Blakes' 7: Season One

Episode Details


The Way Back

Seeking information about his family, Roj Blake accompanies a couple of activists out of the dome city. Once outside he meets a man who appears to know him, who tells Blake that he was once the leader of a powerful underground faction but was captured and has been brainwashed by the authorities.

Shocked by these revelations, Blake asks for some time to consider and walks off through the underground tunnels; while there he hears troops and hides. He witnesses the slaughter of all of the activists, and then attempts to sneak back into the dome but is caught.

Awaking in a prison cell, he discovers that he is being charged with child molesting. He convinces his lawyer that the charges are false, but when the lawyer uncovers evidence to corroborate this, Blake's deportation is accelerated.


Space Fall

The departure of the prison ship London is brought forward to ensure that Blake does not receive a reprieve, and the long journey to the prison planet Cygnus Alpha starts.

Here Blake, with the aid of other prisoners including Vila Restal, Jenna Stannis, Kerr Avon and Oleg Gan, gains control of the ships computer room. The first officer, Sub-Commander Raiker, starts executing one of prisoners every thirty seconds until Jenna, Avon and Blake surrender. Despite Avon's complaints, they surrender rapidly.

The prisoners back in their cell, the crew of the London detect a large apparently derelict ship floating nearby and decide to attempt to salvage it. After several crew members are lost in the attempt, the captain decides to send Jenna, Blake and Avon into the derelict ship to recover the lost crewmen. Within the alien ship, they start to succumb to a self-defence system that uses your memory against you, but Blake's knowledge that his memories are falsified allows him to duck the illusions it generates and save the others.

The three of them gain control of the alien ship which Blake names The Liberator, and fly the ship away, with the help of the ship's computer Zen. Raiker is killed in the escape attempt.


Cygnus Alpha

Blake uses the Liberator to trail the London to the prison planet Cygnus Alpha. Avon discovers that the Liberator is equipped with a teleport device, so Blake is able to teleport down to the planet. Once there, he discovers that the inhabitants of Cygnus Alpha have formed a strange religious order, and that a deadly disease has infected the other prisoners. This disease can be treated, but not cured, by the monks.

Blake eventually discovers that the disease is a sham, perpetrated to force new prisoners to convert to the prevailing religion. The prisoners break out aided by Blake, but he only manages to rescue Vila and Gan - most of the others are killed. Vila and Gan join Blake, Avon and Jenna on the Liberator.


Time Squad

The Liberator encounters a small slow space craft which contains a cryogenically frozen crew. They take the ship inside the hold and start the lengthy process to defrost the crew. Meanwhile, Blake and Avon go to meet some resistance fighters and hopes that together they can attack a major communications relay station belonging to the Federation. He in the end makes contact with the sole survivor of the resistance cell, a telepath from the Planet Auron called Cally.

While Blake, Cally and Avon are down on the planet, the rest of the crew have problems on board the Liberator when the crew of the spacecraft awake from their sleep and turn out to be far from friendly.

At the end of the episode, Cally decides to join the Liberator's crew.


The Web

The Liberator starts to accelerate unexpectedly, and loses all forward sensors. The crew eventually bring the Liberator back under control, and find themselves in an unexplored area of space infested with a cobweb like material which cocoons the Liberator and renders it unable to move.

They are then contacted by renegades of Cally's world, called the Lost. Blake teleports down and encounters two of the Lost and a race of hostile out-of-control creations called the Decimas. The base is running out of energy, and the Lost propose a trade - energy cells in exchange for a way out of the Web that envelopes the Liberator.

However, it becomes clear that the Lost intend to wipe out the rapidly evolving race of Decimas with their new supply of energy, so Blake refuses to give them the energy cells they need. The Decimas gain entry to the base, overrunning it and destroying the Lost.


Seek-Locate-Destroy

The Liberator arrives at Kentero, a planet hosting a strategic Federation Communications Centre. Blake, Vila, Gan, Avon and Cally break in, and steal the vital Cypher machine that will enable them to read all the Federation's messages. They sabotage the centre to cover their tracks, and leave, but Cally is left behind accidentally.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Commander of the Federation forces, Servalan, assigns the ruthless Space Commandor Travis to find and destroy Blake and the Liberator. Travis insists on three experimental (Sunburst class) high speed pursuit ships crewed by genetically modified humans called mutoids. Realising Blake has captured the cypher machine, Travis sends a fake high security message about Cally, in order to lay a trap for Blake and the others.


Mission to Destiny

Finding an old Galaxy-class transport ship in a circular holding pattern in deep space, Blake, Avon and Cally teleport over to investigate. They find a drugged crew, a murdered pilot and evidence of sabotage. The crew were transporting a cylinder containing an urgently needed (and hugely expensive) chemical to the planet Destiny, to prevent an agricultural disaster. The ship's drive has been damaged, rendering it only capable of sub-light drive. To get the vital cylinder to Destiny in time, Blake offers to take it in the Liberator, leaving Avon and Cally behind to help with repairs and to detect the murderer.

As they begin their investigations, more murders occur. With the cylinder safe on board the Liberator, what can the murderer hope to gain?


Duel

Travis' forces ensnare the Liberator in a lethal trap in orbit around a remote and unknown planet. However, at the moment the attack is launched, the inhabitants of the planet freeze time and abduct Blake and Jenna, Travis and one of his Mutoid crew, taking them down to the planet surface to settle their differences in a duel without high technology weapons.

Blake and Jenna must try to stay alive against Travis' cunning - but should Blake kill Travis if he gets the chance?


Project Avalon

Blake and the crew head toward a Federation planet with an active resistance unit, headed by the mysterious Avalon. Unfortunately, Travis and his Mutoid crew arrive first, and ambush a resistance meeting, killing most of the activists and capturing Avalon. Blake and Jenna teleport down, find a survivor and determine to rescue Avalon before she breaks down under interrogation and names all the resistance leaders in the entire sector!

However, Travis's scientists are constructing an android double of Avalon, with the specific intention to let the double be rescued, taken aboard the Liberator and then either destroy it or capture it. Can the crew survive this latest threat?


Breakdown

Gan's aggression limiter malfunctions, placing his life in jeopardy. The only source of the replacement parts, and medical expertise, needed to save Gan is a Federation-aligned medical and weapons research centre. The crew must persuade the researchers to treat Gan, without putting themselves in danger.

They attempt to pass the Liberator off as an advanced Federation prototype ship to deflect suspicion. However, they do not fool the Doctor who must treat Gan, who contacts the Federation and delays the operation to buy time for the Federation Pursuit ships that are coming!


Bounty

The crew land on the planet Lindor, where a deposed leader has been held in exile. Blake and Cally ask him to return to his people. Meanwhile, a ship in distress is helped by the Liberator, only to encounter a group of bounty hunters who seek to turn Blake and the Liberator over to the Federation.


Deliverance

When a small shuttle craft is wracked by an explosion after leaving a Federation base, the crew of the Liberator rescue a survivor, who begs them to fly to a distant planet where his father is dying because the batteries in his cardiac-support device are running out of power.

The crew discover that the Federation has agreed to pay an enormous sum of money for an incredibly advanced portable supercomputer called Orac, that promises to be able to outperform all the Federation's computers put together.

Blake agrees to go on a mission of mercy, and the survivor then dies, leaving them to deliver the batteries to the dying inventor.


Orac

Blake and his group decide Orac could swing the balance of power for or against them, and decide they must have it. They seek out the reclusive computer genius who has invented the portable supercomputer called Orac, with the Federation in hot pursuit. Eventually, they manage to frustrate the Federation's plans and take Orac themselves. However, the inventor is killed by the Federation soldiers in the scrap.

Back on board the Liberator, Blake asks for a demonstration of Orac's capabilities, and in response Orac throws up a video clip of the near future predicting the Liberator's total destruction. This is the season cliffhanger.


Choose: onwards to season two episodes, or back to Blakes 7 front page.
B.King@ee.surrey.ac.uk & D.White@ee.surrey.ac.uk
19th July 1995