 | British television is different to American television. American television is cinema based, where British TV is theatre based. So one thing that Blake's 7 had over Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and shows like that is that it had time, things moved in the show. |
| Judith: Star Trek was a very optimistic program, at the end of every episode you got Kirk and Spock swapping a joke. Nobody, unless they were wearing a red shirt, of course, ever got seriously hurt. | 
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 | Reba: It may have been the first science fiction show that was really quite dystopian or cynical. I mean there were things like Rod Serling and the "Twilight Zone" which was all a bit odd, and "The Outer Limits". But those were more anthology series and as this was an ongoing show that had characters constantly fighting against the odds. |
| But it's a doomed fight. You know really, realistically, he can't win. And he doesn't. And the appeal of the series is partly is the fact that the good guys don't win in the end. | 
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Vila: Avon this is stupid. Avon: When did that ever stop us?
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| Pita: People who wrote it, especially Chris Boucher who was the script editor, they were movie buffs and western buffs and cops and robbers buffs, and what you see is interesting really - is those archetypes being put into a science fiction context. | 
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| Possibly the greatest influence in the program was Warner Brothers pictures, those sort of gangster films they did in the forties and fifties with Humphrey Bogart. |
| Pita: It was that kind of thing that causes the interesting
relationship between Avon and Blake. He's Rick to Blake's Lazlow. Alan: Paul Darrow is a big fan of Humphrey Bogart and if you watch his performance you can see where he is coming from. | 
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Avon: Couldn't you put yourself to trust me just this once? Blake: I thought I might be able to help? Avon: In that condition. Blake: All right, I'll go back. Avon: Can you manage alone? Blake: Yes. Blake: Avon, for what it is worth I have always trusted you from the very beginning.
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| When you come back to Blake's 7 after having watched it as a child, it is quite an interesting experience because I think that two things happen. The first is that you think that it's better than I remember. Quite often there are things about the way the characters interact and talk to each other and the dialogue which you don't appreciate when you are a child. | 
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| I love the relationship between Blake and Avon. Can they trust one another? Why do they trust one another? I see Avon as being fascinated by Blake's idealism while at the same time not wanting to risk his neck in Blake's cause. |
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Avon: I want to be free of him Blake: I never realised. You really do hate me, don't you.
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| I think you probably see the sexual tensions more the second time round as well, you know you just actually round. You go "how did I miss this? It's starring you in the face." |
| You get the arch-villainess with this distinctly grey-hat person who is supposed to be on the good side, indulging in some of the best on screen kisses that I have ever seen. | 
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 | Servalan: Imagination our only limit. |
Last updated on 16th of February 2005.