Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Underrated Television Show Of All Time, 19 Oct 2006
Of all the tv shows i've ever seen, Blake's 7 absolutely undoubtedly would be in my top 3. So why haven't so many people even heard of it? And how come alot of people who did see bits of it originally think today in hindsight that it was just rubbish?
Well Blake's 7 has a sad reputation of being a "geeky sci-fi" and full of wobbly cardboard sets which look ridiculous. I've so far found that the people that think this have never actually seen it themselves or only caught glimpses of it 30 years ago. The fact is, is that Blake's 7 isn't really a sci-fi; if you say sci-fi is what star trek or babylon is. Blake's 7 deals with morality, friendship, betrayal, love, vengeance, pride, death, regret and all of the biggest, greatest themes you could imagine. It is primarily about people.
I had heard frequently the claim aboout Blake's 7 being full of poor production values and terrible sets, much like some people attribute to certain Doctor Who episodes (featuring the same corridor over and over). But i was wildly suprised by the reality of the matter! The sets in Blake's 7 are huge, complicated, and extremely interesting; because the series features so much planet or spaceship hopping it is essential each location is entirely unique in the series - which is extremely refreshing.
However it must be noted that, like Doctor Who, Blake's 7 DOES feature alot of disused quarries; but these tend to become less frequent as the series get's deeper.
Blake's 7 logo is a sort of reverses startrek one, and this is incredibly true to the series. Whereas Star Trek is episodic, fairly light, good vs evil- Blake's 7 is the reverse.
It's one long story with very little time missing between each individual espisode. It's a seriously dark series, full of metaphor, anguish, character arcs, continuity, hidden pasts, multi dimensional characters,noone is ever completely good, and the possibility of it actually happening some day.
The situation of the series is that some time in the future, Earth is run by the Federation - a totally authoritve totalitarian government; who also control most of the galaxy - employing any and all methods necessary to keep it that way.It starts with Blake, an idealistic man who once long ago tried to lead a rebellion is (probably) framed with numerous child amolestation charges, and sentenced to a prison planet; he and a few escape the ship and from that point on they spend the rest of the series promoting their cause, finding new people to join them, running from the federation and simultaneosly attempting to destroy it.
However it soon becomes apparent that every crew member has their own motives...
Among people who have seen and loved Blake's 7 it is loved for it's incredibly well written dialogue, extremely well acted, brilliant on-going characterisation and interesting storylines. I personally hate the sci-fi genre, i often find it pretentious, dull and shallow; but Blake's 7 will always stand among my favourite television shows with the likes of I Claudius and Twin Peaks, it's unlike anything you'll have ever seen; the only disappointment i had with it was that theres only 52 episodes, but the ending (widely considered the greatest finale to a television series ever) more than makes up for the lack of more episodes!
A definite MUST BUY! 10/10
(as for the dvd itself, the special features sadly aren't particularly extensive, however their is an interesting interview with Paul Darrow, and i'm not sure what the previous reviewer was talking about, the picture quality has definately been improved and i would even say it was faultless)
(Also i apologise for the rambling and cryptic nature of this review! I just loved it so much; and yet at the same time don't want to spoil any of the story for you; trust me if you haven't seen it before, it's worth buying for that alone!)
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Television, 12 Jan 2008
Dated, quirky, mono and mostly 4:3 Aspect ratio - yet still a superb series. Not flashy and in your face but intelligently scripted with thoughtful story lines. Deeper and more serious ethical dilemas are explored than Star Trek or other popular television of its time. The imperfect crew develop believeable characters through superb dialogue and acting. Its every bit as good as I remembered and then some. Its television that demands your concentration if you are to truly appreciate its qualities. The four series box set offers remastered/restored DVD quality, but remember its based on nearly thirty year old original video/TV stock!! Expectations should not anticipate modern standards.
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30 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This Set Has Failed To Use The Advantages Of The DVD Format., 20 Mar 2007
Blake's 7 is a very entertaining sci-fi programme but is destined to remain forever in the shadow of Doctor Who, in the final analysis Doctor Who was a huge success and Blake's 7 was a failure.
By failure I don't mean that the show was rubbish it's just that it arrived at a time when Star Wars had just been released and it couldn't compete, Doctor Who had been there since 1963 and had cemented it's position as Britain's best loved sci-fi programme so Blake's 7 had to acknowledge it's lesser cousin status from the very beginning.
The programme however did things that Doctor Who, Star Trek and most others would never have dreamed of, it gave us a disfunctional crew as 'heroes', we had terrorists, murderers, rapists, thiefs, smugglers, bullies and cowards and a total paranoid in the brilliant character of Avon who didn't give a damn about the rest of them. The lead villains were just sick psycopaths that just existed to be as evil as possible and bring down Blake's crew.
The crowning glory for Blake's 7 is these wonderful characters played by actors that gave it their all despite the primitive effects and some really terrible episodes, and of course it gave us a never to be forgotten final episode where the entire crew loses it's fight with the federation and ends on a world famous freeze frame, this episode alone is the main reason that Blake's 7 is remembered as it has become a piece of iconic television, the finest end to a television series ever, no happy endings here.
This boxset is a wasted opportunity however in that the episode prints appear to have been sourced from the VHS releases of the series from the 1990's, there has been no effort to remaster the pictures or sound and the extras, what there is of them were lifted directly from the single series boxsets. I bought this set because I like the show and it's cheaper than the four seperate seasons but I almost wish I had stuck with my old video tapes of the episodes because despite the advantages of DVD there is no difference.
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