Voice From The Past (1979) Review

Voice From The Past is utterly absurd, but it's also incredibly funny.

WRITTEN BY

Roger Parkes, whose writing comes across as fanfiction.

PLOT

Using stolen Auron technology, Arbiter General Ven Glynd resets Blake's Federation conditioning in order to gain his support in a political ploy for power.

ANALYSIS

It's a total mess of conflicting plot points. The level of influence that Glynd has over Blake is weirdly specific - he clearly has enough independent thought to take initiative, but also just goes along with anything Glynd says. It's implied that Glynd wants to use Blake as a puppet ruler, but Le Grand is clearly genuinely honored to meet with Blake as a person, yet also doesn't seem to care he's being controlled.

On Servalan's prompting, Travis has infiltrated Glynd's resistance group(with a mesmerising Tommy Wiseau impression), yet he throws away the reward of the Liberator(which, let's not forget, he spent the whole of Hostage trying to get), because I guess he was scared somebody else might kill Blake?

And of course, it's hard to buy that politicians as experienced as Glynd and Grand would attempt to topple a totalitarian regime with nothing more than evidence of its wrongdoings. The very premise of the episode doesn't add up. However, I can't say I didn't have fun watching this trainwreck.

CHARACTERS

This was the episode that made me fall in love with Brian Croucher's Travis on first viewing. The whole Shivan thing is so stupid it's brilliant. I could never have predicted that it was him, or that the character could go this camp.

But Frieda Knorr is so hammy that she steals the entire episode. I can't take my eyes off of Le Grand whenever she was onscreen. The conversation between her and Servalan has to be seen to be believed. She has serial killer eyes.

It's a shame they couldn't get Robert James back as Ven Glynd, but to be fair, Richard Bebb does a good job of recapturing Glynd's genial demeanour and shady motives.

I know Vila's not the sharpest tool in the box, but his gullibility is stretched to the absolute limit in this episode. Even he should be able to recognise that Blake is out of character and the others are not.

NOTES

*What on earth did Cally do to convince Avon to join the crew's yoga session?

*I relate to poor Blake - I hate it when you can hear the weird hum of AC adapters.

*I have no idea what exactly Jenna was supposed to do during Blake's therapy.

*The script seems to have been too short, as the Liberator establishing shots are excessively long this episode.

*Why is a delirious Blake left on the flight deck?

*The greenscreen effect on the asteroid's surface is legitimately one of the worst in the entire series. It looks like Blake is walking on an old drawing.

*"Outer Gaul"? Is the resistance per chance one small planet holding out against an empire with the help of a magic potion?

*Couldn't Glynd achieve his objectives far less surreptitiously by simply contacting the Liberator? He clearly knew where the ship was, so why bother with brainwashing Blake at all? His own political acumen should be strong enough that he could still influence Blake, or use the telepathic machine later on when the new order has been safely established.

*Also, Glynd's motivations in this episode don't exactly align with his intentionally exiling Blake to Cygnus Alpha. He could have organised for Blake to be safely tucked away somewhere.

*Why do Avon and Jenna not respond to Cally when they're on the asteroid? Blake is under influence, but their communicators should still be working and they're not being threatened, exactly.

*Zen has apparently been reprogrammed to report destination time on a 24-hour clock.

*Who did Servalan send the cipher message to? Her men? Travis? I don't think he was in a position to take any messages.

*To be fair to the director, there are some neat touches - the shuttle's landing on Atlay against a sunset background high up in the clouds seems to be a nice homage to Empire Strikes Back, and Servalan's victory over Le Grand inside the empty conference hall is the only time the episode has the same oppressive, creepy 1984 atmosphere as The Way Back.

*Why does the signal randomly intensify and cripple Blake towards the end of the episode, when the machine's just sitting on the Liberator?

*Previous episodes have at least offered some justification for why Travis or Blake don't immediately kill each other, but here, Travis literally just stands there until Glynd attacks him.

*I don't get Avon's "that's just the problem: no heart" line after Jenna accuses Orac of being a heartless calculator for switching Cally with her to look after Blake(on account of her being human and Cally being alien). Is he implying that the Auronar lack hearts?

INFORMATION!

*The episode is a sequel to The Way Back, and features the return of Ven Glynd. It's retroactively established that Blake's rebel faction was called "the Freedom Party"(which seems to suggest they had official political influence, but more likely was just a nickname). Two years have now passed since those events.

*Cally treats Blake with a tranquilizer pad. It's different in design, but the white pack she takes it from is the same as in Breakdown and Orac.

*The people who sold the telepathic machine to Glynd were Auron renegades.

*Blake's spacesuit is converted from the surface suits used in Hostage and Countdown.

*When Blake tries to convince Avon and Cally of Glynd's cause, he mentions several of their previous adventures in passing, including the Liberator's breaking of Federation ciphers in Seek-Locate-Destroy, their raid on Central in Pressure Point, hearing rumors of Star One in Countdown and talk of an alliance(possibly Bounty).

*Part of Glynd's evidence against Space Command is Servalan's attempt to cheat the Federation out of 100 million credits for Orac, which took place shortly before Deliverance. Of course, Servalan never intended to pay the money, but I'm assuming Glynd is referring to her offering it away without authority.

*Servalan fondles the same plastic flower she had in Weapon.

*Orac is unable to influence the telepathic machine due to being programmed against telepathic influence after being nearly taken over in Shadow.

*Cally realises that Travis and Servalan are working together again, which happened at the end of Hostage.

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

"I'm sorry to have to inform you that he is himself all right."

CONCLUSION

It's so bad it's good.