'Star One' is another of the episodes I've watched once and once only - but for totally different reasons from 'The Keeper', or even 'Blake'. For personal reasons, this episode has always held a tremendous emotional punch for me - the incidental repercussions from the occasion on which I saw it literally changed the course of my life - but also, I found it so exhilarating as the series' climax that I've avoided rewatching it ever since, for fear of being disappointed.
But here we are in the Synchro-Watch, and there was no avoiding it at last. Could 'Star One' ever live up to the weight of memories and of expectations? With great relief - and finding myself still, after all these years, shaking with reaction from the ending - I am overjoyed to be able to give it a resounding YES!
(And this despite being a heretic in matters of repeated viewing; being a plot-addict, I don't find that to enjoy a story to its utmost it is best to consume it carefully and repeatedly, with hindsight, appreciating how it is put together and how the foreshadowing is done. After a lifetime of academic exercise I'm more than capable of doing this, as I've demonstrated in this series of reviews - but for me, however great the pleasure of revisiting an old friend and however fond the compulsion to do so, nothing can ever compare to the unrepeatable thrill of the first time one meets a story and doesn't know how it is going to come out. When one urges on the action with all one's heart, as if simply caring desperately enough could in itself change the forthcoming plot - and the total joy when as if in response there is an unexpected escape or loyalty rewarded beyond hope, or seeming tragedy is averted for a happy ending.)
For the dramatic start of 'Star One', I almost did recapture such a moment, since I didn't remember this scene at all... until with the mention of computer control, foreknowledge began fatally to whisper. In fact, while I remembered the disasters listed (often cited as evidence in the 'Blake was a terrorist' argument) I hadn't remembered that all this happened before Blake ever came near Star One. The disasters are not the effect of removing centralised control - they are the proof of exactly what Blake was arguing, that centralising all control in one complex makes it totally vulnerable to misuse. The tragedy of the Nova Queen was not the result of no computer control, but the result of deliberate and centralised tampering.
(...but it didn't stop me sitting there twisting my hands together, desperately willing the characters to realise something was wrong and switch to manual control before it was too late...)
Next comes a welcome return to Servalan as Supreme Commander - the mode in which she was originally conceived and in which to my mind she is most effective - after her somewhat non-regulation excursions over the past two episodes. One odd thing about this episode is that it makes not even a nod to Servalan's personal interest in Star One at all - the nearest we get is a sidelong allusion to her knowledge of Blake's presence on Goth, via the failure of the strategy programs to suggest where he might have gone next.
Given the circumstances in which they met, surely Servalan at least could venture a guess? Or perhaps that is why she insists on a repeat run of the analysis, on the grounds that Blake's location is the only thing likely to lead her to the knowledge now so desperately needed - the site of Star One? Still, given her recent activities, it seemed strange that we got not a hint of the fact that she had previously been pursuing the information in person.
This episode is beautifully constructed. People remember it mostly for Avon's and Blake's speeches, but there is so much more to it than that. All through, as I watched, I kept scribbling down questions on the paper - only to find the answers slotting into place, a few lines or scenes further on, building up a great jigsaw of information seamlessly without ever requiring a single explicit 'info-dump'. Not since 'Weapon' have I been struck by the sheer technical skill of an episode... and the material Chris Boucher is given to work with here holds far more potential than the tired old 'clone/twin brother/split personality' storyline to which practically every SF series resorts sooner or later in order to show off the characterisation skills of its lead actor.
I was wondering, for example, why on earth Servalan is so adamant here that Star One cannot possibly be the cause of the problems. After all, on past form one would expect her to jump at the opportunity for a cast-iron excuse to requisition the information of exactly where it is. In fact, as it turns out, she is protesting too much - she can't afford to believe that Star One needs attention... because there is no official record of its location. And, as she is better aware than anyone, there is no remaining unofficial record either.
Nothing can be done. There is no-one who knows - and then, in a beautiful piece of wordless juxtaposition (again reminiscent of 'Weapon') we cut to a shot of the Liberator, where Blake does know.
Dynamics on board the Liberator, however, have been changing. Now it is Avon who is eager to press on to Star One, and Cally and Jenna who are starting to hang back - and decidedly sceptical of Avon's change of heart. Prodded at last into explanation, Avon launches into one of the great set-piece speeches of the series - he wants to get out of the whole crusade, to declare his independence for good and for all; and in order to finish with Blake he is prepared to do whatever it takes, here and now, to get at last to the end - to be free, "free of him".
The vehemence is shocking; but for once, Blake doesn't fire back with equal passion. It's almost as if he has seen this coming... and - since he is no fool and Avon has never scrupled to make his views clear over the months the crew has been together - maybe Blake has.
"You really do hate me, don't you?" he observes instead, wryly - a question to which, one may note, Avon never actually responds...
He doesn't even try to hold on to Avon, accepting everything the other man proposes: either because he recognises he has managed pretty well already to keep him on board so long, or else (my preferred theory) because at this moment he is gambling everything on one last throw - getting to Star One. No point in husbanding his resources in the event of failure... if this doesn't work, nothing is going to work. What happens afterwards is almost irrelevant.
I imagine he also has a pretty shrewd notion that the rest of the crew may not be too happy about Avon's going off with the Liberator in any case. As Jenna put it in 'Voice from the Past', "You lead - we don't take commands." Avon's skills at leadership are poor to non-existent, and while Jenna for one is prepared to follow Blake, she doesn't seem very amenable to the proposal that she take commands from Avon!
However little effect Avon's rhetoric may have had on Blake or Jenna, however, it clearly troubles Cally, and when they are alone together she elicits further explanation from Blake. They have both dedicated themselves to the cause of freedom - but they both also know that the chaos caused by overthrow of the Federation will inevitably be terribly costly in lives. How much death can Blake face inflicting in the name of freedom?
The answer, essentially, is that they no longer have much choice. They have come so far - already destroyed so much - that only victory now can justify the cost of what they have done. "We have to win -" and Blake adds, "It's the only way I can be sure I was right."
Whom does he have in mind here? Servalan, Avon, the justice system that condemned him in the first place for seeking reform by peaceful means? Even Cally doesn't get a clear response to that.
For a moment, caught up in the shifting alliances of the Liberator, we have almost forgotten that Star One is already in trouble, malfunctioning without any apparent aid from outside. Just as Blake predicted, the fabric of the Federation is starting to weaken... and as Servalan struggles to keep matters under control, she resorts to the time-honoured device of any commander who sees his political superiors apparently dithering in a time of crisis. She mounts a military coup.
We all know that Servalan is greedy, ruthless and ambitious, even as Supreme Commanders go. But somehow I get the feeling that in this episode alone perhaps, without for a moment losing any of her character flaws, she really is just trying to do her job - to protect the safety of the Federation as she sees it. She wants power - but she also wants power so that she can do something about what is happening. She wants to rule, but she will not have the Federation ruined. Ironically enough, she appears to be the first to cotton onto the truth: someone is deliberately trying to destroy the Federation, and for once it isn't Blake.
In another piece of brilliant plot construction, the character Lurena is introduced to us by Servalan almost as a side-effect of the existing plot-line. The Supreme Commander is trying to jog Durkim's memory so that she can use his old feelings for the woman to manipulate him into redoubling his efforts to trace Star One - but even though this (presumably) fails, it acts as a seamless introduction to the character we first meet in the next scene.
This is perhaps my favourite sequence in the whole of "Blake's 7", simply because it's so brilliantly done. I still remember the shock when I first saw this. Nowadays everyone knows the series climax - but can you imagine what it was like to watch this when you had no idea the aliens even existed? When all you saw was an edgy, paranoid woman apparently guilty of the sabotage that has caused such terrible destruction, making classic accusations: "you're all against me, you're plotting behind my back"? Everything is so carefully set up to imply that she is the infiltrator... fleeing into the depths of the base, murdering her workmates... and then, as she stares down horrified at what she has done, the first suggestion that something is not quite right. It's only a fraction of a second - we don't see exactly what - but we see her face.
As we see the faces of the dead bodies in the cold room, hanging up like slabs of meat - those same faces that were pursuing her outside, with instructions not to bother to bring her back alive... She really is the last one left alive on the base, the victim of an unbelievable plot. It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you!
In the hands of this writer it's almost certainly not coincidental irony, either, when Avon then lets slip the snide remark that those present on Star One ought to be "proud to be human". By this time we are beginning to have a strong suspicion that whatever is going on, 'human' is one thing Stot and the others aren't...
In another seamless piece of plotting, the side-effects of earlier events now turn out to bring Blake and the others straight to the base. Lurena leaves the door open to fool her pursuers into searching for her outside - but the heat difference then betrays its location to Cally's scanners, and the return of the search parties to trap Lurena serves only to lead the uninvited newcomers directly to the entrance, though Cally gets the credit. Even when this close to his long-awaited goal, I notice that Blake spares a moment to say "Well done"!
Of course, it's not going to be as easy as all that...
One thing that did trouble me slightly was the origin of the fortuitous landslide that happens to attract Avon's attention for just long enough to allow him to avoid getting captured with the others. I was assuming there was someone up above and we were going to find out later - but in fact, as far as I could see, no cause for this phenomenon ever transpires. It just seems to be a slightly gratuitous deus ex machina used to split the party up. I was also slightly puzzled by Avon's uncharacteristic insistence on staying in danger down on the surface when Vila wanted to teleport him up - although Chris Boucher does take the opportunity here to rationalise a long-standing plot point; why waste a member of the crew on teleport duty when Orac has long since demonstrated that it can operate the teleport? Because it's significantly faster to move the controls by hand, apparently.
But this is the only moment where the plot sags slightly. The next few scenes are a masterpiece of juxtaposition and unexpected reversal, culminating in the unthinkable - Blake is dead, and Jenna has betrayed their position to the Federation.
Information is conveyed in a handful of telling words. A 'captured' Blake is instead welcomed - "You're here then" - revealing the involvement of a traitor. And that traitor's identity is betrayed, to Blake and to us, by a single fatal question: "Tell me, which is the artificial arm?"
In the next moment, we see a hooded figure turn... to reveal Travis. (Churlish, perhaps, to wonder where he picked up that cloak and why.)
"Talk or scream," Avon bites out in true noir style, and Travis - presumably - talks. He is evidently convincing, but in view of later events I beg leave to doubt that on this occasion he tells Avon the whole truth...
Meanwhile we learn that - at least according to Orac - the aliens have been here for some time. That the systems have already been modified, causing the disasters. And naturally enough we assume, with Blake, that Travis' aim in all this is to make himself 'Emperor of the Galaxy'. It is unfortunate then perhaps that it is at this point that Avon lets Travis get away!
But while under the circumstances Avon can hardly be described as a sympathetic ear - and though the consequences of Lurena's ill-timed intervention are going to cost Blake dearly - this time at least even Avon has to take her wild allegations seriously. She has evidence: live men wearing the faces of dead bodies... and dead men that disintegrate as they die. Last time, all we really saw was Lurena's face. This time we, and Avon, discover just how genuinely inhuman the aliens are.
And at the same time, with Travis on the loose, Blake is discovering at last the other half of this penultimate jigsaw piece - the nature of 'the final act'. The duplication of the human technicians, and the deactivation of the defence zone. Travis isn't going to rule the world.... instead, he is helping the aliens towards nothing less than the eradication of the human race.
For a moment, the danger seems averted after all: surely Blake in Travis' place can find some way to avoid going through with this insane plan... and then it's too late. Face to face with his old nemesis in the doorway, Blake's masquerade is revealed. Travis shoots first and sneers afterwards, staring down at the body. "I am Travis... his name is Blake. His name... was Blake."
This can't, surely, be happening?
But with the audience still in shock, and no-one to stop him now, Travis reaches out to the control panel offered to him. Performing the final, symbolic, act of betrayal, he deactivates the defence zone that stands between humanity and its eradicators. Nothing in the world can undo what has just been done. "They'll never know who really killed them."
The rest, of course, is history... and part of the myth of "Blake's 7". Blake's agonising shot from the floor - Travis' spectacular end at Avon's hands - the desperate, ironic search to clear Star One - Cally's knife-edge dash - Lurena's sacrifice - Avon a hero - Blake's words of trust - and a final twist of gallows-humour. "This is stupid," Vila protests, staring into the face of certain death as the alien fleet advances... but Avon, as ever, has the last word. "When did that ever stop us?"
As the Liberator holds the line alone, with the fate of the galaxy hanging on the life or death of her crew, nothing that happens afterwards will ever be quite so important again. If the series had concluded then and there at the end of Season Two, with that final "Fire!" - if the Liberator had gone down fighting - it might even have been a less bitter ending...
I've tried to work out what it is that attracts me so strongly to this episode. I can cite script finesse, grandeur of scale, ironies and reversals - even the complex of emotions that ebb behind Avon's mask in the moment after Blake leaves the flight deck. But I think it's essentially on a more basic level than that.
It's probably not a coincidence that I spent years under the conviction that 'Star One' had been written by Terry Nation. Somehow, at the very end of this second, darker, season, this script manages to reach back to the 'Robin Hood' spirit in which the series began, finally combining the best elements of the two seasons together - what I think of as the 'Errol Flynn' strand of gallantry and heroics and the 'Clint Eastwood' style of realpolitik and tarnished ideals.
In so doing it taps into all the strongest archetypes that peopled my childhood - loyalty, betrayal, the strength of friendship, sacrifice in defence of others, defiance in the face of overwhelming numbers. And I've always had a weakness for plots where heroes and villains end up making common cause against a greater enemy, though it's an interesting twist that in this case it is the heroes who end up working to undo the harm they have caused before it is too late!