Duel (1978) Review

Duel utilizes a classic formula that I love - a direct confrontation between the hero and villain - and does it well enough.

WRITTEN BY

Terry Nation. Like Mission To Destiny, he's just adapting a certain format for the B7 universe.

PLOT

When Travis tracks the Liberator down to a certain star system, its inhabitants freeze both that and his Federation pursuit ships, and force him and Blake to engage in personal combat mano a mano on the planet surface to settle their dispute.

ANALYSIS

I think the episode technically succeeds in what it sets out do - pit Blake and Travis's wits against one another, with some character development and atmospheric sequences along the way. My main issue is that whilst it's good, it could've been even better.

For reasons beyond me, Duel is quite heavily padded, with some scenes unreasonably stretched out. I'm thinking mainly of the ships' freezing and the sequence in which Giroc cheats by incapacitating Blake and letting Travis win. When the premise is good enough to fill an entire hour let alone 45 minutes, it's aggravating to see the episode waste time and make it look like the writer is treating it as filler.

Sinofar and Giroc's postapocalyptic graveyard world is an infinitely fascinating and morbid place(enhanced by veteran director Douglas Camfield's gloomy touch) and could've been fleshed out even more. Blake and Jenna could've had a heart to heart conversation to really match Travis and his Mutoid's.

But I do love the chance of exploring the parallels between Travis and Blake, and their followers. They are such compelling opponents and I could watch them plot and adapt to each other's strategies all day.

CHARACTERS

One of the most clever aspects of Duel is its almost meta execution of the status quo. Despite Sinofar organising the duel with the explicit intent to teach Blake and Travis a lesson, both of them leave the battleground without having learned a thing. Blake, because he's already a staunchly moral person and Travis, because his life is entirely based around his military career.

It's an interesting episode for Travis - without Servalan looming over him, we get to see the character operate entirely on his own. And despite what I just said about Travis's career-centric life, he does show hints of humanity with his awkward attempts to connect to his servant Mutoid. Quite what pushes him to do this is uncertain - it might've been subconscious jealousy of Blake's friendship with Jenna, though the fact that he looked up her name beforehand may suggest otherwise. Then again, Travis might check the identities of each of his Mutoids.

We also get another glimpse of Avon's complex emotional connection to Blake - his speech about not having to be irrational to prove that one cares hints towards him having some affection, and of course he is the only member of the crew to realise Blake will never kill an unarmed man, even one he fears and despises. I believe that Avon, in a very suppressed fashion, does idolize Blake as someone who is his very antithesis - an uncynical man in a dystopian universe, who not only refuses to coexist with the miserable state of things, but also pushes others towards positive change.
Whilst Avon thrives and endures in the kind of world he lives in, deep down I believe he wants to be a man as good as Blake is.

Sinofar and Giroc are a fascinating and mysterious pair - we're given very few hints as to the origin and nature of their relationship, but what we do get hints at an extremely long and eventful collaboration. The fact that their planet's war somehow ended up producing them is what intrigues me and makes me wish we'd have learned more about them, but that enigma I think is largely why they work so well as they do anyway.

NOTES

*Sinofar's dress distracted me this entire episode. Simply put, the woman is not wearing anything underneath.

*I think this is the first time we see the Federation use "Time Distort" as a measure of speed. Interestingly, they use it to measure the Liberator's, suggesting that Standard By Something and Time Distort are basically the "kilometer/mile" of this universe, and either works.

*Zen is able to guess Blake's request to ignore the orbital decay since they weren't going to hang around for long anyway, suggesting a level of intelligence in the computer that I don't think we'll see much later.

*Given the Mutoids' pragmatic personalities, why does Keyeira even bother telling Travis about how people call them vampires?

*This episode debuts Jenna's pink anorak. Cute.

*Michael Keating has resorted to just pushing one lever to teleport everyone.

*According to Cally, three full banks of power are not enough to fire the Liberator's neutron blasters.

*Travis's tactic for capturing the Liberator isn't logically feasible, as it's based on 2D strategy. Blake could've easily just flown over or under his three pursuit ships.

*Why would Zen's battle computers not be able to come up with the plan Blake suggests? Is it something to do with them refusing to accept ramming as a strategy?

*Considering how desolate the planet looks from where they land, and the mention of nuclear devastation, how come the forest looks pristine?

*Why don't Travis and Blake just use those machetes to fight, as opposed to carving out spears?

*Vila cannot perceive the crew being able to operate the Liberator without Blake and Jenna. Which seems a bit exaggerated to me, as I'm not even sure what exactly Blake does beyond captaining.

*Blake's comment that both her and Jenna should've stayed awake all night is a bit daft - they'd both be too groggy and tired to fight Travis then.

*The episode just seems to forget about the bat bite that Blake gets.

*What's up with those terrible greenscreen shots of Travis and the Mutoid? They couldn't just drive
those two out for one more shot?

*The Mutoid's attack on Jenna is awfully edited. She just seems to stand there as the Mutoid does something with her arms and then she's out for the count.

*If the Mutoid can track Jenna and Blake down, why doesn't Travis just go with her and attack Blake there and then? The two are obviously stronger.

*Why does Travis keep the Mutoid from killing Jenna? The point is to draw Blake out. Killing her should make him angry enough. Or at least it would refuel the Mutoid, and the two of them could hunt Blake.

*I must admit, Blake took a huge chance by not killing Travis. If Sinofar and Giroc hadn't been as devoted to peace as they were, they could've just let Travis kill him and Jenna after he threw the spear away.

*The way Douglas Camfield directed the final fight sequence between Blake and Travis was eerily reminiscent of the fights from Robin Of Sherwood four years later.

*Gan asks Blake about Sinofar's looks at the end of the episode, the both of them apparently forgetting that Gan did see her briefly on the planet's surface.

*This is the only televised Blake's 7 episode where Travis appears without Servalan. A pity.

INFORMATION!

*When Gan first catches a glimpse of Sinofar and Giroc, he suggests his limiter might have a malfunction. Gan's limiter was established in Time Squad.

*Once again, Cally briefly displays her telepathic ability, also established in Time Squad.

*Travis explains to Sinofar and Giroc that Blake is a tried and convicted man, which occurred in The Way Back. He also says that he must either bring him to justice or kill him, orders for which he received in Seek-Locate-Destroy.

*Blake tells Jenna that finding Travis shouldn't be too difficult, as his strategy was usually to try and set a trap and draw them into it. This was established as Travis's calling card in Seek-Locate-Destroy.

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

"I have never understood why it should be necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care, or, indeed, why it should be necessary to prove it at all."

CONCLUSION

A very strong episode that came so close to being a classic.