Blake's 7

When Paul Darrow recently died, I decided to revisit the series, Blake's 7, one of the first SF TV series to have a grand narrative

The Set-up: 

Roj Blake is invited to a meeting of political dissidents undermining the Federation. They tell him that he used to a major rebel against the Federation, but he's had his memories erased. He struggles with this and goes off on his own, only to witness, helplessly as Federation troops massacre the twenty defenseless dissidents.

Blake is caught and made to look like a child molester. His defense lawyer doesn't believe Blake's claim until he looks at the records himself. Meanwhile, Blake is shipped off to a penal colony. En route, the Federation guards get greedy when they find an empty ship, full of alien technology. After a few guards die under mysterious circumstances, they send a few prisoners aboard to claim the ship, rescue or find out what happened to the guards, so as not to lose further, vital crew.

The Good

What's working is this disparate crew--misfits, forced to align in order to circumvent the Federation. Some of them are true criminals. It's hard to know who to trust and how far.

They also have this alien technology they have to learn to use.

The best may be the suggested narrative arc in the first season when Terry Nation was writing. He did create narrative threads that were better used later (e.g. telepathy), but we had a sense that this would be a big tale.

Tanith Lee wrote a few episodes, including a somewhat odd tale called, "The Sand."

The very last episode of the series ends in the same way as a famed Western movie less than a decade old at the time. It's interesting and disappointing at the same time.

The Bad 

After season one, any pretense of a grand narrative is abandoned except "Federation bad, we good." The viewer is best advised to watch season one as what-might-have-been, and then watch the rest as tales of a never-ending space opera--watch less for arcs than episodes although some pretense is made toward continuity. The end of season four makes an interesting finale but a somewhat sloppy way to tie off loose ends. The series actually seems to build toward the opposite thematic conclusion, but it's still interesting.

The characters that were forced together still stick together although based on their original characters, they should have abandoned one another long before. Their character natures are abandoned for episodic plots.

The writers have no sense of gravity in particular, physics in general.

Comparisons

This reminded me of the promise of the first season of Orphan Black, which when it got hugely popular, it had come up with more and more absurd ways to further the plot. Milk milk milk the dead cow. Murdered by its own success. Blake's 7, however, abandons any idea of a grand plot. Was it ever intended to be a grand plot? It's hard to say.

Apparently a new Blake's 7 is in the works, according to IMDb, but hopefully it doesn't fall for the same trap as its predecessor--a victim of success.

Turning the Corner from Season 1 to Season 2: Orphan Black and The Americans

I have never been sucked into a TV program like Orphan Black. The first few episodes were edge-of-your-seat spectacular. In this program, we discover a character has been cloned mysteriously, and the clones gather to find out who/what has been killing them.

The Americans was similarly enthralling, if not quite as spectacular. Here we have a Russian spy couple who sneaked into the U.S., posing as an average Americam family, but one with principles that may make you cringe as they are more than willing to cover mistakes with murder. You have a weird feeling empathizing with a couple with whom you may share little except common humanity. One's own response to the series is nearly as interesting as the show itself.

The plotting and character fascinate. Both have incredibly versatile actors who can throw themselves into an entirely different role and look like someone else. In fact, while being the same person, some characters were attractive while others were not.

Both suffered, at least in terms of consecutive-episodes viewing from predictable sexual escapades averaging once per episode for Orphan Black, two or three in The Americans. With the upshot that there was little sexy about their sexcapades. In  The Americans, one wonders if that were part of the point. This is part of their job as spies. You can even note which sexual liasons were distasteful to the characters. The Americans uses several sexual events as points to create later plot tension, though not always. One wonders if more people will want to become spies after this--a more respectable profession that prostitution.

Something happened in season two with Orphan Black. Rather, something didn't happen. The writers wanted to keep the show going with continual surprise, to keep viewers on their toes--which I do love--but it felt like surprise for surprise's sake (or for the series' sake), rather than for the story's. Revelations were few. At some point the players'/protagonists' motives need to crystallize. I'm reminded of the Lemony Snickett series that built up a grand mystery only to open an empty box. Perhaps if it were a one-book or a short-story deal, this could work. Not fourteen books leading up to nothing. Otherwise, the story becomes mechanical and reveals nothing new. Which is what happens with soap operas. You start to feel you've seen it all before and there were will be nothing here to satisfy/conclude/ponder. I hope Season three reveals more than season two. I'm still debating whether to keep watching it.

Season Two of The Americans, on the other hand, seems to be working well. The difference? There isn't one grand narrative. A number of concurrent narratives allow viewers to be satisfied when resolved, yet they introduce new narratives to complicate scenarios. For instance, they resolve who murdered the couple's best spy friends, only to discover a plot that embroils their own children into a similar scenario.

While I love the period aspects, I'm not sure if I've ever watched a program with so many ugly ties before.