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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 17:13:22 GMT
Joyous though it is to have some more wonderful Blakes 7 at last, if I'm honest - and there's no point being otherwise - I found Crossfire: Paradise Lost a little dull. As with the majority of the previous set, The Spoils of War, a decision seems to have been made to make the stories a little less immediate, a little less dynamic. Intrigue and subterfuge are great, (and there was a lot of shooting in this!) but the overall effect is a little less than exciting. I'm sorry to say this, and I hope this isn't a direction these sets are going to pursue from now on. I remember in previous full-casts, there was variety in story-telling with some pretty outlandish and compelling concepts and set-pieces. Here, the actors are all excellent - it's great to hear The President once again, and everyone sounds as good as ever - but ... well, it seems slightly lifeless. Sorry to feel this way - and this is, after all, only the first story in a whole new series. We'll see what the other stories bring ...
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Post by Whovitt on Oct 18, 2017 21:15:58 GMT
Joyous though it is to have some more wonderful Blakes 7 at last, if I'm honest - and there's no point being otherwise - I found Crossfire: Paradise Lost a little dull. As with the majority of the previous set, The Spoils of War, a decision seems to have been made to make the stories a little less immediate, a little less dynamic. Intrigue and subterfuge are great, (and there was a lot of shooting in this!) but the overall effect is a little less than exciting. I'm sorry to say this, and I hope this isn't a direction these sets are going to pursue from now on. I remember in previous full-casts, there was variety in story-telling with some pretty outlandish and compelling concepts and set-pieces. Here, the actors are all excellent - it's great to hear The President once again, and everyone sounds as good as ever - but ... well, it seems slightly lifeless. Sorry to feel this way - and this is, after all, only the first story in a whole new series. We'll see what the other stories bring ... I didn't have these feelings about Paradise Lost (I'm a bit of a sucker for action stories!), but I did for True Believers. It's the longest story in the set (by about 10 minutes), and it just doesn't really hold up for that run time; while it wasn't exactly uninteresting, it's not something I'll deliberately go out of my way to hear again.
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Post by barnabaslives on Oct 19, 2017 16:22:34 GMT
I though the set was off to a seriously strong start with Paradise Lost, but I got distracted by real-life events just a few minutes into the second story and haven't gotten back to it yet. I might end up listening to one story a week from Crossfire, and might be better off for doing so?
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Post by coffeeaddict on Oct 19, 2017 21:07:21 GMT
Solid set all told, though personally I found the second episode fairly boring. It just didn't pull me in like the rest of the set did.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Oct 26, 2017 9:15:04 GMT
Apropos of Michael Keating.... I’m watching “Traitor” and honestly, his voice hasn’t changed at all.
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Post by omega on Oct 29, 2017 0:08:39 GMT
Best story was Resurgence. I figured out it was the System before it was stated. In the extras it's stated that this script has been around a while. I wonder if it was meant to be for Series B before the sad passing of Gareth Thomas.
True Believers was the weakest story. It just didn't feel like a Blake's 7 story, which didn't help it being only Cally for most of it.
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Post by omega on Oct 29, 2017 0:12:12 GMT
Poll is up!
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Post by The Matt on Nov 9, 2017 9:28:10 GMT
Just finished Paradise Lost. Nice little story, nothing ground breaking but fun nonetheless. Good to see the old President pop up so early in the set and not saved until towards the end which a lot of people thought. It is always a delight to hear the Darrows voice and Michael Keating barely sounds any older!!!
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Post by tardis1 on Nov 10, 2017 16:10:51 GMT
I have to admit, listening to Paradise Lost was a bit of a frustrating experience. On the one hand, I thought the ideas were really strong, and it dealt with the fall out from Devil's Advocate in a sophisticated and mature way, even if it was basically the President going 'mwahha, I'm not dead suckers!'. But the execution of it felt appalling sloppy to me. There was no real drive to the episode, and the whole thing just felt like they needed to get the gears for the series arc into motion.
And I don't know why, but the sound quality on this episode was appalling. Trying to listen on a train to it is a difficult experience, something which doesn't really hinder BF's Doctor Who output. It's the one thing that put me off buying Spoils Of War.
A shame really, as I like Steve Lyons as a writer generally, but this just failed to stick the landing for me. Still, I'm interested to see where the arc goes after this.
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Post by The Matt on Nov 10, 2017 16:15:50 GMT
Well True Believers was awful. Hackneyed religious zealot and a plot that offered no surprises or anything to pull you in. Sorry to say but Jan Chappell performance when she was being attacked by the cave slug was embarrassing.
Maybe the worst B7 in a looooooong while, the good thing is that the only way is up (if I may quote Yazz)
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Post by tardis1 on Nov 10, 2017 19:50:44 GMT
Having just finished True Believers, I did think that it was better than Paradise Lost - only marginally mind. The whole 'religious zealotry' thing was one of the first ideas Blake's 7 played around with back on the TV show, and it wasn't interesting then. Having only Cally (and Dayna popping up in a few scenes) was undeniably a bit odd, but at least we got a strong lead showing from Jan Chappell (except when she has to scream. I wish writers would try and avoid that) and there were some interesting, quirky characters in there, which makes a change from the first story.
So far, I'm finding John Ainsworth-produced Blake's 7 a bit phoned-in. I'm longing for the Cavan Scott/David Richardson days. There are some real zingers in those releases.
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Nov 27, 2017 11:37:16 GMT
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,671
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Post by shutupbanks on Nov 27, 2017 13:45:53 GMT
I've listened to two episodes so far.
Paradise Lost was okay: a pretty good story with some great ideas: the land mine; the legion being seen as traitors, the beginning of the civil war, but it felt a little too rushed at the beginning and the end: Winterhaven felt shoehorned in with a bit too much exposition about Del Grant.
I know I raved about Simon Clark earlier in the thread, but True Believers just didn't feel like Blake's 7. I really enjoyed the concepts and the delivery but it just felt very out of place in the grand scheme of things, although there's a few episodes of the show that do the same and I forgive them because they are terrific. What I find a bit strange is the idea of the show validating the idea of an afterlife (and not Tony Attwood's): aside from the mention of churches in Pressure Point, the only times religion cropped up in the original run it was as a tool of a tyrant or in the hands of someone with some latent psychic abilities (I think: it's been a couple of years since I last marathoned the show) so for a story to come down in favour of a deity was a surprise, to say the least.
Looking forward to the last two episodes.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,671
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Post by shutupbanks on Nov 29, 2017 9:00:42 GMT
OK, really enjoyed the last two stories.
Resurgence was great fun and quite gripping. If I had a concern it would be that the chase sequence, or the details of it, were over too quickly: a trip between two planets, one of which is an outpost of something that resembles an empire should have been longer or had more indicators that it was taking a while, even at the speeds the System vehicles are capable of. It's not something the show has shied away from before and it took me out of the moment quite a bit. YMMV, of course. I loved the discussion about the advantages of "organics" versus the "System" and the repeating line, "The System is The System" made me think of Underworld for some reason, lol.
Fearless was a great yarn as well. The idea of the crew engaging in negotiations for resources/ materials is terrific and is something that I wish the show had done more of. Solid guest cast and a cool external threat made it a highlight of the set.
My only real concern about the set as a whole is where Episodes 2 and 3 fit in as a whole: if we're going to have an ongoing story about the fight between two Federation factions, where do the System and Electra fit in? Are they - and I kind of hope they do - going to reappear and take sides or at least make return visits?
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Post by nottenst on Dec 19, 2017 16:47:34 GMT
Well True Believers was awful. Hackneyed religious zealot and a plot that offered no surprises or anything to pull you in. Sorry to say but Jan Chappell performance when she was being attacked by the cave slug was embarrassing. Maybe the worst B7 in a looooooong while, the good thing is that the only way is up (if I may quote Yazz) I don't know about awful, but I was wondering why the story existed at all. Maybe it sets something else up, but it seemed a complete diversion and like a plot we've already seen. It could easily have just been a Liberator Chronicles story with Jan doing the narrating and one other character.
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Post by nottenst on Dec 21, 2017 20:51:05 GMT
Finished Resurgence today and that was definitely in good form and definitely what I was looking for from this set. Very exciting and makes me want to go back and see the original The System episodes.
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Post by nottenst on Dec 27, 2017 14:44:43 GMT
Listened to Fearless yesterday, it was a lot of fun, though Vila's mood swings did grate on me at the end. For that matter when Herrick lost control that was a bit weird. Was that a side effect of what Cally was doing with Vila somehow?
I still don't know why True Believers was in this set and wonder if it will pay off at some time in the future.
I am looking forward to the next set - coming out sometime next month!
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Post by nottenst on Jan 4, 2018 15:53:51 GMT
Started listening to the Behind the Scenes interviews yesterday. I was surprised that the directive for True Believers from the producer was basically - do a standalone Cally story. That is what we got, I still am perplexed why they wanted to do that as part of this set.
One very interesting bit was in the discussion of Fearless. David Bryer was just instructed to make a smaller cast piece. At some point, though, John Ainsworth decided that he liked the character of Zeera enough that he asked for her to be written to be part of subsequent stories.
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Post by pawntake on Jan 5, 2018 17:19:23 GMT
Started listening to the Behind the Scenes interviews yesterday. I was surprised that the directive for True Believers from the producer was basically - do a standalone Cally story. That is what we got, I still am perplexed why they wanted to do that as part of this set Padding basically!! really enjoyed stories 1and 4
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Post by barnabaslives on Jan 5, 2018 19:05:20 GMT
I think a standalone with Cally is an awesome thing if you happen to really like Cally, didn't mind that at all. The only thing I didn't like about True Believers was that I think I was so taken with Walles Hammond in Dark Shadows Bloodlust that now I have a little bit of trouble taking him as seriously as I should in other roles.
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