In The Distant Future
... Shit Still Happens
Chances are you already know what Blakes 7 is, but if for whatever reason you don't...
Blakes 7 was a science fiction adventure series produced by the BBC, first aired between 1978 and 1981. Through the course of 52 episodes, it charted the rise, fall and terminal plummet of galactic revolutionary Roj Blake, his motley assortment of reluctant followers, and the BBC's credentials for making serious science fiction. Cobbled together on a shoestring budget, co-authored by a hotch-potch of writers who didn't (and probably couldn't) check what all the others were writing, blessed with set/costume designers who exploited every chance to go way over the top... B7 should have been nothing short of dreadful. Sometimes it was. But on the whole, it managed to be rather good, and sometimes, just sometimes, it was bloody brilliant.
If you really know nothing at all about the series and would like to know more, click here to go somewhere that will tell you. This page is for those who know already. Over time, I hope to have a fair bit of B7 stuff to be perused, but for the moment you'll have to make do with:
WORLDS EDGE - a personal subcanon based on my published and unpublished (ie: unfinished) fan fiction.
SOME SATIRE
ZINES - Regrettably (or not) both Stadler Link and Pressure Point have sold out. I have no plans to reprint either, nor to produce any more zines in the immediate future. My thanks to everyone who contributed to them, bought them, read them and especially said nice things about them.
And then there's TOFPA, which finally crawled out in 2002, horribly overdue and leaving me determined never to edit another zine ever again. To buy a copy, go to Judith Proctor's site. If you want a full listing of everyone featured on the front cover, click here.
Most TV space operas revolve around exploration of an unknown universe. This is the cue for writers to stretch their imaginations to the limit and invent all manner of exotic yet strangely humanoid aliens, oddball societies, improbably bizarre lifeforms, etc, with each writer's contribution meshing rather clumsily with all the others. The main characters effectively journey through a dozen or more different universes. B7 was not entirely immune from this incoherence, but it took second place to the primary theme of rebellion and revolution. Rather than going, boldy or otherwise, where no one had gone before, Blake and his crew went to planets where lots of people had already been going for years. Although there were plenty of anomalies in the series, it possessed an underlying coherence that gave it stability. Most of the time the crew were not up against the weird alien of the week, but very human adversaries, whether they were Federation troopers, pirates, gangsters or other assorted unsavoury elements of a thriving galactic community.
Whilst this in many ways worked against B7, it also did the series a number of favours. Lavish sets and exotic locales were Out. Spartan pokey little sets and chalk quarries were In. The result - a downbeat, austere, slightly shabby ambience that made a welcome change from more typical high-gloss visions of the future. It suggested a civilisation that had over-reached itself, passed its peak, embarked on a long, slow slide into eclipse. This only served to add a further layer of bleakness over the setting.
A refreshingly unwholesome bunch of self-seeking, self-gratifying social misfits who could just about tolerate each other's company. Ahh, realism - nothing like it! And the bad guys were even worse... To many fans (too many?) the characters are the only thing that matters about B7, with every possible nuance of interaction exposed, explored and woven into complex conspiracy theories. Personally I disagree with this approach - the characters were certainly important but only as an important part of a greater whole. Not that it isn't fun to watch them bicker, argue and constantly try to shoot each other in the back (literally, on occasions), which leads nicely onto...
Not so much a curate's egg as an attempt to do the good man in with cholesterol poisoning. Some episodes, it has to be said, were pretty dreadful. And a few were really dreadful. But most were okay and more than a few were very good indeed. It certainly helped no end that most of the humour was of the acerbic, sardonic variety, coming out of the characters rather than crudely dumped in with a big label saying 'JOKE: Please Laugh'.
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BLAKE'S 7 LINKSThere are stacks of cool B7 sites out there. Here are some of my favourites. Judith Proctor's site - humungously large site with tonnes of B7 material. Lots of zine listings, extracts from fanfic published by Judith (some of it by this very hedgehog...), quizzes, news, essays, convention reports, the entire Sevencyclopaedia (the definitive A-Z of the series - I should know since I wrote most of the bloody thing) ... visit, and enjoy. Paul James' B7 pages - excellent site for downloads, with high quality images from all four seasons and a selection of sound files (WAV and WinAmp). Also episode ratings. Travis' Dossier - another good site, with possibly the most comprehensive B7 website listing of all. Sue Clerc's Adrenalin and Soma-powered site - another goodie, with lots of provocative essays on fan fiction, episodes and other aspects of B7. And a good caption compo with some hilarious entries. |
Cally
goes Gothic (only in my |
Lisa Williams' Frame Capture Library - several eps featured almost frame-by-frame. Loads of piccies but resolution not that high. Only two episodes on display at any one time, but they do change fairly regularly.
Una McCormack's site makes a sterling attempt to defend the justly maligned dross that calls itself Animals
Ebony's Poetry Page - some B7 poems, especially some insightful Avon/Cally pieces.
And some very nice illustrations of Avon, Cally, Tarrant and Blake by Kathryn Andersen.