The Way Back (1978) Review

The Way Back is a fascinating, eccentric and quite dated bit of Orwellian TV that sets up a compelling lead for the new programme.

WRITTEN BY

Terry Nation, creator of the series, best known for inventing the Daleks on Doctor Who and revelling in dystopian sci-fi pulp.

PLOT

Roj Blake is a docile Federation citizen on Earth until he's one day approached by rebels claiming he's their former leader. Cautiously, Blake follows them and witnesses the Federation's brutality firsthand when all of his new colleagues are murdered. Seeking a loophole to avoid turning the popular Blake into a martyr, the Federation charges him with child molestation, leaving him alone, guilty, trapped and more rebellious than ever.

ANALYSIS

The Way Back isn't the first episode of Blake's 7 to be filmed, which makes its uniqueness even more interesting. It's a grim and difficult episode to watch that requires the viewer to absorb a great deal of information in a short while(not just the setting, but also the fairly convoluted storyline regarding Blake's double brainwashing), directed in an almost snuff-film like documentary style that the show never revisited afterwards.

The episode's main strength is in its guts. The universe of Blake's 7 as presented here is as dangerous and unpleasant as that of Game Of Thrones, and the fact that Blake is the only genuinely likable person to survive the runtime allows us to bond with him and also build up the Federation as an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with. But unlike Orwell's 1984, there is the faintest glimmer of hope and that's our first hook for the series.

That being said, there are some recognisable narrative flaws. Terry Nation was faced with three inescapable facts as he began writing the script - one, that the audience needed a good deal of exposition and two, that unlike the other rebels, Blake had to survive to be sent to Cygnus Alpha. As such, instead of the rebels simply approaching a new potential member, he had to have a prior history for the Federation to veto killing him, but also had to be unaware of this history.

As such, we get the rather hamfisted plot point of him essentially repeating history and being captured and mentally tortured twice, reusing the same footage. And then of course Blake also had to be sane enough to despise the Federation, hence why the charges against him aren't the ones he'd been brainwashed to believe.

It's a testament to Gareth Thomas's conviction as an actor and the sheer oppressive atmosphere of the episode that this works as well as it does. At the very least, the point of the Federation's deep corruption is carried across and we get the beginnings of Blake's vendetta against the Administration.

CHARACTERS

I think what makes Gareth Thomas work so well in the role is how unassuming he is. On his own, without the context of his story, Blake doesn't come across as a terribly interesting individual. But as the injustice builds, so does Thomas's outrage and finally, just as the episode ends with Blake supposedly defeated, we see that he's beyond defeat. And that's when the character becomes really interesting.

The episode also debuts two of the regulars, Sally Knyvette as smuggler Jenna Stannis and Michael Keating as Vila Restal. Both are portrayed as shady, untrustworthy, possibly demented individuals that provide a sharp contrast to Blake and his naive friends. But they're also both likable simply by being different from the sheep and the wolves.

Other memorable performers are Robert James as the genial, but manipulative Arbiter Ven Glynd and Jeremy Wilkin as the slimy, limping Gestapo-esque security officer Dev Tarrant.

NOTES

*Wilkin's character Dev Tarrant was left without comeuppance, and on my first watchthrough, knowing that a character named Tarrant would later join the show, I was convinced that there would be some kind of payoff between him and Blake. I'm still irritated this never happened.

*The model of the dome city looks genuinely impressive and realistic even to this day.

*The rest of the production is very drab and cheap, but this partially works in the programme's favor, as it does create a very miserable setting in the Federation-controlled Earth.

*I adore the Big Brother-esque title sequence and the tragedy-tinged theme music that accompanies it.

*I don't know what exactly Michael E. Briant was going for by constantly repeating the sequence of Blake's capture, but I'm pretty sure we didn't need to see the same shot of Gareth Thomas get whacked over the head nine times. That being said, the scene where we see Blake's memory of being tortured in some shadowy place is chilling and very well executed(largely cause it's shot on film).

*I love the office chairs on the prison ship.

BEST QUOTE

"No, I'm coming back."

CONCLUSION

It's more of a curio than anything - one could argue the proper pilot is really its sequel, Space Fall - but I find it to be just effective enough to sell the premise.