Starring Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Jacqueline Pearce, Brian Croucher, John Abineri, Judy Buxton, Kevin Stoney, Andrew Robertson, Michael Keating, Sally Knyvette, Jan Chappell & Peter Tuddenham
Written by Allan Prior
Directed by Vere Lorrimer
Blake receives a communication from Travis, after an attack on the Liberator. He is holding his cousin, Inga, hostage. Blake has no choice, but to travel to Exbar and rescue her.
However Travis has set a trap, one which will result in the Liberator falling into Travis' hands. Can Avon and Villa rescue him, before Travis gets possession of the Liberator, and before Servalan's pursuit ships close in?
This must tie with Delieverance as one of the worst Blake's 7 episodes so far. It seems a shame, but the strong run of Blake's 7 that started with an Allan Prior script, Horizon, must end with another of his, Hostage. Now, while Deliverance is simply dull and uninteresting, Hostage is badly plotted, poorly structured, badly directed, badly acted and downright dull. I don't know what people thought at the time, but this is a very, very poor example of Blake's 7, and it's pretty much what not to do.
There never feels like any urgency in the script, for a start. Blake's cousin, who apparently he was very close to, is being held hostage, and very soon is going to die, but Blake seems to saunter around with no urgency at all. Now, in any other episode, say written by Terry Nation or Chris Boucher, Blake would be dashing about, not waiting for the opinion of his crew. Here, however, Blake barely does anything. He gets teleported down, and then ends up chatting with his uncle, before going off to rescue her. And when the pursuit ship is closing in, there little urgency from Blake, Avon or Jenna to get away. This should have been an action packed episode, but rather than that, little seems to happen. And that's not my only problem: everything feels so much cheaper in this episode. Whether the money was running out, I can't be sure, but the model work in this episode looks pretty ropey, there's continual use of the same pursuit ship set, stock footage of the Liberator's flight deck exploding is used over and over, the sound effects sound lame and the location is the exact same one as used in Delieverance. There's a constant feeling throughout this episode of 'let's re-use stuff to save time, because frankly the script's a bit pathetic and hopefully no one will notice', and I honestly don't know what possessed either Chris Boucher or David Maloney to put this before the screen. The script is all over the place, with some really dodge concepts and massive plot holes. It's light when the Blake and Avon defeat Travis (far too easily, in my mind), but when Travis is found by Servalan, it's dark. That's ok, I hear you call. Yes, but the Liberator is still in orbit! How quickly does it get dark on Exbar? And as for the Crimmos, why they couldn't just have been Mutoids is beyond me. He even has some Mutoids go with him after his escape from the Federation in Trial. So why start using Crimmos? This is a massive disregard for the series continuity, and the less we talk about Blake and Inga. I wouldn't have been suprised if the cast hadn't dived for the nearest object they could be sick in when reading it. Not only is Inga Blake's cousin, but how old was she when Blake last visited? And why didn't he mention them on the very first episode when talking about his family? It's like a RTD era Doctor Who script: packing conntinuity in, but not in the right places, not in the right context and not right at all.
As for the characters, there barely even caricatures. There so indespencible, I can barely remember there names. Not one of them gets above two dimensional. The only character who remotely showed promise was that played by the late, great Kevin Stoney, however he's barely in it. And the same goes for Jenna and Cally, who, once again, get left behind on the Liberator. I can see the point that Sally Knyvette often makes about her character being left to man the teleport. Pretty much all the early promise about Jenna has dispersed, and Cally only clings on because of her telepathy (which is pretty much ballsed up in this episode too). Sally and Jan do the best they can, but they hardly do anything. This epsiode does have poor acting as well, from six big culprits: John Abineri, Judy Buxton, whoever plays Travis' second-in-command, Brian Croucher, Michael Keating and Gareth Thomas. With The latter three, I can hardly blame them: Michael does his best to look scared, but it really looks like he wants to burst out laughing, Gareth looks so awkward having to deal with the script he's having to do and Brian Croucher is being made to shout his head off, when Travis is better when he's quiet and menacing. As for the rest, it's simply because there not playing there parts correctly at all. There's no real conviction: no wonder, but these three (and Gareth Thomas) are barely trying. This really only leaves Paul Darrow and Jacqueline Pearce, who are the only two who come out of this train wreak of a story with any dignity left. Even Vere Lorrimer's direction isn't good enough. It's stale, and what was really needed here was a director like George Spenton-Foster or David Maloney to inject some energy into it.
Frankly, Hostage is best when it's as bad as Delieverance. It gets much worse, and it's a shame, because it's a good idea at heart, but it's proof that even the best ideas can be horribly misshapen into the worst of things. Hostage must be the worst episode of Blake's 7 up to that point: a story where everything completely fails.
Liberator Rating - 3/10
Comments
Post a Comment