There are three episodes of Blakes 7 that I haven't looked at yet on this blog, and the only one of those that has Servalan in it is...
Oh dear.
Animals starts with Scorpio! in space already. Dayna is defending some manny called Justin against Tarrant's accusation that Justin is a mad scientist, because Tarrant has noticed a pattern emerging when it comes to the scientists they meet living isolated existences on planets far from Federation space in order to conduct their experiments.
Dayna defends Justin because she knows him from before she joined the series, and there's also a pattern there regarding old friends that means this Justin's chances of surviving to the end of the episode are, to put it mildly, not good.
Dayna teleports down to the planet where she meets Og and his friends, who are the "animals" of the title even though there is another reading that the real "animals" are, of course, Mannys. Dayna runs away, shooting a couple of Og's friends with her pewpewpew gun until she sees Justin. Who is the real "animal" here? Do you see?
Federation pursuit ships attack Scorpio! and Tarrant has to fly away from their special effects.
Inside Justin's base he gets a bit creepy with Dayna while giving her - and us - the exposition about who he is and what mad science he does. He is a genetic engineer and surgeon who has made the animals, and not out of socks like would be perfectly normal. He doesn't say why for now, so as to save some exposition for later.
Dayna is stuck on the planet because Tarrant has gone back to Xenon Base to get Scorpio! repaired. Meanwhile Servalan has found out about the Federation ships that attacked Scorpio! earlier and is interested in the mysterious ship and the planet it was near, so she gets her henchmanny-of-the-week to give her the exposition about Justin's planet "Bucol 2" which is top secret, so of course that only makes her even more interested.
"Set a course for Bucol 2."Darth Vader needed the Force to know the rebels were on Hoth, but Servalan just knows that if it is mentioned to her on-screen, it must mean Avon and his friends are involved.
Tarrant is proved right, Justin is definitely a mad scientist, and even Dayna says his work is "insane" when she finds out he was working for the Federation trying to make "radiation proof commandos."
Avon finally appears in the episode on board Scorpio!, trying to repair it with Orac, Vila and Soolin. There is some comedy business where Vila has to go into a dirty and smelly part of Scorpio! to do some repairs when he doesn't want to. The fact that a normally reliable Vila-being-silly scene isn't funny bodes ill for the rest of this episode.
Justin tries to justify (justinfy?) all the bad experiments he has done. It seems he and Dayna are coming around to each other's point of view, or it may be that Dayna is playing along with her mad friend until Scorpio! comes back and she can teleport away? He is very creepy.
Servalan meets with Ardus, who is played by Kevin Stoney. Kevin Stoney had already been in Blakes 7 back in Hostage, where he played a different character but also one who only met Servalan out of all the regular characters. Ardus gives Servalan more exposition about Bucol 2.
Because this is season four, Servalan is of course pretending to be Commissioner Sleer, and Ardus recognises her and has to pretend not to. But Servalan knows that he knows who she is and has him blowed up, although she would probably have done that anyway.
Servalan's spaceship lands on Bucol 2. Dayna goes outside to give Og noms and he throws her stunt double off a cliff, at the bottom of which Servalan's Federation troopers just happen to be passing. Back at Xenon Base, Avon and the others are finally ready to go and rescue Dayna, having not done very much so far this episode.
Justin finds Dayna's dropped pewpewpew gun and shouts
"DAYNA!"so loudly that William Shatner took notes. Justin thinks Dayna is ded so he goes back to his base where he gets drunk and starts wrecking the place.
Dayna has been captured by Servalan and is made to tell her all the things we - and she - already know. But this scene isn't a complete waste of time, as it cleverly establishes that Servalan has a lie-detecting machine which goes "bong" every time Dayna tells a lie. This means that when Servalan asks Dayna if she loves Justin (a fairly out of the blue question but it does help us move on with the plot so I'll let it pass) and Dayna says "of course not" it goes "bong."
The idea that Dayna is in love with creepy Justin is pretty difficult to swallow, especially when you consider that Dayna knows Avon. Servalan says
"I have to have him, Dayna, you do see that?"It sounds like everybody loves Justin now. He's no Jarvik, and writer Allan Prior is no Ben Steed... for which small mercy we must be thankful.
Servalan has another convenient machine that hypno-eyeses Dayna into hating Justin so that she will betray him. Most of the hypno-eyesing is done off screen, perhaps the BBC were worried that if viewers saw it then we would be hypno-eyesed into hating him too? They need not have worried, the episode has been successful enough at that already.
Dayna goes back to Justin's base and he lets her in. Dayna then lets in Servalan because for some reason her hating Justin also makes her want to team up with Servalan, even though she killed Dayna's father.
Servalan always knew how to make an entrance.
Servalan captures Justin and sends her troopers to go and capture Og after learning that Og is the cleverest and most important of the animals.
Avon, Tarrant and Soolin finally teleport onto the planet. They dramatically burst into Justin's base and then Avon dramatically kicks a chair out of the way and then he dramatically slips on the floor.
LOL.
This is actually the best bit of Animals, because the episode is so bad that you take what entertainment you can get from it. Avon looks a bit annoyed when he finds out that the front door has been left wide open when Servalan took her prisoners away, which means he slipped on the floor for nothing. This scene is all of Blakes 7 in microcosm.
Justin persuades Servalan to de-hypno-eyes Dayna in exchange for his cooperation (de-hypno-eyesing seems to consist of Servalan saying "you love him, Dayna, you love him" repeatedly. The BBC not worried about this working on the viewers, then), and while they are doing this he hears Avon trying to contact Dayna over her bracelet... which she has conveniently taken off for this scene to allow Justin to do. It was also convenient for the plot that Avon didn't think to try contacting Dayna until now. Mew.
Avon, Tarrant and Soolin have a shootout with the Federation troopers. Dayna runs away and Servalan tries to shoot her but shoots Justin instead. Wait, isn't this almost exactly how Jarvik got killed back in Harvest of Kairos? What are the chances of that happening?
Dayna escapes and tries to rescue Og but he gets shot by a trooper. Servalan's ship flies away and Dayna sees Justin's body on the ground. Avon says to his bracelet "Vila, stand by to bring us up" while Dayna has a sad, and so brings the episode to an end. Not a moment too soon.
Animals is a terrible episode of Blakes 7. When the best bits consist of something that should have been an out-take, and a one-scene cameo from a decent character actor, you know you do not have a winner on your paws.
Animals' weaknesses are many, from the misfiring "comedy" scenes to the multiple glaring plot contrivances, but the episode's biggest crime is sidelining our heroes Avon, Vila and even Tarrant in favour of Justin, a character who has all of the negative qualities of Jarvik but none of the positives. Yes, Animals is so bad it leaves me pining for the glory days of Jarvik and his manly manliness.
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