Blake's 7 & UFO in Comics and on TV

One of the often overlooked channels on Freeview is Forces TV which repeats a lot of of wonderful (and some not so) old TV programmes. Of late they had broadcast Buck Rogers  and Man From Atlantis both favourites when they were first shown and frankly nostalgia for us oldies. They do a lot of old comedy programmes as well, all with that annoying "the dialogue and humour is from the times they were made in nonsense to keep the serial complainers at bay but I digress.

Last night they began repeating Blake's 7 a BBC show with a cult following. It'll be on at 9pm every weekday night and I look forward to watching this rather odd piece of science fiction that caught a lot of peoples imagination when it was first broadcast back in 1978.

Blake's 7 ran for four seasons of thirteen episodes and a total of 52 programmes. It was a very dystopian programme and one step away from Doctor Who with which it may have shared "production values" with shaky scenes and special effects but was much more violent and began with the main hero being charged and exiled on the grounds of being a child molester.

Later on we got to meet the two most popular characters the anti-hero Avon played by Paul Darrow and  the wonderful panto-like villain we all loved to boo Servelan played by Jaqueline Pearce.  The other star of the show was the spaceship Liberator.

Like all popular TV programmes from that era Blake's & spawned a comic, three Annuals and a range of toys amongst other things. Big Finish makers of  the Doctor Who range of audio also do new material based on the show. 

Marvel UK produced a monthly Blake's 7 Magazine with comic strip which ran from 1981 to 1983 for 23 issues plus two "summer specials" and two "winter specials". I don't have any of these but my missus does as she was a big fan of the show and even has the free gifts attached!

It was left to World Distributors to produce the "Annual and they printed three of these covering the first three seasons.

Readers may be interested to know that a fourth annual has actually just been published by a dedicated group of fans to cover the fourth season. It's a weighty 252 page monster with unfortunately too high a price for this pensioner but if you wish to obtain one please go to: Blake's 7 Annual 1982

 

Following Blake's 7 was a repeat of the first episode of Gerry Anderson's UFO which was originally broadcast in 1970 and ran for just one season of 26 episodes. This tale of aliens coming to Earth to harvest human organs and possibly invade was never finished though did continue in comic strip form like most other Gerry Anderson productions up to that time.

Apparently a furthers season was planned but we got Space 1999 instead.

 

I don't recall having seen the first programme before but probably have seen the rest though probably not in the right order over the years. Only Ed Bishop as Col Edward Stryker appeared in all episodes followed by self appointed ladies man Col Alec Freeman whose behaviour in the opening episode was quite cringe-worthy when it came to women. 

Full collections of the comic strips from Countdown/TV Action can be viewed on ufocomics.co.uk