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by Simon Hart |
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Blake is still on the trail of Star One. Following the information given by Docholli, he’s travelled to Goth, on the search of Lurgen, the Cyber-surgeon. Will he be able to find the information about the location of the supercomputer complex before Travis and Servalan?
Servalan has again started to use Travis, as she feels this is the only way she’ll find the location of Star One and be able to utilise its power. Will Travis double cross her though? Has he already found the secret?
Who on Goth actually has the secrets of the location of Star One? It’s said one of the royal family has the secret, but which one- The Charl? His sister? Or is there another member or two still alive that they are reluctant to mention?
Travis Because he gets the location of Star One first.
Blake and Vila are the seconds in the fight between Gola and Rodd, both of whom end up dead. The Old Charll dies too, but not at the hands of Blake and his crew or The Federation.
There’s some sparring and tension on the Liberator before they go down to Goth: AVON: If you find the brain print, and consequently
the location of Star One, what then? The location is revealed: BLAKE: He said "A fool knows everything and
nothing." [louder] A fool knows everything and nothing.
A last line to set up the next episode: JENNA: One eight nine, standard by ten - and on, with luck, to Star One.
Fed Tech: There’s not much in the way of technology on display in this episode, only Travis’s rather chunky and brick-like communicator that he uses to contact his ship.
Fashion: Vila has a new costume. It’s brown. Again. Still, this one is a two-tone brown effect- a top with beige sleeves and sections under each arm, with a darker brown section on the chest and across the shoulders. This is worn with brown trousers and brown trainer like shoes.
He also gets to be Gola’s fool and has a suitable costume for this task. It’s a jacket with panels of gold, burgundy and green with lots of fur between the panels. He also wears a multi-coloured hat. Goth gives Jenna a new dress, when she becomes betrothed to him. It is another burgundy one, with gold edging from the neckline down to the waist. At the waist there is a lace up section, with gold laces, and around the waist is a gold belt, with a massive gold arrow attached to it that points up to her breasts! She also has a new gold necklace with gold coins attached to it. Servalan is decked head to foot in a white fur coat. There is no indication what she’s wearing beneath it. She has a pair of triangular earrings. The Goths are in standard BBC primitive costumes- lots of fur and leather. This episode’s most outrageous costume: It has to be Gola. He is dressed mainly in gold and burgundy, with the two colours patterned over the top he wears over a burgundy leather skirt. The top has fur across the shoulders. He wears this with brown trousers and brown fur lined boots. There is also a winged burgundy helmet. It actually looks very striking on Bruce Purchase.
Food and Drink: Lots of wine is drunk in Gola’s tent. Some of it is possibly poisoned, so the fool tastes it before his master drinks it. There are grapes (that are sort of bluish) and apples on the table in Servalan’s tent. The old Charl drinks some water given to him by the fool in the cell next to his.
Cally teleports Blake, Jenna and Vila down to Goth. It is implied that Avon brings Blake up and then Cally sends him back down again when he’s recovered from his fight. She brings all three of them back up at the end of the episode.
The teleport bracelet rack is seen clearly for the first time in ages, and it is full!
There’s lots of talk about how beautiful Jenna is in this episode. It is her beauty that leads to Gola proposing she pair-bonds with him. In fact there is much talk of pair-bonding between the two of them, but since Jenna is just stringing him along to find out the location of Star One, there isn’t actually much going on between them. They do, however, dance together, which is pretty suggestive for Blake’s 7!
There doesn’t seem to be much reason for Servalan to be in this episode, as she doesn’t really do a great deal. Her best moment comes when she orders Gola to be in her tent in an hour or else she will incinerate the tents of Goth. Typical Servalan intimidation.
Three of the actors in this episode appeared in Doctor Who. Firstly, of course is the very shouty Bruce Purchase, who had played the similarly loud Pirate Captain in The Pirate Planet in 1978. Arthur Hewlett who plays the Old Man, would appear twice in Doctor Who after his appearance here, firstly in 1980’s State of Decay as Kalmar and then as Mr Kimber in Trial of a Time Lord pts 9 & 10.
Ron Tarr, who plays the first guard, was a prisoner in Destiny of the Daleks later in 1979 and would later be cruelly robbed of a chance to save the Doctor and Liz from the Rani in the phone-in vote for Dimensions in Time in 1993. He would, of course, have been playing the role that made him semi-famous, Big Ron in Eastenders.
The Keeper is just a little on the camp side, thanks largely to the efforts of Bruce Purchase.
The Keeper was a last minute commission when the two-part end of season story from Terry Nation fell through. This could explain why some of it feels wrong following the last through episodes. Servalan and Travis parted not on the best of terms at the end of Gambit, and yet here they are all cosy trying to find the location of Star One together. It just doesn’t feel quite right. In fact the inclusion of Servalan in this episode adds nothing to the story at all. She doesn’t do a great deal and seems wasted. Maybe it was a contractual obligation that she had to be in it? The rest of the story isn’t half bad, if you can get past the inclusion of yet another planet inhabited by your standard Blake’s 7 primitives: all hairy, dressed in leather and shouting a lot. We’ve seen it all before and we’ll see it again too. That said both Freda Jackson and Bruce Purchase give strong performances and are very enjoyable to watch as the sparring brother and sister. Indeed Freda Jackson’s cackling, drug addled old hag almost steals the show from Bruce Purchase.
The main cast get some interesting things to do, especially so Sally Knyvette who gets to dance and use all her deviousness and femininity to charm Gola, and Michael Keating who does magic tricks when employed as Gola’s fool.
There are strong fight and action scenes on the planet’s surface for Gareth Thomas and Paul Darrow and Jan Chappell seem to enjoy their few scenes together on board the Liberator, with Cally once again very obviously becoming the conscience and the single voice of reason on the ship.
This is simply an average episode of the show, far better than Allan Prior’s last episode, Hostage, but one that should have been a far better build up for the season finale, Star One. But more on that soon!
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