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by Simon Hart |
The Liberator intercepts a spaceship, which suddenly explodes, launching two life capsules. He sends Avon, Jenna, Vila and Gan down to the planet Cephlon to see if there are any survivors.
Unbeknown to her superiors, Servalan has set in motion a plan to retrieve Orac, a supercomputer invented by the eccentric missing genius Ensor. Ensor is demanding payment of 100 million Credits for his computer, and also medical aid, as his artificial heart is running out of power. Servalan dispatches medical aid with Ensor’s son, but will she play by the rules Ensor has stipulated? What do you think?
The planet Cephlon was once home to a highly advanced race that destroyed themselves in a war. Kashell the Wise had the foresight to see what was going to happen to his race, and created a chemical rocket containing gene banks to save the race, but before it could be launched the necessary knowledge was lost. A dedicated group of followers have waited patiently for the means of their deliverance, someone who will speak the name of the rocket and understand it. Could a certain, cold and cynical member of Blake’s crew really be the one the legend foretold?
The Federation. Their plan works this time. For now anyway. They’ve got rid of Ensor’s son, and it looks like they’ll manage to get Orac too. The only thing is, they don’t know that Blake knows… that’ll probably work out badly for them in the future, but for now, they’re doing well.
The Federation are responsible for the deaths of Maryatt and Ensor.
For a moment, Travis shows some compassion: SERVALAN: What's the matter?
Vila and Avon spar about Avon’s new found godhood: AVON: And it does seem we have a reputation to live
up to. Avon and Blake share a moment: CALLY: [To Avon] Did she really think you were a
god?
Fed Tech: Ensor and Maryatt are travelling in a Spacemaster 5 ship. This type of ship has four neutron power units with a maximum speed of standard by 4. It has two high impact survival modules (life capsules) as standard. Ensor Senior has an artificial heart. This is powered by micro power cells, which aren’t actually all that small if the ones we see are anything to go by. These have a standard life of about 30 years.
Cally is seen using the Video Walkman in this episode. It’s playing some gentle jazzy music.
Ensor Junior carries an Energiser Gun with him. This has an automatic function that means when it is dropped (if say the seriously wounded Ensor was to pass out) it will fire. Fashion: Avon has found himself a new jacket for this episode. Good thing too, because they’re going down to a cold planet. It’s silver, it’s shiny, it’s got a big hood and in keeping with his recent choices, it’s got some thick black piping around the pockets and across the body.
Both Maryatt and Ensor are dressed in brown. Ensor wears a beige top made out of some sort of corded material. This has silver bands around the sleeves and is worn over a pair of darker brown trousers. Maryatt has a padded blouson jacket over a light brown top and a lighter brown roll neck sweater. Meegat wears a flowing white dress, made up of layers of net material, as befits a disciple of the great god Avon.
The primitives are dressed exactly how you’d imagine in skins and furs and don’t look very warm at all. Food and Drink: We see Servalan and Travis drink some kind of potent green stuff. Quite what it is can’t be said, but Servalan has a bottle of it on a table in her office. There’s another room you should see. This episode shows the surgical unit once again… or does it? It’s referred to as the surgical unit, but it doesn’t look anywhere near as well equipped as the one we saw in Breakdown. It’s not inconceivable that a ship the size of The Liberator would have more than one surgical unit, but there’s very little evidence either way.
Cally starts off on teleport duty, sending the crew members down to Cephlon the first time, and teleports them back again, minus Jenna. After this Blake takes over, operating the machine several times to try and bring Jenna back up. He teleports Avon, Vila and Gan back down to the planet to look for her.
In the time that’s elapsed since Project: Avalon the crew have lost many of their teleport bracelets. There seem to be only 8 left now- Jenna is wearing one and there are 7 left on the rack as they prepare to go down to Cephlon.
Meegat seems to be very attracted to Avon. Whether this is merely because he’s the deliverance that’s so long been promised to her and her race, or because he’s a damn attractive hunky male, it’s difficult to know. What is clear is that Avon is thoroughly enjoying the attention and seems to be quite attracted to her, even showing a moment of tenderness towards her when he gently strokes her face before they leave to find Jenna. Amazing what a bit of worship does to someone!
Servalan is at her most devious in this episode. Her finest moment this time comes when she’s draped herself on the sofa in her office, feet up, drinking a glass of something green and explaining to Travis just how devious she’s been. Fabulous!
This episode’s main guest star is Tony Caunter who appeared in three Doctor Who stories long before his regular appearances in East Enders. He appeared first in The Romans in 1965 as Ascaris the Assassin. He the played the sadistic Morgan in 1971 in Colony in Space and then after his appearance in this episode he starred in 1983’s Enlightenment as Jackson.
It’s also reassuring to spot Doctor Who extra extraordinaire, the iconic Pat Gorman as one of the primitives.
From Servalan sitting on the soaf with her feet up to hairy BBC primitives running round Betchworth Quarry, this one is a bit camp!
If the writing of the last episode showed the presence of Chris Boucher, then this one can very definitely be laid at the door of Terry Nation. Some of his favourite themes are here: a civilisation destroyed through war and reverting to primitivism, heavy radiation, the crew are separated, with one of them captured by hairy primitives (although, at least they’ve learnt from the mistakes of Seek-Locate- Destroy and they realise straight away that Jenna isn’t back) and once again everything has a Space tag- Space Surgeons, Space Master ships… It’s all very familiar and really quite silly, yet despite that, I thoroughly enjoy watching this episode. Perhaps it’s the fact that everyone knows what they’re doing by now and have their characters well defined, or the fact that the snow at Betchworth Quarry gives this episode something a bit different, or just that I like it because it is an undemanding over familiar Terry Nation clichés? I don’t know.
What I do like about this story is the fact that it begins another set of interlinked episodes (or story-arc as they’d call it now). If any series was really suited to doing this, it was Blake’s 7 and as the first set of episodes show, this worked really well. This storyline carries on for the next two episodes and while not being perhaps the best of the linked storylines; it does give the crew some focus for a while. Deliverance succeeds by giving Paul Darrow the chance to take centre stage again and as with Mission to Destiny he seizes the opportunity. The scenes between him and Meegat are quite funny (for Blake’s 7 anyway) with his deadpanning delivery contrasting nicely with Meegat’s worship of him. This also gives Vila a chance to get in several digs at Avon, which is always fun as Vila seldom has the upper hand.
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