Oh yeah, the dialogue is always great. Chris Boucher’s dialogue was a strength in his three Who TV stories, and he clearly brought that talent over when script editing B7. B7 also goes to show how Terry Nation is actually a solid TV writer, despite all the crap Doctor Who fans give him for his Who work (even there I think he’s underappreciated, but that’s a different topic). I think Terry was at his best when he could write his own story in his own universe (obviously, there are things which make these two the same universe), not having to fit within the context of something created by someone else.
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I just finished Blake tonight. I have only one mark against the ending, and that’s that Servalan wasn’t part of it. Great series overall, and I finished it just in time to rewatch Series A on Blu-Ray.
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Terry Nation clearly had vision and a trenebdous imagination when he was excited by something. B7 brings out the best of him and, yes, there’s real quality in his DW work as well. That said, he did seem ready to recycle ideas when asked to turn out another Who script. Mind you, I freely admit that I love Planet of the Daleks (a story that seems to attract a great deal of negativity from fandom).
As for B7, it’s quite remarkable to think that he wrote all 13 scripts for season 1 (series A). B7 was tremendously lucky to have Boucher as script editor, but Nation’s passion for (and belief in) B7 really shines through, especially in that first season.
He deserves to be remembered as a true TV Sci Fi legend.
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Time for Seek-Locate-Destroy. Hello Servalan 
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Honestly think she’s one of the greatest female villains of all time.
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That’s my next episode too. Wednesday evening. Looking forward to it!
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I wanted to try to ration it out but as I have free time & the weather is crap, I’m gonna binge it.
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This is a true fact, but let’s go one step further still…
Servalan is one of the greatest villains of all time. period. Beautifully written. Flawlessly performed.
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Also correct
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She’s truly phenomenal. Jacqueline Pearce put in such a wonderfully nuanced performance. When she’s given good material, she makes the absolute most of it. On those occassions, particularly in the second half of the show, when she’s written more as a pantomime villain, she still finds ways to keep her performance real and show the viewer a woman who is always thinking several steps ahead. She’s always a joy to watch (and listen to whilst on audio). Servalan is even sympathetic (to a degree) at times. Simply stunning.
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Duel. The first episode I did not enjoy, feels very much like a 2nd rate Star Trek plot.
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Oh, really? I think that one’s quite good. Been a while since I’ve seen it, but I remember it as tense, edge of your seat kind of stuff. Almost as good as Doctor vs. Goth in the Matrix in The Deadly Assassin. Funny you should mention how it feels like a Star Trek plot considering how it’s almost beat for beat the same story as Arena though.
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That’s not much of an endorsement for me lol
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Don’t like survival thriller, hunter vs hunted in battle of wits kinds of things?
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Oh I do, just don’t think its done well in Duel or Deadly Assassin.
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At least it’s an episode where they let Jenna off the bloody Liberator…
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And at least Jenna occasionally got something to do unlike Soolin.
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Oh absolutely - my eldest and I have just finished rewatching Series D and Soolin is so poorly written for it’s embarrassing. Her most interesting feature is her ever-changing hairstyle!
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A shame because she had a lot of potential and she’s really pretty too, so I’d have not complained if she had more to do.
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I love Duel. Yes, it treads similar ground to Arena but the trope is not original to Star Trek. I believe both stories are based on Frederick Brown’s 1944 short story. However, whilst Arena: ST leads to an unequivocal victory by Kirk (and the Federation stand for good), B7s take is much more cynical and subversive.
Love the space battle. It’s genuinely claustrophobic and such a refreshing change from Star Wars style dogfights in space.
Love the character work.
Love the fact that even the keepers themselves are flawed, with Giroc revelling in bloodlust. The story here is that the people who really need to learn (Travis and Giroc) never will. Consequently, the cycle of perpetual anger and violence cannot be broken. It’s bleak and depressing, but that’s the whole point. It may lack the polish of American sci fi but, typical of B7, it uses that to tell a wholly different moral story even though the story beats themselves - both being derived from the same source of inspiration - are largely the same.
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