Star One and bring down the Federation. But before she can spend more time trying to find the limits of Blake’s conscience, Cally is needed on the flight deck; Avon is leading the charge against the invasion, and needs all available hands at their stations.

As the Liberator moves to the rear of the action, away from Star One, a large object unexpectedly passes through space nearby. Orac and Zen identify it as a planet in an irregular orbit around Star One’s sun – a planet with a much older Federation installation than Star One itself. Curious about the planet, but unwilling to spare anyone from the Flight Deck, Avon convinces Blake to teleport down and investigate. Concerned for Blake’s safety, and still troubled by his recent behavior, Cally goes with Blake. The planet turns out to be dangerously cold and icy, with an underground facility whose personnel are kept in a state of deep sleep, awaiting reactivation if necessary. They discover that if the planet’s orbit intersects with Star One’s, and the installation’s sensors detect that the barrier is down, a massive plasma bomb will detonate, destroying a huge area of space and everything in it, including any invading force…and any other ship around. Blake tries to summon help from the Federation, but only gets a response from Servalan, who is rapidly approaching the front (not to lead her troops, but to put in a photo op as the new, self-appointed President of the Federation, following her deposing the existing President on Earth). Servalan refuses to do anything to defuse the bomb, but just plans to claim credit for whatever damage it inflicts on the growing alien fleet.

As Blake and Cally explore the surface, Avon and the others on the Liberator deal with alien mines that attach themselves to the Liberator’s hull and begin causing extensive damage to the ship’s systems. Once Blake and Cally are back aboard, it becomes apparent that the planet’s orbit will bring it close to Star One shortly, setting off the Federation’s nearly-forgotten doomsday weapon. Servalan thinks she can outrun it – but it turns out that even the Liberator can’t do that.

written by Peter Anghelides
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac)

Notes: This audio story, the first full-cast Blake’s 7 audio drama produced by Big Finish, fills the gap between Star One (1979) and Aftermath (1980).

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Following a close call from Travis’ battalion of pursuit ships, the Liberator is forced to take shelter in an area called the Derelict Zone while auto-repair systems patch up the engines. The Derelict Zone is aptly named, densely packed with the hulks of dead ships. But even after the engines are repaired, the Liberator remains unable to move, and Blake and his crew disperse to different parts of the ship to track down the cause. But in the course of communicating with one another in different parts of the ship, each learns that one of their shipmates can’t be trusted – one of them has seized control of Zen and the Liberator and is trying to kill everyone else.

The problem is that each one of them thinks a different person is the traitor. The result is the entire crew, standing on the flight deck, training their weapons on one another. Who is really sabotaging the Liberator?

written by Justin Richards
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Brian Croucher (Travis), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac), Bethan Walker (Mutoid)

Notes: Fractures and the stories that follow it take place shortly after the TV episode A Voice From The Past and prior to Gambit; Blake and his crew know of the existence of Star One, but not its location, and the incident with “Shiban”‘s mind control is mentioned as being not only recent, but still a source of concern.

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Having become aware of a Federation equivalent to Orac – which may even be able to detect where the Liberator is by detecting Orac – the crew is racing to find the mind behind its development, a Federation officer named Mikhailov. Orac has narrowed down a list of possible leads, all of whom have proven not to be the person Blake and his crew are seeking. Only one possibility remains, on the planet Straxis, a world known informally to the Federation as Battleground 9. The planet is heavily defended, and when Blake and Avon teleport down, they find a war in progress between the Federation and forces led by a deposed Federation governor. He was removed from office and sent to Battleground 9 to serve as cannon fodder for training exercises, but he has instead organized a functional resistance movement that has become a thorn in the Federation’s side. Blake and Avon meet up with this rebel group, but are separated in the fierce shelling; Avon is captured by the Federation and interrogated by the officer grading the current training exercise – none other than Mikhailov herself, who finds herself answering as many questions as she is asking.

written by Andrew Smith
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Timothy Bentinck (Abel Garmon), Abigail Hollick (Alexa Mikhailov), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac), Dan Starkey (Voss Ferrell)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Crippled above the planet Straxis, the Liberator all but shuts down to effect automatic repairs. When Federation pursuit ships appear to finish the job, Orac links up to Zen and assumes control of the Liberator, directing the ship to dive into the atmosphere of Straxis and crash into the ocean, opening select external doors and flooding parts of the ship to submerge it in the sea, out of sight. Blake, Vila and Cally teleport to land, where they find another resistance cell suffering heavy losses as a result of Blake and Avon’s interference in the insurrection on the other side of the planet. This cell’s leader is more fanatical than methodical, but he has good reason to be paranoid: robotic Federation drones, small as insects, infect their targets with a neurotoxin that, in nearly every case, causes a very unpleasant death – and Vila is the latest to be stung. Underwater, Avon and Jenna have to deal with more Federation drones, crab-like salvage robots scouting out the Liberator. Worse yet, Orac has yet to surrender its control over Zen and the Liberator…and is working to its own agenda, which it won’t divulge even to Avon.

written by Marc Platt
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac), Sara Powell (Dr. Cara Petrus), Tim Treloar (Bru Renderson)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

There is dissent aboard the Liberator about the crew’s next course of action. Jenna wants to hunt down Space Major Kade and take revenge, but Blake sends Cally to trail Kade instead, over Jenna’s protest. Cally finds that Travis has beaten her to it: he’s using Kade as bait to draw Jenna and the rest of the Liberator crew into a trap. Blake, Avon and Vila teleport to a cargo ship that may contain a clue to the whereabouts of Fedorac, the Federation’s analogue of Orac, only to discover that the ship seems to contain Fedorac itself – and other dangers. Acting on her own desire for revenge, Jenna leaves Blake and the others stranded and takes the Liberator back to the planet to find Kade, but Orac, preoccupied with discovering more about Fedorac, then leaves Jenna and Cally stranded on a primitive planet with Travis and a hostile local population. Is anyone, or anything, among the Liberator crew acting out of anything except self-interest?

written by Peter Anghelides
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Brian Croucher (Travis), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac), Bethan Walker (Locklan), Hugh Fraser (President)

Notes: The planet Vere is a nod to classic Blake’s 7 TV director (and, in series four, producer) Vere Lorrimer (1920-1998).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Accidentally left behind by the Liberator crew after narrowly escaping the trap laid for them using Fedorac as a lure, Vila is now Travis’ prisoner. Though he proves surprisingly resilient to Travis’ methods of persuading him to talk, and despite one escape attempt during which he’s able to send a distress signal, even Vila has limits to his endurance.

Zen detects Vila’s distress signal and traces its point of origin to an underground Federation facilitiy on an inhospitable ice planet, but en route, it is also discovered that the President of the Federation may be there as well, making an unannounced visit to that same top-secret facility. Blake becomes obsessed with what he perceives as an opportunity to behead the Federation’s power structure, and to the alarm of Jenna and the rest of his crew, seems to regard rescuing Vila as a minor mission objective.

Which is exactly what the President and Travis are counting on.

written by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Brian Croucher (Travis), Hugh Fraser (President), Anthony Howell (Gustav Nyrron), Caroline Langrishe (Dr. Tirus), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac)

Notes: Travis reminds Vila of the events on the planet Exbar, from the television episode Hostage, a surprising callback since Hostage is, perhaps, not the best-regarded episode of the TV series. The President says that the Federation’s (frequently unsuccessful) cloning experiments are taking place without the knowledge or help of the Clone Masters (seen only once in Weapon). Gustav Nyrron was introduced in the Liberator Chronicles audiobook Wolf, while the scientist overseeing the cloning experiments is from Auron (Children Of Auron), where such technology is in frequent use, though one gets the impression she has knowledge of only part of that process.

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Travis’ trap has been successfully sprung: with Vila’s betrayal, Travis has control of the Liberator and its crew, Blake is critically injured, and all of the above are being delivered to the President of the Federation. The President awaits his prize at a space station in orbit of Saturn’s moon Titan, a station which appears to have been custom-built to dismantle and study the Liberator. When Avon says he has no idea where Orac’s key is, Travis tortures him. Vila continues to obey Travis’ every whim, and his former crewmates would be happy to see him dead as a result.

The President of the Federation invites Blake to an extravagant dinner, promising to give Blake time to expound his viewpoint on the Federation’s stance on freedom, all while robotic drones begin slicing into the Liberator’s hull through the windows. Is this the last supper of the resistance?

written by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Blake), Paul Darrow (Avon), Michael Keating (Vila), Jan Chappell (Cally), Sally Knyvette (Jenna), Brian Croucher (Travis), Hugh Fraser (President), Alistair Lock (Zen/Orac)

Notes: Thanks to Orac’s brief direct connection to the Federation computer network (and Avon’s quick thinking), a further clue about Star One is uncovered, leading the crew to Docholli in the TV episode Gambit, which takes place not long after this audio story.

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green