Re: Blake's Seven Returns
Fogcat,
Hmmmm. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be you know. I got some DVDs of this from the library a few years ago. I had very fond memories of watching it, way back when. Those memories did not prepare me for just how awful the reality was. The sets and special effects were horrible, as you'd expect on BBC Sci-Fi budgets of the time. But the scripts of the two I watched weren't that great either. He said at the risk of downvotes... Oddly, my memory of watching it all a few years back, is as vague as my memories of the first time round. Blanked from my mind perhaps?
Perhaps I just picked a bad episode to catch up with, but I've had some pretty bad experiences of looking at old TV I enjoyed at the time. One thing that's still absolutely brilliant is The Sweeney. I think it started to tail-off a bit by the end of series 3 (or maybe 4) - but it's still got great fast paced action, good dialogue, it doesn't suffer from being glacially slow, which seems to be a problem with lots of stuff from that time. I'm not talking NYPD Blue style jump-cuts, just that you'd get long scenes that barely moved the plot on, in lots of shows back then. Porridge is still brilliant, and another DVD set I got.
Oh well. It's a great opportunity for a good remake. Special effects are much cheaper now, and after the success of Battlestar Galactica, I can't see them having any problems persuading the money-men that dark story lines and characters can work. There were even stories that Fox were going to cancel Firefly after only 13 episodes, for the same reason. But that's still going from strength to strength in series 5 - and no-one would ever make such a stupid decision. Oh, hang on...