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The Blake's 7 series of television and audio stories has several connections to the Doctor Who universe, and the two also share some behind-the-scenes commonalities.
Overview[]
Cast and crew connections[]
Blake's 7 was a dystopian science fiction series produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation at BBC Television Centre from 1978 to 1981. Since it was produced essentially "next door" to Doctor Who, the shows shared many cast and crew members. Perhaps the most notable connection is that Blake's 7 was created and often written by Terry Nation, a frequent Doctor Who writer who invented the Daleks. Paul Darrow, Michael Keating, Jacqueline Pearce, Peter Tuddenham and Brian Croucher, who all had starring roles in Blake's 7, have appeared as guest stars on Doctor Who. Notable guest stars on Blake's 7 included Robert Beatty, Leslie Schofield, Brian Blessed, Pamela Salem, Deep Roy, Peter Miles, Peter Craze, John Leeson, David Bailie, Julian Glover, John Bennett, Brian Miller, Jane Sherwin, Morris Barry, John Abineri, Kevin Stoney, Tom Chadbon, Aubrey Woods, Denis Carey, Bruce Purchase, Richard Franklin, Michael Sheard, Michael Gough, Valentine Dyall, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Stewart Bevan, Lynda Bellingham, Richard Hurndall and David Collings. The most notable of all the guest stars was Colin Baker, who would go on to portray the Sixth Doctor.
Michael E. Briant, Pennant Roberts, Douglas Camfield, George Spenton-Foster, Derek Martinus, Gerald Blake, Andrew Morgan, Fiona Cumming, Mary Ridge and Viktors Ritelis were among the directors, and Chris Boucher was the script editor.
David Maloney produced the first three series and Dudley Simpson exclusively scored it. Most of the other departments also had significant connections to Doctor Who, as well. Ken Ledsham and Roger Murray-Leach were amongst its production designers. Its costume designers included Barbara Kidd and June Hudson. Sheelagh Wells was a make-up designer, while Peter Chapman was a major force in the camera department, and Brian Clemett was the main person providing studio lighting.
An image promoting Big Finish's 2023 Christmas clearance sale, featuring both Doctor Who and Blake's 7.
Many actors from the Blake's 7 television series, such as Sally Knyvette, David Jackson, Jan Chappell, Stephen Greif, Steven Pacey and Josette Simon, have since appeared in Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who audio stories. In 2011, Big Finish obtained the Blake's 7 license and began recording full-cast audio dramas. This has encompassed 12 three-story volumes of The Liberator Chronicles, released from 2012 to 2016, and five series of The Classic Adventures.
Crossovers with the Doctor Who universe[]
A Sea Devil costume is repurposed as a creature in Blake's 7. (Rescue)
The cumulative effect of the substantial behind-the-scenes crossover between Blake's 7 and late 1970s Doctor Who is that the shows look and feel very similar, almost to the extent that one could believe the two series are set in different parts of the same universe. Multiple sets and props were reused between the two shows: notably, the creature in the series D episode Rescue was a modified Sea Devil costume, and Federation trooper helmets appeared in Frontios [+]Christopher H. Bidmead, Doctor Who season 21 (BBC1, 1984)..
At least twice during the televised run, writers and actors of Blake's 7 adopted this perspective explicitly: Terry Nation briefly advocated for the Daleks to appear as the major extra-galactic invading force at the end of Season B, and Tom Baker and Gareth Thomas, who played Roj Blake, thought it would be amusing for their characters to meet for a few seconds in a hallway on either show. However, both times the proposed connections were overruled by the producer and script editor.[1]
It was only after Blake's 7 and Doctor Who each went off-air that crossovers between the series began to appear in non-televised DWU fiction. The Terran Federation was mentioned in the Doctor Who Magazine comic Pureblood [+]Dan Abnett, DWM Comics (Marvel Comics, 1992-1993). and John Peel's novel The Evil of the Daleks [+]John Peel, adapted from The Evil of the Daleks (David Whitaker), Target novelisations (Target Books, 1993).; the gene-weapon-wielding Darklings of 61 Cygni were referenced in First Frontier [+]David A. McIntee, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1994).; and Bernice Summerfield referenced a terrorist group called Blake's 7 in The Dead Men Diaries [+]Paul Cornell, Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Men Diaries (Bernice Summerfield short stories, Big Finish Productions, 2000).. Additionally, the Blake's 7 planet of Gauda Prime was mentioned in the Tenth Doctor novel Prisoner of the Daleks [+]Trevor Baxendale, BBC New Series Adventures (BBC Books, 2009)..
The most substantial crossover began in 1999 when BBC Books released the Fourth Doctor novel Corpse Marker [+]Chris Boucher, BBC Past Doctor Adventures (BBC Books, 1999).. It was written by Chris Boucher, author of three serials in Doctor Who season 14 and 15 and script editor of Blake's 7, as a sequel to his television serial The Robots of Death [+]Chris Boucher, Doctor Who season 14 (BBC1, 1977).; however, it also featured the psychostrategist Carnell, who had first appeared in his Blake's 7 episode Weapon. The novel indicated that the character settled in Kaldor City two years after he first went on the run from the Federation, which would have followed his failure in Weapon.
Carnell's story continued in Magic Bullet Productions' Kaldor City series of audio stories, which featured many further references to Blake's 7 including the Butcher of Zircaster and Herculaneum alloy. Most notably, the series character Kaston Iago was played by Paul Darrow and was repeatedly hinted to be Darrow's character from Blake's 7, Kerr Avon, going under an assumed name to escape the authorities. This identification has never been made explicit by Magic Bullet Productions; however, in the story Metafiction [+]Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, Kaldor City (Magic Bullet Productions, 2012)., Iago's description of his life before arriving on Kaldor mirrored the events of the Blake's 7 television series point for point, including lines explicitly designed to address discrepancies or plot holes in the original episodes.
Other information[]
- Lance Parkin dedicated a section of AHistory to discussing when in the Doctor Who timeline Blake's 7 could be set. The only hint at the rough time setting of Blake's 7 is in the episode Killer, where the first human vessel sent to deep space is said to have been launched 700 years ago, and in promotional materials which said a galactic nuclear war had taken place a few centuries prior. This nearly aligns with a 28th or 29th century setting for Blake's 7, with the atomic apocalypse being the Second Dalek War. Parkin notes that the Sixth Doctor audio story Three's a Crowd [+]Colin Brake, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2005)., set in the 29th century, mentions a Federation and uses Blake's 7 teleport sound effects, and the Terran Federation vaguely resembles the Earth Empire which was seen to govern Earth in that era in The Mutants [+]Bob Baker and Dave Martin, Doctor Who season 9 (BBC1, 1972). and other stories.
- Gareth Thomas recalled an occasion where filming at a quarry in Lime Regis was disrupted by Doctor Who being filmed nearby.
- In 2005, it was announced that Ben Aaronovitch would be involved with a revival mini-series called Blake's 7: Legacy and that Aaronvitch, Andrew Cartmel and Marc Platt would be involved with Blake's 7: The Animated Adventures. Matthew Graham told Doctor Who Magazine that he was involved in discussions to revive the series.
- Paul Cornell claimed that Gareth Roberts wrote Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester as Del Tarrant and Dayna Mellanby. Incidentally, Yasmin Bannerman portrays both Dayna and Roz at Big Finish.
- Elisabeth Sladen was offered guest roles, but declined, though her husband Brian Miller appeared in Horizon.
- Robert Holmes was originally offered the position of script editor, but declined, having just vacated the position on Doctor Who, though he did recommend Chris Boucher for the role. Holmes wrote four episodes for the series - Killer, Gambit, Traitor and Orbit.
- In Voyage of the Damned, the teleport system on the Titanic is very reminiscent of the one used on the Liberator, in that it uses similarly styled bracelets. Furthermore, the Hosts say "Information" as Zen did.
External links[]
- Blake's 7 at the Blake's 7 Wiki
- Doctor Who at the Blake's 7 Wiki
- Official Blake's 7 page at bigfinish.com