The Honest Courtesan

Continuing my thoughts on the classic BBC sci-fi series Blake’s 7, which ran from 1978-81.  This is the third essay on the series’ characters; the first appeared two weeks ago, and the second last week.

One of the things I love about British television is that even the minor characters, those who appear in only one or a handful of episodes, are often well-developed.  While even Star Trek, a US series with above-average characterization, tended to make the crewmen fated to die interchageable “redshirts”, British shows like Doctor Who and The Avengers were notable for making us really care about characters before ruthlessly disposing of them.  Blake’s 7 doesn’t usually go quite that far; in fact, it’s often rather uneven in the character department.  While some characters (such as Servalan and Avon) are incredibly well-developed, others are ignored so shamefully actors actually left the series over it.  There’s no pattern to it that I can discern; while even some computers have well-developed (if caricatured) personalities (such as the pompous and temperamental ORAC and the painfully-obsequious “Slave” in Season 4), even some of the main human characters are frustratingly underdeveloped.

The uneven treatment is as hard to predict as it is to get used to.  For example, just as we were beginning to see the depths of the original crew member Gan, the loyal but deeply-troubled strongman, he was killed off while saving the others from a collapsing tunnel.  The villain Travis, on the other hand, overstayed his welcome so badly my opinion of most of the episodes in which he appeared is considerably reduced because of his presence; the rather odd decision to replace his actor when the first one left the series, rather than just eliminating the character, only exacerbated his irksomeness.  The only thing I liked about him was that he and Blake knew each other so well they could predict each others’ actions, which made for an interesting arch-enemies dynamic; other than that he was less a villain one “loved to hate” like Servalan, and more one simply hated, full stop.

But despite these problems, Blake’s 7 still had its share of interesting guest characters, some notable for being well-developed and well-played, while others were memorable for other reasons.  Since most of the characters in the show (including the heroes) are villains to one degree or another, most of the guest stars naturally play villains.  The good ones were played by actors such as Brian Blessed and John Abineri, whose work I’ve previously noted and enjoyed in other shows, including Doctor Who; the others included none other than 6th Doctor Colin Baker, demonstrating his patented brand of scenery-chewing (now with more artificial ham flavor!) which once again made me wonder why anyone thought giving him a starring role in anything would be a good idea.  His performance (in the episode “City at the Edge of the World”) was thrown into even sharper relief by that of his primary adversary in the tale, played by none other than Valentine “Black Guardian” Dyall, in a rare non-villainous role (though he did do the voice of God in the hilarious Bedazzled from 1967).  Incidentally, that episode provides a segue into the next topic I wish to discuss, but you’ll have to wait two weeks this time; look for the next installment on March 4th.

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Continuing my thoughts on the classic BBC sci-fi series Blake’s 7, which ran from 1978-81.  The first part was published two weeks ago today, and the second a week later.

If you read any of my Doctor Who megathread or its reprint on this blog, you already know that for me, characters are key in my enjoyment of a TV series.  If the characters are interesting and well-developed, I can overlook some fairly silly story elements and a lot of terrible special effects.  But if they aren’t, I will lose interest pretty quickly regardless of a show’s other virtues.  It’s one of the main reasons I esteem both Doctor Who and (classic & middle-period) Star Trek so highly: both are very character-driven.  And Blake’s 7 has well-developed characters, in spades.  This doesn’t mean I actually like all of them, but most of them are very interesting.  Take the title character, for example; I definitely do not like him because he’s arrogant, egotistical, pigheaded, and duplicitous.  There’s no way I’d follow Blake on a road trip to Disneyland, much less a series of dangerous missions against insurmountable odds.  But unlike a lot of other shows which give us dislikeable characters and then pretend everyone likes them, this show fully admits Blake is a dick, and that people mostly follow him because he’s a symbol of resistance against their incredibly evil, oppressive government (and presumably, was a better leader, strategist, and person before the Federation subjected him to the brainwashing which we are clearly shown he has not fully overcome).  Even after he leaves the show at the end of the second season, Blake’s symbolic presence continues to be so strongly felt that it doesn’t even seem particularly odd that his name remains attached to both the show and the team, despite his being missing and presumed dead.

The character who trusts Blake least is Avon, a sour-faced tech wizard without any scruples against embezzling from the wealthy, who yet displays a rather strict personal code of ethics which includes honest statement of his motives, keeping promises, and even defending those menaced by bullies and tyrants.  He’s the character I enjoyed watching most, and would probably like best as a client, in part because of his wicked, arid sense of humor, which some may have noted is not entirely dissimilar to mine.  The complexity of Avon’s character rivals that of Servalan, so it’s not surprising that the two develop a powerful love/hate relationship in which neither allows his or her admiration and lust for the other to get in the way of their frequent attempts to kill each other.  After the loss of Blake, Avon at first seems reluctant to assume command of the team until eventually forced to by the arrival of Tarrant, a narcissistic hot-shot pilot who waltzes onto the ship and immediately starts ordering everyone else around.  Tarrant was clearly intended as a replacement for Blake, but I like him even less because, while Blake had the redeeming feature of at least being anti-authoritarian, Tarrant’s whole demeanor has the reek of cop about it.  If I were among the crew of the Liberator, I’d have moved into Avon’s camp by the end of the first adventure involving Tarrant, because at least Avon doesn’t assume everyone owes him obedience.

The only other original character to survive until the series finale is the cowardly master thief Vila, who never met a lock he couldn’t open.  Vila is refreshingly honest about his shortcomings; while most cowardly characters attempt to hide their yellow streak from others, Vila is the first to make the Goldsmithian argument that “He who fights and runs away/May live to fight another day”.  Not that it’s likely Vila ever read Goldsmith; while he’s clearly exceptionally intelligent, he’s certainly no intellectual.  But that doesn’t mean he’s a flat or static character; his descent over the course of the series from a man who perhaps likes his drink a bit too much, to an alcoholic whose drinking becomes an actual source of danger to his shipmates, is both subtle and gradual, and by the time we see him openly gulping down the booze onscreen, we realize it has been going on less obviously for more than a season.

Look for much more about the series’ characters, characterization and writing next week.

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