Top Ten Things To Watch For on Sky’s Blake’s 7 Revivial
Hmm, Blake’s 7 is coming back to Sky, is it? Right then, time for a Top Ten things I’m going to be watching out for in the new series…
1. Avon, strapped into some diabolical torture device, keeping him on the edge of death (yet in horrible pain) for the 25 years since the shoot-out where all his friends were killed. I think this would look lovely on Servalan’s wall (this opening scenario from Matthew ‘Life on Mars’ Graham).
2. In all seriousness, the decision to do a reboot (a la Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica) or a continuation (the current Cardiff Doctor Who) is going to be a key decision. Personally I’m hoping for a continuation, with Avon and Blake elevated to Che Guvera levels of sainthood – spring the aforementioned Avon from torture as your pilot episode, give him a thirst for revenge against a President of the Galaxy Servalan, and away you go!
3. …although given the huge recognition of the curling tong lasers, the Liberator (cough DSV-1) and the wibbly wobbly tellport, plus modern day audiences wondering just where Blake is in a continuation, my money is on a reboot, and the first four original episodes re-jigged into two 60 minute episodes.
4. Stunt casting. This is Sky after all, so there are shivers of David Jason as Gan and Ross Kemp as Blake, although frankly after the delight of Blake’s Junction 7 I’m all for Johnny Vegas to get the lead role.
5. Speaking of stunning cast members, I confidently expect some gender switching in the roles, and Avon to become female. At least it would explain the love affair between Blake and Avon in a way Sky can confidently portray on the advertising material – Russell T Davis can keep the Gay Agenda in the Tardis.
6. Please, please, please have Chris Boucher involved.
7. May I suggest that an updated Orac is not portrayed by a fish tank full of lights that looks like someone trying to build their own stylish Apple Mac, but by Carey Mulligan (below) in a clingy red dress (hat tip to whoever brought up Orac on Twitter today)
8. If you are going to ask an original cast members to come back and do a dark shadowy political role a million miles from their first appearance, then please go for Michael Keating – after all he’s got the record of being the only cast member to be in all 52 original episodes, and he’s been dining out on that one for years. Do you really want to deprive him of a good after dinner story?
9. If they are staying true to the original, then there’s no way for the rebels to actually win – the Federation is all powerful, totalitarian, and can even fight off the invasion of the Andromedan’s from another galaxy. There’s no way a bunch of rebels, even in a fast ship, can do enough damage to even make it twitch.
10. Travis is the final Cylon, okay?
11. Remember Blake’s 7 is a story about five people (er 6 and a computer, or 6 and a computer and Orac, or 5 people and Orac and a computer…), none of whom are called Blake. Arithmetic is not the script’s strong point. Neither, it seems, is mine…
What happened to their revival of ‘The Prisoner’ though?
I reckon a reboot of B7 could very dark and nasty, but my money is on a full reboot of UFO. conspiracy, hiding stuff from the public, alien invasion and very cool vehicles (that have to have some alien tech in them, are we proxy fighters for some other races war??? – now that i want comissioned, oh and to produce :)
Mark,
I seem to recall (possible rumour here?) that was going to be a co-production, and the partners insisted on an American as Number 6. Sky, amazingly, put their foot don and wanted a Brit. Ergo no Prisoner.