Favorite Science Fiction TV: Blake's 7




Blake’s 7 was created by Terry Nation, who’s probably best remembered as the man who created The Daleks for Doctor Who. The show concerns the exploits of political dissident Roj Blake, who commands a small group of rebels against the forces of the totalitarian Terran Federation that rules the Earth and its many colonized planets. The Federation uses mass surveillance, brainwashing and drug pacification to control its citizens.

Blake is arrested, tried on false charges, and deported to a remote penal colony. En route, he and fellow prisoners gain control of a technologically advanced alien spacecraft. Blake and crew begin a campaign to damage the Federation while pursued by Space Commander Travis—a Federation soldier—and Servalan, the Supreme Commander and later Federation President.

Though marred by way too low of a budget, the top-notch writing and weighty themes clearly provided the inspiration for later shows from Farscape to Firefly, Cowboy Bebop to the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. And it wasn’t until Rogue One that mainstream science fiction ever again acknowledged that trying to overthrow a totalitarian empire was dirty and dangerous, a tight-rope walk that required making hard choices.

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