Blake's 7 Production Diary Series B by Jonathan Helm - Book Review

Well, I guessed correctly, as on Christmas Day, I unwrapped this lovely book and promptly had to place it on a shelf as it was considered poor form to sit reading it through the seasonal family gatherings. Damn!

Fast forward a few weeks and the time was taken to slowly savour what turned out to be a cracking follow up to the Series A volume. It feels like there are even more photographs and illustrations, and the gang behind what will hopefully become a four volume set have outdone themselves.

Through some 300 plus pages, you will discover how the creation of a follow up to a highly successful series of television became fraught with inter-personal tensions, re-casting, and doubts about the future of the show. As a production diary, the reader feels they're accompanying the cast and crew as these drama's play out, and whilst the overall result was as good as the first series (in your scribe's considered opinion), the continuous challenges over budget spends and some individual's particular approaches to their job had soured things a tad. 

One cannot help but feel for David Jackson for the way his character atrophied, and the way in which Brian Croucher tried gamely to inhabit a role already warmed by another. Hey, he did a great job in highly difficult circumstances and based upon the narrative presented here, truly deserved better. The travails of making an obviously inadequate budget stretch are also pure TV production gold, and just goes to show that almost anything is possible with the time and effort, as well as being genuinely amusing to read about. What may look laughable now to modern day audiences more than passed muster back then, and in one's humble opinion, there is a charm and timelessness to practical effects and model work that CGI lacks. That and CGI ages very poorly in all but the most exemplary of instances, but that's a discussion for another time. 

That being said, it was not all doom and gloom, and the various reminiscences are a joy to discover - Gareth Thomas with his costume shenanigans, and the general approach to the show's creative choices are particular highlights. Those and the seemingly traditional nightly booze ups whilst on location shooting duties. The inclusion of boxouts for deleted scenes and dialogue, as well as an episode by episode synopsis, are also highly informative.

Once again, the design of the book permits zero criticism, and the combination of publicity photographs and behind the scenes captures are a wonderful mix for a show, and a time, long ago. As with the Series A diary, all profits from this tome go to charity, and it should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, this is an essential purchase for Blake's 7 fans and fans of science fiction shows in general. You can pick up your copy from here. Roll on Series C!

And just to spoil you lucky people, here's a rather lovely cast photo to be on your way with!

Blake's 7 Production Diary Series A by Jonathan Helm - Book Review

I am old enough to remember watching the final series of Blake's 7 when it was first broadcast, as well as mornings waiting for my mam to finish her night shifts at the local hospital because she would pick up the latest issue of Blake's 7 Magazine for me from the shop there. I loved what I saw and read back then, and the denizens of TIT Towers enjoyed a viewing of the DVD boxset a few years ago, although my words on this blog about the experience feel a tad overly waspish now. It was great to watch the show again, and then, earlier this year, I saw this:

Thank to my good lady, I received this copy for my birthday and promptly rattled through it. And in the intervening weeks and months, I've kept going back. 

Coming in at just over 270 pages, the Series A production diary takes the reader on the long journey from the very inception of Blake's 7 (9th September 1975) to the final piece of first series related paperwork, a BBC audience research report on 8th April 1978. In-between is a treasure trove of notes, scribbles, diagrams, sketches, photographs, anecdotes, and other previously publicly unknown or hard to find information all presented in a straight forward chronological fashion. Final sections offer the complete array of model shots of the Liberator (swoon), episode synopses, and cast and crew lists rounding out the package. 

What a cast!

Gentle reader, it's amazing. Seriously, if you have any interest in the show, this book needs to be on your shelves. You will find out exactly how difficult it was to bring the show to life, the challenges that both cast and crew dealt with to deliver thirteen episodes of sci-fi TV the likes of which hadn't been seen before, and how you really really shouldn't have a drinkie poos on a school night (1st Feb 1978). Fair play to the late Mr Thomas, but walls would have remained unclimbed if I were in that state!

Jonathan Helm has done a fantastic job of putting together this book, and the research on display is immense. There are hundreds of cast, crew and set photographs, and just flicking through the pages now makes me want to watch the first series again. Maybe I will, what with that new, remastered Blu-ray boxset (not a hint, dear...). The impact of that effort is greatly enhanced by the layout of the book, and that's down to Grahame Robertson of Cult Edge. Whether it's a quick gander or a more leisurely deep dive within the covers, every page is a visual feast. What else can I say other than it's a brilliant effort of the highest quality. 

You know he's judging you...

And it doesn't stop there, as the proceeds after printing and production costs from this volume are donated to two charities, UNICEF and the Alzheimer's Society. Truly top stuff! And then they do it again...

Yes, Blake's 7 Production Diary Series B made its debut in October and, once again, is raising money for charity. From the Cult Edge tweets, some £2,500 from the Series B volume so far. Alas, I have not picked up a copy because of... well, it may already be hidden upstairs somewhere, because that package from Lulu was there one minute, gone the next. I married a keeper!

So, yes, anyway, should you buy this book? If you want one of the best designed, content filled "behind the scenes" volumes out there, looking at one of the best TV sci-fi shows ever, then yes. yes you should. True, they are a little pricey, but given that they're available via a publish on demand service and all proceeds after costs go to charity, for what you get, they're well worth the money. There's also regular discounts here and there so keep an eye on the social profiles listed below for updates. There are also a couple of B7 annuals, a continuation of the B7 magazine, and surely series C and D volumes to come...  What a time to be a Blake's 7 fan!

You can pick up a copy of this tome direct from Lulu here. The follow up is available here. 

The various socials below should also keep you informed as to future developments: 

X - @JonLHelm, @Blakes7Diary, @cult_edge

Bluesky - @cultedge.bsky.social

SeaQuest DSV - Season Two

The most important goal of a TV show's first season? Get the renewal! In the cut and thrust world of US TV shows, that's a hefty ambition. No, seriously, some US shows get cancelled after as few as two or three episodes, so making it to the end of your initial run can be a challenge in itself and the sun-lit uplands of year two can feel like the search for the Holy Grail. Sometimes though, it's easier than that as network's have so much invested in a show that, even if the first outing was disappointing, the show will get a second swing of the bat. And so it was with seaQuest DSV...

There were changes from season one, though. Quite a few changes. And whereas season one struggled to find its own identity, season two very quickly does - it's the one with the Groucho Marx glasses, nose and moustache kit...

Season one was expensive. The outdoor shoots at Malibu beach were costly and complicated to arrange so a change in filming venue was required to fit the budget. Since Florida offered good tax incentives, off they went. This was a problem for some of the cast as they didn't want to leave California (and why not, that's where future work would be), so according to what I have read, Stacey Haiduk and John D'Aquino walked. Stephanie Beacham had apparently already decided to leave and Royce D Applegate was booted off as not being right for the audience they were aiming for - again, so I have read. This led to replacement cast members.

Edward Kerr is Lt. James Brody - more beefcake for the ladies and a younger replacement for Crocker. Kathy Evison is Lt Lonnie Henderson - toothsome in the extreme and pretty much stuck in a vest top for many an episode - she replaces Hitchcock. We also have Rosalind Allen as thinking man's totty replacement for Beacham, Dr Wendy Smith. She's also psychic. Yeah, we have telepaths now. Who would have thunk it? Michael DeLouise is Seaman Anthony Piccolo - who happens to have surgically added gills(!) and Peter DeLouise is Dagwood, a Dagger or GELF (Genetically Engineered Lifeform). In case you missed it (hint: you didn't), there is a race of genetically modified beings called Daggers that play an important part in the Season Two opener. The upshot is that all of these characters are younger than their predecessors (as well as supporting the extended DeLouise family by keeping them in work).

Not all of the cast went for the younger look though, with Scheider now sporting a neat beard for most of the episodes (which due to showing order shenanigans, comes and goes in the latter part of the season). What can be said is that as the season progresses, you can see some of the cast looking particularly bored and sick of their jobs. So much so that Kerr stormed off the set of one episode and Scheider's press interviews during the show's production are a fine example of someone who wants out and doesn't care how it happens.

With the change in filming location, there was more room for outdoor shooting and, to be fair, they do get out and about a lot more. Whereas season one might be remembered for being mostly dark, season two has a lot of time set outdoors and in the sunshine. This is both good and bad. Good, because, you know, outdoors, greater filming opportunities and the like. Bad, because this is supposedly set in 2021 and feels at times like a bad episode of Baywatch Nights, 90's fashion and all. There is only a token attempt at making you believe that your actually in the next century, and even then, it's not that convincing, with the odd tacked on bit of plastic to disguise 1995 objects. The cheap accessory vibe from season one (remember the motorcycle astronaut helmets) continues where in one episode, a video device is blatantly a pocket calculator where even the button colours have not changed. In addition, outdoor scenes with CGI added look terrible.

Stories are what make a show and by God, they scraped a barrel or two for this one. The first two episodes cover the origins of the Daggers and acts as a re-boot for the show. Where science is mentioned, it's usually complete and utter bobbins. And with crap science and re-used underwater shots, it's quite boring and does not bode well for the series...

We have the return of the aliens from season one, time travel with added dire CGI robots and a complete lack of care over whether they actually explain anything that happens in the episode - their explanation of time travel is hilariously bad. We have a human (with gills) and a dolphin swimming at 12,700 feet below the surface. Ok... Bridger being only 49? Hard paper round there, Nathan lad. AI conflict where the computer is beaten by emotion, killer plants (think a cross between Little Shop of Horrors and the Triffids - a bad SyFy movie is better than that), and a retelling of the Frankenstein tale with Daggers. Giant crocodiles that appear with crap didgeridoo music (must have learned that from Darwin's f**king pan pipes!) and then a story about Atlantis! Another alien story, effectively a "homage" to Aliens which seriously should have had lawyers at the ready, a telepathic take over story with ear grinding 80's synth music (I just... yeah... no) and then Greek Gods appear, though this show now gives so little of a toss now that they use the Roman names and even the script points out how silly the whole story is. Oh, and when possessed, the characters sound like the Honey Monster - this made it pure comedy gold, at least for three seconds anyway...

More god-possession pops up, a Predator rip off story that, again, should have had lawyers baying at the doors, and then more aliens, though this time they abduct the sub and crew, leading to a limp cliffhanger at the end of the season.

The nadir of the season is the Greek Gods episode but that's kind of like saying the fourth cowpat you've trod in on a country walk is the worst of the dozen you'll end up standing on. Whilst season one showed promise, season two is just diabolically bad in pretty much every sense and even episodes with a hint of quality soon get the memo and return to badly produced and written trash. At least they had good guests stars like the first season...

Well, no. We get the excellent value Kent McCord back for a few episodes, and Mark Hamill drops by, looking (and acting) like they had to sedate him to finish filming. And Dom DeLouise also pops up as Tony's dad - just what is it with the DeLouise's? Are they like entertainment mafia??? As for the rest of the guest stars? Never heard of them though have seen a couple in Murder She Wrote. Some act like they're just off Sunset Beach, others like they're the Dame in Panto season. I've not seen that much over the top action since the final episode of Blackadder goes Forth! And one guest actress, in the Greek Gods ep, is supposed to be a singer. The poor lady cannot act, sing or mime playing the guitar but hey, since this is the show that reckons the Ancient Greeks were around just one thousand years ago, all I can say is "Gan on, Bonny lass, the viewers have made it this far, be a shame to surprise them with quality performances now".

Finally, we have the factoid bits at the end of each episode, only these are now in an aquatic park and have various members of the cast talking about sea life. I miss Bob, and his soulless hostage eyes. At least he could do a piece to camera whereas some of the cast are distinctly poor at it.

In watching this show, my good lady and I decided an adequate scoring system for each episode would be the FML tally - where something happens or is said that generates the response FML. The lowest scoring was four. The highest (yep, the Greek Gods one) was eight. I don't recall a season one ep getting a single FML. That's how bad this season is.

And yet...

You thought I was going to say something nice there, weren't you? Well, no. It's pap. SeaQuest took a further dive into the ratings during this run and I can really see why. It appears neither the writers nor the producers actually gave a sh*t and were just collecting the paycheck. This is a shame as whilst the first run of the show had issues, they were not insurmountable and could have resulted in a program that would anchor a network's ratings. Despite that, a third season was commissioned. Oh dear lord...

SeaQuest DSV - Season One

That's Scheider's best Freeman's catalogue pose...

1990's US TV schedules were littered with sci-fi shows that never made it past their first season. Earth 2, Dark Skies, Harsh Realm, Space: Above and Beyond and VR.5 are now only recalled by rabid fans and uber-nerds (which probably tells you all you need to know about me!), and are generally considered failures because of their one-season-wonder status. True, there were some shows that carved a minor niche in 90's TV history - the Trek franchise alone managed to have three shows within the decade (although each had their own faults), and you had the likes of Sliders and Babylon 5 that didn't rely on franchise familiarity to reach the heady heights of five seasons. But SeaQuest DSV is something different from any of those. This show lasted three seasons, more by good luck than good judgement, and even with the headline names attached (star Roy Scheider and executive producer Steven Spielberg), has the reputation of being a stinker. Hell, at 57 episodes, it must have done something right. Right?

Starting in the then-distant future of 2018(!), the show follows Captain Nathan Bridger (Scheider), designer and captain of the United Earth Oceans Organisation submarine SeaQuest and his multicultural (through American eyes) crew as they try to bring peace to the new frontier of the 21st Century, the oceans. Naturally, starting off as a high profile prime time TV show, the producers go for every available demographic (hence the casting choices) and whilst this means the show has relatively high production values (though at times, it does look cheap, which I'll get to later), it also means that the writers have to pull their punches due to the time slot in order to keep every viewer happy - and as the saying goes, try to keep everyone happy and you end up pleasing no-one...

Premiering in 1993, SeaQuest used the then new and exciting field of CGI to portray the undersea actions and yes, it hasn't aged very well at all. At the time, the graphics were considered decent but murky and viewing on DVD today confirms that, though they are not as bad as I recall. You have Dr. Bob Ballard (he who led the expedition to locate the Titanic) as a technical consultant and, at least for season one, talking head at the end of each episode - more on him in a bit. Unlike some TV shows of the time, there is a sense of some continuity between episodes, but only where it suits the story, and usually you can, like the network did, treat each episode as a standalone story. This doesn't work when the broadcast order is scrambled (as mirrored by the DVD running order), with one character moving from Admiral to President then back to Admiral again within three episodes. The fact that the network was screwing with the play order tells you pretty much what they thought of the show.

So, does the show deserve it's reputation. Well... not quite... ish...

Where to begin? First up, SeaQuest season one has an identity issue. Many a first season of any show is uneven - after all, they are trying to find their feet and figure out what does/doesn't work whilst trying to get that all important second season renewal. You just have to look at Star Trek: TNG to see how long it can take, where it was well into its third season before the show started to work. With SeaQuest, however, you can see the initial goal for scientific accuracy and realism but the seemingly ever present drive of American TV shows to add "humour" brings up some really stupid stories; The Treasures of the Tonga Trench being a really, really poo (literally) episode. Then there is Knight of Shadows, a Halloween episode that, aside from one decent scare, shows how silly and vapid the show could get (and that's only episode eight...). Later episodes rattle from serious geo-political intrigue to war criminals, mermaids and aliens. Tonally, this show is all over the place.

Realism suffers a lot even when you have the respected Bob Ballard doing his piece to camera during the end credits, linking the episode's story with a real world (or frankly ludicrous predictions of what the future holds for humanity and the oceans). You see, it looks like he's been press-ganged into doing them, held at gunpoint, fitted with an overly small SeaQuest DSV baseball cap and marched around the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to sprout word salads to make you feel that the show is more science fact than fiction. Yet by the time you get to Knight of Shadows (which has ghosts on a hundred year old sunken liner), you can see the desperation in his eyes, the sheer panic at wondering why he has to say such things on camera, the pleading to the viewer to call the cops. Seriously, watch him, watch his eyes! Fortunately for Bob, he was rescued by the end of season one and we never see him again on SeaQuest.

Casting did a decent enough job with most of the actors, I have no issue there, but some characters are poorly handled and, dare I say, miscast. Scheider is always good value and as the season progresses, you can see the other actors becoming more comfortable in their roles; Stacey Haiduk as Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock (younger lady eye candy) and Don Franklin as Commander Ford (supposed foil to Scheider) in particular but really, the casting choices of Stephanie Beacham (Dr Kristen Westphalen - thinking man's totty) and Royce D Applegate (Chief Crocker - to get your Grandpa interested) are puzzling. Beacham, for one, comes across as rather too plummy and is pretty much an exposition machine (apart from the last two episodes when an out of the blue romance with Bridger appears because... the writer's needed something to do???), though her turn in Knight of Shadows is particularly cringe-worthy. John D'Aquino (Lieutenant Krieg) is suitably annoying and the source of much of the (American) humour - think Sgt Bilko and you have the right idea, whilst Ted Raimi (Lieutenant O'Neill - he's the awkward nerd) and Marco Sanchez (Sensor Chief Ortiz - Cuban, so we're going for ethnic minority eye candy) are suitably decent in their limited roles. The last two main characters... well...

Darwin the (f***ing) Dolphin is a Marmite addition to the crew - you'll either love him or hate him. Guess which camp I fall into... It's not the idea of a dolphin in the crew that's an issue, it's the way he's brought to life, with annoying speech effects by Frank Oz and those bloody pan pipes. Yep, pretty much every time he appears on screen, you get bloody pan pipe music! Arrgghhhhhh!!!

Finally, you have Jonathan Brandis as child prodigy (and border line sex pest) Lucas Wolenczak. Oh. Dear. Lord.

Look, I get it. I really do. Wolenczak is a teen genius who happens to be easy on the eye for those who like the blond floppy hair look. As a network TV exec, you want your teenage male audience to want to be him, and your teenage female audience to want to date him (this is the early '90's, that's how binary the TV networks looked at their audiences). Not calling Brandis out here (because his personal struggles both during and after the show are well known, leading to his untimely suicide), but the handling of his character ranges from heartfelt (he was effectively dumped on the SeaQuest by his parents) to the aforementioned sex pest. In one episode, he is in the gym with Hitchcock and notices her chest. He starts staring with an expression that defies polite explanation. Being a TV show from the past, the director then cuts to a few seconds of Haiduk's chest moving up and down due to the exercise. Yeah, they did that back then in family TV shows and is about as subtle as a diver's boot to the bollocks... In another episode, he get's to re-use that look with another crew member who, to put it politely, is old enough to be his mother. Cue another few seconds of uncomfortable viewing. And that's not even to mention the safe sex/abstinence message at the end of "Abalon". Just wow...

Like most TV shows, SeaQuest has its fair share of guest appearances, and like most TV shows, these are variable in quality (I'm looking at you, Murder She Wrote. You lived (and died) by your guest actor casting). You get William Shatner as unshaven despot Milos Teslov, complete with "accent". I don't know what accent, so we'll just go with "accent". Then you have Charlton Heston as some kind of Dr Moreau character - though he obviously believes he is in a different TV show and out-acts pretty much everybody else on screen with the exception of Scheider. W. Morgan Sheppard is given little to do as the submarine's hologram, which is a shame, whilst Richard Herd is dependable as Admiral/President/Admiral Noyce (that bloody running order thing again!). Kent McCord rocks it as an astronaut for two episodes, kind of like a '90's Anson Mount (no disrespect to either actor meant in that comparison), whilst James Shigeta gels nicely as a confederation President, even if it does look like he's just walked off the set of Die Hard (pre-gunshot to the head, obviously). We even get Seth Green in the painfully technologically dated episode Photon Bullet, where he plays... Seth Green. To top it off, we have David McCallum. In the '90's, he scored gigs on Murder She Wrote, Babylon 5, VR.5, The Outer Limits and Team Knight Rider. Alongside the similarly talented David Warner, it seems you weren't a '90's show without one of these two actors. Warner's '90's run included Murder She Wrote, ST: TNG, Wild Palms, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Babylon 5, The Outer Limits and Total Recall 2070. Kudos to Babylon 5 for snagging both, albeit in separate episodes. Anyhoo, back to McCallum in SeaQuest and... it's not good. Set in an outpost called Broken Ridge, McCallum plays an Australian, but in no way gets the accent. In fact, his accent does a Grand Tour to anywhere but Australia during the course of the episode. Lord knows why he was cast here, but it was the wrong choice.

It's a shame then that most of the stories in season one are pretty forgettable and that the world-building was so haphazard. Indeed, apart from the episodes already mentioned, it's difficult to recall many of the others. What should have been exciting and dramatic often falls flat, much like the cultural approach to humour. Above all, this show feels like it is going through the motions, meaning most of the episodes come across as generic retreads of familiar themes, and that's before you get to casting choices and slightly dodgy production values (one episode with astronauts uses barely disguised motorcycle helmets that look more like something out of Blakes 7 than a prime time US TV show - and yes, I have just finished watching the four series of B7 and know exactly how cheap it could look!). Given a bit more depth (yes, I went there), this show could have been a ratings success in the long term. As it was, it was an expensive show to make and expectations were probably set too high. In the end, no-one really knew which direction to take the show.

SeaQuest DSV season one falls into a common trap of many TV shows, both genre and mainstream, in that by trying to please network execs, advertisers and viewers, it came across as bland and boring. Bad in places, though not as terrible as many think, it demonstrated a level of promise that unfortunately, it couldn't deliver. Out of ten, I'd stretch out to a six, since there was the foundation of a decent show in there somewhere. However, the network were troubled by the ratings and this meant changes for season two...