Blake’s 7 – The Early Years from b7media is a follow-up series of adventures using some of the same cast and writers of their previous series Blake’s 7 – The Audio Adventures, also featuring some of the actors from the original televised Blake’s 7 series.  These adventures were released as part of Big Finish‘s A Rebellion Reborn 10-CD box-set.

Whereas the previous adventures of Blake’s 7 – The Audio Adventures featured a full-cast production of all of the Liberator’s crew, including Travis and Servalan, and had the feel of a TV episodes, Blake’s 7 – The Early Years feels a little bit more like a budget-conscious affair akin to Big Finish‘s “Companion Chronicles” range.

When Vila Met Gan, written by Ben Aaronovitch, features original actor Michael Keating as Vila Restal, and new actor Owen Aaronovitch reprising his role as Olag Gan from the previous adventures in this series (original Gan actor David Jackson sadly no longer being with us), together with Alistair Lock as Zen from Blake’s 7 – The Audio Adventures.

The story opens with the inebriated Vila, with Gan, having run out of money to spend and out of drinking establishments to haunt, needing to return to the Liberator.  All of the shuttles are presently in use, leading Vila to muse that it would help if the advanced technology of such an advanced ship had a way of returning to said ship in the blink of an eye.  We have an amusing repartee between the two characters as Vila offers the “whoosh-wibbly-wibbly” sound effects and Gan suggesting the name “teleport”.  This aside is an amusing way to link the new series (in which Michael Keating wasn’t Vila) that has a different version of Liberator to the old series (in which he did) in which the Liberator had teleport.

Putting the amusement to one side for a moment, this discussion does raise an interesting question.  As b7media have chosen not to continue their initial series retelling the adventures of Blake and his crew, it would probably have made more sense to have these linked-but-separate stories written as spin-offs/continuations of the original TV series and all that that entails – including the original version of the Liberator, complete with teleport.  There seems no reason, beyond the new cast, to link to Blake’s 7 – The Audio Adventures in preference to Blake’s 7 – The TV series.

Whilst awaiting an available shuttle, the characters reminisce over their first meeting.  At that time, Vila was a petty thief with delusions of being a major thief while Gan was a “collector” for some rather nasty people that Vila has stolen from.  The flashback begins with Vila being unceremonious dangled over the balcony of a rather large building until we learn that Gan has more on his mind than just collecting money.

In the 25-minute duration, we hear Vila and Gan working together on what is effectively their first “mission”.  All doesn’t go smoothly, but we do learn more about the characters along the way.  After the adventure, the narrative returns to modern times.  Vila convinces Gan to let him steal a shuttle to return to the Liberator, but not even this goes particularly well.  They’re destined to plunge to their doom in the planet’s atmosphere, and the Liberator is too far away to intercept them in time… but does Zen have another trick up its sleeve?

Following the adventure is a short 10-15 minute behind-the-scenes section of interviews talking to the two primary actors and writer/series-writer Ben Aaronovitch, and it’s good to hear from Michael Keating, albeit briefly, about reprising the character some 30+ years later and trying to play a Vila that’s younger than the TV series while Keating himself is older and wiser.  The extras include a music suite together with trailers for forthcoming Blake’s 7 – The Early Years adventures.

In the final analysis, this is a nice story to listen to (tinged with a tiny bit of regret that David Jackson is no longer with us to reprise his unique Gan).  Possibly not one you’d buy as a standalone CD, but a worthy addition to the Blake’s 7 – A Rebellion Reborn box-set.