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One for the Trekkies/Whovians
Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 9:50 pm
by Gob
Cult classic sci-fi series Blake's 7 is to be remade for the Syfy network, it has been announced.
FremantleMedia International said 13 hour-long episodes will be written by Heroes writer Joe Pokaski.
It added, in a statement, that Casino Royale and Goldeneye director Martin Campbell was also on board.
The original series, which ran on the BBC between 1978 and 1981, followed the exploits of a group of renegades and convicted criminals.
Roj Blake, played by Welsh actor Gareth Thomas, was a political dissident arrested, tried and convicted on false charges by a brutal totalitarian government, and then deported from Earth to a prison planet.
Stealing a spaceship, Blake and his team conducted a campaign against the ruling Terran Federation.
Comparing Blake's 7 with the hit US sci-fi series Star Trek, The Independent said in 1998: "No 'boldly going' here: instead, we got the boot stamping on a human face which George Orwell offered as a vision of humanity's future in Nineteen Eighty-Four."
At its peak, the series was watched by 10 million viewers and was sold to 40 countries. A range of Blake's 7 merchandise including books, magazines, annuals and toys were also released.
A radio adaptation, featuring This Life's Daniela Nardini as villain Servalan, was made in 2006.
According to FremantleMedia, the new series will be set in 2136 and will "tell the story of seven criminals - six guilty and one innocent - on their way to life on a prison colony in space, who together wrestle freedom from imprisonment".
It continued: "They acquire an alien ship which gives them a second chance at life and become the most unlikely heroes of their time".
Chief executive officer David Ellender said: "Blake's 7 was such a forward-thinking concept that the show continues to have resonance with audiences today."
The latest announcement is not the first time a remake of Blake's 7 has been attempted.
In 2003, a miniseries was shelved after actor Paul Darrow - who played Kerr Avon in the original show - left the project.
Later in 2008, Sky One announced it had commissioned two 60-minute scripts for a potential series but two years later said it had decided not to proceed.
Re: One for the Trekkies/Whovians
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 6:41 am
by Reality Bytes
No. no. no. no. NO!!!!!
Re: One for the Trekkies/Whovians
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 9:22 am
by Daisy
It depends how it's handled. It could be brilliant, but I'm not sure there's enough B7 mythology to build a new series on like there is with Trek and Who.
Re: One for the Trekkies/Whovians
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 11:37 am
by Lord Jim
I'm with Daze on this one...
(I'm familiar with Blake's 7...we got it on PBS over here...)
Elementary taught me not to pre-judge until I actually see an episode or two of the series...
When I first heard about it, the concept of a modern Sherlock Holmes set in New York city with a
female Watson
sounded like total garbage; but it turned out not to be....
So, (unlike a certain Welsh ex-pat around here who shall remain nameless
) I no longer decide to arbitrarily and reflexively dislike a new show just because I think I should....
When this re-make get's shown over here, I'll give it a watch and judge it on it's own merits....
Re: One for the Trekkies/Whovians
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 5:20 pm
by Reality Bytes
I'm afraid I have very little faith in American remakes of anything British - seen it tooooo many times before and it rarely if ever works, which is a shame because I actually love American tv shows and am miles ahead of my fellow Brits with watching the latest seasons Castle, Hawaii 5 O, NCIS, NCIS LA, Revolution, Criminal Minds, Suits, The Newsroom, Parks & Recreation, Sons Of Anarchy, amongst others. I also watched loads of shows which got cancelled and never made it to the UK (e.g. Criminal Minds Suspect Behaviour and Hellcats) and follow cancellation/renewal/pilot season quite closely so have a pretty good feel for what is likely to happen with a remake of Blakes 7.
I have a horrible feeling a remake of Blakes 7 will turn out like Battlestar Galactica - which I tried and tried and tried to like but it was like nails on a blackboard to me every single time I watched it, Starbuck as a woman? FGS!! Theres a whole fucking universe established in which the new Battlestar could have been set and explored all they needed to do was create new characters and new stories and set them in that universe - but noooooooo that would have meant them having to be a little bit creative, but thats exactly why STTNG, DS9, & Voyager worked and gained the fan bases that they did.
Like the whole JJ version of Trek - which is NOT Trek and never ever will be Trek but it's not a bad scifi film IF you are prepared to throw away canon and view it as something different to Trek which I did for the first one after my initial almost visceral hatred of it on emerging from the cinema in 2009 it took a while but I made my peace with it but am not sure if I will be able to do that with Darkness even though I'd been looking forwards to it, now that I have learned what JJ has done with this one. I'm now going to see it for the IMAX experience, the eye candy that is Chris Pine & Karl Urban, the spaceships, the 'splosions, and SFX ironically I'm hoping that I wont come out in quite the same red rage as I did on the first one but rather suspect that I might have an even worse reaction given that at the moment I'm feeling a bit like JJ made a fool of me ..... we shall see.
Whats wrong with making new scifi entirely? Firefly did it as did Babylon 5 and Stargate. On the other hand Stargate Universe was utter crap, will always be utter crap, is not & will never ever be Stargate and if I had my way every single episode should be thrown into an incinerator and then the ashes dissolved in acid. There is NO making peace with it, they cancelled my favorite show and replaced it with that abomination.
The entire charm of Blakes 7 was that it was not state of the art cutting edge SFX - scenery frequently wobbled, the spaceships looked like Blue Peter models made from washing up liquid bottles and sticky back plastic, and the alien planets were usually the same Welsh quarry dressed up and filmed from the opposite direction to the previous week. The acting was frequently over the top and or cheesy and very British. The other thing is that Blakes 7 isn't dead they have just released an original cast recording of all new stories - and there are plans for more, this came about entirely because of the fans and the original actors wanting to keep it alive. We don't need a remake thank you - Blakes 7 still lives!
But if you want to make a whole NEW scifi show with all new stories and all new characters I'm very much up for that and will happily give it a watch and be open minded about it - as I am currently doing with Defiance.