Friday, July 22, 2005

House Arrest with Servalan

I'm on holiday in my flat and it's wonderful. Oh, I had grand ideas, but have instead swapped them for my life as a pensioner.

The first day I didn't leave the flat as I was re-reading Harry Potter. Yesterday, I made it to the gym - jogged through Tavistock Sq, trying not to cry again. Was distracted by the CD I was listening to (how did it contain the Fast Food Song?), which meant that I jogged past Police Chief Sir Iain Blair grinning. Not good.

He took his revenge that afternoon by ordering all of Central London to stay at home. So I did, gleefully watching Blake's 7 Series Two.

Of all the things I've seen on DVD this year, Blake's 7 has been the most amazing. Not, and please note this carefully, "good" but "amazing".

Series One tried so hard to be great, but failed so amusingly. And by Series Three they'd given up and were just raiding the BBC Wardrobe for fabulous frocks - and that's just the men.

But I'd missed out seeing Series Two. And, oh, what treats. They start off with the best of intentions, trying to kick their naughty little Servalan habit. But, by episode three she's back - trying to sidle quietly into the background of a scene wearing a floor length white gown made out of feather boa. With a hood!

Gareth Thomas is still there as Blake, trying to save Earth in increasingly half-hearted hair-brained ways, recruiting people to the cause who promptly die. By the end of the series, he just gives up and goes back to theatre, leaving the show to Avon and Servalan.

Oh - and Orac. How wonderful is a show with a hungover pederast computer that tries to take over the universe by torturing rubbish telepath Cally?

Cally - you remember her - the one who each week spent so long getting her hair done that she'd turn up to wardrobe after everyone else had got the nice costumes, and have to make do with some old curtains and a safety pin.

As I listened to all the police cars in London wail up and down the road, and heard the radio talk about a "near miss" for London, I suddenly thought - I don't want our terrorists to be complicated men from Leeds with anoraks and shabby backpacks... No - if we must have terrorists can't they be like Blake's 7? I demand that they're woefully overdressed, hungover, and, most of all, completely incompetent.

Ken Livingstone! Awake! What London really needs now is Servalan.



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