The Final Act

My previous review of Star One is here. Here is a new review with more pictures of Avon in it.

"A single planet orbiting an isolated, dying star."

So this is it - the moment when Blakes 7 has to make up its mind whether to be about Blake, or Avon, or Blake/Avon. Under the surface of the story arc about the search for Control and then Star One ongoing throughout season 2 has been the tension between these three competing dynamics, and now that the Liberator has finally reached Star One it comes to the surface in the most sizzling dialogue yet:
Blake: "We are not going to use Star One to rule the Federation, we are going to destroy it."
Avon: "I never doubted that. I never doubted your fanaticism. As far as I am concerned you can destroy whatever you like. You can stir up a thousand revolutions, you can wade in blood up to your armpits. Oh, and you can lead the rabble to victory, whatever that might mean. Just so long as there is an end to it. When Star One is gone it is finished, Blake. And I want it finished. I want it over and done with. I want to be free."
Cally: "But you are free now Avon."
Avon: "I want to be free of him."

Meanwhile on Star One, aliens from the planet Skaro in the galaxy of Andromeda have disguised themselves as mannys to take over Star One.

Avon, Blake and Cally teleport down to Star One and are promptly separated by events. Avon gets a brief action scene while Blake pretends to be Travis to the aliens pretending to be mannys.

Avon is still convinced that the best way to take over the series is to get rid of Travis, so that there will be no rivals to come between Blake and him.

Avon captures Travis, who is for some reason in disguise (possibly as General Chang from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), but he gets away.

Travis then manages to finally shoot Blake, which he has been trying to ever since he first appeared a season and a half ago. I think Travis was even more surprised by this than Blake was.

Avon arrives in the nick of time to shoot the baddys and stop their plan to turn off all of the minefield stopping the aliens' spaceships invading the galaxy.

Travis tries to have one more go at shooting Blake, but Avon is here this time...

...and he shoots Travis into a hole in the middle of the floor. Baddys don't like falling down holes, just ask the Evil Emperor from Return of the Jedi.

Back on the Liberator, the aliens can send their spaceships through the gap in the minefield that they did manage to make, and only the Liberator stands between them and the Federation. But first...

Blake has been injured and he did not manage to stop Travis without Avon. While the series has been going this way since at least Gambit, if not Countdown (when the quest for Star One began), Blake is from this moment no longer the main character in the series. It looks as though Avon is finally going to be free of him and have the series to himself. But Blake has one last line to say to Avon...

"Avon, for what it is worth, I have always trusted you. From the very beginning."

Paul Darrow's expression says it all: Avon knows he will never be free of Blake.

That leads on to the last scene of the episode and season, which the story has been building towards for maximum impact. The Liberator is about to fight alone against an entire alien spaceship fleet, and ends on a superb cliffhanger as Avon says:

"Fire!"