Paradise Lost features some interesting developments, but the story is nothing original.
WRITTEN BY
Steve Lyons. He's generally a strong writer, though I didn't care much for Jenna's Story. I feel his writing works better when he can just do his own thing and not push an overarching storyline because when he does, that seems to take precedence over writing a good episode.
PLOT
The Liberator travels to the former pleasure planet Erewhon to assasinate Servalan at the instigation of Federation deserter Alanna Winterhaven. Upon arriving there, they discover they've made a mistake - the planet is instead under the control of the Old President. And Avon has to make a choice regarding the crew's future...
ANALYSIS
The only element of the episode that really matters is the last five minutes, in which the President is supplied with a new legion of troopers to start fighting for his old throne. Our heroes just happen to be here so they can witness it. That's... pretty much all that happens. Aside from Avon's subplot, there's not even any character development or new revelations. It's pretty much a forgettable runaround, albeit with some good moments.
I really enjoyed seeing Cally use her telepathic powers strategically (and with Chappell obviously relishing her deviousness). There's a fascinating dark side to the character that rarely gets explored, and it's fun seeing it come out here when she's tormenting the troopers with her mind and pushing for Servalan's death.
Zen and Avon engaging in a space battle with pursuit ships is also classic stuff. Given the show's lack of budget, Blake's 7 space battles were always defined more by strategy and the actors' ability to sell a conflict without actually showing it, so scenes like this translate to audio form better than one might expect.
Aside from the mediocre plot, the main drawback I had was Avon's characterisation. Paradise Lost is set during Series C. And if you've only seen the TV show, then yes, his rivalry with Winterhaven and desperation to keep the crew away from rejoining Blake's crusade makes total sense. But in the timeline of the audios, Avon resumed fighting the Federation long ago. There's entire stories dedicated to his transformation from reluctant bystander to Blake's heir. And this is set after those.
You can argue that he's motivated to stay in control of the Liberator, but I don't think Avon is so neurotic as to murder (relatively) innocent people purely because he's afraid the crew won't listen to him anymore.
It's also fair to say that Winterhaven is a liability given her complete lack of caution and willingness to let crewmembers die, but Avon doesn't even witness the latter and makes no comment of the former. At the very least, he should express some regret over the fact that her heart was in the right place, but her head wasn't. It's not like the crew haven't had their moments of idiocy.
CHARACTERS
Paul Darrow seems a little sleepy, but that's par for the course in these later audios. He noticeably perked up a bit during the space battle scenes, probably because they resembled his own writing (particularly the "hold on to your wine, Vila!" line...).
Jan Chappell, as I mentioned, was clearly having a great time. Cally's running around outdoors and sniping troopers like nobody's business. It seems that the more ruthless Cally gets, the more fun she has. Rather like Darrow.
Being a huge fan of Hugh Fraser and his character, it was a real treat to have him return in full force here, and I can't wait to see what else they do with him. The scene of him and Vila casually chatting over the intercom was priceless.
Claire Vousden was fine as Winterhaven, though I feel they could have conveyed her insane fanaticism a lot better. She sounded mostly just stoic and determined. Which is good, because it has to be believable that the crew would obey her, but I just didn't get that kind of lunacy out of her that would justify Avon wanting to kill her.
We're also introduced to a new villain, John Green's General Enton Mordekain. I quite like the gruffness and the honorable attitude he has, but the character's backstory is far too similar to Travis. The cybernetics, the mind tampering, the loyalty to soldiers above officers, it's all there. The only real difference between the two is that Mordekain seems to be more human and less decidedly ruthless. But we'll have to see how they develop him.
NOTES
- The opening recap is very clumsy, a classic example of "Remind me why..."
- There's a distracting echo effect added to the teleport room scenes, probably to imitate the 1970s sets, but it just sounds like Darrow and Keating recorded their lines in a closet.
- Nice to see Dayna being vengeful and gun-mad again. The trend of audios giving her much more personality than TV episodes continues.
- I loved seeing Orac employ his prediction abilities again. Very nice attention to detail there.
- The President deciding to have no name just so we can keep calling him "the President" is a bit silly, but makes sense character-wise.
- There's a nice nod to Yasmin Bannerman with the line about Dayna having mud in her hair.
- Paradise Lost is set "a few months" after Star One. According to Big Finish, it takes place between Death-Watch and Terminal.
- Orac reports that very little info remains about religion in the galaxy following "the purges".
- Several callbacks are made to the crew's previous encounter with the President in Devil's Advocate (also written by Lyons).
- Winterhaven became a rebel roughly around the same time as Blake, and contacted him shortly before his original arrest.
- Erewhon's atmosphere was compromised after Star One stopped controlling its weather (during the Intergalactic War).
- Winterhaven is a friend of Del Grant's, and indeed her presence on the Liberator seems to be entirely down to that. This is also the first time we've had any acknowledgment of Grant since Truth and Lies (after which he was unceremoniously dropped from the audios). Judging from the dialogue, there was some kind of fallout between him and the crew, though they remain allies at least.
- Servalan used to visit Erewhon as a "subcommander hitched to a senator's coattails".
- Mention is made of Servalan's takeover of the presidency, which occurred in Star One.
- Cally points out Avon's hypocrisy for not wanting to risk the ship on a personal vendetta, considering his actions in Rumours of Death. Servalan's military titles from that episode are re-iterated by the President.
- Tarrant once again mentions that Vila once passed out drunk behind the teleport desk (having previously joked about it in Outpost).
- Avon questions the need to kill Servalan by reminding the crew of how Blake kept Travis alive because he was predictable.
- Gan's death in Pressure Point is briefly mentioned.
- Avon recalls that the Old President was fond of cloning, a reference to Cold Fury and Caged.
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