Blake's Story (2013) Review

 

Blake's Story is pretty much everything I needed. I just wish there was more of it. 

WRITTEN BY

Mark Wright and Cavan Scott, the winning team who brought us The Armageddon Storm. Undisputedly the best Blake's 7 writers at Big Finish. 

PLOT

Roj Blake is finished. He's been left in the dust by the Liberator, used as a pawn by Servalan and betrayed by the rebels. Depressed and decrepit, he has no purpose anymore. But Blake's not a man to give up. He'll start all over again. And again. And again. And again...

ANALYSIS

As with Jenna's Story, I was slightly concerned about the quality of the writing at first when I noticed that this was another one of those 'narrated in-universe' episodes that I generally dislike in the Chronicles. I just find it difficult to get over the clunkiness of somebody rambling on about every single minute detail of their actions. Fortunately, this was compensated by the presence of the beloved Thomas-Darrow duo, as well as the fact that Blake's Story is considerably more compelling. 

What also surprised me was how little time was actually spent on Gauda Prime. I had expected at least half of the runtime to be dedicated to it, but in the end it's more of a footnote. The actual focus of Blake's Story is not so much setting up the resistance movement we see in the original series finale, but detailing what pushes Blake to transform into the paranoid shadow of his former self. This could have easily taken up a whole box set, if not an entire series of audios altogether. But I still felt satisfied by the way it was handled here. Not only were the logistics of his downfall well thought out, but I was pleased to see that Scott and Wright also added Blake's reactions to the events surrounding the main crew, most notably The Armageddon Storm. That story was focused on Avon's introspection and shift into carrying on Blake's legacy. Here we see the same events from the latter's perspective, and find him demoralized by the result instead. It's a terrific parallel. 

I also loved that the whole thing was a kind of demented campfire tale. Has Blake told the story before? Perhaps to someone else? Perhaps he still talks to Zen over the dead bracelet? Or perhaps it's Avon alone whom he trusts, the one man who never put the responsibility of heroism on his shoulders. Point is, it's a damn good audio drama.

CHARACTERS

Blake is my favourite character in the series. If I haven't said it before, I've said it now. Avon might be more immediately interesting with his ruthless pragmatism and panache, but as the series went on, Blake proved himself to be in just as much of a grey area in terms of morality, as well as persistent in trying to get what he wanted. I also hugely admire Gareth Thomas's commitment to the part and his ability to keep Blake an unconventionally charismatic figure. He's not the obvious choice for a leading actor, lacking in supermodel good looks or even a key idiosyncrasy that would be automatically memorable for the audience. But something about Thomas's onscreen presence just feels genuine and comforting. Like the crew, you first care about what happens to Blake, and then you'd follow him, because amidst paranoid backstabbers, he still has that parental, confident manner about him that tells you he's been around long enough to know how to fix problems, and is perfectly happy to do it so long as everybody plays nice. 

It's that charisma that makes Gareth Thomas such a joy to listen to as a narrator, even more so now that his fatherly voice has aged into a grandfatherly one. Needless to say, I was enthralled by his depiction of the depression that slowly overtook Blake. His final scene with Avon is so deliciously demented and eerie, a great oppurtunity for Thomas to show off his acting chops, and display Blake's own implied dependence on Avon. 

Speaking of Avon, I gotta give Wright and Scott extra props for giving us an oppurtunity to hear Thomas and Darrow properly interact in the post-Liberator era. The context is admittedly a little forced, but it's definitely worth it, and I think it gives a certain part of the fandom closure on the Blake/Avon relationship. Darrow even sounds like his Series D self, giving it that extra touch of authenticity. 

Now let's talk about the less palatable side of things: apparently there was a limit on how many actors were allowed to participate, which results in the awful practice of reuse for major characters. As talented as he may have been, my suspension of disbelief could not accept that 68-year old Gareth Thomas was playing a 20-something redhead lady. And a young boy circa 12. He does a better job as the humorously matter-of-fact Federation trooper Kremmel(the physical description and modulation of Thomas's voice made me imagine that Blake was going up against Leo McKern!), but it was still too obviously the same person playing both parts, and that did take away from the experience. I wouldn't perhaps mind so much if previous Liberator Chronicles hadn't successfully shied away from giving guest actors dialogue when there weren't any. 

NOTES

• Blake screaming that he's alive from the top of his lungs is an unintentionally hilarious moment. 
• Either Gareth Thomas can do a really good Scottish accent, or Big Finish's modulator is better than I thought. 
• I wonder what happened to Blake's own bracelet. He seemed to have it intact after the crashlanding, but when he desperately attempts to communicate with the Liberator, he's only using the broken bracelet he found on Shorin. Wouldn't his old one still work?
• I'm convinced that "the red-haired woman named Annika and her companion Kristoff" are meant to be a reference to Frozen, but I have no idea why there's a reference to Frozen. 
• Annika "scribbles" coordinates to Blake for them to meet up at later, which seems to confirm that despite Tarrant's snobbery of pencils, they're still used in the galaxy.
• Although it's not entirely out of character for Blake to have picked up on some of Vila and Jenna's skills(and indeed, we saw a hint of that in Blake when he used Jenna's method of evasion), it's a bit of a stretch for him to be an authority on smuggling and thievery, to the point where he's considered valuable to the rebels purely for those skills, as opposed to his actual job, which I believe was something to do with engineering(although to be fair, what exactly he did in the Aquitar project was never stated outright). 
• Probably the most egregious example of the rushed nature of this story was Blake getting Bruno to trust him off-screen, after we'd just gone through a torture scene where the latter was convinced of his betrayal. It's excused with a line about Bruno merely using Blake, but it was one of the few plot points that just didn't work for me. 

INFORMATION!

• The frame story is set between Terminal and Blake, whilst the main events cover Series C from Blake's perspective. 
• Blake's recollection of events opens with a direct flashback to the antimatter implosion in Warship. 
• The brief transmission that Blake is able to send Zen en route to Epheron is picked up by Avon in Powerplay. 
• Blake comments on the rebuilding of the Federation, and Servalan's assumption of power on Earth, which was depicted in Rumours of Death. 
• Kremmel's crew picks up Avon's transmission to the Federation during The Armageddon Storm. Blake visits Shorin following these events, and is able to locate a broken teleport bracelet left behind by one of the crew.
• Blake sees a newscast of the Liberator's destruction(somehow recorded during Terminal). 
• Bruno fakes Blake's death on the planet Jevron, which is attended by Servalan(mentioned in Terminal).
• An explanation is given for the scar that Blake has during the final episode(which irritatingly means that The Mark Of Kane cannot remain canon). 
• Upon hearing Blake's intent to remember those who died for him, Avon brings up Gan, who did exactly that in Pressure Point. 
• Blake's meeting with Jenna's contact Vilstram(mentioned in Jenna's Story) is depicted here, as is her death. 
• A shout-out to Cally's famous adrenaline and soma, which Vila has apparently made popular enough to be a bar drink.

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

BLAKE: "Jenna Stannis. Somehow, I always knew Jenna was out here. Carrying on the fight. My fight."
AVON: "She was always the most loyal of your... acolytes."
BLAKE: "You make it sound like a religious enterprise!"
AVON: "Crusades always are."

CONCLUSION

Needless to say, I loved every minute of it.