Space Fall: A Blake’s 7 Podcast
Nov 6, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 14 segments
"The crew of the Liberator discover that the men of Sardos who possess the secret of almost limitless wealth and power do not control it." Synopsis from The Age (Melbourne) Green Guide, 31 July 1980…
Richard NolanHostAs we have gone through series three for this podcast, one thing we've noted is just the massive variation in quality of the episodes.
both series one and series two, there was a reasonable consistent standard with sort of some spikes and some dips, but there was a reasonably consistent standard, whereas season three, I've actually been even more surprised than I thought I'd be about just how it can lurch from literally a classic to a real, real bottom of the series from one episode to the other.
I walked into Moloch with the memory that this was, in contrast, a fairly sort of middle-of-the-road episode, maybe leading towards not too bad.
Having watched it again for the podcast, I think that it is probably a middle-of-the-road episode leading towards not that great.
The balance between the beginning, the middle and the end is way, way off, even for Blake 7.
I will say in terms of the tone, the difference in tone between characters and set pieces and scenes is just extraordinary.
That is something I think we're going to have to explore because this really feels like a real rush job where no one had quite worked out what was going on and what the tones of the themes were.
I will say that this is interesting in continuing the pattern of Season 3 with basically just one A storyline.
We are now quite a long way from particularly the Terry Nation sort of things of having an A plot and a B plot and sometimes even a C plot going on.
The final point I have to make, again, we're going to talk about this, I'm sure, is that this looks bad.
Now, I'm not talking about special effects that are dated or weren't bad for the time, but 45 years later, they look bad for the time.
So I think that this is a later in the season, out of time, out of money special.
As with Ultra World, there are some really strong sci-fi ideas in this, and I think that with more time and more money, Moloch could have actually been quite a good story, but it's very unbalanced.
So that's a long set of initial thoughts, Richard, but hopefully set the tone for where we're going to go.
As we have gone through series three for this podcast, one thing we've noted is just the massive variation in quality of the episodes.
both series one and series two, there was a reasonable consistent standard with sort of some spikes and some dips, but there was a reasonably consistent standard, whereas season three, I've actually been even more surprised than I thought I'd be about just how it can lurch from literally a classic to a real, real bottom of the series from one episode to the other.
I walked into Moloch with the memory that this was, in contrast, a fairly sort of middle-of-the-road episode, maybe leading towards not too bad.
Having watched it again for the podcast, I think that it is probably a middle-of-the-road episode leading towards not that great.
The balance between the beginning, the middle and the end is way, way off, even for Blake 7.
I will say in terms of the tone, the difference in tone between characters and set pieces and scenes is just extraordinary.
That is something I think we're going to have to explore because this really feels like a real rush job where no one had quite worked out what was going on and what the tones of the themes were.
I will say that this is interesting in continuing the pattern of Season 3 with basically just one A storyline.
We are now quite a long way from particularly the Terry Nation sort of things of having an A plot and a B plot and sometimes even a C plot going on.
The final point I have to make, again, we're going to talk about this, I'm sure, is that this looks bad.
Now, I'm not talking about special effects that are dated or weren't bad for the time, but 45 years later, they look bad for the time.
So I think that this is a later in the season, out of time, out of money special.
As with Ultra World, there are some really strong sci-fi ideas in this, and I think that with more time and more money, Moloch could have actually been quite a good story, but it's very unbalanced.
So that's a long set of initial thoughts, Richard, but hopefully set the tone for where we're going to go.
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