In the fifth episode of Down and Safe, Michael, Liz, Scott, and Amal discuss Seek-Locate-Destroy, the sixth episode of Blake’s 7, where Servalan and Travis arrive to much applause. Flick to the end for an exciting discussion concerning moose, hounds, and caribou!
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Down and Safe 
I know that ‘Laseron’ sounds like a classic Terry Nation coining, but it’s *also* the name of the sparkly probes in Robots of Death, so I suspect that we can blame Chris Boucher for that one.
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Ah, finally! The first Servalan episode! Aside from Jacqueline Pierce being absolutely wonderful all around (her interviews in the making of sessions are a delight), we have a supreme commander who views the Federation officer corps as her own personal candy shop. ^_^
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I find it interesting the simile of comparing Servalan to a ‘swan’.
Because, in general, swans do not kill people.
A more apt comparison would be to a preying mantis: this also because she has no qualms about eliminating those she is ‘close to’, shall we say.
I’m pretty sure this is a more apt comparison, especially since one of her later outfits features a huge preying insect decoration….
It’s nice to see the vila character being used to good effect, as in this episode…however, the location could have used a bit of set decoration: low budget productions often don’t bother to camouflage obvious 20 th. century fixtures and devices.
I know the guy who built the robot, if there’s interest I could ask him if there was a particular reason it was built and used as in the episode….I seem to remember one of the reasons was it was used to block out some obvious time and place giveaways in the frame….
Personally, I welcomed the ‘anoraks’ : they were the closest thing to uniforms you see the liberator crew using until series four. While not being exactly a military group, the renaissance fair type outfits, and jenna’s summer vacation outfits weren’t really what people of action would practically be wearing:
Thus, I rather preferred Avon’s ‘push button’ outfit: it implied some sort of technical utility. Maybe the buttons controlled a power supply for his devices, or were capable of altering the outfit’s insulating or heating properties….
As for travis’ outfit, I don’t see how you could miss the the obvious visual pun: Travis is ALWAYS “heavily ARMED”.
It would seem to me that Travis hates blake more for the disgrace caused to him rather than the actual injuries…but those clearly annoy him as well.
Re: the mutiod outfits, the mutoid costumes were actually standard federation nylon suits with the addition of some extra additions, such as the extremely weird leather chef’s hat and bracers and an ‘officer’s ‘triangle’, which is a badge or rank / position often seen later on.
The mutiods were one of the more interesting/scary ideas for the federation that alas, were under utilized in the series…
Another thing missed is that I don’t remember ever seeing a MALE mutiod…perhaps the transformational process works better of females?
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I’d been looking forward to hearing Amal’s reaction to Servalan 🙂
I’m surprised nobody mentioned the obvious reason for Vila chasing the guard instead of shooting him – guns are noisy and a bash on the head is quieter. They were at least trying to be stealthy(ish)…
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