by Blake’s 7 : Duel
January 3, 2015 in Blake's 7, Guest Blogs by GuestBlogs
A Guest Blog by Hevy782
As the title would suggest, this episode focuses on a duel to the death between Blake and Travis. The latter has only appeared in one episode prior to this one and it’s amazing how well defined a character he is already. However, this isn’t a complete success for writer Terry Nation as at the moment Travis feels a bit too much like a pantomime villain to me, I can’t really see him ever catching Blake and this episode only helped to enforce that. Blake’s final line pretty much sums it up with him saying he’d prefer to have someone chasing him who he knows he can beat. This doesn’t establish Travis as a threat, it makes him seem like more of a nuisance and an incompetent fool. Thankfully, Stephen Greif’s performance helps save the character and makes him seem quite threatening at times but the writing itself often ends up not really supporting this. Now maybe this is the way that Terry Nation envisaged the character or maybe Travis will improve over time but either way I feel that something’s misfired somewhere along the line. Blake is suffering from a similar problem in that he’s almost too good to be interesting. Gareth Thomas makes up for this by really sinking his teeth into just about every line he’s given but it goes back to the issue that the merry men are always more interesting than Robin Hood himself. I think that just about every crew member of the Liberator (with the possible exception of Gan) is more interesting than Blake himself which is sad but true. Anyway, the episode itself is directed by Douglas Camfield who is a veteran director who had previously done loads of work on Doctor Who and is a really good at action, making him the obvious choice for an episode titled Duel. He directed some great Doctor Who stories such as The Invasion and Terror of the Zygons, all of which have a great sense of atmosphere thanks in no small part to Douglas Camfield’s directorial decisions so I went into this expecting great things.
By the start of this episode, Travis has managed to drive Blake into orbit around an uncharted planet and is preparing to go in for the kill. Meanwhile, the Liberator’s continual escapes from the Federation have drained the Liberator’s power and so Blake, Jenna and Gan take a trip to the planets surface while they wait for the power to recharge and from there they spot Travis’ ships going in for the kill. They teleport back up and prepare for battle. Seeing no other option, Blake decides to ram Travis’ command ship but just as he is about to do so both he and Travis are teleported to the planets surface where they meet Sinofar and Giroc who decide that the two must fight to the death to settle the dispute. Blake is joined by Jenna who helps him in his fight while Travis’ mutoid pilot is sent to help him. Meanwhile, the two ships sit stationary in space and can do nothing but watch the battle take place on the planet below. Travis and the mutoid set a trap for Blake but it fails and so Blake and Travis face off in single combat. Blake gets into a position to kill Travis but instead shows him mercy. He and Jenna are then teleported back to Sinofar and Giroc who congratulate him on his victory and also question his act of mercy. He then replies by saying that he’d rather have Travis chasing him as he knows he can beat him. The Liberator is then freed and allowed to escape. Once the Liberator is safely away Travis is also released and warned never to return to this planet.
In the review of the previous episode I did mention that Jenna and Gan were in need of more focus and development. So imagine the pleasant shock I get when Blake goes down to the surface of an unidentified planet accompanied by none other than Jenna and Gan. Unfortunately they all return to the ship not long after this and Gan returns to the background again. Thankfully though Jenna does stick with Blake which gives her a much needed chance to shine after quite a few episodes stuck up on the Liberator. There’s also one very interesting scene up on the Liberator between Avon, Cally and Vila which is both moving and funny. Avon basically admits (in his own special way) that he does care for his fellow crew members which is quite an interesting turn of events for the character and while it was obviously coming sooner or later (as you need to soften these types of characters up at some point) it’s still a great moment in an episode not really about Avon at all. Some great stuff, shame about Gan being left out again though.
We also get an interesting look at how the Federation runs it’s operations with the inclusion of the mutoid pilot who is sent down to help Travis. The idea that she exists only for service is an interesting one and the vampire side of things is also quite dark. The relationship between her and Travis is an interesting one also it’s almost as if Travis feels morbid curiosity towards her. It shows a different side to Travis and his threat to court marshal her at the end was also quite a dark moment. However, two characters I weren’t too keen on were Sinofar and Giroc who’s motivations are confusing and they ultimately feel like a poor plot device simply to get Blake and Travis in a duel scenario. The way they’re written feels clunky and disjointed and they ultimately drag the whole thing down for me. However, one we get beyond their main part in the story and move on to the duel in the forest itself I was able to forget about them and enjoy that fight for what it was. The fight itself was standard stuff but everything that was leading up to it was very strong and quite tense at times. Not knowing where the characters were in relation to each other helped to build up this tension immensely and when Jenna was captured by Travis the tension was at its peak. Finally there was the space battle at the start which was a nice way to kick the episode off and was also quite tense. Things feel quite helpless on Blake’s side of the battle and the attempted ramming of Travis ship made it even more suspenseful.
To sum up, we have yet another great episode here although there are some story telling elements which left me feeling rather cold. Nevertheless, it was probably the most suspenseful of all the episodes so far so Duel is getting an eight-out-of-ten from me because of that. Coming up next is Project Avalon and we’ll be taking a look at that very soon but until then be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.
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