Those that know about Blakes 7, know. It is a television sci-fi legend. Famously low budget, with sets and VFX to match the lack of funding, the British TV show therefore had to make up ground elsewhere which it did through writing and characterizations.
It deliberately ran counter to the Star Trek view of the future being largely hopeful. Instead, it was dark and subversive when compared to a lot of serial sci-fi. Technological advances had not given rise to a new era of human enlightenment. Instead, it assisted a totalitarian dictatorship to now rule over the Terran Federation.
It was created by Terry Nation, a designer and writer who came up with Doctor Who nemesis the Daleks.
Blakes 7 followed Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas), a long-term political dissident and sudden political prisoner. He leads a band of escaped prisoners. They are not a plucky band of freedom fighters, but rather a morally ambiguous and cynical collection of murderers, mercenaries, dissidents, and thieves who are forced to work together but all have their own agendas while being deeply distrustful of each other.
They use a salvaged alien ship – the famous Liberator – to fight back against their previous captors, pursued by the ruthless Supreme Commander Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce) of the Terran Federation.
The show was also known for its cliffhanger endings and killing off characters. The famous, brutal finale is still talked about in hushed tones at sci-fi conventions all over the world.
Four 13-episode series were broadcast on BBC1 between 1978 and 1981. Blakes 7 was watched by around 10 million people in the UK, and was broadcast in over 25 other countries.
It became notoriously difficult to track down in the years that followed. VHS releases were vast and expensive. DVD releases were always limited due to ongoing rights issues and it never remained on issue for long. Whenever it appeared in full on YouTube it was always pulled down very quickly. It was available on the BritBox streaming service (but who has that?) and occasionally on other, less regulated video sites.
Well, now it is coming to Blu-Ray for you lovers of physical media out there. The BBC announced Blake’s 7: The Collection will feature remastered versions of all four seasons with season one dropping on November 11th.
These discs will feature new practical model work for the show’s VFX sequences, and new interviews with the surviving cast and crew. There will also be the previously unreleased documentary that caused some prior rights issues to mess with release plans.
Way back in 2008, British satellite television station Sky1 announced that it had commissioned two 60-minute scripts for a potential reboot / remake series, but then in 2010 decided not to move forward.
In 2012, Deadline reported that a remake for US television networks was being developed by the independent studio Georgeville Television. Despite rumors of a thirteen-episode order being placed, no series ever materialised.