Blake's 7 vs Avon's 7

I'm watching the show for the first time and am somewhere in early season 4. I discussed the same question when watching season 3.

I miss Blake vs Avon - Avon is at his best when spitting at Blake and vice versa. I agree that the political activism gave the show a purpose.

But on the other hand it's not that bad to watch them flying randomly around and doing whatever comes to their mind and serves them best - especially considering that they are still fighting the federation. You are also right that it's nice that the other characters (especially Avon) get more place. I don't really mind that the show changed. I'm impressed that it's still just as good as before. Maybe change is what keeps a show fresh - like it does for Doctor Who.

I prefer Series 1-2.

The show lost it's direction of the rebels vs the Federation after Blake left, it even started losing it slightly in Series 2 which is what Gareth Thomas claimed was a reason why he left because it became more of a fantasy show with aliens and such rather than a western in space, although the search for Star One was very exciting stuff mostly.

Series 1 is my favourite it's the most gritty and best written in my opinion, with only 'The Web' really being poor in my view.



The world is your lobster.

IMHO the main differences between Blake's 7 (seasons 1-2) & Avon's 7 (seasons 3-4)...

Blake was a rebel leader who found his calling leading the resistance cell. He did things with the vision of making other ppl's lives better. Avon was an engineer/programmer turned pirate. Their schemes in Series 4 were self serving... seeking/stealing technology prototypes, valuable chemical substances... get-rich-quick schemes. Avon's 7 had the vision of making their own lives better.

The change makes perfect sense, though, since Blake's political objectives are pretty much realised at the end of Season 2. The old Federation - the one he was fighting against - is all but destroyed, albeit not in the way he'd imagined. After that it's pretty much every man for himself until Servalan starts picking up the pieces and building a new Federation, which is more like her personal evil empire than the ubiquitous cynical regime she used to serve. The crew's more pragmatic, grab-what-we-can-and-settle-some-scores-along-the-way approach gels quite nicely with the free-for-all galaxy the Galactic War leaves in its wake.

Besides, Season 2 was a downward spiral for Blake, as he became less of a principled freedom fighter and more of a blustering fanatic - bossing the crew about, planning missions without consulting them (or even explaining himself) and expecting them all to just accept his executive decisions, etc. As a kid I always found it weird to be watching Blake's 7 with no Blake; as an adult, I honestly wasn't sorry to see him go.

Interestingly, the character of Del Grant from "Countdown" was introduced as a possible "replacement Blake", but the idea was never followed through. It certainly would have made "Rumours of Death" an even more interesting episode than it was, and that episode alone would have provided more than enough Avon/Grant tension to see them through the next season at least. And I'd have been much happier to have Grant join the crew than Tarrant - even as a kid, I thought Tarrant was a dork.