Letās hope itās not going to be filled with angsty teenagers, with dumb and easy write āissues.ā Oh crap, it IS isnāt it!? Just like The Tommorow People remake.
It would have made more sense to carry on with the Halo stuff instead.
You forgot to mention that the flame was also kept alive by on and off line video pirates. Due to some of the people with copyright interests in the show making a long series of idiotic decisions it was never available in North America. At one point the whole thing was ready to be released and, literally, at the last moment someone decided that the cover art on the box wasnāt perfect so the whole project was scuttled. If you wanted to see this great series on this side of the Pond it was dodgy VHS tapes and later the Pirates Bay for you.
A wacky favourite of mine. Partly because of the wobbly sets. In some of the stock footage of the spaceship Liberator docking and so on it has four pylons; in others three because a technician dropped the model part way through the filming. Thereās also the mystery of the titular ā7ā as there never quite seemed to be seven members of the rebel group. āBlakeā was also elusive as he dropped out of the script at one point for a long while until the great last episode.
But the big draw was Paul Darrow playing the character Avon with all the warmth of a coffin nail. Heās the man in the middle in the postingās picture. The character was a big fan favourite and it was a ritual to yell āDing-dong, Avon callingā at the screen whenever he entered the set by blowing a airlock door off the hinges or some such. In the first episode the political prisoner Blake is on a transport to the Prison Planet along with a bunch of regular criminals. Amongst these is Avon, the second greatest computer hacker in the galaxy - whoās just been caught embezzling by the first greatest. When six prisoners escape and find a fabulous, powerful alien artifact Blake wants to start a revolution. Avon will have none of it and wants to use it to hoist the Jolly Roger and be a pirate. This is one of the central points of tension in the first season and an indication of how the scripts avoided falling prey to easy tropes.
I am simply going to pretend this isnāt going to happen. It seems like the best course of action.
My initial reaction is that this couldnāt last very long. Microsoft video service is doomed to die. Too little too late like much of what MS does these days.
Then I remembered this was Microsoft and that the new service will be around much longer than anyone will think it should.
They would do well to follow the outline of the SyFy-produced radio plays (Rebel / Traitor / Liberator) which are both more futuristic and more relatable to modern audiences than the setting of the original. But the character of Avon is all important in making the new show work.
The quality will probably depend on Microsoftās motivations. Do they want science-fiction glitz for their presumed video-game-based audience, or are they trying to compete with the in-house productions of Netflix and Hulu? If itās the latter, there may be some hope, as this is an idea with a lot of promise.
Our local PBS station ran āBlakeās 7ā. It was a good show. Itās first 2 seasons were the best. A bit campy and Avon came off sounding like a Vulcan. But good. (loved the girlās outfits). With Spielberg behind the production of the remake Iām hoping that it turns out to be something good. Thereās far too much āmehā out there. But not holding my breath.
I really only remember it for inspiring a friends button, āWesley Crusher weighs exactly 71kgā.
Wow - itās been a long time since Iāve seen Blakes 7. A friend and I were cult fans when it ran on our local PBS. We both thought the ending episode was iconic.
Hang on, thereās a character missing from that pictureā¦
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
