Blake's 7 – Production Blog

Jenna Stannis has grown up on a space station and thinks planets are a bit backward. My original wheeze for a story about her early life was to have teenage Jenna race spaceships with a boy that she fancies.

Script editor Ben Aaronovitch liked the idea, but tossed back my first draft because I had avoided the real physics. He said:

“The B7 universe doesn’t have shields. These are not Star Trek shuttles they’re racing, they don’t swoop, glide, veer etc. They move according to Newtonian physics – sorry.”

At his insistence, I had to go ask my clever friends about orbital mechanics and delta-v.

You can’t race space ships in vacuum. If they’re both the same shape and have the same thrust they’ll be perfectly matched. So my race now takes place through an asteroid field, where the ships get pinged with dust and rocks, and the pilots need skill to keep themselves on a steady course. The dust rattling off the nose cone will also, I’m hoping, make it sound good on audio.

I worried how I’d explain the physics stuff to the listener without bogging down the story in explanation. So I’ve used the complexity of the physics as a plot point. They race without using their ships’ computers, doing all the calculations in their heads. That means they’re also trying to put each other off.

So I’ve got an important plot reason for Jenna mentioning off-hand to the guy she’s racing that she’s not wearing a bra…

Simon Guerrier

I’ve always found naming characters difficult. In my first novel I named the protagonists after people I knew – and killed my friend the writer Scott Andrews more than 40 times in the first nine chapters.

For The Dust Run, I struggled to find tough, plosive names like the ones in Terry Nation’s head. Names to rank alongside Dalek, Blake and Tarrant. And it’s not that easy.

So I thought I’d cheat.

First, Jenna’s friend in The Dust Run was called ‘Kebble’ – which I pinched from a minor character in the 1966 Doctor Who story Power of the Daleks. Script editor Ben Aaronovitch didn’t like that, so I looked through the credits of Terry Nation’s last Doctor Who story Destiny of the Daleks – from 1979, the same era as Blake’s 7. David Yip had played ‘Veldan’, which became the name of the young pilot Jenna knew when she was young. I also pinched ‘Jall’ – played in Doctor Who by Penny Casdagli – for the name of the thief Jenna teams up with in The Trial.

My masters, though, felt that these names sounded too “Sci-Fi”, and wanted something more everyday. So Veldan became ‘Townsend’, after a mate of mine. There was then a great deal of pondering before Jall became ‘Nick’. Which is a good name for a thief.

Simon Guerrier

My casting notes for The Dust Run and The Trial, as sent to producer Andrew Sewell on 3 August 2009.

Simon Guerrier

WARNING: These notes contain SPOILERS

MAX TOWNSEND

Present-day Max is in his late 20s, the same age as Jenna. Like her, he’s a spacer – he looks down on the backwards lot still living on planets.

When we first meet Max he’s in his teens. Unlike Jenna – who he’d never admit he adores – Max just isn’t a rebel. For all that, the spacer kids are a bit wayward and run around on their own, Max is as authority as they come. His late father was a war hero, and Max treasures the medals – and really needs a dad to sort him out. Like the lower-middle class product of a public school, he’s not posh but his life was mapped out in front of him from the moment he’s born. He’ll be an officer-pilot for the Federation – to him, its old-skool values and heroism, he probably sees it like Dan Dare. And then, when he’s too old to fly, he’ll be a lawyer, and help out the ordinary Joe. A worthy, respectable, useful life.

Except, for Max in his late 20s, it didn’t work out like that. He’s tougher, harder, more battle scarred. This guy’s seen some shit – and been responsible for it, too. His ambitions had to be paid for; and he paid with his soul. Compromises, betrayals, looking the other way – they’ve all taken their toll on him. He’s still charming, in a cold, aloof way. He’s used to getting his own way and doesn’t deal with embarrassment well. He maybe even thinks he’s still one of the good guys.

Max then and now is eager to please those in charge, and to prove himself. He desperately craves approval and is terrified of what people think of him. He wants Jenna to love him, to submit to him. But he wants his masters’ approval more.

NICK

Nick’s a bit of a mystery – Jenna’s not a reliable witness. But he’s older than her, in his early 40s, a charming, smooth professional criminal. Before, he must have preyed on Jenna – a pretty, young thing eager to prove her usefulness. And he must have then tossed her aside. He must have done that all the time.

Nick can handle himself. He’ll kill people when he needs to, even torture them first. Beneath the charm there’s something really very nasty.

He’s wary, he’s used to small, intimate jobs and keeps a low profile. And he’s got his own twisted set of values. He hates the system – sees his criminal life as playing some part in the battle against the Man. And he wants a way out; to retire, or at least to change the life he’s in. Jenna coming back is a chance to redeem himself – to her and in his own mind.

Clever casting director David Hall gets us Benedict Cumberbatch for Townsend and Stephen Lord as Nick. I couldn’t be happier. Hooray!

Benedict Cumberbatch (Townsend), writer Simon Guerrier and Carrie Dobro (Jenna) © B7 Enterprises Ltd

On 1 February 2008, script editor Ben Aaronovitch emailed out of the blue asking if I’d write a half-hour Blake’s 7 play. I’d employed him for a book and some short stories, and he was returning the favour.

He wanted a play for two voices, covering the early years of one of the main Blake’s 7 characters. “I’m doing Gan and Villa and a Servalan one,” he said. “That leaves Jenna as smuggler or Avon/Ensor.” And he needed the play very quickly.

The original plan was to make the story part of a special, 30th anniversary release for late 2008, so I had until 12 February to write my first draft. Managed to do that, and then jetted off to a Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles, where producer Andrew Sewell announced I was on the team.

Ben sent me notes on the script on 13 March, including the note that, “the big crime amongst spacers is putting other people’s life support at risk.” I sent him a revised version two days later.

I wrote a blurb and author notes for the story on 24 March, and on 3 May Ben let me know he and producer Andrew Sewell were happy with the script but wanted actress Carrie Dobro to give her approval. On 19 May, I was asked to explain Jenna’s age in the play – we meet her at three different points in her life.

On 5 August, Ben offered me the chance to include a third character in the play. A week later, I let him know,

“I’ve had a think and written some notes, but I can’t think of a way to have a third character in my Jenna play that makes it any better. Different, yes. But not better. If there’s things you’d like me to incorporate, I’m happy to work them in, but I can’t think of anything I’d like to do to improve it.”

On 19 August, I attended the recording of Young Travis, and had a chat with Andrew and Ben in the pub afterwards about where the series was going and when we’d be recording mine. No, The Dust Run wouldn’t be out by the end of the year.

On 21 April 2009, Ben emailed me, asking if I’d write a second Young Jenna episode, to go on the same CD release. Over the next day, we knocked some ideas back and forth, to which Ben concluded:

“Heroic, sad and ultimately futile – Blake’s 7 in a nutshell”.

On 27 April, I revised he blurb and notes from more than a year previously to incorporate the second story.

I sent Ben a revised version of The Dust Run on 12 May, now including stuff that set up the second episode. I sent another version of this on 31 May, along with the first draft of The Trial.

On 21 June, I provided the same scripts to Ben, this time using the scriptwriting program Final Draft instead of Word. I received notes back on the scripts on 1 July. “The important thing,” he said, “is to make sure that Jenna doesn’t come across as being weak.” I provided revisions on 5 July.

Producer Andrew Sewell then provided additional notes on 14 July. “Think that the sex scenes are too long,” he said. The hope was to record the episodes on 10-11 August. Later that day, Andrew also sent me some notes from director Alistair Lock. I delivered rewrites at 23.49 that same day.

On 3 August I provided character notes for the casting of Townsend and Nick. Andrew sent round final, locked versions of the script on 21 August. On 27 August, I attended the first day of recording for the story – 18 months after The Dust Run was first commissioned.

As I’m signing in at reception, a familiar voice behind me says, “Blake’s 7? Really?” It’s Steven Grief – evil Travis in the first year of Blake’s 7 on TV. He’s working in the studio next door. This, I decide, is a good omen.

Simon Guerrier