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by Simon Hart |
Blake has made contact with the leader of a major resistance group called Avalon. They are planning to meet up to discuss strategies for joining forces in the fight against The Federation.
Travis is working to a
plan, Project: Avalon. He knows Blake is on his way to meet Avalon, and so
is cunningly waiting for him. Capturing Avalon, he makes a robot duplicate
of her, which will go with Blake and capture the Liberator, killing the
crew with a pathogen that will leave the ship unharmed. Unofficially he
has the backing of Supreme Commander Servalan, and it looks like he’s
about to win…
Blake. He’s a clever one that Blake! The mere fact that he and his crew escaped from the base sets him thinking, and he deduces what’s happened when the duplicate Avalon kills Chevner. He even gets to go back, rescue the real Avalon and have a good gloat in front of Travis and Servalan!
Travis’s mutoids kill most of the members of Avalon’s group, clocking up another 8 deaths. Travis also kills one other man during the demonstration of the pathogen. Arguably Travis also causes the death of Chevner on the Liberator. Blake and co clock up 7 deaths, with four guards killed by Jenna alone.
Avon on not being involved this time: AVON:
Another idealist, poor but honest. I shall
look forward to our meeting with eager anticipation.
Servalan and Travis discuss the ongoing Blake problem: SERVALAN:
Nothing is safe any more. You've
heard, of course, that there have been two attempts on my life.
TRAVIS:
I have. I was very concerned.
And why Servalan is there: TRAVIS:
I think Project Avalon will silence the
critics. And finally a line I like simply for Jackie Pearce’s delivery: Mutoid: Blake is
demanding to see you.
Fed Tech: The standard triple omega robot is used a base for the Avalon duplicate. This has obviously been upgraded though as Avon later exclaims that he’s never seen circuitry this sophisticated before. It’s the best he’s ever seen.
The pathogen Travis is going to use to kill the Liberator crew is totally new and very costly. It mutates human flesh into green goo, eventually leaving just the skeleton. It has a short life cycle of 23 seconds, after which the pathogen eliminates itself leaving the area free for anyone to visit. Zen later analyses it, and discovers it is a mutation of the virus classified as Delta 706 subset 205, originally known incorrectly as the Phobon Plague.
The Federation troops in the base have been issued with new guns, which look just like the old ones (luckily for the budget) but these have a low energy bolt discharge that can bruise or stun but don’t cause any permanent damage to the target. The mutoids in this episode seem to be remote controlled from a small handset used by the lead mutoid.
Servalan uses the video-walkman, which has a headset consisting of white goggles and headphones and a rather chunky player unit. Fashion: Travis wears special "cold weather" clothes in this episode, consisting of a rather nice long fur coat over his standard uniform with big boots and goggles and a glove for his undamaged hand.
Avalon and her associates are all dressed in warm furs of various colours, with Chevner wearing a balaclava and goggles too. The duplicate version of Avalon wears a standard cream coloured woollen prison tunic with a V neck when she’s rescued and later wears a dark pink satin top with a V neck with silver piping and trousers, with matching high heel boots. Servalan wears a white satin dress with a wide neck and flared sleeves. There is some detailing done around the fitted waistline. When she arrives on the planet, she also wears a white fur stole over the top. She has silver shoes. The Liberator crew all wear thermal suits under their standard anoraks when going down the planet. These are blue with a furry hood and a big red dial on the left breast for turning the temperature up. The scientists in the base all wear silver tabards with the Federation logo over the left breast. This is worn over a long sleeve green top with white cuffs and green trousers. They all wear a silver and green hat. Food and Drink: Gan takes a pill of some
sort with a drink of some sort in a brown see through beaker of some sort.
We get a glimpse of one
of the Liberator cabins this episode. It’s not very inspiring. The room
has one bed and two brown leather wheelie chairs and an old litterbin
without a top. The walls are a dull grey and the door appears to be much
the same as the one seen as the entrance to the hold in Time-Squad. No
wonder they all spend so much time on the flight deck.
Avon does the
teleporting this time round. He sends Jenna and Blake down, then Vila. He
then brings all three back up with Chevner and the duplicate of Avalon.
Later on he sends Blake and the duplicate back down and then brings Blake
and the real Avalon back up. He’s very busy with the teleporting.
No more Teleport bracelets are lost in this episode, but we do see our first clear glimpse of the teleport bracelet rack for some time. This episode confirms that the crew have been somewhat lax at keeping hold of their bracelets as they’re down to 15. Oh dear!
There’s very little to suggest any sex or relationships or even closeness in this episode, except for Avon and Cally grinning at each other inexplicably after teleporting Vila. Servalan also playfully
touches Travis’s chest with her fingers- or his uniform at least.
This episode features her first "Oh Travis!" but really I think her finest moment is her first scene. She swishes in down the lovely silver corridor in her furs, finds Travis and then drops the furs casually to the floor before explaining there’d been three more attempts on her life as if it’s no more important than being stuck in traffic on the way to the shops. She’s so cool!
The stock footage of ice, glaciers and snowy landscapes seen at the start of Project: Avalon was used to establish the Antarctic setting of Seeds of Doom. The location work for this episode was carried out at Wookey Hole, which had doubled fro Voga, The Planet of Gold in the story Revenge of the Cybermen, which was also directed by Michael E. Briant. Michael E. Briant had also previously cast David Bailie who played Chevner in the Doctor Who story, Robots of Death. John Baker who plays the chief scientist had appeared in Colony in Space as a Time Lord and would later play one of the Ralphs in The Visitation. Speaking of Ralphs, Terloc was played by John Rolphe who had played Ralph Fell in The Green Death, Sam Becket in The Moonbase and the Captain in The War Machines.
Camp! This is perhaps
the first pretty camp episode, as Jackie Pearce goes for it as Servalan
and steals the screen from all around her.
This is one of my favourite episodes of the series. In some ways it’s pretty standard stuff: Blake vs. Travis in an all action adventure. That’s not a slight on the episode because in many ways this could be the definitive Blake’s 7 episode- most of the key themes of the series are included in the plot and it’s well made, exciting and entertaining. Of course, in some ways this is where the series begins to become camp- with Servalan mincing her way round the base, and playing her lines with a delicious sense of playfulness, but for me that just adds to the charm of the series. If nothing else it makes it great fun to watch, but it’s probably not true to the series’ gritty origins. It’s difficult say if this was a good thing for the series or not; but if nothing else it makes sure that it was remembered years later. Once again, Michael E. Briant makes good use of the Wookey Hole locations and gives it a completely different feel from when he filmed Doctor Who there. Luckily this time, the freezing location filming was a blessing as it really convinces that this planet is ever so cold! The snow effects, seen briefly during the episode are convincingly done, and there’s just the feeling that everyone has really hit their stride now and is making the series a success. Shame it wasn’t to last though.
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