SAG-AFTRA Sued For Witholding Foreign Residuals And … 
Zach Braff Ends $3+M Kickstarter Campaign 
Fox Unscripted TV Czar Mike Darnell To Exit 
FIRST BOX OFFICE: ‘Fast & Furious 6′ Easy … 
NBC Sets Oklahoma Tornado Benefit Concert For May 29 
Cannes: Directors’ Fortnight Honors ‘Les … 
SHOCKER: Tom Cruise Exits ‘Man From … 
A+E Rebuild: BBC’s Jana Bennett To Run Bio And LMN … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Hannibal’ Hits Low, … 
‘Katie’ Shakeup: Rachel Miskowiec Replaces … 
Hammond On Cannes: French Hero Jerry Lewis On His Return To … 
Cannes: Another Jewelry Heist? $2.6M Necklace Missing After … 
Hammond On Cannes: Leo DiCaprio’s Moon Trip Tops … 
Specialty B.O. Preview: ‘Before Midnight’, … 
2012-2013 Season Network Rankings: CBS Sweeps In Final … 
Full 2012-2013 TV Season Series Rankings 
TOLDJA! Paramount Pocketing $190M From Disney For Marvel … 
‘Good Morning America’ Hits 19-Year Viewership … 
MGM Buys ‘Modern Family’ Producer Ben … 
‘Fashion Police’ Writers Chant On Picket Lines: … 
Universal Makes Seven-Figure Deal For ‘The School For … 
EXCLUSIVE: Blake’s 7, the Georgeville Television-produced reboot of the cult British adventure/sci-fi series, has landed at Syfy. The cable network will develop the remake, which will be written by Joe Pokaski (Heroes) and directed by feature helmer Martin Campbell (Casino Royale). The project was taken out to US networks last month by Georgeville, the independent TV studio co-founded earlier this year by Leon Clarance of Motion Picture Capital, the financing arm of Reliance Entertainment, and producer Marc Rosen. Blake’s 7 has a script-to-series commitment, meaning that if Syfy likes the script, it will greenlight the project as a 13-episode series. Georgeville employed the same model with its first series, Neil Cross’s Crossbones, which will premiere on NBC in midseason.
Originally created by prolific British TV writer Terry Nation (Dr. Who), Blake’s 7 premiered on the BBC in 1978, running for four seasons. Referred to as “The Dirty Dozen in space,” the series centered around hard-core renegades and criminals who escape from a prison planet, battling humans and aliens alike – and becoming heroes. Despite its no-frills, low-tech special effects, Blake’s 7 was an international hit and still enjoys a fan following a quarter of a century after its launch. (Watch the show’s famous title sequence below.)
GVTV acquired the rights to the Blake’s 7 franchise from rightsholder Andrew Sewell and his company B7 Media with funding provided by MPC. Campbell, Pokaski, Clarance, MPC’s Deepak Nayar and Sewell will executive produce.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
Loading ...
well that just sounds awful
I hate to spoil it for you but…everyone dies. How are they going to cheer it up for the American Market, I wonders?
Damn you, Margaret! Damn you! Oh wait…
If its the final episode, then they could have the same ending, there’s no use hanging onto characters if you’re not going to use them anymore. I was fully expecting mass slaughter in the final episode of BSG, which was also on SyFy, and was not a notably cheerful series to say the least. Everyone praised that to the high heavens, the ratings were decent for basic cable, so it would be natural for SyFy to look to that for their space series template.
SyFy could decide to go the BSG route with B7 and have everyone moaning and groaning all the time about how life isnt worth living, everyone sucks,, heavy handed moral allegories, etc. But if I were them, I’d go for something exciting, action packed and visceral. I think there’s an untapped market for a space opera series that doesnt put everyone to sleep. And sure, put some character stuff and moral allegories in there, inbetween action scenes, so you can feel good about yourself.
It was never confirmed that they had died. They were just shown as being unconscious. With Avon, you did not hear the shot till after the screen went dark.
There was a novel published, which took place post-series, that showed only Avon and Vila having survived the massacre.
I wonder how many people figured out that Blake’s 7 was the anti-Star Trek. Look at the ship’s design and Blake’s logo. Both are derivative of Star Trek imagery. Moreover, Blake is fighting against an evil federation of planets.
If you listen to the shots the last gunshot is from Avon’s gun
hopefully they redo the entire series tho
Actually, there was supposed to a 5th season. The ending to B7 is open to interpretation. Did it ever occur to anyone that some of the Federation troopers who rush into the base might have been rebels in disguise?! Wouldn’t that have been a wonderful twist? Avon and the others may yet live to fight on… but, Blake – uh, probably not.
It’s a remake. What made the original Blake’s 7 incredible wasn’t Blake, it was Avon! Avon was a devious schemer who’s wit and charm made the series great. Of course, there was also Servilan, the Chancellor of evil Federation.
For those of you think TV is just filled with mindless violence and gratuitous sex: go back and discover what incredible moments of suspense, humor, drama, betrayal and tragedy that Blakes 7 had.
CGI was just coming on line.
This show had some of the best dialogue, comebacks (both verbal and physical) and wit that I’ve ever seen in any Sci-Fi programming. Please keep in mind that Blakes 7 episodes were always made on a shoestring budget – sometimes the actors had to finish up scenes from one episode with one director and then work on another entirely different episode the very next day (crazy BBC shenanigans). Also, if you didn’t have serious bank back in the early 80s, you couldn’t pull off anything that looked as polished as TRON or The Last Starfighter
Just imagine how good these characters and this world could be with great writing, cutting edge CGI and a healthy budget!!!
Doctor Who ended in 1996, and there are only 8 Doctors. Doctor Who is never coming back. The remake has tainted Doctor Who. I quite my 15 year subscription to Doctor Who Magazine in 2004 because they were catering to the damn remake. I also stopped buying the original Doctor Who dvd’s and audio’s because they were catering to the damn remake. Dumb asses at the BBC and BIG Finish.
Doctor Who remake was gay and gayed up everything and had the most atrocious acting, stories and dialogue.
At least there is still Star Wars – The Clone Wars, the live action Star Wars series and Red Dwarf series to look forward too. Also look forward to new issues to Star Wars – The Clone Wars Magazine and the official Star Wars magazine, Star Wars Insider.
Robert Hewitt Wolfe was working on a space basd seris for SyFy. I hope they do that one if they do any space series.
Yes, but does this mean we’ll FINALLY get a DVD release in North America for the original series???
well I hope they do not mess it up I will
Hope to see the first one . And the no frills
Made the show better .
Sounds good to me, and Joe’s a great writer. He’ll kill it.
Oh dear. SyFy don’t like science fiction and Hollywood can’t do British humour. They will turn it into a space procedural.
Way to go, Joe. Well done.
It’s not really a humorous series…
If you’ve ever watched ‘Firefly’ (which this inspired), it’s a bit like that only darker.
Farscape was a better series and a better example of the genre.
A darker Firefly sounds like exactly what space series fans have been waiting for. I just hope SyFy doesnt go overoard with the moralizing and chest beating a la BSG. Dark is fun, but dont take it so far that you turn it into a boring drag and suck all the fun out of it.
I was just catching up on this show again after last watching in the late 1970s! I enjoyed it as a 6 and 7 year-old and made LEGO versions of the teleport bracelets and weapons. It’s still a great show. Despite the low-tech look and age, the writing and characters are strong; only something with those qualities stands the test of time.
Not sure about an Americanized version, though. Pity the BBC doesn’t see anything in it, but then again it might end up looking like that dreadful new Doctor Who. I’ll be looking out for this remake then.
As a life-long Blakes 7 fan, all I can say is a quote from another sci-fi franchise… “I have a bad feeling about this”
In the book AFTERLIFE, it emerged that Avon and some of the others survived because they were hit by stun bolts
Thank you, DW, for mentioning AFTERLIFE. I remember borrowing it from the library, in something like 1984, but no one seems to know it exists. So I didn’t imagine it. And it really was Avon’s sister behind it all, or something.
I’m very much looking forward to this remake. I think they did a good job with the audio drama remakes a couple of years ago. It won’t be the same, but then it shouldn’t be. It should be its own thing.
I agree with whoever who said the Matt Smith ‘Dr.Who’ was dreadful. So was the new ‘B.S.G.’ and ‘V’. Why can’t they leave the past alone? Come up with some new ideas please!
You really made the statement that BSG was dreadful after a 5 year run?
What I see first and foremost as a potential problem set here is that the people involved will very likely end up removing many of the aspects (or altering them to unrecognizability) that made the series so cult-popular in the first place. Even if the producers don’t, and the financers don’t, I would suspect that the networks will jump in, running on the (far too common) assumption of “Well, it’s been off the air, so it must have failed somewhere! WE know better how to make this work!”. This is sadly a common attitude, despite all evidence presented to said groups to the contrary.
If, by some deep stroke of luck, they manage to actually get things right (the Federation being a tyranny, and the heroes not being at all squeaky-clean, I then would look forward to this reboot, especially if the effects and the ship designs are properly updated and done by some CG group that won’t make it look like badly-done home-computer work.
Remakes nowadays basically keep the title and ditch everything else – BSG, V, Bryan Fuller’s take on The Munsters – which can be a good thing or a bad thing. All we really know is, it wont be much like the original. So I’m just treating this as if it were an original idea, its not like a mere title means much anyway.
Oh ye of little faith, people. Jeez.
Just a suggestion, in case the new producers run up against budget problems… I remember the BBC children’s program, Blue Peter, was always showing you how to make Liberator‘s out of washing-up bottles, and teleport bracelets out of Cornflakes packets. If they’re running short, the BBC probably still have boxes full of this Blue Peter gear.
Blake’s 7 – will it be ‘New Dr Who’ quality or ‘New Star Wars’ quality? I am dreading it a bit – no doubt they will beef up the relationship side of things but will they retain the Orwellian dystopia?
Tips for the producers: Keep the underlying technology, remove the camp elements and don’t overdo the Federation’s disposition towards leather or even evil – they just want law and order for everybody.
Suggested actors:
Peter Tuddenham’s Zen and Orac will be sadly unavailable in their original forms but the producers need to get someone equally irascible. How about Alan Arkin?
Avon, the brilliant and remorseless hacker needs someone icy to play him – how about Karl Urban? Please give Paul Darrow, who played Avon in the original show, a very small part.
Has anyone considered asking David Tennant to play Vila, the show’s cowardly thief? Playing whiny and sneaky needs a lot of charm to remain likeable.
Both Jenna and Cally would benefit from strength and empathy. Cally’s an alien telepath and came across as a dreary hippie sometimes and the original show’s failure to capture Jenna’s hot-shot space pilot was the reason Sally Knyvette left the show after two series.
John Barrowman, who played Captain Jack Harkness in Dr Who and Torchwood would make a great Blake – he played Jack with ambition and flaws, but is possibly not resolute enough for the show’s lead.
The show’s primary antagonist was Servalan, President of the Terran Federation, Ruler of the High Council, Lord of the Inner and Outer Worlds, High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets, Lord General of the Six Armies, and Defender of the Earth. This might be a bit tricky to get right – it’s hard to imagine an actress who could be as believably cool, calm and collected as this.
Martin Campbell, the named director of the new series, directed one of my favourite Bonds – Goldeneye, so he has skill but it’s the tone of the show – despite rickety sets and dodgy costumes, the show had a dark undertone that will sit uncomfortably well with today’s audiences and should be preserved.
I think about the only ones we know didn’t die are Avon and Vila because TN only planned to use them in a proposed sequel. The only one we know died for sure is Blake because GT made sure of that in his contract. He would only come back if they definitively killed Blake, hence Avon shooting him 3 times at point blank range.
Please bring Avon back and I would be glad never to see or hear of Blake again.
It’s been a long time but I don’t remember any aliens. I thought it was just humans and intelligent computers/ships.
This could be good (BSG) or dreadful (DW) depending on how up themselves the writers get.
One thing is definate tho’. The baddies will have English accents!
What they need to do is reboot the first series and then go their own way. It is an excellent premise and the characterisation is what makes the show. If they really want to get it right they need to get Chris Boucher’s input(if he’s not retired)into this asap.. If they get it wrong, they will have missed a massive opportunity to make something really special, but at least we’ll still have the original!!
..Oh and one more, vital thing.. Leave the design of the LIBERATOR ALONE!!! CGI it, by all means – but you can’t improve on perfection!!!
The Liberator is central to this series. The idea of a superior ship and computer against the might of the federation. Orac, Avon, Cally, Villa and Soolin. Love to see them back. Lots of spaceships and different planets.
Some sci-fi never ages. It has a good story and even dated CGI does it no harm.
Terry Nation – brilliant. Why not try Asimov? Although the 3 laws can never apply for technical reasons, some of his stories are unique and compelling. Dr Susan Calvin. Maybe she needs her own series.
i hope they don’t americanise it to much. B7 my favourite tv show as a kid so would guardedly welcome it’s return. i would prefer a spin off like what Paul Darrow(Avon) tried to do not a re-make.
I can’t wait!! I hope they make it as long as they stay true to the original and just modernize it.
WOW WOW WOW !
DId I say WOW ??
B& was great because you rooted for the underdogs , The Ora was snippy , It was plays 90% straight but with those little twists of comebacks . Just enough science to kee you interested – teleportation etc. and it had all those badhuman virtues , thiefery , viliany, glutony, and just a hint of greed and lust .