Children Of Auron (1980) Review

 

Despite being an eventful story, Children Of Auron falls completely flat with misjudged subplots, lack of suspense and a rubbish ending. 

WRITTEN BY

Roger Parkes, who brought us Voice From The Past the previous season. Unfortunately, this one isn't even so bad it's good. 

PLOT

The Liberator responds to a distress call from Auron, which has become infected with an alien pathogen by Servalan as part of her ploy to capture the ship, and embrace motherhood... 

ANALYSIS

I criticised Killer for not embracing its virus storyline, but Children is even worse in that regard. After two and a half seasons of build-up, Auron is introduced to us as a dull, managerial planet comprised of a few sets filled with stuffy isolationists, a far cry from the mythological angle that many previous episodes went for. That disappointment aside, the fact that Auron is so generic and uninteresting means that the plague has little to no impact. Nobody we know dies from it, and the ones who become infected aren't very concerned. The final destruction of the planet is literally laughed off at the end. 

Now, this could just be me, but I also found it difficult to care about Servalan's desire for babies, given that clones are usually seen as disposable within fiction, and I'm not entirely sure how she'd be capable of feeling them die or why. 

The rivalry between Federation officers Ginka and Deral adds a little flavour to the proceedings, I suppose. They both manage to earn Servalan's wrath in different ways, which gives their characters a bit of dramatic irony, but I do wish they'd been executed together for a better payoff. As it is, it just feels like their relationship petered out once they separated. And once again, this time could've been spent on more important matters. 

One of the most frustrating moments in Children Of Auron came during the sequence where Servalan had trapped Avon, Tarrant and Cally in the Control Centre and contacted Vila. We rarely see Vila confront the villains, so this would've been a great oppurtunity for him to show a bit of backbone and do the immediately logical thing - which is to threaten to blow her to oblivion in spite of the crew's imprisonment(not actually, but just to bluff her out).
Instead, the two basically whittle the time away doing the silliest things. Servalan, conveniently forgetting Dayna's existence, sends Deral to the Liberator. Vila negotiates for the chance to use Servalan's therapy machine on the crew(despite Orac being perfectly capable). Then Vila threatens to blow up Servalan's ship even though she's nowhere near it. It just goes on and on and I could practically feel the tension slip away. 

Basically sums up the episode. Great premise, but then it just starts doing silly things. Even the direction is so-so. There's actually a rather nicely filmed sequence within the reproduction plant. Something about grainy film and 70s hospitals is just naturally creepy and weird, and the only time that Auron comes across as being remotely interesting. But then we have bits like the crew's escape from the control centre, which is choreographed so poorly that it comes off as comical. 

CHARACTERS

Servalan's rise to President may have been a natural step forward for the character, but in my opinion, it's made her and even the show as a whole so much less interesting, because it's removed any obstacle to her authority and any need for her to be accountable for her actions. In Series A and B, Servalan's character served to give us a window into the inner workings of the Federation and how Blake's crew were impacting it. The scenes in Space Command HQ were usually some of the meatiest of any given episode, filled with double-entendres and performances-within-performances. With Blake, Travis and political interplay all removed from the show at the same time, it's become a story about a mean space gangster in one spaceship chasing after a group of nobodies in another. I doubt Blake's 7 would've become a hit if it started out this way. 

It is interesting to see how the crew have settled into a fully democratic unit here. Of course, it's left open to interpretation whether Avon is simply putting his revenge scheme aside to go along with the vote or whether he decided not to push things out of respect for Cally. But here, much like in The Harvest Of Kairos, we have our heroes work as a well-coordinated team, with Tarrant occupying Blake's former position of moralizer(though he clearly sees himself more as an honorable adventurer than a freedom fighter). 

Despite Children Of Auron supposedly being a Cally-centric episode, she's incredibly weak. Auron is under threat of extinction and yet there's little to no urgency from Jan Chappell's part - her mildly venomous attitude at the start comes across more like that of someone who had a prank played upon at an inconvenient time than someone who's about to lose everything and everyone she grew up with. If ever there was a moment for Cally to show her teeth and original fighting edge, this was it. I would've expected her to straight-up force the Liberator to Auron by gunpoint. 

We also never get an actual reaction to the aftermath of the events - Avon has to tell the audience that she's staying, probably because it's impossible to imagine her saying it. Especially after declaring that she's only remained with the crew this long due to her exile("Why do you imagine I've never gone back? Affection for him?"). Cally was initially with them to help Blake's cause. At this point, we're expected to buy that she'd choose Avon and Vila over helping to rebuild Auron? 

Ironically, even though Zelda was deliberately played by Chappell to be softer than Cally in order to boost the latter, I actually found Zelda to be the more likable of the two in this episode, maybe because the lack of commitment to Cally's military side means that I always connected more with her kindness and empathetic nature. And Zelda is Cally's nicer aspect given form. She seemed so sweet and dear, I wanted to give her a hug myself!

It's nice to see Ric Young(Kao Kan from Indiana Jones) adding a variation of ethnicity to the Blake's 7 casts. In fact, if I remember correctly, he's the only Asian actor on the show. And though they can't resist a gong sound-effect, at least Ginka is genuinely intriguing and well-written, and would've made an excellent replacement for Travis if he'd managed to keep the deaths of Servalan's baby clones a secret. He is clearly fuelled by pure ambition much like her, and it would've been cool to see him work to undermine her, perhaps using the rebel attack in Rumours Of Death to his own advantage or even taking over the Federation following this season. 

NOTES

*Servalan's medic bears a striking resemblance to Bill Murray.

*It's funny how enthusiastic Vila and Tarrant are about visiting Earth, given how much of a racket was made about the idea in Pressure Point. 

*How hypocritical is Avon to accuse Auron of "gutless inanity" for not wanting to become involved with the rest of humanity? Wasn't he all about bolt holes and being left alone not too long ago?

*I get that the Captain has a problem with Ginka passive-aggressively ignoring him, but why does he interfere with Servalan giving orders? It's not like generals are defanging colonels in some way when they order the colonels' privates around.

*I like how Avon introduces Tarrant to Vila's tendency to ignore communications, especially given that the one of the first scenes of banter between Avon and Vila was the latter's napping during Mission To Destiny. 

*Servalan throwing a plastic cup in a fit of rage has to be seen to be believed. 

*Why does Ginka even want Avon, Tarrant and Cally dead so badly to the point of tricking Servalan? 

*This is the first episode where Orac is used as a medical device, though it's unknown how exactly(I can only assume he provides the crew with the necessary information/cure?). 

*Paul Darrow has his space blanket shirt put on the wrong way round in the last scene. 

*I adore the way Avon calls Vila "idiot" matter-of-factly.

*What became of the other Auronar survivors? The last scene seems to imply that Franton and Patar were the only ones who got away, but clearly Servalan treated at least six of them, plus the ones who still had immunity. Did the Liberator ever go back for them?

*I'd sure love to know who designed whatever it was that killed Ginka and Deral at the press of a button. So many questions... what was it, how did it only kill them, what's the range, where is it installed...?

*This episode marks the change in Servalan's wardrobe from predominantly white clothes to black, reportedly to display her grieving for her babies(even though she wore the black beforehand).

INFORMATION!

*As the episode begins, Avon has set the Liberator on course for Earth to avenge the death of Anna Grant, whose romance with him was established in Countdown. 

*Servalan uses an Andromedan pathogen left over from the Intergalactic War to infect the Auronar pilot, and hides her intentions by claiming that "ionic reefs" from the battles caused his ship to malfunction. According to her, the ship's very effective therapy chamber was built before the War.

*Since the War, Auron has become completely isolationist, though they clearly were already headed in that direction anyway.

*Children Of Auron directly contradicts several previously established points about Auron's backstory - Cally's exile used to be because of Auron's strict rules regarding failure(Time Squad, Bounty), now it's the fact that she got involved with other races to begin with. Dawn Of The Gods established that telepathy was "promised" to Auron in the distant past by the seven Gods, and we meet aged Auronar scientists with telepathic powers in The Web, yet according to this episode, the planet only developed the skill 30 years ago as a by-product of Clinician Franton's genetic research. The word "Auronar" itself appears to be forgotten. 

*Cally mentions her stay on Saurian Major with the freedom fighters, where Blake found her in Time Squad. 

*According to CA Two, Cally tried to warn CA One(presumably the leader of the Auronar) about his policy of isolation before she left. 

*Servalan focuses on Auron's cloning skills due to the untimely death of the Clonemasters, seen previously in Weapon. 

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

CALLY: "So it's just revenge you're after?"
AVON: "Just and sweet."

CONCLUSION

Dreary letdown.