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by Simon Hart |
The Liberator is on course for the planet Centero, when a bomb goes off on board and the ship is flying blind… on an unknown heading. Which member of his crew has sabotaged his ship and why? Can he stop the forces controlling his ship and can he stop the Liberator being imprisoned in the mysterious grip of the Web?
The Federation pursuit ships are hot on the Liberator’s trail. Can they track down Blake and finally put a stop to his terrorism?
The Lost were from the planet Auron, like Cally. In fact they became a legend of the Auronar, after they were exiled, as their immoral experiments made them unfit to share the soul of Auron. They aimed to prolong life, by among other means repairing tissue with simple enzyme culture growth as well as creating a new species to perform menial tasks: animal machines that nothing to produce and little to maintain.
To this end they created the Decimas, but deem them to be a menace now and want them wiped out. With power reserves low, they need a new source of power and so they possess Cally and make her sabotage the ship to draw Blake and his crew to their unnamed home planet…
Blake. Yes, Blake wins again, after maintaining the moral high ground, against the Lost, he manages to free the Liberator from the grip of the Web, and is partly responsible for freeing the Decimas.
Blake and his crew don’t kill anyone or anything in this episode. Well done them!
Zen’s lack of involvement with the crew causes a rare moment of humour from Blake: BLAKE: What caused
the malfunction? (Pause) Well? How’s this for flirting? Avon’s reply to Cally is interesting for all the things he isn’t saying! CALLY: I'm interested
in your work. On first seeing the Decimas squeaking and squealing as they attempt to get into the base Avon says: These are what you’re fighting to protect? The tone in Paul Darrow’s voice says all that needs to be said on the matter! The end of the episode has another of Blake and Avon’s great arguments: AVON: One thing they
proved back there.
Fed-Tech Novara asks Blake for Flutonic power cells which will help to power that the machine that will remove the web from around the Liberator. The implication is that these are some kind of standard power cells, although the Liberator is only able to supply something similar to them. Experiments similar to those carried out by The Lost have "been banned for centuries" according to Blake.
Fashion The Liberator crew have been raiding the wardrobe room after their exploits on Saurian Major, and they’ve all chosen new clothes. Unsurprisingly none of them are much good! Blake has gone for a knitted green top that has poppers up the front. It clings close to his belly. Later in the episode he wears a new top over this. It has vertical stripes in various shades of green, with blue layered shoulders and ¾ length sleeves that finish with silver patterning work. The top has piping in silver.
Jenna has opted for a new burgundy outfit. She wears a long burgundy top with a collar design similar to that seen on her Cygnus Alpha/ Time Squad top, and a plunging neckline to show off her silver necklace. She wears this over burgundy trousers that are held up with a belt that matches the colours of her collar.
Avon has chosen a blue costume. The main part of the top is navy blue and around the neck there is a huge collar which has three stripes of navy blue, a slightly lighter blue and grey with futuristic buttons in the middle. The sleeves are ¾ length, like Blake’s top and he is wearing a grey shirt beneath it. His trousers are grey flared slacks. Cally’s new outfit is of a similar style to Jenna’s and features an identical motif around the collar, although hers is in various shades of green and the main part of the top itself is green satin. She wears this tucked into green trousers. Vila’s choice of new top is like the other members of the crew something of a multi-coloured monstrosity. It’s predominantly brown with burgundy, fawn and green sleeves, with odd piping across it and a planet stencilled on the back and on the front it is fastened by double toggles. This is worn over a pair of brown slacks. Gan is wearing a short sleeved tunic with brown and light and dark green stripes, with netting around the edges. This is worn with brown trousers. The crew also get their own "Down on the planet" clothes which consist of anoraks in various colours (Blake has dark green, Avon has blue, Jenna has burgundy, Vila has scarlet, Cally has light green and Gan has brown) Blake also gains a pair of moon boots when he goes down to the planet. The only other clothes seen are the rather tattered silver jump suits that Novara and Geela wear. Silver is of course the colour of the future. Food Again, we don’t see the crew eating anything in this episode, though judging by the glimpse we get of Blake’s tummy, they’ve obviously been eating well on The Liberator between stories!
Although we don’t see any new rooms in this episode, what we do see is a glimpse of the Liberator’s very efficient auto-repair system. Very effective it is too, as Avon shows Gan when he deliberately smashes part of the teleport control and within seconds the circuits are as good as new. "It’s miraculous!" says Gan, and he’s not wrong! For the first time we also see the Liberator’s Neutron Blasters fire. They cannot be used without first putting up the Neutron Flare Shield (which rather delightfully puts a kind of vertical blind effect up on the ship’s screen!) and in this episode they fire is a thick blue beam. They do use up a great deal of the energy reserves though, as each time they are fired, 3 hours worth of the reserve is exhausted.
Avon operates the teleport when Blake first foes down to the planet and Vila later teleports Avon down with the flutonic power cells. It’s implied (though not seen on screen) that Vila teleports the two of them back to the Liberator.
No-one loses a teleport bracelet for the second episode in a row. Are they just being careful before the big losses that are to come?
There’s a definite frisson between Cally and Avon in this episode. He seems very receptive to the possessed Cally’s not very subtle flirting and again they share some long lingering stares. Unfortunately Cally goes and ruins the moment by hitting Avon over the head with a toolkit and Avon spends the rest of the episode being very wary of her, like you would.
Avon also has another chance to save Blake’s life and they have a little moment together in the hold, and in a hold. Oh my!
Three members of the guest cast of this episode appeared in Doctor Who. Miles Fothergill who played Novara was SV7 in Robots of Death, while Richard Beale who played Saymon clocked several appearances- he was the voice of the Refusians in The Ark (ok, not an appearance as such, but you know what I mean!) Bat Masterson in The Gunfighters, The Propaganda Broadcast Voice in The Macra Terror and The Minister of Ecology in The Green Death. Deep Roy was the lead Decima and he of course had played Mr Sin in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Suspiciously there is no reuse of props, sets or clothes this episode! Did they have money to spare this week?
On the one hand, the plight of the Decimas is tragic, but they squeak like camp old things and one of them makes big wide Tom Baker like eyes at the others. On the other hand, what the Lost are doing is horrible and nasty, but they’re voiced by a skinny man in a tank. Is it camp? Maybe! I’m going for a tentative stab towards campness with this episode.
This episode marks the arrival of a much used Blake’s 7 cliché: the Cally is possessed episode. It’s still a novelty here, but it would soon be a tiresome plot, particularly for Jan Chappell. The plotting of this episode leaves something to be desired too, with the ending coming about because Novarra left the door into the base open.
The episode is not really saved by its visuals either, despite some excellent hand held camera work on board the Liberator as we follow the possessed Cally around the ship and some good film work from Michael E Briant, who manages to make the woodland location look eerie and strange, there is much in the production that lets this episode down. The effect of Saymon in the tank is far too obviously achieved by the actor poking his head into a hole above the rest of the body and the gaps between them are far too obvious for the effect to work successfully and as for the Liberator model being pushed through lots of strands of cotton wool, well the idea was fine but the execution leaves much to be desired.
The Decimas are another drawback. They’re quite well designed, and look very cute, which helps the viewer find their plight a bit more moving. Their squeaking voices very quickly become irritating, however, particularly when they storm in and destroy the laboratory at the end. It’s hard to take them seriously and they are greatly undermined by having Avon point this out on screen. The moral dilemma of what constitutes life is still debated at length today as is the issue of what animals do and do not have consciousness and intelligence, and Terry Nation’s script does debate this thoroughly through Blake and Saymon, particularly in the moment where Blake sees one of the Decimas crying and suddenly decided that they’re worth risking his ship to save is rather good, and again it continues the development of Blake as a character who always does the right thing. His superior moral standing will later be undermined in a very successful way, but for now Blake is a force for good, whatever the circumstances.
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