User Reviews

Ro rules the planet Horizon, a Federation mining colony on the edge of their territory, but only as long as he does what the Federation tells him. The Kommissar was Callan's old boss, an actor I haven't seen for a while but he does archly ruthless well. It's pretty silly of Blake's 7 to all beam down to the same spot even after the previous team have obviously been captured. Avon's ponders leaving them in trouble again but he does that every other episode. I'm surprised they included teleportation in the series. It gives the writers the same problem Star Trek had. Since the characters can be 'beamed up' out of trouble instantly the plot, for drama, has to include some means of stopping that, usually trouble for the ship in orbit. Making this a necessary was a bad idea. This was okay. The parallel to British exploitation of African colonies was obvious - using local elites to run things - but one always has to bear in mind that Blake's 7, like Doctor Who, is aimed at children.

The Liberator follows a Federation through a strange structure, the ship survives a powerful attack, curious to know more, Blake and Jenna land on the planet Horizon.

It's good, it's not a particular favourite episode, but it has a lot of positives. It's a good story of colonisation and exploitation, you get to learn plenty about how The Federation operates, a truly merciless organisation.

Writer Allan Prior, who penned this, also wrote some really good episodes including The Keeper and Volcano . ..sadly he also wrote the episode Animals, which is arguably the show's lowest point.

Some nice costumes and sets, and some decent special effects for the time frame. The one thing I noticed here, was how good the lighting is, it's very subdued, very subtle, and helps to hide all manner of ills.

There's a little bit of humour here, a relaxed and partially drugged Villa is good value. It doesn't take long before Blake starts moralising on Horizon....

It's a good episode, an interesting story, 7/10.

Allan Prior gets a bad rep from B7 fans, then again he did write "Animals" so perhaps it's not completely undeserved. His debut episode, however, is creative, interesting, and fun all the way through. Plenty of great dialogue (if Chris Boucher is responsible he needs to try sneaking more of this into his own scripts), a great pulpy SF atmosphere, a well-realized planet which provides an interesting look at a Federation planet, and a good, exciting plot.

The Liberator follows a Federation freighter to the planet Horizon and Blake and Jenna teleport to the surface only to be captured by Federation guards. It's not long before Cally, Gan, and Vila are also captured and forced to work in the planet's mines. Avon, after considering taking control of the Liberator and abandoning the crew, teleports to the surface of the planet to rescue the crew.

I found "Horizon" to be a very smart and effective script which provided plenty of good character writing and an interesting dilemma for the Liberator crew to escape from. Probably my pick for the most underrated of season 2; a lot of people seem to find it dull.

9/10

On the trail of a Federation freighter the Liberator follows it and finds the Planet Horizon under the jackboot of the Terran Federation . Can Blake persuade Ro the ruler of Horizon to overthrow the Federation ?

This sees the debut on the show of Allan Prior as writer . Prior was a very prolific TV scriptwriter in the 1970s and 80s but within BLAKES 7 fandom he's considered the weakest writer . It's not difficult to see why . By no means bad but the fault of Prior is that he treats the show as a very generic science fiction show . This could be an average DOCTOR WHO episode featuring any alien species ruling over a planet of humanoids , or indeed any pulp SF novel ,or American TV show . The episode is merely a filler episode and like some of the lack lustre episodes from season one it's not terrible , just mediocre with most of the crew stuck on a planet and Avon deliberating if he should just leave them there while he flies off in The Liberator