Supposedly, the crew have asked Avon to figure out how to adjust the computer so it looks like they went all the way to Cygnus Alpha and back, while they really planned to dump the convicts into space and turn around avoiding the long journey. However, what about the time difference? Was the crew planning to stop somewhere and party for the length of time they saved before heading back to Earth?

The correct name for Cygnus Alpha is Alpha Cygni. Also known as Deneb.

6 members of the 7 appear in this episode.

That's actually one of the things that makes Blake's 7 stand out from most other SF series'... At the end of the first episode, you haven't been introduced to all the cast. The rest of them turn up as the series progresses.

And cast members continue to turn up as they get rid of others.

Vila is distracting the guard while the others open an access panel. At one point the panel makes a loud noise that the guard should have heard.

A hand print makes for a lousy lock. Gan's quip about 'We only need the hand' is cute, but it shows the main weakness of the system. They should have made it a combination with perhaps, hand print, voice analysis & a changeable code word.

I guess Gan's limiter doesn't keep him from making threats.

Gan refers to Vila as Veela.

The hole sealant was an interesting idea, but how will any repair crews use the access tunnel in case they need to repair some wires or pipes? Also what if the hole was really big? All that sealant would go out into space.

Just how big is the Liberator? The London seemed pretty rinky-dink next to it, but the London has a lot of rooms and corridors with corners & curves.

Avon should have realised that opening all the doors on the ship would alert the guards.

Those restraints on the chair, didn't look all that impressive. I think it would allow the prisoners to slip their hands out fairly simply.

That was one seriously resilient thermos flask that the nasty crew member had. The crew are being flung about all over the bridge while the thermos merely totters for ages before it finally falls over!

(I thought that was a poor piece of work on the part of the director - the thermos and cups were obviously brought on in order to wobble about and then fall over, but the actors were throwing themselves about far more violently than the thermos was wobbling. It made my eyes go funny trying to relate the two movements!)

The prisoners didn't stand a chance of escaping - they didn't seem to have a brain cell amongst them. They knocked the guard out, then stood patiently waiting for Avon to get the doors open. I was yelling, "Bung the guard's hand against the panel, yer dopey bunch!" but it took them ages to realise that they didn't have to wait for Avon.

Got around to watching this last night (got the season 1 box set for my birthday).
The surrender of the prisoners scene seemed to have been cut from before, although it was hilarious.

Avon seems to think the mind controller on the Liberator was a defence mechanism. If it was, did Zen decide to give in in the next episode? He certainly seemed friendly enough to the crew. It makes better sense if it's something that crept in and forced the original crew off.

Nit in the synopsis. The ship isn't actually named Liberator until the next episode.

Before the guy (forgotten his name) gets foamed in the crawlspace, he puts his hands over the hull breaches and the noise of the air flow stops. However, the sound effects people didn't put it back when he took his hands away.

The mind controller is a defence mechanism it's used later on the intruders when the ship falls into a black hole. Presumably Zen was friendly next episode because he'd mind melded with Jenna and it had some effect on him. Or maybe he's bit designed to deal with anyone defeating the mind controller. It's pretty much infallible, it only failed on Blake because of his conditioning