Blake has made contact with a freedom fighter named Kasabi on Earth. Together they have hatched a plan to attack the Control computer complex. Blake feels that for too long he’s been attacking the fringes of the Federation, and so he wants to attack Earth, the very heart of the Federation, but what price will this attack bring?

Control and the Forbidden Zone
 

Travis and Servalan are watching a resistance leader named Kasabi. Travis thinks she’s somehow involved with Blake and after 18 days of waiting, Servalan is beginning to lose her patience. Can Kasabi really lead them to Blake?

HAT!
 

Servalan.

She’s the only one to come out of this unscathed. Travis it seems has made one last big mistake that has sealed his fate as a Federation Commander, and the losses for Blake are even more extreme, the death of one of his crew.
 

Servalan’s guards kill all four members of Kasabi’s resistance group (although if you watch closely the explosions are nowhere any of them!). She later administers a leathal dose of a drug to Kasabi herself, causing her death.

The Federation are also responsible for the death of the two members of Kasabi’s group who die in the Forbidden Zone around Control.

Travis throws the Strontium Grenade that brings down the roof and kills Gan.
 

Avon establishes his intentions:

BLAKE: That still doesn't explain why you're backing me.
AVON: With you running the campaign on Earth, somebody has to take charge of all this.
BLAKE: [Laughs] You want the Liberator.
AVON: [Almost laughs] Exactly. If we succeed, the destruction of Control gives us both what we want.
BLAKE: Could be you're planning just a little far ahead.
AVON: [Nods] Perhaps. But sooner or later, I will have my chance.
BLAKE: There's no hurry

Avon lays his cards on the table...

Kasabi fills in Servalan’s past…

KASABI: But don't try and browbeat me Servalan. Or have you forgotten that I knew you as a cadet? You were a credit to your background: spoilt, idle, vicious. [Pushes Servalan to the floor. To Travis.] My confidential assessment listed her as unfit for command. But I forgot how well connected she was.
TRAVIS: That is no concern of mine.
KASABI: Then it should be. It should be everyone's concern. The Federation is degenerate, run by creatures like her.

Kasabi shows touching deathbed regret about the way Servalan has turned out:

KASABI: Servalan. I'm sorry.
SERVALAN: Sorry?
KASABI: I should have tried. In the beginning, I should have tried to help you.

Blake shows unsurprising self absorption as he enters Central Control…

BLAKE: [Races through the door] We've done it! We've done it! We've done it! I've done it!
AVON: Blake! There's nothing here.

Blake's done it!

Travis explains the empty room:

TRAVIS: Even I don't know that. But it's safe and secure and will remain so while those who seek to destroy us believe it's here. You see, it's the great illusion, Blake. You give substance and credibility to an empty room, and the real thing becomes undetectable, virtually invisible.

Gan’s dying words:

GAN: Blake! Go! I'm not worth dying for!

Gan's last stand

And finally Servalan finally loses patience with Travis:

SERVALAN: Oh, yes. They'll dig us out eventually. And then I'll bury you
 

The Forbidden Zone has a high intensity radiation grid with anti-matter screening built in. This is sensitive to weight and disturbance, either of which will cause a high intensity explosive charge to explode, after rendering the intruder immobile. It is also tamper proof and has total self repair in 8 seconds.

The grid in the Forbidden Zone

A grenade full of Sono Gas knocks people unconscious in a matter of seconds.

The corridors of Control are booby trapped, featuring an electric floor amongst other nasties.

Vila is dressed in a rather bizarre costume consisting of yellow trousers, above which he has a black silk top. Across his shoulders and running down his torso is a very strange yellow band that makes him look lopsided and awkward. I’m not sure really what that’s all about!

Cally wears a version of her outfit from Shadow, only the previously white dress has been dyed blue.

Kasabi, Veron and the rest of the resistance group members are dressed in standard camouflage fatigues topped off with rather nice khaki caps.

Servalan once again has the most outrageous costume. She starts off wearing a really rather wonderful long white plastic coat over a long white dress all topped off with a big white hat. However, once the coat is removed the dress is revealed to be altogether more outrageous than could have been suspected. Yes it is a plain white short sleeved dress, but with a huge silver lizard straddling it! The lizard’s front arms are reaching up and touching her breasts and the tail is pointing somewhere even ruder. Astonishing!

Lounge Lizard: Servalan looking cool!

No one eats or drinks anything.
 

Look who's been left behind...

Cally is left at the teleport this episode. She first sends Blake down to find Kasabi, then sends down Gan to join him. She later sends Avon and Vila to the Forbidden Zone and then presumably sends Jenna down into Servalan’s base (although we don’t see this) and finally brings them all, minus Gan back to the Liberator.
 

Veron takes four teleport bracelets from Blake and co to Travis. It’s unclear if Jenna later returns the same ones to Blake and co, or whether she brings some new ones with her.

Gan’s teleport bracelet is presumably left on his dead body.
 

They’re all remarkably chaste this episode!
 

The slap she gives Travis’s face after he hesitates about saving Servalan’s life in the empty control centre, and gets a great put down after he brings down the roof while chasing Blake is possibly her finest moment this episode. It sounds like it really hurt and Jackie Pearce really goes for it!

Servalan finally loses patience with Travis
 

This episode’s two female stars, Jane Sherwin and Yolande Palfrey both appeared in Doctor Who. Jane Sherwin is the ex-wife of Doctor Who producer Derrick Sherwin and appeared as Lady Jennifer Buckingham in The War Games. Yolande Palfrey of course played Janet the Murderess, sorry I mean receptionist in the ever-popular Terror of the Vervoids… sorry Trial of a Time Lord pts 9-12.

Kasabi and Veron

If I was being uncharitable I could say that all the padding in the Control centre is the same as that seen in Terry Nation’s Death to the Daleks, but I wouldn’t even dream of that…
 

Not very camp, despite the best efforts of Jackie Pearce, and just a little bit bleak. It’s a just off central rating for this episode.
 

Pressure Point will always be remembered as the episode where Gan dies. It’s difficult to imagine the impact this had at the time, as we’re so used to long running series killing off their main characters, but back in 1979 this was something of a rarity, even more so in a sci-fi show like Blake’s 7.What this does is show that the whole crew are vulnerable, and it keeps the viewers’ interest in the show fresh, as it’s now possible that any of the regulars could end up dead.

Looked at now, the death itself is somewhat disappointingly staged, with lots of BBC glitter and a foam girder thrown over poor old David Jackson, but the acting from Jackson and Gareth Thomas carry it well enough for it to have an impact despite the production drawbacks.

A death in the 7...

Frankly, the character of Gan was the obvious choice of character to die from the original cast. He’d been under utilised and under developed in comparison to the rest of the regulars, almost as if no one really knew what to do with him. Even in Breakdown, an episode that ostensibly is about Gan, he was unconscious or acting out of character for most of the episode. It seems very odd in hindsight that Terry Nation favoured killing off Vila instead, as Vila’s character has far more potential and usefulness than Gan had ever showed. Perhaps Terry Nation didn’t understand his show as well as other members of the production team did…

This corridor looks familiar

The rest of the episode is somewhat overshadowed by its ending. There’s obviously very little for Jenna and Cally to do and there are so many glaring plot holes, Veron taking away the teleport bracelets but leaving the guns being one of the more glaring ones. In general it’s a typical Terry Nation run-around with the dangerous corridors of Control being reminiscent of the padding found in Death to the Daleks. The change of lighting colours the deeper they go into the building convinces no-one however. The twist end with Control not being there is a stroke of brilliance however and shocked me the first time I saw it. It makes Gan a little more poignant, as he really did die for nothing.

Not so triumphant now...

There’s some good material for Servalan, as her background is expanded through the character of Kasabi. The little hints about her early days in the academy are intriguing. It seems the Supreme Commander had few scruples even then about doing what she could to further her own position. Kasabi’s dying regrets that she didn’t help Servalan more in the early days is quite moving and the oddly unreadable expression on Servalan’s face at that moment is a powerful moment.