Starring Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Glynn Owen, Leslie Schofield, Michael Keating, Sally Knyvette & David Jackson
Written by Terry Nation
Directed by Pennant Roberts
Blake is now trapped aboard the prison ship London, on his way to the penal colony on Cygus Alpha. However, he's planning a breakout!
It requires the aide of computer genius Kerr Avon. He, on the other hand, has no interest in destroying the Federation, mearly acquiring wealth to support himself. But, with the threat of having to spend the rest of his life on Cygus Alpha, Avon maybe desperate enough to side with the rebels. But Sub-Commander Raiker has other ideas...
Blake's 7 continually throws up suprises, and this second episode is incredibly different from anything that the first did. Rather than a grand, epic follow up to the grand and epic first episode, the second episode is a very tight and contined piece, rather like a play or prison drama, and launches us away from the more psychological based drama of the first episode and moving it towards character development, and launching it's principle characters through tense life or death situations. And it makes for a really, really tense and gripping episode.
The obvious main feature of this episode in the introduction of Paul Darrow as Kerr Avon. Immediately, we get a sense of who Avon is: someone motivated by money and greed. That's not to say that he's not a complex character, but he is somebody who is prepeared to sacrifice anything if he can gain an advantage. He's the opposite of a hero, he's somebody who's more like a villain, somebody who could never work alongside the hero... However, Blake's 7 is brave enough to take the risk, and it pays off completely. Avon is a mould breaker. Yes, Han Solo was a rogue, but there was something innately likeable about his character and the way that Harrison Ford played him. With Avon, there's non of that, and it's clear that given half a chance, he'd happily kill off Blake. Even if you don't know the story of the series and where the show ends, there's a real sense of tension in that first meeting between Blake and Avon, almost as if you could know where the series ends right from the very beginning. However, make Avon too cold and distant and you run the risk of making his character unlikeable. And without the genius of Paul Darrow, Avon could very quickly become that. However, he walks a very fine line, and that pays off dividends, because it helps to create a character who is so outside our normal human experience that we think of him as some sort of mentally unhinged character. However, it's not that: it's that Avon long ago turned off the part of his brain reliant on emotions, leaving him cold and distant. It's quite shocking to be faced with that sort of character, and I don't feel that it's ever successfully been done again in anything: that's how mould breaking Paul Darrow was.
The rest of the characters aren't excluded too: Gareth Thomas gets another chance to shine, particularly when faced with the more moralistic parts of the script. The angst that is written on his face when prisoners start to be excuted is brilliant, really giving his character some beautiful depth. Sally Knyvette and Michael Keating also get chances to shine, especially Villa's talent for dramatic understatement and Jenna standing up to Raiker. However, David Jackson seems already abandoned, however, and left to the wayside, his character only being used as strong arm material. Sadly quite generic stuff, which is a shame considering how mould breaking Blake's 7 is. The rest of the cast are also great, particularly Leslie Schofield as the psychopathic Raiker. No one like him should be included in a situation where he's dealing with people's lives and yet the sadism he echoes is something that can sadly be applied to the real world in many circumstances. And Schofield's performance is fantastic, really nightmare giving and creepy. His character is loathsome and is a real standout of the episode.
Terry Nation's script is also very strong, packed with ideas and incident. Certainly, some of his scripts later in the year would suffer from fatigue, but here there really strong, firing on all cylinders and really pushing the characters through turbulent situations. He also manages to make the alien ship that Blake steals really stand out and seem really sinister. Not many people can do that, so it's testiment to Nation's skill to turn something that should be a safe place against it's main characters. The rich potential of this idea is one that should be mined more oftern. It would really be interesting to see how that is played out. Pennant Roberts oftern comes in for a lot of slack for his work, particularly on 80's Doctor Who, however here he is well suited to the tense, less action driven plot of Space Fall. It's important to get the right directors for the right episode, something that would dog certain episodes of Blake's 7 later down it's run. So far, however, the director choices have perfectly suited the episodes.
While Space Fall may not be as strong as the graphic Way Back, it's still an incredibly strong second episode. It keeps up the momentum of the first episode, and gives promise of more things to come. Certainly Blake's 7 isn't set in stone yet, and it will be interesting to see where it goes.
Liberator Rating - 8/10
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