I'm not sure it's fair to call this a 'Synchro'-Watch when I'm so totally out of synch with everybody else... but I've been absolutely bushed out after the Jubilee. I was up in London for the Sunday and the Monday, and managed to be one of the "million in the Mall" on all the front pages. I spent six hours on the wrong side of Admiralty Arch before they finally let us through - but at least we got to see half the procession (the 'multicultural' half, unfortunately, not the military half), and managed to make it onto the Mall in time to sing the National Anthem to the Queen.
Oh, and I did see the back of Her Majesty's hat from about twenty yards
as the car went past. Unfortunately she turned round and waved to the
crowd opposite at precisely the wrong moment!
And so, via a not entirely unrelated process of thought...I proceed to consider perhaps the most topical of "Blake's 7" episodes for the occasion - "The Keeper", in which the plot revolves around a 'royal personage' unwittingly in possession of a certain brainprint, containing the memories of the one man in the galaxy to know the true position of Star One.
Synchro-Watch: The Keeper =========================
I didn't remember this episode as being particularly good; in fact, I remembered almost nothing about it, apart from Jenna vamping the Charl and Vila doing a few magic tricks. On the basis of my track record so far, this should have put me in a position to be pleasantly surprised by re-watching an episode I had previously dismissed... so did it work? Well, yes and no.
Checking back, I find that the writer of "The Keeper" was Allan Prior, also responsible for the dodgy "Hostage" and "Horizon" as well as "Volcano", of which I remember absolutely nothing, and the infamous "Animals". The latter is ranked by many fans high among the five worst-ever B7 episodes. Considering the company it keeps, "The Keeper" really isn't bad.
I suspect that a number of sections would have been far more effective
when watched by the original viewers than they were for me, cursed with
the benefit of hindsight and knowing the plot of "Star One" in
advance. Like "Mission to Destiny", this is in a way a detective
story that spends fifty minutes leading the characters (and the
audience) up one blind alley after another, and it takes a higher
calibre of detective story than this to stand up to the scrutiny of a
reader who remembers the outcome of the plot. Indeed, there are
sections of "Mission to Destiny" (for example, when Sonheim, the
sinister scowling one, starts stalking Cally) that work as plausible
misdirection when the viewer doesn't know 'whodunnit', but turn out to
make little sense on reviewing. "The Keeper" is rather better in this
respect, but the cliffhangers still inevitably lose their impact.
The apparent death of Travis, 'shot in the back' by Avon as the
Liberator ambushes his ship, must have left its initial viewers somewhat
stunned. Has "Blake's 7" really dared to flout dramatic convention by
allowing the sidekick to take out the hero's nemesis without a final
confrontation? Can it really be that easy?... No, of course it can't.
But as well as providing Avon with something to do, in an episode in which the character otherwise (refreshingly!) plays little part, this event re-establishes one of the jarring truths of "Blake's 7". Unlike, say, Doctor Who and the Master, one gets a sense that the two sides really are trying to kill each other when they get the chance. It is also - perhaps intentionally, perhaps not - a prefiguring of "Star One", in which the stale rhetoric of "I'll get you, Blake!" becomes deadly in earnest for all those involved.
Further should-have-been revelations include the clues leading up to the true identities of first Rod and then the old Charl, as more and more potential royal keepers of the secret are disclosed; Rod's loss of the duel when both the prophecy and the fact that he is on Blake's side have led us to assume the reverse; and the realisation that for once Travis has managed to double-cross Servalan.
I think that Travis must have been in league with Tara. Her final speech suggests that she knew the nature and location of Jenna's 'secret' all along, but she has been delaying them for as long as she can. She must have told Travis where to find the brainprint right at the beginning - with hindsight, he already has it in his possession when he is talking to Servalan.
In fact, this is a very strange scene. It is almost as if Travis is testing the Supreme Commander - tempting her. (Forget about the whole improbability of their working together at all after events in Freedom City.) He practically invites her to seize Star One for herself, the goal we assumed to be her whole aim in her dealings with Krantor... and she pretends that she doesn't know what he is talking about. Servalan is far from stupid; it has to be a pretence - a coded rejection. But what is she rejecting?
Travis' insolence in thinking that they could be in any way equals in offering her power? "Be very careful you do not over-reach yourself, Travis."
The power of Star One itself? There is no way that they can be under surveillance by the Federation here, so why should she dissemble?... is it even possible that it is being hinted that the Supreme Commander is less personally corrupt than we have taken her for? Hindsight tells us, after all, that Servalan takes no further part in the race to Star One. On the other hand, she has clearly come to Goth to extract the information from the Charl, and since Travis has taken the brainprint she is now left with no further means of following even if she wanted to.
But still... what on earth is she up to here? Why not either pretend to accept Travis' promises of joint ruler-ship, while fully intending to dispose of him the moment she gets power (the behaviour I'd expect), or else simply slap him down on the spot: "You and I? I think not." Why this play of innocence?
Whatever she intends, it fails. Whatever Travis has in mind, Servalan clearly does not pass the test. The moment she claims that she has not the faintest idea what he is talking about, we can almost see the betrayal set into motion. He turns away and finds an excuse to leave the planet, 'to alert Space Command'. But as we know, he doesn't. At this point he has almost certainly got the brainprint in his pocket already.
Almost certainly - because the Fool tells Blake that he saw Travis take it, which implies that Travis must have gone down to the cells after Vila and Blake have both left. If so, one wonders why he delayed so long and what he was doing in the interim! It's possible, though, that the Fool saw him take it earlier, before the Liberator ever arrived. He is clearly under Tara's protection, and may have been present when (if) she gave the secret to Travis.
The other question raised by Travis' departure is - who ordered Travis'
original pursuit ship to take off and transmit that message, what was
it, and at whom was it aimed? Presumably the mutoid crew were on board,
which solves the question of who was transmitting (and of why they
didn't run away from the Liberator - blind obedience to orders); but
Servalan obviously knew about the ship's takeoff, since on learning of
the Liberator's presence she was totally unsurprised by Pursuit-4's
subsequent destruction. The simple conclusion would be that this was the
moment when Travis acquired the brainprint and that he sent up his ship
to transmit the brainprint's contents; however, that could hardly have
been the reason given to Servalan to explain the launch! And if he
already had the brainprint then, why didn't he leave in the ship
himself?... apart from the fact that the scriptwriter knew that Avon was
going to blow up the first ship to leave
It's actually a rather neat set-up. The plot requires that Travis escape from under Avon's nose. Instead of finding an out-of-character reason for him not to attack an oblivious Travis, the writer simply lets him rip (incidentally with some very good special effects, where the debris, for once, is not falling downwards!) Rather than supposedly worrying about potential consequences, he is thus hit with actual consequences, in the shape of missing crewmates and a very angry Blake. This is more than enough reason for Cally, at least, to be determined to 'play it by the book' next time and to give the second ship the benefit of the doubt. (And an interesting example of Cally facing Avon down, something few others save Blake ever get away with!)
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"They're a rather primitive lot on Goth," remarked Docholli in the previous episode. And so they are.
I wonder if the phrase 'the tents of Goth' has any literary resonances - it sounds like a quotation, but I can't track it. It's certainly an interesting conceit when coupled with the idea of a civilisation forced to live underground, resulting in a cavern full of individual tent-like dwellings. Very skilful use is made of smoke and bubbling noises on the soundtrack to suggest volcanic pools without actually going to the expense of showing them - although I have to say that not only does the luxuriant native vegetation (which bears a remarkable resemblance to that on Horizon!) appear to have developed a healthy resistance to the poisonous vapours, but so do the Goths, judging by the number of them we see running around outside. (For how long, for example, has Rod been exiled from the 'safety' of the caves?)
For such hulking warriors, they do not actually appear to be very good
fighters! The initial ambush would have worked so much better if the
warriors had dropped from the rocks onto the intruders (as Blake does
later on) instead of dropping down beside them and thus knocking the
wind out of themselves rather than their enemies. In fact, the only one
they actually manage to catch is Jenna, since Blake knocks himself out
and Vila, in full view, somehow walks away without being noticed. The
only reason they catch Jenna is by total incompetence on her part - all
she does is kick her legs and scream. Is this really supposed to be the
same character who took down three of the Amagons in 'Bounty'
single-handed, and disposed of large numbers of Federation troopers in
'Project Avalon'? 
All the fighting in this episode struck me forcibly (an unfortunate turn of phrase?) as badly choreographed. Nobody appeared to strike anybody forcibly, in fact! Half the time they didn't even seem to strike each other at all - the duel of the Charls was especially cringe-making in this respect. Compare this to "Duel", where Blake and Travis really go at each other (and the actors apparently had the skinned knuckles to prove it!) I wondered if they were using professional 'giants' to play the Goths, as dwarfs were used to play the Decimas - I've heard that both forms of growth abnormality mean that the actors heal very slowly and thus have to be treated very carefully.
It's not entirely clear just how primitive the Goths actually are. At some point their ancestors presumably arrived on the planet and then reverted to savagery - perhaps the 'Lost Time' of which Tara speaks. At any rate, Rod's claim that Blake's weapon must be 'magic' sits rather oddly with the explosive crossbow projectiles seen to be used by his own people (the special effects for which are almost identical to those seen from Blake's gun!) and with Gola's familiarity with 'spaceships' and 'bombs' (and how to defend against the latter dropped from orbit).
Neither is it clear how much of Tara's magic is fake. Her prophecies come true, but largely because she takes steps to ensure that they will. She correctly predicts the arrival of Jenna and Vila, but not until after they have been captured - making it more than likely that she simply has her own sources of information among the warriors. She paralyses Jenna's hand, but from what we are shown this could well be hypnotic suggestion rather than any supernatural powers.
Dialogue-wise, this episode doesn't really shine. I don't think it contains any 'famous quotes' at all, possibly because Avon has very few lines; it is normally he who gets the black humour. Jenna's expression after politely agreeing with the Charl that "humility is good in a woman" is, however, priceless... and Vila manages to think quickly to give her a coded warning of Blake's presence: "break above, Blake below"!
This should be a good episode for Jenna. I hadn't realised that she basically does all the 'upstairs' investigating, negotiates with Tara and rescues Vila from the Fool's hostility, as well as seducing the Charl. She also more than holds her own in verbal combat with Servalan, and actually receives a barbed compliment from her, when the Supreme Commander maliciously points out to Gola that his would-be mate is far more intelligent than he is. Unfortunately (probably unfairly, because it is not her fault that all her work comes to nothing, while Blake simply stumbles over the secret) she somehow doesn't show to advantage.
