Bleak's 7

According to legend, Terminal was intended to be not just the last episode of Blakes 7's third season, but the last ever episode of Blakes 7. It was not until after it had been written, produced, filmed, edited and, by some accounts, broadcast, that the BBC decided to make season 4.

So if you look at Terminal with this in mind, that Terry Nation wrote it and the cast performed it all intending it to be the grand finale of the series, you can get a somewhat different take on the story. Today I am going to look at Terminal with this in mind.

For a start, Paul Darrow seems to be using it as an audition for whatever he is going to do next if he can't be playing Avon. He is very theatrical here, especially in the scenes (and there are several of these) where he is the only actor on screen.

The Liberator is doomed from early on in the episode, the first sign that this Terry Nation story is, in contrast to almost the entirety of the rest of season 3, a return to the bleak, uncaring universe we saw in the early part of season 1. A return to its origins in a way.

Would they have chosen to destroy the iconic Liberator spaceship if they had known they were going to do another season after this? I doubt it. As good as Scorpio! is in its own way, there is nothing that could possibly have stood comparison to the Liberator - both the spaceship model and interior sets - as the fixed central location for Blakes 7.

Arguably foreshadowed throughout this season (though not constantly), Terminal sees Avon and Tarrant wrestle - only metaphorically, sadly - for dominance of the Liberator.

Rather than risk literally wrestling with Tarrant (the very idea makes me go purr), Avon pulls a gun from his pocket.

If there hadn't been a season 4 then this would have been the climax of their relationship, with no way back from this development to the dynamic they had previously. In reality, the dramatic, game-changing events of Terminal and then Rescue create a new dynamic between Avon, Tarrant, and the other survivors from the Liberator.

Blake cast his shadow over the whole of season 3 even in his absence, not least because his name stayed in the title. He was mentioned in around half the episodes, usually by guest stars who had heard of the regular characters or the Liberator because of Blake's reputation. But it is not since Volcano (10 episodes earlier) that they had been actively searching for Blake.

(I have read that 'the search for Blake' was supposedly the story arc for season 3, but as it only happens in 2 out of 13 parts, I have to conclude that they were getting season 3 of Blakes 7 mixed up with Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock.)

Nevertheless, the one scene with Blake is crucial because it provides closure on this aspect of the series, as well as justifying them having kept the show's title. The fact that it is not the real Blake but a "drug-induced and electronic dream" of Avon's is a clever twist. When Servalan later says that Blake is dead we might take it for the truth since, if there had never been a season 4, there would be nothing to contradict her.

The death of Zen is one of the most moving moments in the whole of Blakes 7, even if Terry Nation has borrowed some of the style from the film 2001: A Spacetime Odyssey. (The presence of the monkey-like "links" in the same episode makes the connection more blatant.)

Vila and Dayna don't get much to do in Terminal, but the scenes they do have when the Liberator is disintegrating and Zen is dying are important to the plot as well as building on the apocalyptic mood of the finale. Vila gets a rare opportunity to be explicitly clever when dealing as best they can with the crisis, as though Terry Nation wanted to confirm that he was supposed to be clever really before the end.

There is a second such moment of cleverness later on when Vila tricks the baddys into letting him take Orac with him to the planet.

The links don't serve much purpose in the plot of Terminal, but thematically they fit very well with the bleak tone that comes together in Servalan's final confrontation with Avon: she has won. The baddys have won. And to rub the bleakness in the faces of the mannys watching she adds:

"The planet's evolution was massively accelerated. It developed through millions of years in a very short time. The creature you saw is not what Man developed from. It is what Man will become."

However, just when you think the bleakness is so much that the show will end with Servalan stamping on Avon's face forever, we get the last clever twist in Terminal. It is one that has been set up in advance: Servalan thinks she has won because she has the Liberator at last.

"MAXIMUM POWER!"

And we know that all she has is a dead ship about to explode the moment they try to make it go.

Nothing the crew of the Liberator did stopped Servalan, only blind chance.

(Here we have one moment suggesting they might have been preparing for a season 4, or at least hedging on the possibility, when they made this, because Servalan runs to the teleport to try and escape rather than us seeing her die on the bridge of the Liberator.)

Just this once, nobody wins. The former crew of the Liberator may be alive, but they are stranded on a dangerous planet without any spaceship (let alone the most powerful ship in the galaxy) with which to get off. So how does Avon react to this?

Of course. The purrfect ending: Avon smiles.