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by Simon Hart |
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The Liberator detects a ship seemingly deserted in space, circling round and round. Blake is intrigued and sets a course to intercept it. Soon, he and his crew find themselves investigating a plot… there’s been a murder on board!
This is the first episode that does not feature the Federation at all.
The Ortega and its crew come from the planet Destiny, somewhere on the outer edges of the galaxy. The crew, headed by Doctor Kendall are on a desperate race mission to save their planet, as the plant life on Destiny is being wiped out by a fungal disease. Only the neutrotope they’ve mortgaged their planet for can save them… but someone on board wants that neutrotope and will stop at nothing to get it, even if it means killing the crew, one by one… is the number 54124 a clue?
Avon! Avon takes great delight in investigating the mystery onboard the Ortega and identifying the murderer. He works out what the number 54124 means.
Although this story has a fairly high body count, none of the deaths are caused by the Liberator crew, or the Federation.
Avon shows how cynical he is: DR. KENDALL: Someone
among us determined that this mission should fail, and frankly, I can't
even guess at a motive. This exchange always raises a smile: CALLY:
Remember that Avon and I will be
staying. We will regard ourselves as hostages against Blake's return.
AVON: Well thank you Cally,
what a clever idea. And this one too: Cally:
My people have a saying a man who
trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken. Avon explains the mysterious 54124 message: DR. KENDALL:
Five four one two four?
Fed Tech: The Neutrotope the Ortega crew have been sent to buy apparently replaces the radiation deficient from Destiny’s sun. It will kill off the fungal disease that is destroying Destiny’s plant life and turning it into a white slime. The Neutrotope will be mounted in an orbiting satellite and when the sun shines on it, the radiation will be added to the sunlight.
Sono Vapour is used to knock out the crew when added into the Ortega’s air supply. An Ison Crystal allows the Ortega to travel at Light Speed. A broken one only allows sub-light speed travel. There is also mention of laser transfer linkage, which I imagine transfers laser energy or something. It’s vital on the flight deck. Cally gets to use her Liberator gun power pack to power a rather nifty huge torch.
Felt tip pens are still in use on the planet Destiny, as Avon uses a rather nice green one to reveal the murderer.
Fashion: The Liberator crew don’t get any new clothes this episode; except for Cally who gets a new top. It’s in green with a multi-coloured splash down the front. It has a multi-coloured collar and some gold braiding down the front of the tunic. She wears it with green trousers and big boots. The Ortega crew all get to wear similar uniforms. These uniforms feature high collars and our old favourite ¾ length sleeves, all in different colours, perhaps so they don’t get each other muddled up, worn over dark green, long sleeve tops. Food and Drink: Gan offers drinks to Vila, Blake and Jenna. It looks like orange squash in brown clear plastic beakers. Blake and Vila actually drink it too!
There are no new rooms seen on The Liberator this episode.
We don’t actually see the teleport bay this episode, but it is implied that Vila does all the teleporting this episode.
One further teleport bracelet is lost in this episode. One is forcefully put on Sara, but in a fit of pique she takes it off and throws it across Ortega’s the crew room. Shortly afterwards, the ship explodes taking the bracelet with it.
There is some kind of relationship between Sara and Mandrian, as they seem to be sharing a cabin when the gas knocks them out and they’re holding hands through the scene where the Ortega crew meet Blake for the first time. I’m suspicious of something going between Sonheim and Pasco. There certainly seems to be a lot of knowing looks passing between them. However, there are a lot of knowing looks passing between just about everyone on the Ortega, so I’m probably very wrong about that! Cally and Avon are left on The Ortega as Blake and the rest of the crew head off to Destiny, but they don’t flirt very much this time round, I’m afraid.
This episode features the voice of K9 himself, John Leeson, in a role concurrent with his time on Doctor Who, as Pasco. He doesn’t get very much to do, but at does at least get to show his face on screen. Much of the rest of the guest cast of this episode also featured in the show. Barry Jackson was Ascaris the rubbish assassin in The Romans, Jeff Garvey in Mission to the Unknown and would go on to play renegade Time Lord Drax in The Armageddon Factor in 1979. Nigel Humphreys would later play Bulic in Warriors of the Deep. Carl Forgione had already played Lane in Planet of the Spiders, and would later play Nimrod in Ghost Light.
This episode also sees the first appearance in Blake’s 7 of the mighty Stuart Fell, the most aptly named stunt man ever! He made numerous appearances in Doctor Who down the years. It’s entirely possible that the sets used in this story were cannibalised from those seen in The Sun Makers. However, I’m not sure of this fact, so don’t quote me on it! Graham Williams was certainly sure that at some point during the first season of Blake’s 7, the sets from that story will made good use of at some point. Terry Nation reuses the names Dortman and Sara from his 60’s Dalek stories, The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Daleks’ Masterplan.
This one again makes a tentative step towards the camp, but there’s a lot of blood and some nasty murders, so I’m going to go with a slightly bleak rating this time.
This is the first episode that Paul Darrow really gets a chance to shine as Avon, and he goes for it. Although at this stage in the series it seems rather out of character for Avon to suddenly show so much interest in the mystery onboard the Ortega, having only ever shown self-interest (or an interest in Cally perhaps) Darrow’s great performance in Mish to Dest really wins you over. There are moments he obviously relishes, especially when he is revealing the identity of the killer, and the rather misogynistic moment when he punches Sara and you can begin to see why they let him become the central character later on in the series.
The episode itself is a really enjoyable and engaging murder mystery, reportedly a rewrite of an earlier Nation script for another series, though I can’t believe that Terry Nation would ever recycle his ideas… It’s very entertaining and like all good murder mysteries it keeps wrong footing the viewer with lots of misdirection, as both Mandrian and Sonheim are set up to be the murderer at points in the story and there are so many glances and suspicious looks shared between the crew that you begin to feel it could any one of them. The resolution itself is rather neat and clever, and I didn’t spot it the first time round. Well done Terry!
The production is ok. The modelwork is very good indeed, from the Ortega to the meteorite storm, it’s all very convincingly done. The interior sets look rather cheap and dreary though, and the old trick of lighting the corridors in different colours really doesn’t convince. The mix of film and video also doesn’t help as odd parts of the ship are filmed and it feels awkward as we cut between the two. Dudley Simpson was obviously inspired by the tone of this episode because he wrote a very fine score for this episode, with lots of doomy and atmospheric cello and piano.
Finally, I’ve got to mention the outstanding contribution of Kate Coleridge as Glevitt, who manages to do the most amazing fast run that turns to a slow walk in mere seconds as she goes to tell Avon and Cally there’s been another murder. It’s really rather amazing to watch!
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