In Rebel, the first episode of Blake’s 7 – The Audio Adventures by b7media, the new cast effectively took us through an abridged version of the televised episodes The Way Back, Space Fall, and Cygnus Alpha, whilst missing out great chunks of what made those episodes great on TV.

TRAITOR

This second adventure effectively begins the series’ journey away from the televised episodes.  To all intents, Traitor is three short adventures running on from each other.

The first of which covers the characters establishing themselves as the new crew of the ship.  The ship’s computer is going through the computer equivalent of an emotional breakdown.  Something mysterious happened to its previous crew and the outcome embedded a “last mission” on the ship – to destroy itself.  Only the crew can countermand this, but there is no crew.

Unlike the TV series where the characters established themselves as a typical crew, this version of the advanced ship requires a symbiotic relationship with the crew.  They have to become part of the ship.  Needless to say, our heroes don’t like the sound of that much, but they can’t stop the impending collision with a sun if they’re not the crew.  Catch-22.

Avon manages to trick the ship’s computer into believing the parameters of its mission have been completed, without anyone having to die in the process.

The new crew decide that it’s not a good idea to have Mezin, their erstwhile Federation prison guard, around as part of the crew and, with her agreement, opt to drop her off on the nearest “safe” planet.  Here Blake and Mezin encounter the last survivors of a colony that’s been all but wiped out by the Federation.  Mezin’s first instinct is to contact her Federation masters and turn Blake and his crew in.  However, she soon learns that Blake might not have been lying about the Federation after all.

As a backdrop to these adventures, we learn that Servalan is getting hassle from the council regarding Blakes’ escape.  Whilst she doesn’t believe him to be a threat so long as he’s somewhere out in space, and not on Earth, she’s pressured into sending the overly-eager Travis after him.

Low on power, the Liberator’s computer takes it upon itself to refuel at a Federation orbital station.  It doesn’t listen to its human “crew”, and gets into a mental war with Avon.  Travis locates the Liberator whilst “feeding” and he attacks.

With Avon’s help, establishing a kind of “software buffer” between the crew and the ship’s computer, one that’s called “Zen”, they agree a strained but equal partnership.

Quite a lot goes on in this one-hour adventure and it’s intriguing to listen to this new spin on the series.  As yet, there doesn’t seem to be a huge reason for deviating from the early episodes of the TV series.  What also distracts a little, is the changes to the Liberator.  Instead of having the enigmatic “standard by 12” speed references, the Liberator “jumps” long distances – so, rather than being unique in TV science fiction terms, it adheres to tropes set by other series.  Instead of teleporting, the crew have to shuttle themselves from ship to planet.  Again, the TV series’ unique take on transporters is abandoned in favour of the mundane, but arguably more realistic, shuttling.  Also, the Liberator grapples the refuelling station like the grapple arms of the Andromeda from the Gene Roddenberry TV series.  Much that made Blake’s 7 and the Liberator unique amongst its contemporaries is missing.

That said, the concept of the ship’s computer going through an emotional crisis, the symbiotic relationship with the crew, and Avon effectively “creating” Zen, are all good elements that would have been great to see realised on the TV series.  After all, on TV, they did all become part of the crew incredibly easily and smoothly and there was little to tell that the Liberator was an advanced alien spaceship beyond the aforementioned teleporters.

The series continues with Liberator.