The fourth season of Blake’s 7 was commissioned very late in the day and Chris Boucher had a major struggle to get enough scripts together for the first block of filming. To save time he commissioned writers familiar with the series and who were capable of turning scripts around fast; namely Ben Steed, Robert Holmes, James Follett, Allan Prior, Roger Parkes and Tanith Lee. Prior was a highly experienced TV script writer who had proved his ability to write under pressure during Series 2 where all three of his scripts were either late submissions or subjected to last minute changes. Horizon had been moved forward in the production schedule from episode 8 to episode 4, Hostage required a number of late rewrites including the addition and later removal of a ‘substitute Blake’ character and The Keeper was a last minute replacement for part one of a two part story by Terry Nation which had fallen through. Although he only wrote one script for Series 3 this too was fraught with difficulties as it was originally to have featured Blake and Jenna rather than Dayna and Tarrant. With such a strong track record it’s easy to see why Boucher respected Prior and turned to him once more during the planning stages for Series 4. The respect was mutual and Prior viewed Boucher as the major driving force behind the series.“I thought they were doing a very good technical job. Chris Boucher was the bible for this series, because he knew all the characters and invented in many ways the grammar that we used for it. I always deferred to Chris and always made a point of discussing and giving him a detailed outline of what I intended to do.” Prior took his inspiration from Darwin and he was also heavily influenced by The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells.
All the scripts for the first production block had been intended to feature Cally and she was to have had the lead role in Animals. When Jan Chappell elected not to return for Series 4 it caused even more headaches for an already stressed Boucher. “Jan Chappell decided that she didn’t want to do the series, and she decided that at very short notice, I already had her in four scripts. As far as I remember, I had four scripts written, and she was supposed to be in six, and suddenly she decided she didn’t want to do it.” Animals would have seen Cally reunited with her former teacher and lover, Justin. Unlike previous occasions where Allan Prior had revised his own scripts, Boucher undertook the necessary rewrites himself which basically involved giving Cally’s lines to Dayna and Dayna’s lines to the new character of Soolin. Unfortunately this approach did not take into account the difference in age and backgrounds between Cally and Dayna. This leads to the unfortunate implication that Justin ‘romanced’ Dayna while she was still in her mid-teens. The change also creates continuity problems as it seems unlikely that Hal Mellanby would have called in tutors for his daughter if they were supposed to be in hiding on Sarran.
The first-draft script stated that Cally was taught by Justin at the Academy on Auron and that he knew she had feelings for him then. “The very relationship of pupil and teacher encourages such things. They are inevitable.” Cally’s response was: “Your own attitude to me isn’t exactly fatherly.” He goes on to suggest that the reason Cally’s feelings have lasted so long is that she is from Auron. Interestingly, throughout the script it was implied that Cally was losing her psychic powers.
Guest Cast
Justin was played by Peter Byrne. He was born in London and trained at the Italia Conti Stage School. He made his name by playing George Dixon’s son-in-law Andy Crawford in the long-running BBC Television serial Dixon of Dock Green for twenty years from 1955. During this time he had worked with Mary Ridge. “I’d worked with Peter Byrne (Justin) in Dixon of Dock Green, and he had very much wanted to play this part in a beard to look different, but Vere said, “Dear boy, we want people to recognize you, we don’t want you heavily disguised.” I thought that was a pity, because it would have turned out better if he hadn’t looked the same.” Ardus was played by Kevin Stoney who had previously appeared in Hostage as Councillor Joban. He had also appeared in 3 popular Doctor Who stories – The Daleks Masterplan, The Invasion and Revenge of the Cybermen. Other credits include The Saint, Danger Man, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Doomwatch, Man in a Suitcase, The Tomorrow People, Ace of Wands, Space 1999 and The New Avengers.Og was played by David Boyce who had appeared in episodes of Z-Cars and Juliet Bravo. He went on to appear in Albion Market, Doctors, Heartbeat, Angels and Pie in the Sky.
Regular Cast
Josette Simon was pleased to be given the opportunity to show other sides to Dayna’s character. “Earlier on (in Series 3) I was thinking that she didn’t show her emotions very much, she was a very cold person – only interested in weapons and the like, so I would like to develop her into a more human character. I don’t really think that she’s the kind of girl who keeps falling head over heels in love every five seconds though, she’s well in control of her own emotions, a very strong person and very intelligent.” However the script presents another example of Dayna missing a prime opportunity to kill Servalan and this was a source of irritation to Simon, as she explained in an interview with Horizon in 1981. “I found it got embarrassing when she’d been spouting all those vows in Aftermath and later it never being mentioned. I can see why they can’t really kill her off because Servalan is an important character, but I don’t think I can go on meeting her and not try to do something. Either they’ll have to stop me meeting her or I HAVE to kill her!” Comedic scenes were written to keep the other characters away from Bucol 2 and to give the rest of the cast something to do. Michael Keating was generally unhappy with the scripts for Series 4 and it’s easy to see why based on his role in this episode. Once again Vila’s reliance on alcohol is played for laughs. “They could have made it a bit more serious that he has a drink problem, but then they didn’t want the series to go that way. They thought it was too lifelike. They wanted it to be more comic strip which was a shame.” The episode was not very popular with Paul Darrow and he felt the series was missing Terry Nation’s guiding hand.
It was not clear from the outset of Series 4 that Servalan would be returning and it was to be assumed that she perished on the Liberator during the events of Terminal. This was partly because Jacqueline Pearce had been hospitalised shortly after production of Series 3 and it was unclear if she would be able to return. Boucher also had concerns about the character of Servalan and felt that the character had been taken as far as she could go. A new female villain called Commissioner Sleer was devised as a replacement and she featured in a number of the early scripts. When it became clear that Pearce would in fact be returning, the decision was made to have Servalan adopt the alias Sleer and the existing scripts would only require minimum changes. The Sleer alias did not go down well with Pearce and she explained why in an interview with TV Zone in 1990. “I turned up one day and was given this script and suddenly I was no longer President Servalan I was Commissioner Sleer. What a name. Sleer. Sounded like sneer. Horrible I hated it. Why that happened was never discussed with me. I think it was briefly explained when they gave me the script, but it was such a surprise to me and it made no sense.” Boucher ensured that the relationship between Avon and Servalan was downplayed which also displeased the actress.
Location Filming
The scenes on Bucol 2 were filmed at a forest near Dorking in Surrey, early in March 1981. Mary Ridge and her team were once again plagued with poor weather conditions; a problem they had faced throughout the first production block. Ridge recalled the difficulties in an interview with TV Zone in 1990. “Again, we had so much rain on that one, we were always saying to someone ‘Could you try and walk a bit more quietly?’ while they were walking around with a dinner plate of clay on their feet. Every time you scraped it all off, they had already collected it again. We used to go back to the hotel every evening completely sodden, and everyone’s bed was full of this dry cement. The hotel finally put up a notice asking the BBC to put all their boots by the front door!” There were problems with the clip-guns during the recording as the fitted charges failed to go off when triggered. This was a common problem throughout the filming of Series 4 as can be seen in the outtakes featured in the DVD release of the series. The sequence where Dayna is pushed off the cliff was achieved by using a rather unconvincing dummy rather than a stunt-person. The results are unintentionally comic! Animals also saw the introduction of the new-look Mutoids with the female extras now wearing synthetic blonde wigs, black Federation uniforms and black mask visors. One of the reasons for the change was the problems caused in previous seasons when trying to get the original pepper pot hats to stay on the actors’ heads.
In The Studio
All the scenes of Justin on the surface of Bucol 2 were recorded in studio on small mock-up sets which unfortunately look very unconvincing onscreen. It is often stated that this was because Peter Byrne was unavailable for location filming but Mary Ridge recalled it was a cost-saving measure. “Peter Byrne was free to go on location, but we didn’t have the money in the budget to pay him to do a few days’ filming. That character was never meant to go on location; that’s why we had to do those pick-up scenes, which should have been on location, in the studio. I think those two ‘exterior’ shots didn’t work too badly, but I never liked going from exterior film to exterior studio. It was asking for trouble.” A number of scenes featuring Dayna receiving the aversion therapy treatment were recorded but not used in the final edit. The studio recording session overran resulting in a number of very rushed takes being included in the finished programme. For example Paul Darrow is clearly seen to skid as he runs into the laboratory set. “I slipped and I was very frightened because I thought I was going to fall and hurt myself. I kicked the door and came walloping in. I wanted to kick the chair out of my way, you know, I’d been watching Starsky and Hutch and then I slipped! But the director said, ‘Actually, that was the best take even though you slipped it was the fastest,’ so she said ‘I think I’ll leave it in.”
Special Effects
The scenes of the Scorpio in flight were achieved using a new technique devised by Jim Francis and Andy Lazell for the model shots during Series 4. Models were shot against a blue backdrop while the backgrounds were shot separately. The two were then combined electronically in the recording studio using vision mixers and CSO. This method was cheaper and quicker than previous techniques but unfortunately the end results were somewhat mixed. Servalan’s ship was designed by Martin Bower and was designed to provide a distinct contrast to the Scorpio in that it was far more streamlined. It was one of the most expensive models ever built for the series.
Animals!
Prior only included a vague description of the creatures in his original script and there was a great deal of debate as to how they should be realised on screen. The finished costumes for the animals consisted of blonde wigs, yak horns and warts. Mary Ridge was not entirely satisfied with their appearance. “They were supposed to be human animals, but I don’t know if that worked out or not. Suzanne Jansen, who did the make-up on that one, was very good at designing the heads, but there was the usual question: who do they belong to, costume, make-up or are they props? I think she actually did some research on them, and her ideas were good.”
The episode was broadcast on Monday 26th October, 1981 and was watched by 8.9m viewers. It was voted as being the worst episode of the season in the Horizon poll and is generally viewed by fans today as the worst episode of the series.
