I really liked this pilot. Many may not go for the cheesy '70s, but I think the core of good science fiction is the story, ••••••.

So why is this series called Blakes 7 instead of Blake's 7?

Only 3 members of the 7 appear in this episode.

Does anyone really buy the Federation's reason for not killing Blake?

Why is the series called Blakes 7? Cos the BBC couldn't spell, praps?? ;)

Further, who were the seven? Even if the Liberator counted as one, it still only made six, methinks, cos it seems daft to me if Blake himself counts as one of Blake's crew. Once Orac arrived, it made a little more sense, but that wasn't until the end of the first series.

Nevertheless, this was one of the greatest sci-fi series ever - I liked it even better than Dr Who and that was saying something! I wonder why the BBC never repeated the series despite its popularity? (and this was long before video releases and repeats on satellite channels)

Callie, if you look at the story synopsis for 'Time Squad' I've given a list of the Seven.

Callie: (Hmmm, that name sounds familar here;-) I think the creator counted Blake as one of Blakes 7. I don't think Blake ever used the term.

I think Liberator/Zen was considered one of the 7.

I thought Blakes 7 was Doctor Who's competition, therefore not a BBC property?

If the federation kill Blake, then he becomes a martyr, no matter what charges, real or false, the federation have against him. However, imprison and exile him, with that charge against him, and anyone who's thinking of following Blake's banner will be put off.

Blakes7 was Doctor Who's competition? I believe Terry Nation (Blakes 7's creator) wrote some DW episodes at about the same time. Certainly, a lot of the effects on both series were doone by the same people (might even be some props and locations that appear in both series).

As for repeats, unfortnatly, sci-fi in Britain went through a large recession in the early 80's, and didn't really pick up until the early 90's with the runs of series like Star Trek:TNG and The X Files. An example of how bad it got is that there was a whole season of Doctor Who that never got produced, but is still considered cannon material. (Would have been the year before Trial Of A TimeLord). Even now, there's very little home produced SF here, the only standout being Bugs. The BBC won't run repeats of B7 (or for that matter a lot of other series), because it would badly affect video sales.

Keith - and my middle name's Jenna! True! D'you think I could claim copyright from the creators? ;)

And I still think it's silly for Blake to be one of Blake's 7!

Callie: If you remove the letters l, v & a from your last name it would be SuLin. Ooooh weee ooooh! You're not seeing a man named Blake Avon, are you?

In the book Doctor Who 25 Glorious years by Peter Haining there was a comment about Blakes 7 being Dr. Who's strongest competition and I interpreted that to mean they were on competing networks at the same time.

Cor, wouldn't mind seeing a man called KER Avon! I had a major crush on him!

Chris: I still don't buy the reason. It's the sort of reason conspiracy nuts come up with when logic fails.
The Federation had no problem killing all the other rebels, but there must have been some people who knew who they were. Even if Blake were the most famous, how many people would know what he looked like. Hire an actor to play Blake, and/or use computers to produce his likeness for broadcast. The Federation had no problem faking messages from Blake's brother, and I believe the Federation was also drugging the city's food or water so people would be less likely to cause trouble.
Even if the Federation had decided to brainwash Blake originally, once Blake was tried, convicted and sentenced to Cygnus Alpha, they could have easily killed him since everyone would believe he would be there for the rest of his life.

For that matter, why actually send anyone to Cygnus Alpha. Sentence 'em, shoot 'em, dump the bodies in the sun.

Thanks Keith, I've never been called a conspiracy nut before.

Blake was apparently known over many worlds. If I remember rightly, in a later episode (Seek-Loacte-Destroy?) Servelan says something like "everything that goes wrong is attributed to Blake". Plus, they never said whether it was just Blake they were drugging, or the city he was in, or the whole federation (expensive!).

Also, it seems like a good way to eliminate some of the resistance cells. Have this great hero imprisoned somewhere that he thinks he can't leave. When his rescuers arrive, they think they're trapped as well.

And finally, if you want to kill him, why not make it out for him to be a serial killer or something similar? Then you could explain away the massacre of the rest of the resistance cell (with a few choice 'survivors'), and then publicly execute him with the entire federation population congratulating you for it.

Sorry, Chris. Didn't mean you personally. I was just thinking of certain types of people who come up with these overly complex theories, when simpler and more logical theories are possible.

I liked your idea about the serial killer angle.

I think Arco & 1 of the other prisoners were going to be regulars, but Terry, Chris & Davied realised that there were too many characters to go round so they killed them off but kept the name, becuase it (to me) it rather catchy. (I remembered it for years after it was last shown & had forgotten what the show was like.)

I saw this episode for the first time in years and thought it had aged quite well - certainly better than Space 1999 or UFO have.

Not a bad start to a series, though a bit slow at times. I was yawning a bit by the time Blake had his third flashback of his brainwashing and the soldier hitting him (rather unconvincingly, too - he was likely to do more damage to his own fingers than to Blake!).

I also got the giggles when, after boarding the London, Blake didn't do his seat belt up and was told that he'd be punished for disobeying orders by being held in confinement. I expected him to be locked in a room on his own but no - the dreadful punishment that followed was that he wasn't allowed to look out of the window!

Those inhuman fiends!

Actually, worrying that the prisoners are wearing seat belts, is kind of like having a defibrilator on Death Row. ("We have to save this man! He's being executed next week!")

To answer various points (many of them posted long ago!) :

Doctor Who and Blake's 7 were both BBC productions (note the BBC copyright line in the closing credits of each episode of both). They were never competition for each other in terms of transmission times - DW was always on Saturday evenings, B7 always on weekday (normally Monday) evenings.

The BBC *did* repeat B7; each series was repeated at least once, and the fourth season got two repeats, the last one in about 1986. The primary reason why they were never repeated on terrestrial TV after that is cost; repeats are *incredibly* expensive once you have used up the contracted number of re-showings covered by the original production contract for the programme.

The current repeat run on BBC-2 has been made possible because the BBC recently struck a deal with Equity, the actors' union, for significantly-reduced repeat fees for certain programmes as long as they are shown in off-peak viewing hours.

Marvel UK did a Blake's 7 special 5 years ago & according to it only Season 4 had a complete terrestrial rerun & this was in the summer of 1983. Where did you get you info from Gareth?

Dev Tarrant, any relation to Del or Deiter? (The Black Sheep of the family, perhaps?)

The Prosecution & Defense check each others boxes to make sure they are sealed. Why? What does the seal have to do with the evidence?

The dome over the city graphic would appear over & over again in this series.

That style of dome could be a Federation standard design, like the London is a standard frighter one.

Were the various names based on any real names or were they just made up to sound science fictiony?

Roj (Blake) could be a variation of Roger.

Kerr (Avon) maybe a variation of Kerry, but I think that's a stretch.

Olag (Gan) maybe some kind of a Scandanavian name.

Vila... no idea.

Some characters do have names that aren't so odd sounding: Jenna, Cally, Travis, but others don't sound like names that come from Earth.

Hey don't they just erase Blake's memory again? Just make him forget the massacre and reinstall the old memory blocks.

Today is the 40th anniversary of episode 1 airing.

Possibly yesterday as I'm on the other side of the dateline.

That is Simply Not Possible. I can't have been old enough to watch this series 40 years ago. Dammit, I don't think I was even alive 40 years ago.

*checks birth certificate*

Well, dammit.

Happy anniversary, B7.

Happy Birthday, B7.