Movies & TV Blake’s 7 How to Reboot Blake’s 7 Evil empires, campy humor, morally complex politics… this show has it all! By Charlie Jane Anders | Published on January 26, 2026 Photo credit: Allstar/BBC Comment 0 Share New Share Photo credit: Allstar/BBC I’ve been working on an essay about how to reboot Blake’s 7 for about a year on and off—I’ve even attempted to interview one of the people who worked on reviving the show in the past. But now that there is a new announcement that a reboot maybe in the works, I’ve decided I ought to get this thing done once and for all. In case you missed out, Blake’s 7 is a British TV show that ran from 1978 to 1981, featuring a gang of revolutionaries and felons teaming up to fight an evil galactic empire called the Federation. It often feels like a more grown up and darker version of Doctor Who, while also exploring the underside of space operas like Star Trek. Blake’s 7 has had a huge influence on media SF, including things like Babylon 5 and, I’m pretty sure, the recent Star Wars show Andor. I wrote a beginner’s guide to Blake’s 7 here.  So it was announced the other day that Multitude Productions, a production company led by former Doctor Who and The Last of Us director Peter Hoar, had purchased the IP of Blake’s 7. They’re working on selling a relaunch. Since most of the original cast is no longer around, this show pretty much has to be a retelling rather than a continuation—which feels like the right move for a show with such deep lore and so few die-hard fans.  (As a side note, I found myself wondering if they really do have the IP, since Blake’s 7 has been tied up in so many different deals with so many different players that I wouldn’t be surprised if Terry Nation’s estate did not control all of the rights anymore. There’s a reason it’s never gotten a DVD/Blu-Ray release in the United States. Update: Apparently I was wrong about this and there is finally a US Blu-Ray release. Woot!) So here are my thoughts on what needs to happen for a successful new version of Blake’s 7:  Try to recapture the magic of those characters So much of what makes the original Blake’s 7 work feels like a happy accident. There’s no way Terry Nation, Chris Boucher, and David Maloney could have known that Gareth Thomas and Paul Darrow would’ve had such incredible chemistry when they started out. Thomas plays Blake, the fanatical revolutionary who will do literally anything to destroy the totalitarian Federation. Darrow plays Avon, a cynical computer hacker who is only out for himself—but is nursing a broken heart. Blake’s idealism and Avon’s cynicism power the show, and most of my favorite moments are when the two of them are throwing off sparks together. In the final stretch of season two, there’s a moment where Avon looks at Blake and says, “I want to be free of him,” while Blake looks away. And then a short time later, Blake insists that he has always trusted Avon from the very beginning. It’s incredible stuff. I would make the actors playing Blake and Avon do multiple chemistry reads. If you cannot nail their spiky, thorny relationship, then this isn’t Blake’s 7, it’s some other show. Blake and Avon are so attuned to each other they sometimes finish each other’s sentences—literally, this happens in the season one episode “Breakdown,” and it feels magical. Avon cannot admit how much he admires and even loves Blake, and Blake is uncomfortable with how much he depends on Avon. And look, I’m just going to say it: This show is a little bit Our Flag Means Death, with Blake as Stede and Avon as Blackbeard. Not nearly as funny, obviously—though there is some great humor in the original show. But these two have a romance which stops short of naked make-outs, but feels every bit as hot. If I were working on a Blake’s 7 reboot, I would have actual romance between Blake and Avon penciled in for season two—with strong hints throughout season one. The original show queer-baited fans so intensely, it’s baked in to the concept. The makers of a new Blake’s 7 are going to have three choices: make the Avon/Blake relationship boring, give them intense romantic chemistry that never pays off, or do a slow-burn romance. I strongly prefer the third option.  Speaking of happy accidents, another of the most iconic characters in Blake’s 7 is Servalan, one of the leaders of the evil Federation. There’s no way anybody could have predicted the outrageously campy and off-the-chain performance Jacqueline Pearce gives in what was probably meant to be a minor recurring role. She’s Effie Trinket, Cruella de Vil, and Divine all rolled into one, and she provides a lot of the camp energy in the show—plus, here and there, surprising moments of pathos. She’s exactly who would rise to the top in a corrupt totalitarian regime, but she’s so far from your standard image of a jack-booted thug that she throws everything out of whack.  In terms of other main characters, you just need a really good comedian to play Vila the cowardly thief, and I would introduce Dana the weapons expert way sooner—preferably in the first few episodes even. Maybe there could actually be seven characters this time around! Don’t just try to be Andor As I mentioned, there are a lot of similarities between Blake’s 7 and Star Wars: Andor, and comparisons are inevitable. Making a new Blake’s 7 now is not unlike making a John Carter movie after Avatar and Star Wars: everyone will think you’re copying the thing that actually copied your source material.  That said, Blake’s 7 is not Andor. It’s often a lot campier, as I mentioned a moment ago. It encompasses a range of tones, in fact, from sitcom to drag show to gritty dystopian drama—and all of those tones are important, because they provide the emotional range of the show.  Also, Blake’s 7 is full of well-intentioned liberals who work for the evil empire—or are nominally in a leadership position—and who really believe that the system works and that we can accomplish justice if we only do things the right way. You don’t see this as much in Andor. Yes, Andor has Syril Karn, who believes the Empire is a force for good and becomes disillusioned by the Ghorman Massacre. But Syril is always a bit of a fascist who believes that order is necessary and that dissidents ought to be crushed. He simply comes to understand that the Empire is going beyond even that level of fascism. Meanwhile, in Blake’s 7, you have people like the attorneys who represent Blake at his show trial, who really believe that the system isn’t rigged. You have the many Federation leaders and military officers who protest vociferously when Servalan appoints a war criminal named Travis to lead the hunt against Blake. At every turn, Blake’s 7 takes pains to show us that there are people working within the Federation who truly believe in the rule of law and civil society—and those people are fools.  The Federation is utterly evil, using drugs and propaganda to control its citizens and exploiting countless worlds—but if you live inside its comfortable bubble, you can believe the rule of law still matters. That any abuses are an aberration and that “this is not who we are.” The other way that Blake’s 7 is different from Andor is that Blake himself is a war criminal, and the show knows this. Nobody in Andor, not even Luthen, is ever willing to go to the inhumane extremes that Blake chooses.  Most notably, Blake spends a lot of season two plotting to destroy the central computer that controls much of the Federation, reasoning that this will deal a devastating blow to his enemy. Destroying this computer, however, will also cause mass starvation among civilians on countless inhabited worlds—Blake knows this perfectly well, and sees it as acceptable collateral damage. Imagine Andor if Andor was helping to build the Death Star on purpose. Blake also explores the possibility of teaming up with drug dealers and human traffickers, whose networks might help him to outsmart the Federation—and he’s only deterred by the realization that the criminals already work for the bad guys.  Star Wars is very American, whereas Blake’s 7 is quintessentially British. It’s about having suffered through the Blitz and the long struggle against fascism within living memory—Terry Nation was utterly obsessed with Nazis—and also about the memory of the cruel, horrific British Empire. The Brits were the evil empire, and then they were nearly crushed by another evil empire—and people who were alive in 1977 could remember both things. Only a deeply repressed culture with powerful memories of being the oppressor and the oppressed could create something this weird. In fact, I would argue that the show’s technicolor campiness is what buys it permission to have so much moral complexity and such shades of gray. You’re going to have to make a lot of changes  Up till now, I’ve mostly talked about what works in the original Blake’s 7, and how hard it will be to duplicate. (Or to come up with something even half as good.)  But along with those happy accidents I mentioned, there are some bizarre narrative fumbles. In season one, the most advanced starship in the galaxy and an unstoppable supercomputer both drop into Blake’s lap, more or less through pure luck. When Blake is put on a show trial in the pilot episode, he’s wrongly convicted of being a child molester, which ought to be an ongoing problem, but is never mentioned again. The early episodes introduce a lot of other subplots which go nowhere.  There’s a ton more. For example, the alien invasion from beyond the galaxy that shows up and is summarily dismissed without us ever even learning anything about those invaders. But the biggest problem is that Thomas, the show’s star, quit after two seasons, apparently because he thought Blake was too much of a goody-two-shoes and it was boring to play. (Really. He said this in a bunch of interviews that I found online. It is baffling to me.) The show does an incredible job of handling Blake’s absence, but it really hinders a lot of the ongoing storylines. In particular, I’ve always thought it would be interesting to see what it looks like when Blake starts winning: how he tries to create a better society after shedding so much blood. I also think that a reboot could lean a little bit harder into the core concept of Blake turning a group of mostly escaped criminals into his guerrilla force against the Federation. One of the ways the show pulls its punches slightly is that Blake’s crew miraculously does not include anybody who’s done anything terribly bad. Avon tried to rob the Federation Treasury, Jenna is a smuggler, Vila is a petty thief, and Gan killed someone who was attacking his wife. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have one actual violent offender in the mix, as an easy way of heightening the ethical conundrum of recruiting felons to join the revolution. Hire at least one sitcom writer My final tip is just that the writer’s room absolutely should include some sitcom writers. A huge part of Blake’s 7’s winning formula is Chris Boucher’s uncanny ear for sharp, funny dialogue. The man was unrivaled at writing razor-sharp lines: cynical, goofy, profound, deeply moving. Terry Nation, too, began his career as a comedy writer and always kept that sense of comic timing. As a result, Blake’s 7 is a drama that is very much written like a comedy, and there needs to be at least one sitcom writer punching up all the scripts… Or just steal the lines that Boucher already put in there, which are iconic for a reason.[end-mark] The post How to Reboot <i>Blake’s 7</i> appeared first on Reactor.

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For decades, National Public Radio was funded by American taxpayers, but these people do not love America, especially when Republicans are in charge. On the latest Weekend Edition Saturday, host Scott Simon demonstrated this by comparing today’s America to Eastern Europe under the domination of the totalitarian Soviet Union. Coming out of President Trump’s speech at Davos, Simon noted (and sided with) Canada’s socialist leader in an audio editorial headlined "Mark Carney's warning and its echoes from the past." Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, opened his remarks in Davos by citing an essay by Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright dissident and eventually president. When "The Power Of The Powerless" was written in 1978, Havel's country was still in the grip of Soviet Communist control. The essay could only be circulated by hand and read in secret. It was eventually published around the world. Havel's essay invites us to ask ourselves, how can good people sign on to the nonsense of a bad regime? Havel's essay did not call for mass demonstrations, although many would follow. It suggested that change might begin in a society when people stop the rote motions by which a government infers loyalty. That’s Trump, obviously – “the nonsense of a bad regime,” and apparently totalitarians. Simon explained that in Havel's essay, a greengrocer puts a sign in his window saying "Workers of the World Unite," an old Communist rallying cry, to get along with the tyrants. How mentally daft do you have to be to compare a democratically elected leader with the Soviet communist empire? NPR wouldn't stomach conservatives saying Obama was a Communist, or just like a Communist. But these people clearly side with the globalists at Davos, and agree that America now is an international menace: Prime Minister Carney did not mention President Trump by name, but he called on what he called middle powers, like Canada, most of the European states at Davos, to live the truth and see the scaffold of American power on which so much of their security had been built was being abandoned. When even one person stops performing, said the prime minister, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Prime Minister Carney said, friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down and find a different way forward. Almost half a century later, Vaclav Havel's vision and words may offer strength as the world faces another great change. Opposing Trump is “living the truth,” and comparing the “scaffold of American power” to Brezhnev’s USSR is considered truthful. Simon seems to be suggesting that an American empire needs to collapse like the Soviet Union did. This is when conservatives can get angry all over again that these people have stolen our money to smear us.  PS: In the previous segment, the "Week In Politics" chat with NPR political analyst Ron Elving, he suggested Trump was so unglued it was time to raise the 25th Amendment [click Expand]:  SIMON: Ron, I want to be careful about raising this, but I think it's important to ask you. President Trump rambled a lot in his remarks at Davos. He referred to Greenland as Iceland several times. He mocked the sacrifices, lives lost of U.S. allies and seemed not to know that, in fact, NATO had come to the defense of the United States after 9/11. President Biden had a shaky debate performance. There were calls from both parties for him to step down. Has President Trump's conduct made his mental health a genuine concern? ELVING: One big difference between this moment and the Biden debate is that Trump is not on the ballot in November the way Biden was. But hundreds of other Republicans are, as candidates for Congress and state offices. The Biden example is not lost on those campaigns. And they will be hearing questions. Trump will be 80 in June. People notice changes in his walk and his talk and changes on his face and his hands. Then they start noticing behavior, noticing when he loses his temper repeatedly over small things or when he says adverse polls in The New York Times are fake and fraudulent and should be treated as a criminal offense or when he goes on sending social media messages well into the wee hours. This kind of change in a president was not discussed publicly in the past. But in the wide-open ethos of 21st-century social media, Scott, nothing seems out of bounds. So we have to begin seeing mentions of the 25th Amendment, which was enacted 60 years ago to set a formal procedure in situations that might arise if the president were incapacitated. And it's only been used in temporary situations up to now, such as the president undergoing surgery.

After campaigning on “affordability,” Virginia state Democrats have introduced a measure to more than double their salaries, now that fellow Democrat Abigail Spanberger is in the Governor’s Mansion, giving them control of all three branches of their state’s government.  “Virginia Democrats are now trying to give themselves a PAY RAISE after proposing thousands of dollars in new taxes hammering working families, the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus warned in a X.com post highlighting how the legislators’ pay raise would hurt taxpayers: “They ran on ‘affordability,’ but all they’ve done is introduce insane left-wing policies and take from your pocket to line their own. TOTAL CON JOB!” Indeed, an amendment to the Virginia state budget (SB30), introduced by Democrats L. Louise Lucas in the state Senate and Vivian Edna Watts in the House of Delegates, would more than double their salaries, raising the pay in both chambers by about 150%. The pay increases of $27,360 for the state delegates and $27,000 for senators comes, is scheduled to kick in “after the next election of the General Assembly.” It would increase annual spending by more than $2.1 million. Meanwhile, Virginia Democrats are furiously introducing a host of bills creating/raising taxes (SB978) on the state’s residents, such as the following services: Counseling services Dry cleaning & laundry Home repairs & maintenance Landscaping Cleaning services Vehicle repairs Storage units Shipping services Travel planning Website hosting, data, and storage Digital personal property Additionally, Gov. Spanberger is reportedly working to institute a “backdoor carbon tax on electricity,” under the guise of an “environmental investment.” “Virginia taxpayers just got a costly reminder that elections have consequences,” Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) notes in its analysis of the Democrat governor’s ploy.

A professional women's basketball player said the time is right to display her "simple message" to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Breanna Stewart is a 30-year-old WNBA player for the New York Liberty, but she was playing in a different women's basketball league when she made her political statement on Sunday afternoon.'Knowing that everyone here is feeling that way, one way or another.'Before the game between the Unrivaled basketball league's Vinyl and Mist, Stewart stood holding a sign that read, "Abolish ICE," as players were being introduced. Stewart is a co-founder of the league, which plays in a mega-complex in Medley, Florida.After the game, Stewart told reporters that "all day" Saturday, she had a problem with what she was seeing online."Really, all day yesterday, I was kind of just disgusted from everything that you see on Instagram and in the news," Stewart said during a press conference. "We're so fueled by hate right now, and instead of love, so I wanted to kind of have a simple message of 'abolish ICE,' which means ... having policies to uplift families and communities instead of fueling fear and violence."RELATED: Surprise? WNBA has highest share of Democrat voters, more than any other major US sports league "I think that, you know, when human lives are stake, it's bigger than anything else," the three-time WNBA champion went on.Stewart then called ICE enforcement and riots in Minnesota a "crisis" as she encouraged Americans to advocate for policy change."To have that simple message before the game was important to me, and knowing that everyone here is feeling that way, one way or another, and it was just a perfect time," she added. RELATED: WNBA star just admitted the truth about biology — and her fellow players won't be happy Photo by Michael Hirschuber/Getty Images At the same time, Stewart's advocacy for adjusted immigration laws are directly related to her personal life.The basketball player stated in the press conference that she has been "working to get" her Spanish wife, Marta Xargay, U.S. citizenship. "She is a legal permanent resident and all of that," Stewart explained."But it seems like it doesn't matter. And I think that that's why these policies need to be put in place, that reform needs to happen, because it doesn't seem to be affecting the right people. It's not helping anybody."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded that Minnesota leaders share detailed records on the state’s federally funded welfare programs, repeal its sanctuary policies, and grant access to voter rolls. The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party responded with a sharp, dismissive rejection. On Saturday, Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) describing how the Trump administration’s efforts to enforce immigration laws have been hindered by local leaders. She noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents are facing a 1,300% increase in violence, including a 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks.'Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are demanding access to Minnesotans’ voter rolls in exchange for relieving us from the federal siege we are under.'“The lawlessness in the streets is matched by the unprecedented financial fraud occurring on your watch,” Bondi told Walz. “And the out of control fraud in your state also implicates election security.”Bondi made three requests.First she demanded that Walz provide the federal government with all of the state’s records on Medicaid and Food and Nutrition Service programs to allow for an investigation.She pressed Walz to repeal Minnesota’s sanctuary policies, blaming them for an increase in crime and violence by preventing the state’s detention facilities from cooperating with ICE. “I urge you to reach an agreement with ICE that allows them to remove illegal aliens in custody of Minnesota’s prisons and jails and avoids pushing these interactions into your streets,” Bondi wrote.RELATED: Rioter bit off part of federal agent's finger amid Minneapolis 'rampant assault,' DHS says Photographer: Jack Califano/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesLastly she demanded that Walz allow the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to access the state’s voter rolls to confirm they comply with federal law. “Do not obstruct federal immigration enforcement; do not allow rioters to take over the streets and houses of worship; do not hinder federal officials from investigating financial fraud and violations of election laws,” Bondi stated. “Whether state and local politicians stand in the way or not, we will work every day to protect Americans and make Minnesota Safe Again. I request that you join us in that effort.”The DFL Party issued a statement on Sunday responding to Bondi, accusing the attorney general and President Donald Trump of attempting to “extort our state voter rolls.” “Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are demanding access to Minnesotans’ voter rolls in exchange for relieving us from the federal siege we are under,” DFL Party Chair Richard Carlbom said.“Let us be direct: F**k off,” Carlbom remarked.RELATED: Democrats threaten to shut down government over ICE funding: 'We are not powerless' Ken Martin. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty ImagesIn a separate statement, the DFL Party accused Trump and Bondi of trying to “threaten and intimidate us with violence,” following a deadly shooting involving federal immigration agents and Illinois native Alex Pretti, 37.The DFL Party shared a statement from Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin.“Last night, following the heinous murder of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti at the hands of a federal immigration agent, Pam Bondi drafted and sent a threatening letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz attempting to extort the state into handing over its voter rolls as part of an ongoing campaign to undermine local elections and build a national database for Trump’s political revenge and retribution,” Martin stated.He vowed that the DNC would “stand with local elected officials and fight like hell, including in the courts.”“For Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, and Greg Bovino, we have one message for you: Get ICE the hell out of Minnesota. Now,” Martin concluded.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!