Mother Ship is rather bitter-sweet.
WRITTEN BY
No specific credit.
PLOT
The Liberator crew pick up a mysterious egg from space, which births a dragon that claims the ship as its mother. Whilst they're incapacitated from the egg's alien effects, the baby defends the Liberator from Travis.
ANALYSIS
The start was a bit wobbly in the sense that they immediately introduced several plot threads at once - Blake's desire to travel to Etlos, Travis and the egg. I was worried that it'd be all over the place, but once the crew were out for the count, it came together.
What touched me the most was the dragon. Given the crew's ambiguous nature and the roughness of the Blake's 7 universe in general, it's cool to see a creature who expresses absolute love. The tragedy writes itself, of course.
It's a shame that the concept of the crew deaging is only used to get the plot into a certain direction, rather than being focused on as a cool idea in of itself, potentially revealing of their characters. However, instead of exploring their childhoods, we just get Cally calling Blake her mommy. Which is mildly funny, but... come on. And worst of all, Avon basically disappears during all this! I guess baby Avon would've been too humiliating for the character.
CHARACTERS
Blake can be such a dick, lol. His opening statement of being "the boss" would've been hilarious to see on the show. I do find it interesting how, despite the war he wages on the totalitarian Federation, Blake doesn't really have a democratic personality.
Finally, we catch a glimpse of "Space Colonel" Travis. He's pretty much true to the Stephen Greif characterisation(although the drawing resembles Brian Croucher). I liked getting to see things from his perspective, trying to work out what's going on with the Liberator and how best to take her.
NOTES
*This story was published in the 1979 Blake's 7 annual.
*Vila's protests to Blake regarding their lack of democracy were surprisingly articulate. Maybe he's trying to mimic Avon?
*The argument between Blake, Avon and Vila regarding the way the ship is run, plus the discovery of the projectile is very similar to Time Squad, to the point where I wonder if that was the only episode the author knew about.
*Why does Blake switch off the auto-nav during the escape from Travis's ships? It's specifically pointed out as a dangerous move, but it's never elaborated on.
*The crew use Time Distort to gauge the Liberator's speed, instead of Standard By. Other examples of these stories being based off of early scripts is "Colonel Travis" and his androids.
*For some reason, the crew dress in spacesuits to go down to the holding bay. I guess as insurance?
*In a very un-Blake move, they simply dump the baby dragon into space! I know they picked the egg up from space, but what if it was there by accident?!
*"Contact with skin means reversion to childhood." Um, care to elaborate on that, Zen? Like, why does random dragon acid cause people to mentally revert like that? And why didn't we get to see Baby Avon?! I'm still mad about that.
INFORMATION!
*The story is set some time between Seek-Locate-Destroy and Deliverance.
*Zen identifies the dragon as "Saurian", presumably from the same system visited by the crew in Time Squad.
*Blake claims that the Federation denied the Etlosians' claims for independence during "the second calendar".
BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE
"Are you mad or something?"
CONCLUSION
RIP baby dragon!
*The argument between Blake, Avon and Vila regarding the way the ship is run, plus the discovery of the projectile is very similar to Time Squad, to the point where I wonder if that was the only episode the author knew about.
*Why does Blake switch off the auto-nav during the escape from Travis's ships? It's specifically pointed out as a dangerous move, but it's never elaborated on.
*The crew use Time Distort to gauge the Liberator's speed, instead of Standard By. Other examples of these stories being based off of early scripts is "Colonel Travis" and his androids.
*For some reason, the crew dress in spacesuits to go down to the holding bay. I guess as insurance?
*In a very un-Blake move, they simply dump the baby dragon into space! I know they picked the egg up from space, but what if it was there by accident?!
*"Contact with skin means reversion to childhood." Um, care to elaborate on that, Zen? Like, why does random dragon acid cause people to mentally revert like that? And why didn't we get to see Baby Avon?! I'm still mad about that.
INFORMATION!
*The story is set some time between Seek-Locate-Destroy and Deliverance.
*Zen identifies the dragon as "Saurian", presumably from the same system visited by the crew in Time Squad.
*Blake claims that the Federation denied the Etlosians' claims for independence during "the second calendar".
"Are you mad or something?"
CONCLUSION
RIP baby dragon!
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