The Federation is still in chaos! They’ve joined the battle against the Andromedans and destroyed Star One, but at a high cost- their forces are scattered and the new President and Supreme Commander is currently missing in action after making a personal appearance… can she survive on a primitive planet without her guards to protect her?

The Sarrans are a vicious primitive people, ready to take on any unfortunate survivors of the intergalactic war that is raging above their planet. Will they make life difficult for Avon?

There’s help at hand from Hal Mellanby, a freedom fighter like Blake who settled on Sarran many years ago after fleeing Earth. Will he and his daughter Dayna be able to help out?

Avon.

He gets the better of Servalan, survives his ordeal on Sarran and gains a new member for his crew… but has he lost the ship?

Neither side causes any deaths in this episode, aside from the ships destroyed in the war.

How to write out your main characters with minimum fuss:

Dayna explains her stance on life:

Servalan shows her sadistic streak:

A cliffhanger:

Hal Mellanby has an image amplifier built into his chest, which gives him partial vision. This is a camera like device, which he wears with dark sunglasses.

Dayna has been developing new weapons technology. One of her guns is a self-guiding/ aiming weapon with a built in memory that can be programmed to with preset images of its targets. They’ve also made a Vibro-shock weapon that will give the target a prolonged electric type shock when fired.

Dayna has an electronic key for spaceship hatch.

Avon, Cally Vila and Servalan are all dressed in their costumes from Star One and they get the continuity just right, unlike in a later gap between the seasons… anyway I’m getting ahead of myself.

Avon also wears a black karate gi with quite frankly huge collars.

Dayna makes an immediate impact on the costume front, wearing no less than three different outfits in this episode! The first is a white off the shoulder loose fitting dress with silver and blue braiding across the top with a belt round the middle. She wears D shaped earrings with a small jewel set in them.

Her second costume is a plain cream jumpsuit, which again worn with the left shoulder exposed.

Her third is a purple stripy nightdress with straps to each shoulder.

Hal Mellanby wears a blue jumpsuit with shoulder pads and a leather collar and breast pockets accessorised with a great big late 70s style metal medallion, which Dayna will wear throughout the rest of the season.

The Sarrans are a cut above your standard Blake’s 7 primitive race as they’re all wearing rather regal red robes with metal helmets and have even dressed their horses nicely.

Servalan in purple? What were they thinking? The style and colour really aren’t her normal kind of thing and it looks almost as outrageous on her as her striding round the beach in her white dress!

Anyway, the dress is a purple almost triangular affair that tied behind the neck with violet straps that also cross the arms. The silver high heels go ever so well with it!

Dayna gives Avon some water when they’re in the cave together.

Servalan suggest Avon gets them both a drink when she moots their potential partnership and he returns with two glasses of some green liquid, which seems to be a standard drink in the Blake’s 7 universe.

We don’t see much of the Liberator this episode, but despite this we get a new room. The Liberator Life Capsule bay. It is surrounded by the usual hexagonal corridors, but this one has steel grey walls with a panel for launching each capsule. There are ladders up the walls to each of the capsules. The room has a loudspeaker connection to Zen on the flight deck.

The capsules themselves are small and cramped with minimal systems.

Orac teleports Avon and Dayna back to the Liberator just before the Sarrans reach them on the beach.

Avon almost loses one of the teleport bracelets to Servalan, but Dayna takes it from her just in time to be teleported to the Liberator with Avon.

Orac is put to good use in this episode, making sure the life capsule gets down to Sarran safely, communicating with Zen on the Liberator to get updates on the status of its repairs and finally operating the teleport sending Avon and Dayna up to the ship.

Dayna kisses Avon, telling him that he is very beautiful, which makes him forget his headache!

Then, of course there is the first kiss between two of the regular characters. Servalan suggest Avon gets them both a drink as they have things to talk about. Big things it turns out, as she offers Avon a share in her power. With Orac and the resources of the Liberator they can unite and conquer like never before. They’ll be answerable to no-one, imagination their only limit. Avon seems keen on the idea and even keener on the person that’s offering it and they kiss! Oh my!

And then Avon does the dirty on her, grabbing her by the neck and throwing her to the floor announcing "Imagination my only limit? I’d be dead in a week." He’s clearly got the measure of her, but I think she’s only just beginning to get to know Avon…

This is a marvellous Servalan episode. She’s very well written and the image of her striding along a beach in her white dress and silver high heels is marvellous.

However, one scene towards the end of the episode really shows what an evil woman she could be at times. He blinding and taunting of Hal Mellanby is really quite disturbing. It’s the way she goads him into trying to lash out at her knowing full well he can’t see where she is that is perhaps her best moment in the episode. It reminds you that for all the charm and social niceties she’s displayed in the episode, underneath, not too far from the surface she’s still not to be trusted at all.

Three of the guest cast episode appeared in Doctor Who. Richard Franklin, playing the Federation Captain was of course Captain Yates in the Pertwee years. Michael Melia who was a year or two away from playing the Terrileptal Leader in The Visitation in 1982 played his subordinate.

Alan Lake, who played the Sarran Leader Chel, had been in Underworld in 1978 and one of his subordinates was played by Stuart Fell who played various monsters and did many, many stunts in Doctor Who during the 1970s. Another Sarran was played by Gareth Milne who would play George Cranleigh in Black Orchid and who would also perform many stunts in Doctor Who in the 1980s.

Behind the scenes Dee Robson takes over designing the costumes this episode. She had already designed the costumes for 1978’s The Invasion of Time and would go onto to design the costumes for Arc of Infinity and Terminus in season 20.

Oh yes, this is indeed camp.

With a new and slightly disappointing title sequence and a space battle made up of previously used model shots, the third season of Blake’s 7 could be accused of getting off to a somewhat dodgy start. You’d think by now Terry Nation would know the limitations of the Blake’s 7 budget and not even attempt a big space battle, but there we go. In many ways it only seems a bit dodgy when you know where the shots came from originally- the first time I saw it, it seemed great but that’s what you get for being a fan!

Anyway, these concerns are soon forgotten, as Aftermath is a cracking episode. It moves along quickly with plenty of incident, so much so that you barely notice that half of the main cast are missing or have left. It always makes me laugh how cheekily Blake and Jenna are written out of the show, but having them lost in the middle of a war zone probably just about works. Blake and Jenna’s locations being unclear for the moment doesn’t seem too bad, since Cally and Vila are also still missing.

This is a masterstroke on Terry Nation’s part as it adds another mystery to the episode that won’t be solved for a while as to whether the two of them made off the ship at all. It also means there’s plenty of room to introduce Dayna and give the viewer time to get to know her. She makes a great impact in this episode, and is very likeably played by Josette Simon who sadly would seldom get a chance to shine like this again in the series.

Also given the chance to shine are both Avon and Servalan. Despite having barely met before, the two of them seem to have a really complex relationship and the two actors play well off each other, especially in the scene with their infamous kiss, which never seems anything other than real. It’s great to watch and something that will be touched upon a great deal during the season. In fact Paul Darrow takes the lead role very well in this episode and it seems natural that he’s the main character now.

This an assured start to the season, with great location filming at Camber Sands with plenty of memorable moments. And the only time in the series when an episode that isn’t the end of season ends on a cliffhanger… just who is the mysterious stranger on the Liberator? I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough…

The mysterious interloper on the Liberator