Blake’s 7 reboot possibly on the horizon

[Rushy]

https://deadline.com/2026/01/blakes-7-reboot-peter-hoar-matthew-bouch-multitude-productions-1236682580/

Topic

[Technopeasant]

Unfuck thread.

[Rushy]

The rights to this have been bouncing around for so long… 

It’s a wild story. Paul Darrow bought them directly from Terry Nation’s widow (he and Nation had been spit-balling a sequel film where Avon would teach a new generation of freedom fighters). 

Darrow partnered with a producer called Andrew Mark Sewell to found B7 Productions, so they could produce the film. By this point, a script had materialized. 

They found no funding, so Sewell refocused the project as a remake. Eventually an audio remake starring Derek Riddell and Colin Salmon as Blake and Avon. Darrow balked at this idea and left B7. The audio remakes died on their face. Hilariously, they lost their Vila actor halfway through and inexplicably brought back Michael Keating. 

B7 Productions was ultimately bought out by Big Finish. This is why – for the longest time – they only had the rights to material written by Nation himself. Because it wasn’t licenced by the BBC the same way Doctor Who is. 

And Darrow ultimately wrote his and Terry’s sequel concept as a trilogy of books, published through Big Finish. 

[Rushy]

RIP Michael Keating. Teleported up to the great Liberator in the sky. 

[Rushy]

Sharing my tribute to his wonderful performance as Vila.

[Professor Flibble]

Aww no, not him too. RIP Michael Keating. 

[Professor Flibble]

Anyone heard of the 2017 Porridge revival? Carried the show’s same spirit (it was the same writers), but with a slightly different cast of characters and prison. It felt like pretty much exactly the same show.
I’d quite like a Series E of Blake’s 7 that has a new cast of characters, maybe with some relation to the original, a new ship, but otherwise picks up practically where the original left off and still has the same vibe, same 70s look to it, maybe shot in HD though idk (get someone to recreate Dudley Simpson’s style of music). I think just to give the show some closure. 

Only problem would be how do you deal with Servalan? 

[Rushy]

Only problem would be how do you deal with Servalan? 

Darrow had the daughter of Travis as a main villain in his Lucifer books, you could do something like that. A protege or descendant who carries out her wishes. 

That being said, I don’t think you could have any closure without at least one or two of the original characters. 

[Professor Flibble]

That being said, I don’t think you could have any closure without at least one or two of the original characters. 

Yeah, ideally, it’d have been done when Paul Darrow was still alive.

[Ben Kirkham]

RIP to Michael Keating, the only actor to appear in every episode of Blake’s 7. I really hope the blu-ray producers were able to get a contribution from him and we’ll see something on series 3 or 4.

[Ben Kirkham]

Sharing my tribute to his wonderful performance as Vila.

Lovely tribute, Rushy.

[Ian Symes]

It’s otherwise been a brilliant week for Vila.

[Ben Kirkham]

It’s otherwise been a brilliant week for Vila.

You rushed to the forum to make that joke, didn’t you? ;-)

[International Debris]

Birmingham city centre was full of obnoxiously loud Villa fans this afternoon, it wasn’t fun.

[Technopeasant]

Haven’t seen him in anything yet but RIP Michael Keating just the same.

[Rushy]

Haven’t seen him in anything yet but RIP Michael Keating just the same.

You need to see the Sun Makers for Robert Holmes’ writing alone

[Dave]

Haven’t seen him in anything yet but RIP Michael Keating just the same.

For people my age he will always be the best Batman. 

[Ian Symes]

Birmingham city centre was full of obnoxiously loud Villa fans this afternoon, it wasn’t fun.

Some of my best friends are obnoxiously loud Villa fans. 

[Ben Kirkham]

Haven’t seen him in anything yet but RIP Michael Keating just the same.

You need to see the Sun Makers for Robert Holmes’ writing alone

Totally. Clever story, that one.

[Professor Flibble]

When I first saw the ending of Blake, I went “Oh no, they shot Vila!” Then my mum said, “Mate, they shot all of them.” I think Vila being shot specifically got me. 
It’s been absolutely ages since I last watched Blake’s 7, but I might rewatch an episode soon. Maybe City at the Edge of the World.

[Flap Jack]

When I first watched Blake’s 7 it was on DVD, and the box set for Series 3 has a “Series 4 Trailer” feature. Gave that a watch before moving onto Series 4, and the very beginning of it is a dramatic montage of the main characters getting shot in the final episode. It’s a good thing that I already knew how bleak the ending of Blake’s 7 was by reputation, because I would have been mightily fucked off by that otherwise.

[Professor Flibble]

When I first watched Blake’s 7 it was on DVD, and the box set for Series 3 has a “Series 4 Trailer” feature. Gave that a watch before moving onto Series 4, and the very beginning of it is a dramatic montage of the main characters getting shot in the final episode. It’s a good thing that I already knew how bleak the ending of Blake’s 7 was by reputation, because I would have been mightily fucked off by that otherwise.

I think I knew that it was bleak, Blake getting shot dead and Avon being surrounded by Federation guards, but I think…*think* the rest of the cast being shot surprised me.

I still sort of like to think they survived. The show was cancelled, and the intent was that it entirely depended who was avaliable for Series E. Can’t get over the way Cally was killed off, though. 

[Rushy]

Apparently the original idea for the finale was an episode called “Attack”, where Blake takes charge of the Scorpio and leads an alliance against Earth. Boucher nixed it. 

Has anyone else read the sequel novels?

[Technopeasant]

Haven’t seen him in anything yet but RIP Michael Keating just the same.

You need to see the Sun Makers for Robert Holmes’ writing alone

Definitely will eventually, and the Blake’s 7 Blu-ray sets.

[Technopeasant]

In 2009, he had a brief role in the BBC one-off drama Micro Men about the rise of the British home computer market in the late 1970s and early 1980s

Been meaning to watch that one for ages.

[Warbodog]

Has anyone else read the sequel novels?

I listened to someone reading Tony Attwood’s Afterlife on YouTube. It struck me as authentic continuation that I could visualise, but unexciting and not worth Tikka-to-Riding up the existing, legendary ending if something like it had been made.

Not bothered about reading more, it was just a one-time curiosity.

[Rushy]

Not bothered about reading more, it was just a one-time curiosity.

Ahh, you should read Darrow’s novel… or really, any of his work. The man was like no other writer I’ve ever seen. “Distinctive” doesn’t do it justice. It’s a window into a deeply, deeply eccentric man. 

Let’s just say Avon carries around a six-barrelled shotgun and a rocket launcher, at age 60. So he can shoot down Chinese helicopters. 

[Rushy]

Outer space has air in it. Spaceships drop forever into a bottomless chasm if they run out of power. 

Servalan has a distant base on the edge of the galaxy… on the planet Mars. She’s allied with USA (composed entirely of 1920s mobsters).

The Chinese have their own Federation (also based on Earth), drink tea and are obsessed with customs and ritualistic honor. 

Vila defeats the Federation’s robots by throwing a bucket of water on them. 

There’s a character named Rudolph Dancer. 

I adore Paul Darrow so much. He has the mind of a child. 

[Ben Kirkham]

I can 100% recommend the Blake’s 7 Collection box sets. Series 1 and 2 are out, with series 3 following soon and I expect series 4 next year. The episodes look amazing and the new features (especially the award nominated documentary about Jacqueline Pearce) are brilliant.

[Author]

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