Blake’s 7 “Rescue”

Wait…did the title of this show not have an apostrophe and I only just now noticed?  Cripes…

Then again, Blake never had seven people working with him at any point.

This was the season the series’s creator hadn’t planned on, so what happens now?  For one thing, the survivors need to get off the artificial world of Terminal.  Servalan’s ship was booby-trapped, and Cally dies off-screen when the base they were in explodes as well.  She gets a couple telepathic cries out, and Avon confirms he checked.  Since he may or may not have a thing for her, it means more.  That leaves him, Vila, Tarrant, Dayna, and a damaged Orac.

A word on Cally:  she was not as well-used as a character as she should have been.  The writers only sporadically remembered she was telepathic, but for someone who was a sole survivor of a rebel group, she sure did spend a lot of time sitting behind a control panel.  Sometimes she was treated as the group’s medic.  I don’t rightfully blame Jan Chappell for being a little frustrated given the promise the character held and how little came from said promise.

That said, with Zen gone, that doesn’t mean actor Peter Tuddenham is gone.  Sure, he was the voice of Zen, but he’s also the voice of Orac and new computer, a sniveling program named…Slave.

But that’s for later.  Point is, Cally never went as far as the show suggested she could, and now she’s dead.

But the others still need to get off-world.  Good thing a salvage ship conveniently showed up with a single crewman named Dorian.  His ship, the Scorpio, is run  by Slave, and Slave does what he’s told.  However, this guy is awfully convenient, so Avon and the others tie him up and take his ship to his home where the only other occupant seems to be his girlfriend Soolin.

Soolin conveniently had enough wine glasses out for everybody…even Cally.

This guy might not be on the level.

Especially since he seems to know how to fix Orac, claiming he knew the old man who invented the fussy artificial brain despite the fact he doesn’t look old enough to do as he claimed.  His ship has an incomplete teleportation system and may be faster than the Liberator, but Orac can’t be bothered to fix the teleporter.

Avon, being the smart one, figures they need to get out of there.  Vila is told to unlock the security door to steal the ship.  He doesn’t really want to.  Dayna and Tarrant go exploring with the weapons they found.  They find a hidden basement.

Oh, and there’s a monster down there.

And the weapons don’t work because Dorian slipped out all the good clips for dummies…even in Soolin’s weapon.  See, he doesn’t age.  He has a monster in the basement he needs to switch out every so often with some other poor sucker to take on all the darkness and such he does and…wait, his name is Dorian?

And he doesn’t age?

I’d say this is too neat except it’s obviously done on purpose.

So, with Dayna and Tarramt already cornered by the monster and Avon and Soolin captured by Dorian, who figures the gestalt of a tight group will last longer than his usual individual victims, it would seem he’s home free.  You know, except Vila overheard the whole thing while drinking the wine in another room, got a good rifle, and they managed to kill the monster with it, causing that doofus Dorian to disintegrate into dust.  Try saying that five times fast.  The monster reverts to a human and dies too.  Poor guy.

So, that’s one episode based on the work of Oscar Wilde.  I am sure that next time, we’ll see why it is so darn important to be earnest.