{"id":716,"date":"2003-07-29T20:52:59","date_gmt":"2003-07-29T20:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-716.html"},"modified":"2014-01-03T16:26:30","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T16:26:30","slug":"blakes-7-the-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2003\/07\/29\/blakes-7-the-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake’s 7: The comeback?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Blogdex<\/a> comes news of the return of Blake’s 7<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“One of the stars of cult sci-fi series Blake’s 7 has signed a deal to bring the show back to screens more than 20 years after it ended.<\/p>\n

“Paul Darrow, who played the ruthless anti-hero Avon, is in a consortium that has acquired the rights to the show from the widow of its creator, Terry Nation.
\n“…A new TV mini-series, starring Darrow, will have a budget of $5-6m (\u00a33-3.7m), the show’s website said.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which leads to the show’s web site<\/a>. Looks vaguely promising.<\/p>\n

The Register<\/a> warns not to be too optimistic for a succesful relaunch, though:<\/p>\n

‘But don’t hold your breath for A Rebellion Reborn. Planning is at an early stage. In a message on its flashy web site, B7 Productions says it will not be entering pre-production “until April\/May 2004”.<\/p>\n

‘Which marks a step-up on the last time the show was supposed to return to the screens. Reg Reader Andrew Larcombe has pointed us to an almost identical<\/a> piece of pre-production puff – from three years ago.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the BBC’s article from 2000<\/a> says that the producers were “lining up” Paul Darrow to play Avon again. Yesterday’s article refers to Darrow as being part<\/em> of the consortium that is producing the show. That somehow sounds a bit more definite.<\/p>\n

I just hope they’ll remember what made Blake’s 7 great<\/a>: strong story lines, snappy dialogue, and excellent characters. Blake’s 7 was never about special effects, which is good, because they were rubbish. And even now, in the age of digital effects, the BBC has consistently proved that they are still<\/em> rubbish at them.<\/p>\n

If I want to see cutting-edge space special effects, I’ll go and buy the latest Star Wars film on DVD. (Actually, I did…and it was still pants.) Nothing the BBC (or any other sub $100M production facility) can do will even come close, so don’t even try<\/em> because it’ll only disappoint. Spend the budget on some decent script writers, some half-decent costumes, a couple of well-built sets, and the hire of a Welsh quarry for a couple of days’ filming. The space ships are just cut-scenes to get from one place to another.<\/p>\n

What I really<\/em> want to see is Avon snarling and plotting and scheming. I want to see his predatory, ice-cold grin as he cuts the heart out of his enemies’ fiendish plans. I want my childhood back….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Blogdex<\/a> comes news of the return of Blake’s 7<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“One of the stars of cult sci-fi series Blake’s 7 has signed a deal to bring the show back to screens more than 20 years after it ended.<\/p>\n

“Paul Darrow, who played the ruthless anti-hero Avon, is in a consortium that has acquired the rights to the show from the widow of its creator, Terry Nation.
\n“…A new TV mini-series, starring Darrow, will have a budget of $5-6m (\ufffd3-3.7m), the show’s website said.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}