I fell in love with Blakes 7 when it was first shown towards the end of my primary school years. Even then I knew it was something entirely different, a darkly cynical, witty vision of a future with absolutely top drawer stage actors orating brilliant lines on wobbly sets. I found it amusing that they would beam down to a planet to attack some major base belonging to the evil federation which would turn out to be a gasworks outside Southampton or something equally ridiculous. It was just a joy!
I made the jump to my Northern public school at 11 and found a small circle of friends who also appreciated the nuance and eccentricity of this unique sci-fi show. All of us deeply loved the Liberator spacecraft - the most powerful ship in the galaxy with its superbly voiced computer Zen. All of us wanted to be the wry, cool and dangerous Avon who seemed to get all the best lines and had a voice of such booming magnificence that he surely would have made the greatest Bond villain of all time. We were all trapped studying subjects we couldnât stand (like compulsory latin, medieval history and chemistry) I still recall being burdened by 2 hours homework a night translating dreadful old Latin texts or struggling through quadratic equations because this school was a powerhouse of academia. We were of course also forced to play rugby twice a week and compelled to run around in shorts on a freezing windswept hail driven sports field before being thrown into unheated communal cold showers to hose off the deeply ingrained mud. Harsh experiences werenât just confined to the rugby pitch though and over the years I recall being hit with rulers, dragged down the corridor by my ear lobe (for running in the corridor), and on one memorable occasion being hit in the chest so hard by a biology teacher for talking in class that I was seriously winded and was wheezing and unable to talk for a few minutes, it certainly made life feel pretty grim and I longed to escape. The one thing that kept us all going and which we looked forward to was our weekly dose of Blakes 7 on Monday nights and we would rush home to get the homework out of the way before it broadcast at 7.15pm.
I think even back then in my early teens I related to the over-arching series concept. A brutal manipulative dictatorship ruled the galaxy just as it seemed to rule school! It was âthemâ and âusâ trying to get by in a system that felt hostile, judgemental, bleak and competitive.
It wasnât all bad though - the English dept at school was absolutely magnificent. Stuffed with fabulous inspiring thespian types they opened the doors to the kingdom of the english language and inspired us with poetry, plays, Jerome K Jerome, William Blake, Shakespeare, William Gray. I owe my passion for the written word entirely to them and I treasure their memory. They were like us - seeking to understand the world through the greatest writers, poets and dramatists in history. 40+ years on Iâve come to realise that you need to find your tribe to be happy in life and I know now that my tribe are people who love the arts and value eccentricity and intellect.
Blakes 7 was a sci-fi show like no other - it went way beyond a tussle between good and evil, it had a political dimension, it explored greed, indoctrination, media manipulation, oppression, artificial intelligence and whether obsessively following a noble cause is indeed a flaw. These themes in an era of Musk, media moguls, emerging AI and increasing domination of our lives by machines resonate even more strongly today than they did in 1978. The actors were simply exceptional and the wit and repartee kept what could have been a rather dark show engaging and amusing.
Over the years I have gone back to Blakes 7 especially in times of challenge in my life to re-watch my DVD collection of the series - it got me through studying for my airline transport pilot exams in 2003 for example and itâs become an old and comforting friend to me. I can sit down and re-watch it endlessly and still see new things in it which I hadnât noticed before.
It was with great excitement then that I learned that the BBC had commissioned an extensive remastering of the series for Blu-ray release which included entirely new model work (reputedly not CGI) and special effects plus a raft of documentaries and interviews with those who made the series. I began watching the Series 1 blu-ray last night and I have to say I am blown away by the sound restoration and the documentaries which are a glorious tribute and insight to this magnificent show. I havenât started on the episodes yet but I value the fact that you get a choice of whether to watch with the original effects or the new ones. Thatâs going to be interesting. The main theme though sounded stunning in DTS HD Master Audio last night and the subwoofer was certainly getting a pummelling!
For a couple of hours last night I was 12 years of age again, but without the fear of not having completed latin homework!!! Sheer blissâŚ
JonathanG