Fractures is a pretty great bottle episode thriller, although its overall point and message are a bit muddled.
WRITTEN BY
Justin Richards, a prolific novelist who usually specialises in Doctor Who.
PLOT
Coming under attack from Travis, the Liberator is forced to conceal itself in the mysterious Derelict Zone. There, a series of power failures cripple the ship and strand the crew in different locations. As they try to repair the damage, it becomes apparent that one of them is responsible for the predicament. But who?
ANALYSIS
There's a good sense of paranoia throughout the story, and the mystery of what exactly is going on is quite well handled, with plenty of red herrings and various wild possibilities being implied. The actual villainous scheme is quite clever as well.
However, what lets it down for me is the ending - for one, it's quite abrupt(after practically the entire thing has been building up the tension) and for two, I'm not quite sure what exactly the writer was trying to say here.
Blake makes a grand speech about fractures and differences being what tie the crew together, but it doesn't really feel true to the spirit of Blake's 7. The crew have always been together out of mutual convenience, and have turned on each other for lesser reasons.
His speech is also flatly contradicted when Avon simply murders the alien and proclaims that he doesn't trust anyone. So what was the point of the whole thing? We spent a whole hour playing around with what's real and what isn't simply for the crew to get lucky enough to figure out what was going on, and that's it?
Apart from the weak payoff, it's a decent whodunnit, but that's about it.
CHARACTERS
Gareth Thomas has started to sound like Colin Baker in his old age. Or a cuddly grandpa.
Probably the best performers were Michael Keating and Jan Chappell. I've always really enjoyed the mother-son dynamic that Cally and Vila had, and it seemed like Vila's apparent descent into madness really hurt Cally.
Paul Darrow sounded largely indifferent as Avon. I don't know if that's the result of his age or his perspective on the character changing, but his monotone has reached "reading off a cue card" capacity. To be fair, he isn't given much in the way of wit here either.
A shame they couldn't have gotten Travis to infiltrate the Liberator at the same time as the alien. Croucher only has a cameo, but it would've felt much more tense if he was onboard as well, and being manipulated.
NOTES
*Blake refers to Jenna's frequent use of the "Chukinski faceoff" tactical strategy. I don't know if this is taken from somewhere or Richards' invention.
*The Derelict Zone is an obvious homage to the Bermuda triangle. Interestingly, the TV show had its own take on it, the "Darkling Zone" mentioned in Killer.
*"A reverse polarity switch"? I see what you did there.
*I really like the way the alien manages to manipulate the crew with half-truths, picking up on what they tell him and twisting it around.
*Jenna offering to help Blake despite not knowing what he's up to was a sweet moment.
*The alien could've been lying again of course, but his statement about Zen keeping track of the crew seems to counter the show, which always implied that Zen just ignored the crew unless he absolutely had to, or if they had teleport bracelets on. Likewise, I don't believe Zen would ever self-destruct on command, as he straight-up refused to take the ship somewhere he considered to be fatally dangerous in Breakdown. Of course, it is possible that Avon reprogrammed the computer between Series A and B.
*The fact that Alistair Lock now has a job impersonating Peter Tuddenham's impersonation of Derek Farr's onetime role is amazing.
INFORMATION!
*The story seems to take place directly after the events of Voice From The Past, as the Liberator is near asteroid PK-118 and Cally and Vila suspect that Blake is still affected by Shivan's device. However, it's unclear why the ship went back to the asteroid after escaping from Atlay, or why Cally doesn't refer to Shivan as Travis. Blake also seems surprised to see Travis, suggesting that nobody bothered to tell him about the encounter.
*The crew mention their continued search for Star One, established in Countdown.
*Vila refers to his newfound love of soma(no adrenaline?), which he apparently has devised a liquid form of after the events of Horizon.
*Blake tries to ram the Liberator against Travis's pursuit ship on vector 0000, just as he did in Duel.
BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE
AVON: "Do you want the short answer or the long one?"
VILA: "Short one."
AVON: "Bang."
VILA: "And the long one?"
AVON: "Bang. We're dead."
CONCLUSION
Always end on a high. You don't want to leave the audience disappointed.
*The Derelict Zone is an obvious homage to the Bermuda triangle. Interestingly, the TV show had its own take on it, the "Darkling Zone" mentioned in Killer.
*"A reverse polarity switch"? I see what you did there.
*I really like the way the alien manages to manipulate the crew with half-truths, picking up on what they tell him and twisting it around.
*Jenna offering to help Blake despite not knowing what he's up to was a sweet moment.
*The alien could've been lying again of course, but his statement about Zen keeping track of the crew seems to counter the show, which always implied that Zen just ignored the crew unless he absolutely had to, or if they had teleport bracelets on. Likewise, I don't believe Zen would ever self-destruct on command, as he straight-up refused to take the ship somewhere he considered to be fatally dangerous in Breakdown. Of course, it is possible that Avon reprogrammed the computer between Series A and B.
*The fact that Alistair Lock now has a job impersonating Peter Tuddenham's impersonation of Derek Farr's onetime role is amazing.
INFORMATION!
*The story seems to take place directly after the events of Voice From The Past, as the Liberator is near asteroid PK-118 and Cally and Vila suspect that Blake is still affected by Shivan's device. However, it's unclear why the ship went back to the asteroid after escaping from Atlay, or why Cally doesn't refer to Shivan as Travis. Blake also seems surprised to see Travis, suggesting that nobody bothered to tell him about the encounter.
*The crew mention their continued search for Star One, established in Countdown.
*Vila refers to his newfound love of soma(no adrenaline?), which he apparently has devised a liquid form of after the events of Horizon.
*Blake tries to ram the Liberator against Travis's pursuit ship on vector 0000, just as he did in Duel.
AVON: "Do you want the short answer or the long one?"
VILA: "Short one."
AVON: "Bang."
VILA: "And the long one?"
AVON: "Bang. We're dead."
CONCLUSION
Always end on a high. You don't want to leave the audience disappointed.
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