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back to article Sky One to resurrect Blake's 7?

Sky One has provocatively given the go-ahead for the development of two 60-minute scripts which could see the return to the small screen of cult TV classic Blake's 7, the BBC reports. Blake's 7 ran from 1978 to 1981 on the Beeb, and is best remembered among chaps of a certain age for the presence of Jacqueline Pearce as the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Eenteresting...

    Watched and loved it at the time, loved watching them again recently, much like old Doctor Whos. Awful sets, (some) awful acting but some of it really was great TV. The second series was by far the best, with even an interstellar war kicked off by a bunch of misshapen washing up liqud bottles (oh how I laughed). Anyhoo, towards the end they seemed to turn the camp knob up a notch until the surprising ending.

    So with Avon being the only one left alive(?), he did have plans for a new season, not a remake but a continuation, with himself starring obviously.

    Interestingly (or not), a previous Sci-Fi effort by Sky was The Strangerers, which featured Paul Darrow as a dodgy cockney landlord, so he's no strangerer to the channel. I'm REALLY sorry for that.

    So yeah, bring it on. For all the naysayers, if you don't like it, don't watch it, it's pretty easy. I personally can't stand Songs of Praise, but I'm not going to go slagging off Christians for liking/watching it. etc etc. That's better, some righteous indignation out t'way.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    ORLY?

    So, maybe my memory is a bit faulty. Is this the same Blake's 7 where they killed the entire cast, including bringing Blake back just so they could kill him as well? If so, who would the show be about and does it really justify resurrecting the name?

    It sounds like it's going be another one of those "loosely based on...." shows.

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  3. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: @Andy

    That's right, AC, reign 'em in.

    Hur.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    What do you want?... We want disinformation!

    Don't fall for this crap. It's just a stunt to get fools to sign up to Sky now in a knee-jerk reaction to the desire for Blakes 7 to return, and not notice the launch of FreeSat.

    Has everyone forgot how Sky were also going to remake The Prisoner with Christopher Eccleston?

    In a couple of years it'll be Space 1999 or The Avengers.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can we agree on one thing?

    Even if my sensitive casting of Ross Kemp as Servalan isn't meeting universal approval, can we at least be unanimous on this...

    The shape of the Liberator can't be changed in the slightest.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Watching It Again

    I have all 4 seasons on DVD and regularly watch them. It's a damn sight better than a lot of the [expletive removed] that's offered up for viewing these days. Servalan did nothing for me at all. Preferred Cally and then seriously lusted after Soolin.

    One interesting production called The Mark Of Kane suggested there was more to Gan than met the eye. Nicknamed "The Cat Strangler" he was said to have strangled several women. Following that line of thought, just what did the others really do?

    AC - I'm not going to slag anyone off for watching it - that's their choice. I won't be watching it if it is made and shown and I personally hope it isn't made. That is an opinion that I'm entitled to express and will do so.

    BTW, it's ORAC not Aurac. And the only way they could possibly improve on Orac is to get James Burke to voice it.

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  7. Mage Silver badge
    Alert

    No more remakes

    Where are TODAY'S good writers?

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  8. david wilson

    Location problem?

    Where are they going to do the outdoor scenes - haven't most old gravel pits been used for landfill?

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  9. Andy Hards
    Thumb Up

    Talking of old TV shows...

    Why does Makepeace always wear a bow tie and a dress shirt? And surely high heels are a bit rubbish when you want to chase baddies and do some crap kung fu on them. But, MY GOD, did I fancy the pants off of her when I was 10.

    As for B7, I don't remember the wobbly sets just that when I was young it was ace and I loved it.

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  10. Robert Masters

    Having to be different.

    I was always hooked on Cally (Jan Chappell), myself.

    As for the re-make... I will wait and see.

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  11. oldfartuk
    Coat

    @ Flame war

    A point so often missed. Blakes Seven was only Blakes Seven for one episode, after that its was Avon's Six.

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  12. Richard Scratcher
    Alien

    They'll probably ruin it...

    ...by having 7 characters and naming one of them "Blake". Nothing like the original storyline.

    I heard (from a bloke down the pub) that the makers of the original series had wanted to do a crossover episode with Dr Who.

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  13. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    Paul Darrow...

    ... has been talking about re-doing B7 for a lot of years now.

    Fortunately, for anyone who has read "Avon: A Terrible Book" (oh, sorry, that was supposed to be "Terrible Aspect" he has never got beyond the talking stage!

    As for Tony Attwood's "Afterlife", the less said, the better...

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  14. Stewart Haywood
    Pirate

    @ Lickass McClippers

    Starbuck turned into a girl and you call that a success!

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  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hairdryers

    I was working at the Beeb back when they made the original.

    I remember Matt and the crew spray-painting old hairdryers, thus creating some alien space fleet.

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  16. Sinical
    Boffin

    @ whoever's listening

    Forget Dr Who and Blakes 7, where's the 'continuation' of Come Back Mrs Noah????

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  17. teacake

    What a load of sodding philistines!

    If your view of the quality of a series is limited to griping about how much was spent on the sets, and with no understanding of the era in which it was created, you might just as well dismiss the Ferrari 250GTO because it doesn't have sat-nav, and the Mona Lisa because she doesn't have her jugs out.

    Blake's 7 was a ground-breaking series, and if anything about it seems old-hat now it's only because countless series that followed copied the same ideas. Yes the production was cheap, but it only had the same budget previously allocated to Softly Softly Task Force - the largely set-bound contemporary series that preceded it. Many inventive visual effects techniques were pioneered on this show.

    The scripts were sharp and the dialogue between characters sparkled, and the series wasn't afraid to make characters fail or be killed off. There was a moral ambiguity about the whole crusade against the Federation that made the series pretty unique.

    @tim99, oldfartuk: Blake was in more than half the episodes.

    @Richard Scratcher (Doctor Who cross-over): Actually, Terry Nation, the creator of Blake's 7, mooted the idea of an appearance by the Daleks, another of his creations. Thankfully, nothing came of this.

    @AC (Strangerers): Not only did Paul Darrow appear in this series, so did Gareth Thomas.

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  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ORAC ORAC ORAC

    It was bloody ORAC, and it was far from subserviant! Hell even Zen wouldnt answer all there questions!!

    They could do it like BSG, and they could keep the overal shape of the Liberator.

    I have to say though, what is it with TV execs?? thety scarp great SCI FI like:

    Farscape (oh teh hours of fun looking out for the SG1 stars in that show!!)

    Firefly

    Space Above and Beyond

    John Doe

    And then they go anre remake Blakes 7, not that I have anything against Blakes 7 its great, oh and there was a book, set after the end as it were, called aftermath I think.

    So what the list of shows left?? U.F.O? The Prisoner? Space 1999 Shapire and Steel?

    And whats this about a new Knight Rider???

    New words learnt from the Register Fanwank and Fucktard....pricesless for everything else is......

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  19. Sampler
    Happy

    yey

    Hope it gets off the ground, love Blake 7 even though I was born in the year it finished.

    Couple of points raised, the cross-over with Doctor Who was the alien invasion at the end of season 2 were supposed to be Daleks but DW pulled out at the last minute as B7 had low ratings and they didn't want to be associated.

    Interested factoid Gareth Thomas turned up in Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood as a man living with the secret he raped and murdered a young woman until he's confronted by Owen who'd seen the image of the act by the alien "ghost device". He looks quite different now :)

    Everyone died at the end of season 4 including Rog as it was his condition for coming back to the show, being a professional stage actor he found he was getting little work as everyone thought he was still in Blakes 7 (obviously not watching it) so he insisted he was killed off so he could get some work.

    As long as they don't camp it up as much as Doctor Who is then it should be watchable - they could do well and make it really dark and go deep into some of the great themes and ideas of the original but that would alienate most of the couch potatoes and lower ratings which Sky as a business are only really intrested in so they can sell advertising space and make money - which is a reason why I don't have Sky - paying someone to show you adverts they're getting paid to show? No wonder Murdochs a millionaire....

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  20. heystoopid
    Joke

    Oh Crap !

    Oh crap , what an unmitigated disaster or will they call the "Zombie Seven" the recall from the dead clone show and fully capable to jump the shark from episode one ?

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  21. Dave

    sky has to do a remake ovf something

    What with 24 delayed , BSG on its final season , Star Trek canned, Sky has to have a new sci fi series to keep all the basic package peeps paying ther 20 quid a month. If sky doesn't have the new shows then we might all start buying the box sets instead. Heck the only reason I haven't dumped sky in favour of freeview is to get BSG. Once it ends I goes to free sat.

    so look on the brightside - there are a bunch of sky prog execs out there crapping themselves thinking of new prog ideas . it will be star cops and tomorrow people next....

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  22. Mark York
    Alien

    "Too right - Orac was anything but subservient"

    Zen frequently in the first series refused direct commands & aborted computer functions when the Liberator was in danger from things he could not rationalise, outright refused to explain the working of the teleport, stating that 'Wisdom must be gathered, it cannot be given'.

    Insisting that Servalan call him Zen (a trait he picked up in series 1 when addressed by Avon as computer, almost shouting back ZEN! as his reply) during the 3rd series when the Federation take the Liberator .

    Zen's last despairing line at his failure is heartbreaking as he refers to himself in as "I" for the first time ever.

    Jenna: "I don't think it likes you somehow"

    Avon: "I'll have to reprogram this computer"

    Jenna: "That still won't make you likeable".

    Alien cos it looks like Moloch.

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  24. Alan Simpson

    @BKB

    It shows a great deal of ignorance of the media at the time to compare a movie to a TV show in that era - one simply couldn't compare the two back then the way one can now, TV shows were produced on a shoestring

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  25. michael

    new from old?

    I am split on this the new dr who has not been like the old ones but then there are 20+ years between them you would not expect it IMHO the quailty depends on who has wirten the eps some have been so camp it makes me cry(rember love and monsters shudder) and some have been so brilent it makes me cry (bilnk OMG) maby if they manage to recapture the sprite of b7 and get some good wirters it might work maby not but they have to rember what it was all about

    Fedration=Bad

    small band to teriosts = good

    no good ending (3+ series ended on a distenct downer)

    computers with personailitys

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  26. Mr Larrington
    Alien

    @BKB

    Hurrah, there's two of us. also, Servalan does nowt for me, not then, not now.

    "She's Servaloi - obviously some sort of international space sausage" - Mrs Pingu, last week.

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  27. Andy Worth

    Re:new from old?

    I've been trying to decipher that comment as I unfortunately only speak English and not "smash face on keyboard and hope for the best". However, I think that I have got the gist of the statement and am actually in agreement.

    I too am torn regarding this announcement. I remember Blake's 7 from my younger days (I was 4 - 7 years old while it was on) and even I can remember how comically bad it was in places. That's actually partly why it was so watchable, because it was, like most sci-fi series of it's era, a bit rubbish but at the same time very watchable.

    Part of me wants this remake to be really good, as the story behind Blake's 7 was actually pretty good (even if the acting was a bit crap). I'm afraid that I fully expect Sky to ruin it and make it another clone-style series of theirs, with no true individuality from the other clone series they show.

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  28. Sir Runcible Spoon
    Pirate

    Liberator shape

    Considering that I have a die-cast model and an original 'plastic build it yourself' model...(which could be worth something if it gets another outing)

    SKY - If you fuck with the shape of the Liberator you're going to burn in HELL!

    Not much of a threat I know as you've probably already got your seats booked, but just DON'T ok?

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  29. Lickass McClippers
    Alien

    @ Stewart Haywood

    What kinda question is that? Are you on some form of hormone replacement therapy? My gods man, she's hot...

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  30. Eddie Edwards
    Alien

    FFS

    Blake's 7

    Blake

    Avon

    Jenna

    Vila

    Gan

    Cally

    Zen

    That's seven. Anyone who forgot to include the sentient computer, your coat is draped over Orac.

    But I agree with the AB - it's already been done, and it was called Farscape.

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  31. Dave Driver

    Discworld??? !!! ???

    What? Discworld has been on telly? How did I not know about that?

    I suppose that was on Sky too. I have considered getting Sky but cannot fathom out the way their packages work. I can't seem to say I want this channel and this channel for a reasonable price of £x a month, I seem to have to pick virtually everything and pay fifty quid. They can forget it.

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  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blake's 7

    I remember it clearly. It was laughingly, enjoyably bad. Even as a 7 year old I can remember picking gaping holes in the plots.

    I would pay good money to see Blake's 7 with Daleks though.

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  33. teacake

    @BKB

    "Does anyone remember those laser guns which this wobbling laser beam would come out at some point slightly removed from the end of the gun, and pointing about five or ten degrees away from its direction? "

    You must be thinking of some other series. Blake's 7 had curling tongs with light bulbs in, as any fule no.

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  34. Markie Dussard
    Stop

    I reckon ...

    http://www.youtube.com/v/E10Bp_mPXXA&hl=en

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  35. Andrew Cunningham
    Alien

    Let JMS do it

    It's a pity how dismissive some people are about Blake's 7. No doubt they are the same sort of people who didn't have the attention span to appreciate Babylon 5. Blake's 7 broke the mould by having morally ambiguous characters (Avon only allied himself to Blake because it suited his own purposes) and not being afraid to kill characters off. Come to think of it, the idea of rebelling against an oppressive regime does have one or two echoes with today.

    When compared to what's on offer now (BSG - hugely over rated and I much prefer the original & Bionic Woman is in many respects a rehash of Buffy as well as the original. Only the Stargate franchise and Dr Who seem to have legs) at least Blake's 7 broke new ground, something that very little in recent years (with the exception of B5) has tried. Come to think of it JMS (B5’s creator) is known to be a fan of the original. How about offering him the job of remaking Blake's 7?

    The new Dr Who has been a triumph as a result of the attention lavished on it. Who is to say that something similar couldn't be done with Blake's 7. The thought of a beautifully CGI rendered Liberator is awsome.

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  36. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Casting suggestions

    We haven't seen much of Jack Davenport recently, He'd make a good Avon.

    This could be Faye Ramptons big break into mainstream acting, After all one of the qualifications for Servalan is to be "A masturbatory fantasy for a generation of male viewers" and she's already got that experience.

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  37. Chika
    Paris Hilton

    wHollyWeird fallout

    Let's face it, guys and gals. This is just another facet of the lack of originality besetting the primarily American media industry. They haven't any good new ideas, so they have to raid the attic for anything that might turn a quick buck.

    Talking of quick bucks... anyone for Paris?

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  38. Stuart Halliday
    Happy

    Time to bring back others...

    Let's have 'The Champions' back too.

    Good old fashioned British super heroes to inspire a new UK generation of Kids.

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  39. Chris Hunt
    Stop

    Overstating the case

    It was a pretty good series at the time (I was 12 when it first came out), and I wouldn't object to watching it again, but "one of the best-loved and most successful dramas of all time"? Right up there with Eurypides and Shakespeare and Ibsen? Someone should tell her a million times not to exaggerate.

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  40. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Hands Off...

    If anyone tries to remake/reimagine/other idiot phrase for murder any of UFO, Space:1999, The Avengers, Callan or any other classic series then I will not be held responsible for my actions or their personal safety.

    To borrow from Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard after he said he was responsible for Mr Desiato's body, "I'm not responsible for yours".

    Now, where's my ex girlfriend's curling tongs and my soldering iron...?

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  41. Phil Parker
    Thumb Up

    What about the baddies

    The best thing were the Federation guards. Those guys in black overalls, gassmasks and wierd green visors - look a lot like today's Police force when storming buildings.

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  42. Tony Paulazzo
    Alien

    Loved Blakes 7 when I was younger

    It was an original, thoughtful and exciting BBC scifi show. What happened to that? We're not short of superlative writers out there, Iain M Banks and the Culture novels would be great for serialising into a TV show, Alastair Reynolds with the Chasm City (major plot element ripped off by Mass Effect) bunch of interconnected storylines, or (and what I would most love to see, The Nights Dawn (Peter F Hamilton) trilogy filmed).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night%27s_Dawn_Trilogy

    All of these writers (off the top of my head), offer original, thoughtful and exciting NEW storylines. It's not as though any physical elements of the old shows can be reused, so the cost of rehashing them can't be any more cost effective than utilising a completely new IP..

    Dr Who, when it was created in 1961 (ish), was something way ahead of its time and blew the public away, the new Dr Who, apart from making the good doctor partially bi sexual, offers absolutely nothing new (apart from the infuriating family soap opera extensions of his new companions - ok, let's go see your dead dad - oh noes, you've fscked the timeline by saving him: oh no Martha's mum n dad r divorced: o luv the telepathic paper/time independent mobile phone: dashing gay captain Jack who's gonna live forever in Cardiff) - well ok, that last one is pretty funny.

    So back to my point, new Sci Fi good, rehashed Sci Fi not so much - but, I guess, better than nothing.

    Alien icon for the obvious reason.

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  43. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Lot of incorrect bollix being spouted here..

    ..... and if someone's already answered, well I skim read a lot of the ill-spelt witterings.

    - There was awlays 7. Just sometimes they had 2 x computers (same actor voiced Zen/Orac/Slave, can't remember his name, Peter Tudenholme or similar.

    - Sally Knyvette was far and away much sexier than Servalan

    - Blake was in every episode of the first two series and the final episode of Series III and Series IV

    - Seasons are something my hound has.

    - Gareth Thomas, allegedly never watched any of the episodes.

    - How are you going to get The Liberator back when it turned into cream cheese?

    - The Liberator was made from tennis balls.

    - Glynis was sexy as hell.

    - It was made because of the popularity of Star Wars (think about special effects and budgets eh ;)

    - Avon was the only one you never saw shot/zapped/die at the end.

    - Unless you count Orac/Slayer(Servalan)

    - Why has nobody mentioned the appalling RADAR/scanning system on the prison ship in Episode II of the first series.

    - I may have a friend with every episode as avi ;)

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  44. Jon Tocker

    Dunno if they would make it...

    in this post-Sept11 world: a small bunch of heaviliy-armed malcontents rebelling against the duly recognised government? Sounds like a bunch of Terrorists (capitalised because that's how TPTB see it, these days) to me.

    Unless of course they make the Federation obviously Arabic and have all of Blake's 7 played by Americans - with a suitable back-story of how the Evil Terrorists took over and a stalwart crew of red-blooded "Umerkins" carries on the resistance...

    I suppose that if there's any funding from the USA at all, Blake and Avon (or their new counterparts) will be played by Americans or at least have American accents as you cannot have anyone but an American in the lead, no matter how "British" the show might be.

    Of course, they could go for the "Famous Five remake" model which not only has one of the main characters being (you guessed it) an American, but put in a multi-racial crew from all the acceptable (non-Middle Eastern) countries.

    I'll reserve judgement and give it a watch (if it doesn't get canned for being "potentially too sympathetic to Terrorism").

    What I'd really like to see is a redoing of the finally episode of series 4.

    I hated that episode. Not because they killed off the crew (with the possible exception of Avon, as we have no proof of who was shooting whom), but because they'd spent the series really getting the characters defined and then they all acted out of character in the last few minutes in the midst of a minor ambush that should not have troubled them - Ex-Military Del Tarrant breaking cover to get shot, Vila using his famed cowardice to get close enough to disarm the traitor (great!) and then just standing there like an idiot (DUH!), Avon standing around like a stunned mullet in the midst of a fire fight, Dayna NOT having some fiendish concealed weapon to bring to bear (she has explosive chewing gum and more weapons than the USAF, FFS). Seriously, I was wondering what these nongs had done with the REAL crew of the Scorpio.

    I would like to see a properly done remake of Blake's 7 with a decent budget - provided they got the right actors and stuck to the ideas and interpersonal dynamics behind the original. Dunno how much hope we have of that, though.

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