WARSHIP

Warship, from 2013, was Big Finish‘s first full-cast audio adventure of Blake’s 7.

Starring the late Gareth Thomas as Blake, together with Paul Darrow, Michael Keating, Jan Chappell, Sally Knyvette, and Jacqueline Pearce, all returning to their roles as Avon, Vila, Cally, Jenna, and Servalan, and joined by Alistair Lock as Zen/Orac in the absence of Peter Tuddenham.

On the whole this is a successful endeavour.  You must first accept that much older voices, particularly from Gareth Thomas who only rarely sounds like Blake, and Sally Knyvette who doesn’t remind me much of Jenna at all.  Darrow, Keating, Chappell, and Pearce all do acceptable jobs of recapturing their 70s voices.  Lock is acceptable, if unremarkable, as Zen and Orac.

This one-hour adventure takes place between seasons 2 and 3 of the original televised series.  For those who don’t know the TV show, season 2 ended with a massive cliffhanger (as did all four seasons).  In this one, the Liberator and its crew are the sole defence between our galaxy and an impending wave of alien ships intent on invasion.

The TV series didn’t have the budget to show us the battle, and season 3 began after the battle with the Liberator in poor shape and the crew escaping via life capsules.  Season 3 began with the fates of Blake and Jenna unknown.

Warship fills in the gap, giving us the epic battle against the alien invaders, the suffering of the Liberator, of an injured Blake investigating a strange planet, of the Federation rallying to help (although with Servalan’s typical duplicitousness).

It’s an enjoyable adventure that doesn’t attempt to get too convoluted, and it’s a reasonable attempt to tell us how the battle may have progressed in the original series.  The characters, particularly Avon, Vila, and Cally, are well-written in the style of the TV series, and the others serve the adventure well.

There’s a second one-hour disc of behind-the-scenes documentaries that I’ve not listened to yet, but this adventure has made me keen to listen to other Blake’s 7 audios from Big Finish.

Definitely recommended, if you’re a Blake’s 7 fan.