Resurgence (2017) Review

 

Resurgence is a fun enough revisiting of one of the more notable Blake's 7 villains, but I didn't find it all that interesting.

WRITTEN BY

Mark Wright. His attention to detail is as apparent as ever. 

PLOT

Zen responds to a distress signal from an outpost of the System, prompting Avon, Cally and Dayna to investigate. They encounter a surviving Alta which infects the Liberator and steals it to go reactivate a hidden backup of the System AI. It's up to the crew to stop the eponymous resurgence...

ANALYSIS

I think it was a mistake to bring the System back. I'm a fan of the episode Redemption, but mainly for its (relative) scale and action. It's a terrific action romp. Being an audio drama, Resurgence can't duplicate that. There are a few really good emotional moments (in particular with Dayna), but the System can't be an effective villain, because it has no ideology whatsoever. It's just an infection seeking to spread and control. They're basically just the Borg from Star Trek, but not as frightening since there's no body horror involved. I'm sure Wright didn't want to copy the Borg directly but he doesn't do anything else to make the System more frightening, leaving its presence an anachronism. 

It doesn't help that there's been a serious downgrade in the quality of audio production. Certain sound effects (like the flight deck hum) are missing, whilst others (the clunk of Orac's key slotting into place) are misused. The fight scenes are incoherent. The cast sound like they're talking in stuffed closets and feel very distinct from one another as if they're not together. Which is of course because they're not, but nothing's being done to hide that. The audio tracks also tune out when they're starting or ending and I'm sure they didn't do that in the earlier seasons. 

On the positive side, I think the pacing is quite good. I never got bored. There's a good amount of mystery surrounding the System and I was curious to see what its ultimate endgoal was. The suggestion of encountering other Liberator-type ships in the future is intriguing. The crew generally sound like their old selves (one thing I always enjoy when going back to Blake's 7 audios is its refusal to submit to post-modernism). 

CHARACTERS

Dayna being tempted to abandon her revenge against Servalan (an aspect that she outright admits is her driving force) was a very exciting premise. I like that her single-mindedness and refusal to ever give up fighting are discussed. As I've said before, she feels like a much more complete and mature person in the audios than she ever did on TV. 

Tarrant acting clumsy in the way that someone would do in a lazily written script, only to reveal he had an ace up his sleeve the whole time was a good "punch-the-air" moment. Other than that, I loved seeing him torment Vila with the possibility of hanging out with him. 

A reminder of what Vila had done to his father was more than welcome. I always love seeing the darker side of him, and Keating is surprisingly effective at conveying pure rage and spite. 

Avon and Cally don't really have much to do, aside from a rather touching scene where the former admits to missing Blake. I found it unlikely that he would say this out loud (and it is just a rehash of a much superior moment from The Armageddon Storm), but it's still sweet. Darrow came off as tired and breathless from time to time, which I chalk up to his health issues at the time. Chappell sounded occasionally hyperactive, which I chalk up to... I don't know, Big Finish's espresso machine?

NOTES

• Why does Avon announce his intent to check on Dayna so dramatically lol? Sounds like he's expecting to find her in an embarrassing situation.
• Avon describes Dayna's weapons designing as "thoroughly charming". A description that might also match his own characterisation in this story. Why so cuddly?
• Orac has some particularly hilarious barbs in this one, a particular highlight being its heated banter with the Alta. I've grown quite fond of the Alistair Lock incarnation of the character. Apparently he has a great Slave impersonation too, though it's unlikely we'll ever hear it given the legal difficulties around series D.
• I greatly enjoyed the old-school opening to this story. Just focusing on the crew exploring, "get kitted up", etc. Always a great way to get me hyped for the adventure.
• Avon delivers the classic Star Wars pun "I'm starting to get a very bad feeling about this..."
• I didn't really understand whether Orac's interference with the System's outpost was based on his current presence in the area, or his actions in Redemption. If it's based on what he's doing now, why is it counter-productive to Avon's attempts to take control of the outpost? And if it's the latter, how does the Alta reactivate at all?
• Similarly, I don't understand why Orac has any difficulty overriding the Alta's control of Zen, given that he easily blew up Space World. 
• And also, why doesn't the System just override Avon's scout ship, given that its explicitly said to be under their influence?
• Why does the System include only females as Altas?
• Why was there no backup on the original outpost from the start of the story? You'd think an AI would have a cache everywhere. Or did Orac corrupt it (imagine Orac with the powers of the System!)?
• I hate that Dayna wins out over the System by the power of her love for her dad, and somehow blows them all up. That's just rubbish.

INFORMATION!

• This story is a sequel to Redemption.
• The opening scene of the crew playing "Cosmopoly" is deliberately modelled after a very similar sequence in Dawn of the Gods.
• Vila ends up in prison, represented in the game by Cygnus Alpha (did the crew create the game themselves?).
• The System reactivate the Liberator's defences (last seen in, ironically enough, Dawn of the Gods). It attacks Tarrant with memories of Deeta, who appeared in Death-Watch. Vila is attacked by memories of his father, who died in Punishment.
• Avon compares Dayna's experience of connecting to the System with Jenna's first interaction with Zen, as seen in Space Fall.
• Avon paraphrases Oscar Wilde at one point.
• Cally claims the crew have encountered two ships like the Liberator in their past. The first is obviously Deep Space Vehicle 1 in Redemption. The other confused me at first, but I believe it's an obscure callback to The Magnificent Four, which indeed featured former System slaves on the run with their own ship. I had completely forgotten that story. 

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

AVON: "Three worlds, all in conflict, taken over by one powerful computer system that never relinquished control."
DAYNA: "You sound impressed."
AVON: "I am. To allow one civilization to be enslaved in such a manner is unfortunate. Three is just careless. It takes a breathtaking level of reckless stupidity-"
DAYNA: "To be ruled by logic? I would have thought that'd be paradise for you."
AVON: "I may subscribe to logic, but even I can see the folly of allowing computers to extend beyond the boundaries of rational organic thought. Computers are tools, nothing more."
DAYNA: "Even Orac?"
AVON: "Especially Orac."

CONCLUSION

It's a very mixed bag. Some parts I liked, others I did not.