VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 235 - TX APRIL 6 2025
ADAM HENLEY on BLAKE'S 7 series oneFirst broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 6th 2025.A couple of months ago, a new voice joined us on VISION ON SOUND in the form of ADAM HENLEY, and he introduced himself by talking about both his personal television history and a little bit about THE WEST WING.This went so well, that ADAM felt like making another appearance and, as he’d just finished watching the exciting new Blu-Ray release of the first series of BLAKE’S SEVEN, we thought we’d spend an hour having a bit of a chat about this iconic late 1970s BBC science-fiction series as it gets re-introduced to its long-standing fans and, perhaps a brand new generation eager to explore this fascinating dystopian drama.BLAKE’S SEVEN was a science-fiction series created by TERRY NATION who had been one of the early writers on DOCTOR WHO, for which he created the iconic Daleks, and he had also created the post apocalyptic drama series SURVIVORS for the BBC a few years earlier, so this exploration of a rebellion against the forces of the evil Federation was definitely just the sort of bleak vision of the future that you might expect from him.The series itself lasted for four series and fifty-two fifty minute episodes and ended on a shattering cliffhanger that definitely left its scars on a generation of television viewers just before Christmas 1981.Its first season introduced BLAKE played by GARETH THOMAS and his loyal–ish gang of rebels and freedom-fighters as played by SALLY KNYVETTE as space pilot JENNA, MICHAEL KEATING as lock-picking wizard VILA, DAVID JACKSON as the man-mountain GAN, JAN CHAPPELL as the telepathic alien CALLY, and PAUL DARROW as the enigmatic AVON who would eventually take the leading role as the series progressed. They were helped enormously by the fact that they luckily managed to acquire the super starship LIBERATOR and its wise master computer ZEN, as voiced by PETER TUDDENHAM, and this was how the original SEVEN was made up.Towards the end of the first series, and another devastating cliffhanger that helped give the show an astonishingly high profile at the time, another super computer ORAC was introduced, which changed the dynamic of the show in its second year.The forces of the Federation were mostly represented by JACQUELINE PEARCE as SERVALAN, a powerful and ruthless woman prone to wearing astonishing gowns, and STEPHEN GREIF as TRAVIS, a hate-fuelled leather-clad cyborg with an eyepatch and a gun for a hand, and they crossed swords with BLAKE and his crew on several occasions during the second half of this series.Fans of BLAKE’S SEVEN had been waiting a long time for it to get the Blu-Ray release that they felt it deserved, with many of its special effects updated from their somewhat low-budget and dated roots, and ADAM was one of the enthusiastic early adopters, and was very eager to share his enthusiasm with us today.And here's a link to Adam's Marathon challenge, if you are able to contribute https://2025tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/adam-henleyPLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.
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