Spy provides lots of fodder for Vila/Cally shippers. I'm onboard for sure.
WRITTEN BY
Simon Guerrier. I think Guerrier is one of the better modern B7 writers when it comes to capturing a particular emotion or mood during a story.
PLOT
As part of Blake's scheme to incite a revolution on Cortol IV, Vila and Cally infiltrate a seaside town next to the planet's Federation communications base in the hopes of making contact with a local to help them disable the complex long enough for the capital city to be overtaken by resisters.
ANALYSIS
Although Spy is certainly a competent thriller about surviving in an oppressed society on the verge of breakdown, the true appeal of it lies in the unique relationship that Vila and Cally have. They're the gentlest souls of the crew, and their dynamic mostly lacks the self-absorbed cynicism and clashing of ideals that typifies Blake's 7 banter. The audience is expected not to admire or indulge in their personalities, but genuinely care about them as people. The actual mission that they're on ends with more than half of the running time to go, and the rest is simply devoted to them trying to escape. If this was a Blake or an Avon story, it would be mere filler, as those particular characters are always thinking of the bigger picture, planning ahead for the future. They're not suited to anything less than theatrical drama or flamboyant comedy. With Vila and Cally, however, we live in the moment alongside them.
And it was those little moments that I was most invested in. Vila nursing Cally back to health. Going out to the shop to get food. The pretense that they put on as a married couple. Cally's veiled worry whenever Vila delays his return to their apartment. The greatest threat hanging over our heroes in Spy isn't the failure of Blake's revolution or the loss of a prize, but simply the potential end to their lives. And we're given plenty of domesticity to make us care about them as more than just Liberator shipmates with some specific skillset to identify them. They're ordinary people with a bond of loyalty born out of simply liking and trusting the other. It's a wonderful shift of tone for Blake's 7, which can become almost tediously nihilistic at times.
There are a few things to criticise. Guerrier mainly relies on dialogue to carry the story, which works well enough, but it does mean that the environment and actions of certain characters becomes unclear at times. It's most egregious at the end, where Cally has to break down what happened in the scene directly before. Since this is in the Chronicle format, there's no excuse for not elaborating these things. That, and there's also another example of one of the main actors filling in for a nonexistent guest star with an electronically augmented voice. This is, again, something that the Chronicle format has successfully avoided in the past with ease(Counterfeit, Epitaph, Kerr).
CHARACTERS
Spy feels like the first story in the Liberator Chronicles where Vila is the lead character. Sure, he's been partnered with others quite a few times(even with Cally in the second part of The Armageddon Storm), and we had fake Vila be the focus of Solitary, but as far as the real Vila is concerned, this is the first time he's the main lead. And that personally excited me, because I've always felt that if the show ever had a fifth season, it should have focused on Vila, seeing as how Blake and Avon both got two seasons to themselves.
I had a lot of fun with it, and I think Michael Keating did too. The scene of Vila trying to persuade Hartley to join the Liberator's cause had that icy, manipulative edge that Keating does so well. I always love seeing those flashes of the calculating, street-smart Vila peek out from underneath his bumbling facade. We hardly ever see it even in the best Vila episodes, but with Keating having nobody else to overshadow him, he can and does dominate the story with his own unflappable charm. Of course, this is balanced out by his heartfelt attempts to protect Cally and himself from the increasingly dangerous situation in the town.
Jan Chappell does great with what she's got, and injects a surprising amount of emotion into her performance(she is usually the most reserved of the actors, especially so now that she's older), particularly as "mrs Venon". However, I did feel that with a lot of focus being on Vila and how he feels and how she feels about him, we didn't get enough of Cally's real personality. We're in a domestic setting, so it would've been the perfect oppurtunity to showcase some of her hobbies or personal habits, as well as her own decisionmaking as a freedom fighter. But even before she gets shot, Cally seems mostly content to let Vila make all the major decisions. It certainly helps Vila's character(he's also underused), but it does Cally no favors.
Similarly, whilst I think Gemma Whelan's acting as the cool, sadistic Commissioner Arta is spot-on, the writing for her character leaned too heavily on favouring Vila. It's not believable that she both wouldn't recognise him as a criminal or be able to tell that he doesn't have the Federation's interests at heart. I also found her to be somewhat cartoony for a story that had, up until then, been very grounded in reality. She has this torture ray gun that she uses to imitate the pain of an ordinary weapon, which only exists to provide a reason for why none of the crew get killed. She manages to teleport aboard and instantly incapacitates the entire crew in one fell swoop. I wasn't convinced by that.
NOTES
- Since Volumes 1-3 of the Liberator Chronicles were set in Series A-C respectively, and Volumes 4-6 were the same, I would have expected Volume 7 to be set in Series A, but nope, it broke the formula. Which means that now, I've no idea when the stories are going to be set. That's kinda fun.
- I think I'd make a great husband for Cally, personally. I mean, unlike Vila, I *do* notice changes in hairstyle. Yeah, Cally's Shadow hair for the win lol!
- Apparently, Orac rented an apartment for Vila and Cally. We missed out on a deleted scene of him making a phone call.
- Guerrier focuses a lot on how particularly miserable the despair on Cortol IV is, and how nobody can escape, but it's never really made clear why that is. I was expecting there to be some kind of twist behind that.
- I love the little detail of Blake having given Vila tips on how to intrigue people.
- Apparently, color-coded wires on computers are considered archaic by Vila. I did get a smile out of him fondly recognising a type of computer from a decade ago the way we might think about Windows XP.
- How much do you want to bet that wasn't Michael Keating tapping away at the keyboard with the speed of a redditor?
- I like the constant feeling of uncertainty, with Vila and Cally frequently unaware why something is happening(such as rumours of violent gangs and the reason behind the troopers not following the two into the empty fields to find their supposed corpses). It's just a good, natural touch.
- Similarly, the fact that their imprisonment in the town was caused by their own screw-up at the communications base is pure Blake's 7.
- "The Alphan hairstyle" involves hair being combed forwards. I'm now convinced that Darrow's Series D 'do is meant to be the height of fashion(or the bottom, depending on your choice).
- There's something amusing about the fact that we never find out what sort of dealings Blake had with the Terra Nostra(which presumably involved their escape from being arrested). The main adventure all took place in the capital city offscreen.
- If Gan was under arrest, how could Arta be convinced that he was Vila and still on the loose? Doesn't the Federation believe in mugshots? Or just letting the guards know "hey, we have this particular guy, search for the rest".
- When Arta took an interest in Vila, I was half-convinced we were going to get some kind of love triangle. I'm still kinda miffed that we didn't.
- The story directly leads into Shadow by having Blake's associates direct him to Space City(and since both Gan and Orac are in this, it has to be set after Redemption). I don't really like this, because Shadow seemed to imply that going to Space City was Blake's own idea. And the fact that Jenna's contact with the Terra Nostra is there only seems to strengthen that. Not to mention that it makes little sense for them to not do business with Blake if they sent him there in the first place.
- Vila was on parole at one point in his life. He also had a moustache.
- Cally claims that as a telepath, she has insight into the thoughts of others(in reference to Commissioner Arta), directly contradicting Time Squad, where it's clearly stated that she cannot read the minds of non-telepaths.
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