Maximum Power

In (slightly late) honour of the 44th anniversary of Gauda Prime day, we’ve reconvened to look back on the series as a whole. The gang’s all here, except for Mark who’s holding the door open for us when we’re ready to leave. He’ll be fine. Join us as we pit our heroes together in a series of Death-Watch matches, chuck Nation, Boucher, Maloney and Lorrimer into a slave pit on Ursa Prime with nothing but a nappy full of mangan to defend themselves, and finally decide once and for all that the...

And now on Maximum Power, our intrepid seven have reconvened to report on the latest remastered Blake’s 7 episodes to be shown on the big screen at the BFI. While Pete, Tom, Dan, Zoe, Col, Hannah and Si are still squeeing about what they’ve just seen, they are interrupted by a mysterious stranger, and this time not in bandages! Could this be their éminence grise? And what can this mysterious stranger, Richard Ashton, tell us about the new Liberator’s origins? Meanwhile back in the studio, Si...

With a grim air of finality and a total disregard for the attempt to turn this show into a terribly serious Space Opera, we look back over Series D of Blake’s 7. Kicking off with a single offscreen death and ending with definitively killing off everyone else maybe, we tour a heretofore unexplored part of the Blake’s 7 universe in our clapped-out orange planet hopper. It’s a bold vision of the future where everything is various shades of ocean, military, and gunmetal grey because of George Lucas,...

This episode, Space Commander Brendan is joined by Councillor Joe Ford and Governor Mark Rawlins to examine further evidence of rebel activity, provided by dissident production house Big Finish. Join them as they investigate the first Liberator Chronicle, The Turing Test, followed by the full cast adventures Fractures and Liberation, before returning to Earth for the first episode of the spin off series Avalon. Spoilers abound, but almost nobody will be tied to an exploding chair provided you...

Blake. Series D, Episode 13. First broadcast on Monday 21 December 1981. …And on the other side of the planet, thousands of miles away, Nathan, Brendan, James, Peter and Simon are wandering through a forest wondering why all these bounty hunters keep leaping out at them from behind the trees. But it’s not long before they hotwire a dodgem and head off down one of those holes in the ground from which everyone, eventually, fails to emerge. Will they find Servalan? Should they? Will ever they learn to trust again? Or at least to let people finish speaking before opening...

Blake. Series D, Episode 13. First broadcast on Monday 21 December 1981. And now on Maximum Power, our UK crew of thieves, killers, mercenaries and psychopaths band together, in the first of our two episodes on the final episode of Blake’s 7. This week, Si thinks he’s finally located Col, who’s been away for some time, Mark’s worried that we’re all going to end up in a hole in the ground together, Pete’s quite happy to leave the Xenon base now the wine’s run out, and has Col betrayed us, has he betrayed me? It’s time to take a trip to Gauda Prime, a bad place to be,...

Warlord. Series D, Episode 12. First broadcast on Monday 14 December 1981. This week Mark hosts a conference of non-aligned podcasters, Brendan goes to see the Federation’s acrobatic display team, Peter has an ill-advised fling, and Toby asks if you are a Zukan or a Zukan’t. It’s the penultimate episode of Blake’s 7 — Warlord. (“But blurbs are no more than… blurbs.”)

Orbit. Series D, Episode 11. First broadcast on Monday 7 December 1981. Will Si, Nathan, Peter and Simon be able to escape with the Tachyon Funnel and their lives? Will their replica of Orac give more information than requested, less information than requested or just the information that’s requested? And which of the crew weighs 73 kilos? Escape velocity is confirmed — but unattainable. Will they be able to achieve Orbit?

Gold. Series D, Episode 10. First broadcast on Monday 30 November 1981. Pete’s getting heist by his own petard, Tom’s sent a video of himself not stealing gold to trick us, Peter’s nearly felled by an airlock trip hazard, and Si wants to know WHAT’S THE SNAG? Everyone gets to play their part, as this week’s episode is worth its weight in Gold.

Sand. Series D, Episode 9. First broadcast on Monday 23 November 1981. Pete’s forgotten his bucket, Simon’s broken his spade, Kate’s got entangled in a windbreaker, and Adam was last seen chasing an ice cream van across the dunes in high heels. It’s Sand! Which, like Tarrant this week, gets everywhere, as he discovers that even after fixing the food machine for her, Servalan will still have him for breakfast.

Games. Series D, Episode 8. First broadcast on Monday 16 November 1981. This week, Nathan, Brendan, Simon and James sneak aboard an orbital station somewhere near the planet Mecron 2, where they will encounter a series of increasingly lethal versions of Flappy Bird, in the hope of finding, once and for all, some explanation of whatever the hell happens at the end of the Blake’s 7 episode Games. And because you will forever regret it if you don’t look it up, here’s a link to the triangular Coleco Telstar Arcade from 1977 with its Mecronian-knife shaped cartridges.

Assassin. Series D, Episode 7. First broadcast on Monday 9 November 1981. After Mark, Peter, Brendan and Nathan intercept an ominous message from the very edge of the sixth quadrant, fearing imminent assassination at the hands of an imminent assassin, they head off to the planet Domo for a quick slave auction, followed by a tight twenty minutes of being hunted through TC1 by the man who came top of his class at RADA in Glowering and Other Menacing Facial Expressions. But will it be fun to listen to all their little plans and squabbles? Tune in and find out — as we...

Headhunter. Series D, Episode 6. First broadcast on Monday 2 November 1981. The hunt for experts continues in this series of Maximum Power, as this week we try and recruit Jon Helm, the Galaxy’s greatest expert on everything Blake’s 7. But will he lose his head before the episode is out? Will Hannah end up hugged to death? Was it sensible to send Pete and Si on a mission together when it might lead to the subjugation of the entire human race? But, most urgently, will this episode fulfil your greatest desires? Or doesn’t it know where to start? It’s Headhunter.

Animals. Series D, Episode 5. First broadcast on Monday 26 October 1981. Pete is ready for a nice sit-down in Servalan’s Comfortable Chair of Maximum Persuasion, Nathan is cleaning out the bilge tanks with half a glass of wine and a comedy oboe, Mark’s trying to spark romance between an insurrectionist shaman and Sweetums the Muppet, and Peter is howling out his rage by saying ‘rarrrrr!’ with perfect diction. Will there be fierce agreement, or will the fur fly as we discuss Animals?

Stardrive. Series D, Episode 4. First broadcast on Monday 19 October 1981. Brendan’s Vin Diesel impersonation has knackered Scorpio even more than usual, and James is avoiding repairs by pretending he’s had too much Red Bull. Conrad has found a solution by studying slow motion footage of a biker’s helmet, but it will only work if we can disguise the fact that Mark refuses to go on location. It’s Stardrive.

Traitor. Series D, Episode 3. First broadcast on Monday 12 October 1981. We’re on the planet Helotrix this week, enjoying our successful subjugation of a compliant populace consisting largely of teachers and hairdressers. The occupation is ably enforced by the supremely competent Si and his régime of casually deployed neutron strikes, while Nathan reminisces pompously about past imperial glories, and Pete conducts a surprising clandestine affair with that remarkable new police commissioner Sleer. (And somewhere, in the basement, Simon is devising a galactically...

Power. Series D, Episode 2. First broadcast on Monday 5 October 1981. This week on Maximum Power, we discuss episode 2 of Series D — Ben Steed’s normal amount of Power. There’s also a war between the sexes this week, and while Una and Zoë are deploying their wit, tactical skill and powers of telekinesis, Nathan is embroidering a lovely throw rug, while James is rigging up a boxy plastic gaming PC in the basement. Still, there’s enough time for us to get together to ask the big questions: Is this Ben Steed’s worst script or his second worst script? Does Nathan...

Rescue. Series D, Episode 1. First broadcast on Monday 28 September 1981. And we’re back with the first episode of Maximum Power for a whole new decade (of the third century of the second calendar). It’s Rescue. When a handsome stranger arrives on the planet Terminal and rescues the stranded Nathan, Pete, Peter, Si and Simon, it soon becomes apparent that he’s not the dishy bleached-blond hero they had all been hoping for, but a depraved old man whose beauty regimen involves botox, red wine and turning twinks into cheap Doctor Who monsters. Will the boys escape his...

This week, Maximum Power’s Interrogation Division (otherwise known as Si and Pete) interview documentarian extraordinaire Chris Chapman and special effects wizard Chris Thompson about their work on the lavish new Blake’s 7: The Collection Series 1 (yes, we know) box set.

This week, in a special report from the British Film Institute’s Blake’s 7 Series 1 (don’t you mean Series A?) screening, Si and Pete are joined by Zoe Baker, Dan Hollingsworth, Mark Dodyk, Tom Newsom, Ben Jolley, and David Gillespie-Pratt to discuss remastered episodes, new special effects, and Blake’s RADA cum face in HD!