It is of course well known that Douglas Adams once wrote a treatment for a Doctor Who film. It was called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, and there's an excerpt from it in Neil Gaiman's book Don't Panic. (Douglas, as was his wont, ended up reusing the plot in the third Hitchhiker's book, Life, the Universe and Everything.)
What hasn't been known, until the recent discovery of some dusty files from a previously locked filing cabinet in a basement at the BBC, is that Adams also wrote a treatment for a Blake's 7 film!
It seems that in late 1978, as the series was entering its second season, Adams was approached to come up with an idea for a movie-length story (whether this was intended for the cinema, or prhaps a one-off TV special, is not clear).
Adams duly typed up a 21-page treatment, entitled The Jailer of Okpol. It's an exciting tale, in which Avon and co. must break Blake out of an impregnable, hi-tech prison asteroid, run by the bloated, reptilian alien Olaf Riplo. Blake meanshile is trying his own escape plan, with the aid of a fellow prisoner, the beautiful lady thief Flair Polo. A standout scene has Vila reprogramming a computer not to notice that he's just reprogrammed it--an idea Adams must have been pleased with, as it turned up (using Ford Prefect) years later in the fifth Hitchhiker's novel, Mostly Harmless.
WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW: This foolish Douglas Adams script was rediscovered in early April...
Last updated on 03rd of May 2003.