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Tarrant's Plan The Liberator's weapon system requires
some hitherto unmentioned crystals to make them work and would you
believe it, there are none on board,. They have to be sourced from
somewhere. Tarrant thinks he might just have find a source, but in
return his contacts need the help of a talented thief to open a
mysterious door. I wonder where he might find one of them? External Influences
On the planet Kazaan, various forces
are coming together. A wanted Federation Criminal, Bayban the Berserker
otherwise known as Bayban The Butcher is one and the other is Norl, one
of the strange race of simple people who live on the planet. Each are
using the other, but why? End game to… Vila. He opens the door, gets the girl,
finds the crystals he came to steal, loses the girl, fights the villain
and the door closes behind him. It might be the biggest mistake of his
life, but he certainly seems to have the time of his life.
Death Watch Between them, the Liberator crew kill
most of Bayban's mercenaries. Well Now
Vila being bullied: TARRANT:
I can't make you go, of course. Vila curses Tarrant: VILA:
I'll get you for this, Tarrant. I'll tear your arm off and beat you to
death with the wet end. I'll get you for this! Vila meets Bayban: BAYBAN:
You don't know who I am. Bayban remembers his Mum: BAYBAN:
My Mother... Oh yes. I had a mother. Wonderful woman.
Truly evil person. She had a saying. "Baybe," she used to say. She
called me Bayb e. "Baybe," she used to say, "treat every hour as though
it's your last." [puts food into Vila's mouth] I'll be back in an hour,
Vila. [slaps Vila on the back and leaves, laughing]
Vila gets lucky: KERRIL:
It hardly seems worth trying to stay alive a few minutes longer.
[removes gunbelt] Vila loses the girl: KERRIL:
Are you coming with me? Vila laments his loss: VILA:
I think I've just made the biggest mistake of my life.
Glimpses of the Future Fed Tech: Avon uses a sensor device that uses a
small dissolving homing beacon that is swallowed and is then able to be
picked up by a sensor device that is able to show where the person is.
It acts a homing beacon for whoever swallows the device. Vila uses a probe set at the frequency
of the force filed to get through it. Dayna has developed a new heat seeking
bomb which moves on wheels. Quiet where she's been keeping it when she
teleports down to Kazaan is a bit of a mystery though.
Bayban has a heavy duty field laser
that he tried to blast the door with, which yields predictably messy
results. Fashion: Vila wears a grey karate style suit
over a blue polo-neck sweater and his usual brown boots. Tarrant wears a blue peasant shirt
underneath a dark blue tunic with silver piping around the neckline
(which is a V neck, of course) and the shoulders. He wears navy trousers
and a black belt. Avon is wearing a grey suede top with
slightly darker grey leather shoulders and sleeves with a big black V
down the front of the top. He wears this over a black polo-neck.
Cally wears a beige trousers and top
with burgundy shoulders and pockets over a pink t shirt. She wears black
boots. Tarrant wears a zip up beige top with
brown stripes and matching trousers with a single brown stripe on them.
He has dark brown boots. Bayban's guards are in black leather
(naturally) with a large round neck and a padded effect on the front
with studs around the shoulders. The inhabitants of Kazaan wear green
robes with orange straps around the around the neck. Kerril changes into
one of these when she decides to impress Vila. This episode’s most outrageous
costume: Bayban steals it, wearing the same
Black leather as his underlings, but with far more swagger and added
accessories; metal studded gloves and an earring.
Food and Drink: Bayban eats a bowl of some brown
snacks, later thrusting one into Vila's mouth as he leaves Vila with an
hour to open the door. Teleport Now! Avon and Cally make teleporting an art
with their neat collaboration in sending Vila down to Kazaan. Later Avon
does a solo spot and send Cally down the planet, and it's probable
though not seen that he brings her back up again. Tarrant then sends
Cally and Avon down together but again it;s unseen who brings them back
up. Finally Orac sends down Avon, Cally,
Tarrant and Dayna and then Cally brings Vila back up after his
confrontation with Bayban. I’ve lost my teleport bracelet… Vila's teleport bracelet is blown up
in a trap that should have killed Cally off too, but fortunately she's
smart and sees through the booby-trap pretty quickly. Clever Orac! Other than operating the teleport,
Orac doesn't have much to do this episode, aside from make a rather
witty closing comment to Vila. That's still more than most
supercomputers get to do though! I should like you to do it again…
This episode features what must be one
of the most chaste sex scenes ever. Vila and Kerril cuddle a bit, Kerril
makes the suggestion of how they should spend their final moments.
We then we cut to a slow close up of
one of the phallic Liberator turrets before we return to the two of them
fully clothed, laid out about as far apart as they could be from each
other on the couches in the ship.
Obviously we know what's gone on, and
maybe that's enough, but it does seem odd that only the week before they
were happy to show Servalan and Jarvik larking around in Servalan's
boudoir. That aside their relationship is
rather sweet really. They hold hands, kiss a bit and tease each other
until Vila realises that he can't have the life Kerril wants him to
have. It's all rather touching, and extremely well acted. I’ve seen that in Doctor Who… Most of this episode's guest stars
appeared in Doctor Who over the years. John J Carney who plays Sherm
here had been the equally dim sidekick Bloodaxe in The Time Warrior
in 1973.
Valentine Dyall had recently played
the Black Guardian in 1979's The Armageddon Factor and would return to
that role in 1983, as well as as acting in Radio 4's Slipback in
1985, opposite this episode's main guest star, Colin Baker.
Colin Baker, as if I need to mention
it played the Sixth Doctor between 1984 and 1986. It's said that Paul
Darrow's scenery chewing performance as Maylin Tekker in Timelash
was revenge for the way Colin Baker steals the show as Bayban in this
episode. Props wise, this episode makes use of
Kellman's transmitter from Revenge of the Cybermen, appearing
here as the detector Avon uses to keep track of the sensor he asks Vila
to swallow. The guns Bayban's mercenaries use would be reused for the
Gaztacs in Meglos later the same year. The Campometer This is almost perfectly balanced
Blake's 7... until Colin Baker arrives and tips it over into the camp
section.
Trial This is an episode that is easy to
like, despite there being a little niggling problem with it. Let's deal
with that first. It almost seems churlish to mention really, but the
character of Kerril doesn't quite work. She starts off as a very intimidating,
hard-nosed gunslinger, not afraid to stand up to either Shurm or Bayban,
but after she befriends Vila she's suddenly afraid of cobwebs, wants to
make a home and is very loveable. I suppose it's just about possible she
could be all of those things, but it just doesn't quite ring true I'm
afraid. It's as if she has to fulfil very specific plot points and so
she changes depending on whereabouts we are in the script. It's a shame
as with a few tweaks the character would have worked a bit better.
Fortunately that doesn't detract from
the fact that this is a very strong episode of the series. It's great to
finally have a showcase for Michael Keating, who too often was left to
be the comic relief in the show. Here he gets a chance to show what he
can do when he has the material to work with and he rises to the
challenge admirably. It's probably the best performance Michael Keating
has given since The Way Back, and it goes to show that Vila is
more than just a drunken coward. It seems all that is just a façade he
likes to put on, almost as if he doesn't want the rest of the crew to
realise that he's actually rather clever and talented. It's interesting to note that Avon is
the only one of the crew to see through this, and he sticks up for Vila
despite their antagonistic relationship. It's unclear if there's any
genuine affection beneath his comments on Vila's talents, but there is
certainly a strong bond between them. Tarrant doesn't see Vila in quite
the same way, and just bullies him and sends him into a situation that
Tarrant knows very little about. Even Avon wouldn't be that be that
callous, or stupid. Of course, everything in this episode
is overshadowed by Colin Baker's guest role. He clearly relishes every
scenery chewing moment he's in and is a delight to watch. He somehow
manages to make Bayban rather camp and rather menacing all at once. The
sight of him astride the laser cannon at the end is both ridiculous and
scary at the same time. Excellent stuff from Colin there.
After a run of mediocre episodes, this
is a real return to the high standards set at the start of the season
and is rightly regarded as one of the finest episodes of the show.
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Down and Safe
