We’re back! Hello!
Welcome to the eighteenth episode of Down and Safe, where Michael, Liz, Scott, and Amal embark on a discussion of the fifth episode of season two, Trial, where we talk about silhouettes, dignified acting in rubber suits, and the sad passing of Gareth Thomas.
This is a useful reminder that this podcast is very probably not safe for work, and may contain mild spoilers for the rest of the Blake’s 7 series throughout the episode (we keep major spoilers to a spoiler section of the podcast that we give warning is going to be particularly spoilery.)
If you would like to support the podcast, we have a very shiny Patreon.
Download Episode 18 or listen now:
Down and Safe 
Hi – is this truncated? Seems to end discussing effects.. please feel free to delete this comment if I’m wrong, or after you re-upload! Keep up the great work anyways!
LikeLike
You’re not wrong! I, brilliantly, uploaded the wrong file, but it’s sorted now.
LikeLike
Great to have you back!
One of the things I like about Blakes 7, and it’s a thing which was presumably a happy accident of not having much of a budget but might also have been a conscious writing decision, is that we get very few aliens of the basically-human-with-a-bit-of-makeup variety. Most of the inhabitants of the Blakes 7 universe have all the appearance of being human, or having descended from humans who left Earth, albeit quite some time ago in some cases. However, on the rare occasions where they have an alien, they tend to really go for it: nearly all the aliens we meet are just downright weird, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility. Zil, and the planet they are parasitic upon, are great examples of this; totally outside Blake’s (and our) experience, but well-drawn enough in their brief screen time that we can get at least a sketch of how they both must operate. OK, the System in Redemption are about as close as Blakes 7 gets to the sort of human-but-not-quite aliens that you’d often see on Dr Who and Star Trek, but are then closely followed by the Moon Discs in Shadow, which are telepathic, telekinetic cactii which may or may not be sentient, especially when acting as a swarm.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In this episode, Trial, Gareth Thomas had said in the “Together Again Interviews” that on location filming it was “bitterly cold”, so he and “Zill” were utterly frozen while trying to perform.. The woman playinh Zill incorporated this into her acting as she chattered and studdered, not just playing her character but freezing all the while as well!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Trial was a weird one, but it was actually a fun story!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s amazing how the episode goes from sad moments on the loss of Gareth Thomas to utter delighted squealing on behalf of Amal re: Jacqueline Pierce. ^_^
LikeLike