OK I was a little offput by the title. Thought I might be seeing some daleks.
It seems the Liberator wardrobe room comes with coloured jackets for all the crew. Blake grey, Vila red, Avon blue, Gan brown and Cally green. I wonder if Jenna gets yellow or pink?
I like the infiltration mission that begins the episode. It's nice to see the team planning and executing a mission rather than reacting to external events. For the most part it is well planned and calls on all the teams skills including Gan's strength.
I wasn't sure of Vila's distracting of the guards. It was definitely amusing but it didn't seem like something the Vila we have been shown up to this point would do. Remember not too long ago this was the guy who dropped his gun when his fellow convict said drop em.
Perhaps he is like an actor, if he gets given a role he gets into it and it masks his own fears.
The team leaving behind Cally also seems odd. They leave her keeping watch on the staff. When the alarm goes off Vila arrives and they barricade the control room. Did no one at this point wonder how Cally was getting on? Then when they teleport aboard why doesn't Jenna immediately notice they are missing someone. It is similar to Brian Blessed's character sneaking aboard, it doesn't seem to fit with the set up we have been shown.
I think with a little revising this could have been tightened up but it's not a big issue.
The team decides not to immediately rescue Cally. This clearly weighs on Blake but I think as it is likely Cally died in the explosion that pushes him not to go back. I think if she was definitely alive he would have.
I love seeing Peter Miles (Rontane) in anything. He is brilliantly creepy and I hope he returns in later episodes.
Servalan makes an immediate impression. She does remind me heavily of Ursa from Superman 2 and she is strikingly beautiful. She uses this well to manipulate Ray the staff member and clearly she is very practiced in doing this. But she also commands great authority and it is clear fear from the little look the 2 government representatives give each other as they leave.
I half expected it to be like Bond with Sevalan dispatching them down an elevator shaft as they leave.
In just a few scenes you can see she will do whatever is necessary to reach her goals.
Sadly there was a bit of lens flaring in all Servalan's scenes. I think this is one of the dangers of using white and it was know for years in Doctor Who, which is why they painted things slightly green. It is strange they made the mistake and didn't learn from this.
We also get a top henchman introduced in the form of Space Commander Travis. He is very striking looking and I like his back story for why he has that eye piece. It makes sense and tells us a lot about his character.
He is shown to be effective in this episode generally. He realises quickly that the raid had greater purpose and pushes to discover it.
It is nice that his knowing Blake aids him in manipulating the situation but it swings both ways with Blake using prior experience with Travis to beat the trap.
I did wonder how the Federation would discover Blake's ships has a teleport. It is an amazingly powerful weapon and would negate most of the security measures the Federation would have. Now they know it exists they can plan for it. The gap begins to close.
If I followed Travis' back story it seems he was responsible for the massacre of Cally's people. I assume this isn't known to Blake's group of else I would have thought Caly would have shot him immediately.
The final lines of Travis "I am your death Blake" are chilling and interest me in what is to come.
I wonder what the Mutoids Travis mentions are going to look like. It seemed from his description they will be cyborgs. I am looking forward to seeing them.
A great episodes, we now have faces for federation and thus clear enemies for Blake and his team to fight against.
9 colours the Liberator Jacket line (available soon) comes in, out of 10
