Starring Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Jacqueline Pearce, Stephen Grief, Tony Caunter, Michael Keating, Sally Knyvette, David Jackson, Jan Chappell & Peter Tuddenham
Written by Terry Nation
Directed by Michael E Briant
The Liberator tracks a spacecraft falling through the atmosphere of the planet Cephlon, where Avon, Jenna, Gan and Villa discover that one member of it's two man crew survived. But before they can leave, Jenna is attacked by primitive scavengers.
Gan, Villa and Avon go back down to the planet to find her. But the survivor of the pod landing demands Blake takes him to Aristo, where his father's life is dependent upon power cells that only he has. Blake has no choice, with Cally held at gunpoint, but to obey...
And at Federation Space Command, Servalan plots to get her hands on the mysterious Orac....
Deliverance is dull. That's my main point. Certainly there are interesting ideas, but it's become plainly clear that Terry Nation is running out of steam. A lot of the plot is simply rehashed material from earlier in the season, and that's a massive issue with me. If they were re-using plots from different seasons, that would be fine. However, because it's ideas used earlier in this season, it quickly becomes a massive problem.
Basically, the whole plot is badly structured, with little action or pace injected into the script. It's meant to be tense and dramatic, but it's neither of those things because the script doesn't allow it to be. There's too many standard tropes which have already been deployed in Blake's 7 before, and they don't work. The story feels like it needed tightening up, with too many plots being spun at once. There's just too much going on in Deliverance for it to effectively focus on one idea. In a way, it reminds me of the Doctor Who Big Finish audio Dark Eyes, where so much is going on at once that it's hard to keep up with all the plot threads. Time Squad (from which this story plunders the most) also suffered from this, but to a much lesser extent. Blake's 7 is certainly a show driven by ideas, but when there's too many ideas, it can just make the episode look muddled. For example, did we really need a clichéd bunch of scavenging natives. Really? After the Decima's from The Web? Or a species with genetic banks being guarded due to the journey's longevity? That's Time Squad mate! And someone in need of a device that Blake must take to that person? Surely that's Mission To Destiny and Breakdown. In truth, these stories plunder far too much from the rest of the season, and that just gives Deliverance the feel that it's been rushed together. And Servalan and Travis are barely used. To me, that's just criminal. I mean Cally, Gan, Blake and Jenna are pretty much shoved to the side , but these two don't even interact with the story. Certainly, we hear a little more about Travis' accident, but we still barely see them. There's cryptic clues dropped about Orac, but that's it. In total, this story is just a complete mess.
The cast do there damm best to try and make something of this material, but only Paul Darrow really stands out. Because he gets the chance to really take charge of the show, we get to see him in his element. It's just a shame the material is so poor, because it could have been so interesting. It's almost a template for Blake's 7 post Series 2. Just so long as the material is better, than this won't be too much of a problem. The rest of the cast sadly are barely involved that they can't really make much of an impact. Jacqueline Pearce and Michael Keating come off best, with Keating providing his usual comic charm and Pearce being more manipulative than ever. Jan Chappell and Stephen Grief only seem to feature in a few scenes, meaning that it's completely redundant to even have them in the story. And David Jackson, Sally Knyvette and Gareth Thomas are merely given generic stuff to do. I'm sorry, but they all needed to be involved more. The guest cast are also so uninteresting that I couldn't really remember if they were any good. Certainly, they could have been better. Even Michael E Brisnt direction feels a little flat.
Deliverance is a story which I can't really recommend. It has good features, but most of it is uninteresting trite. The beginning of Blake's 7 two part season 1 finale starts increadibly poorly, and that's due to virtually letting every element of production settle at sub-standard.
Liberator Rating - 4/10
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