Recap / Blakes Seven S 4 E 2 Power

Avon meets the biggest, meanest, toughest son of a seska on the planet.

Written by Ben Steed.
Directed by Mary Ridge.
Airdate: 5 October 1981.

While his colleagues try to get through the hanger door to Scorpio before a Self-Destruct Mechanism destroys Xenon Base, Avon is caught in a war between two gender-divided societies, the primitive male Hommiks and the technologically-advanced female Seska.

---

This episode has the following tropes:

• Accidental Heroine: Dayna gets some covert telekinetic assistance from the Seska when fighting Gunn Sarr.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: When Gunn Sarr asks why she didn't escape when she had the opportunity, Nina plants a kiss on his head.
• Ambiguous Syntax:
  • Vila and his friends are hauled before Gunn Sarr, who growls, "What do you want?" Vila replies, "A second chance?"
  • Avon is his usual terse self.
  Avon: Well, Orac?
  Orac: 'Well' is not a question.
  Avon: You know what I mean.
• Annoying Arrows: Averted when a Seska has to yank the crossbow quarrel out of her thigh. Fortunately thanks to her special ointment she's able to fix herself up without issue.
• Apocalyptic Log: Tarrant finds a video log by a Seska detailing how they're losing the war. It ends when a large axe slams down on the table in front of her.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership
  ”I am Gunn Sar, chief of the Hommiks. I rule by right of challenge, which means I'm the biggest, toughest, meanest son-of-a-Seska on this planet.”
• Author Tract: Another Ben Steed episode, another cack-handed tale about the Battle of the Sexes and how those pesky Women's Lib types are going to lead to the collapse of civilisation. Thankfully, this one's his last.
• Badass Boast: Subverted. Gunn Sarr is about to fight Avon in a duel, prefaced by the appropriate Badass Boast of his deeds. Only he has to consult his Hypercompetent Sidekick on how the challenge goes, then they get into an argument over his bodycount (the man who fell off a cliff didn't count because they didn't find the body). On finishing the spiel the chief mutters apologetically to Avon, "I have to say all that. Tradition."
• Bag of Kidnapping: Used on captured Seska, along with a grab pole.
• Behind Every Great Man: Nina, a former leader of the Seska, is implied to be running the Hommiks through her strong but dimwitted husband. After he gets killed, she announces they're going to leave and start a new society, presumably involving a bit more cooperation between the sexes. Or back-breaking toil and Stay in the Kitchen? It's not quite clear.
• Bear Hug: Dayna gets caught in one from Gunn Sarr.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pella
• Body-Count Competition:
  Gunn Sarr: Twenty-five men lie dead who tried to stand against me. And one, if he's not still falling, is no more than a greasy spot on the rocks, right?
  Avon: Impressive.
  Gunn Sarr: You killed two men.
  Avon: If I'd known we were keeping score, I would have brought more ammunition.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted, which is how Avon gets captured.
• Breast Plate: Nina is wearing one, either to symbolize that she's Silk Hiding Steel or that you can't burn your bra without ruining good steel.
• Brick Joke: Gunn Sarr argues with Cato over his bodycount. Later when he thinks Avon has just challenged him...
  Gunn Sarr: So, you want to be number twenty-seven!
  Avon: (smirks) Don't you mean, twenty-six?
• Cargo Cult / Clarke's Third Law: The Hommiks decided to destroy all their technology and start again from the beginning. The Hypercompetent Sidekick of local chieftain Gunn Sar has found a Master Computer room they missed, that he uses to secretly keep things running for their barbarian descendants.
  Cato: It's self-maintained. Powered by our sun, it will last forever. This generation, even Gunn Sar, believes it to be some kind of magic that keeps the chambers light and warm. A computer is like some ancient god to them!
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Even with technology and psychic powers on their side, wimpy Women can't stand up to tough Men.
  Seska: Interim report concerning the last engagement in the battle for A-X Ridge. At 08539, defense losses numbered eighteen dead and seven taken. Estimated Hommik losses: zero.
• Don't Sneak Up on Me Like That!: Pella startles Vila (as he’s expecting to be shot by Soolin at any moment), causing him to burn himself with the laser lance he’s using to cut through the door.
• The Determinator: Pella uses her psychic powers to inflict pain on Avon, but he keeps on coming until her ability fades and he can overpower her physically.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Pella to Avon... at first.
• Economy Cast: Justified, as the Seska are a Dwindling Party.
  Pella: Last week we were five. This morning, three. And now we are two.
• Evil Luddite: The planet Xenon used to have a highly technological society that was destroyed in a war.
  Cato: Everything was lost. Industry, people. Afterwards, the Council of Survivors decreed that we should start again, from the very beginning. Wooden tools, flint arrowheads, the wheel. Ten thousand years advancement destroyed in a day!
• Failed Attempt at Drama: A Running Gag with Gunn Sarr, who's never quite as tough and nasty as he's pretending to be.
• Fantastic Sexism: Pella looks like she's cooperating with Avon because he'll get them off the planet, but after she knocks him unconscious she derides him as just another Hommik.
• Forceful Kiss: Avon to Pella after overpowering her.
• Fumbling the Gauntlet: Avon grabs Gunn Sarr's arm to stop him hitting Nina. He views this as a challenge for leadership.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: Exaggerated, with society at war along gender lines.
• Glove Slap: Dayna punches Gunn Sarr to challenge him. Unfortunately she's already been shown up by Avon, who defeated Gunn Sarr with a glove!
• Green Rocks: Dynamon crystals, which Avon needs to get the teleport working. Avon is out looking for them on the surface when he's captured. Turns out they're implanted in each Seska to focus their telekinetic powers.
• The Gunslinger: After all the shooting is over, only then does Soolin turn up. However she makes it clear she's only joining the Seven on her own terms.
  Tarrant: You want to join us, is that it?
  Dayna: Why?
  Soolin: Why not? Dorian's dead.
  Avon: You give your allegiance easily.
  Soolin: I don't give my allegiance at all. I sell my skill!
  (Quick Draw's her weapon at Avon)
• Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Vila got his education in lockpicking at CF One.
  Pella: CF One?
  Vila: A sort of academy, when I was a boy. They chose me as technical advisor for the escape.
  Pella: Escape? From an academy?
  Vila: Perhaps academy was the wrong word....
• Human Aliens: Pella thinks the Seska came to Xenon because it was like Earth, suggesting that they (along with the Hommiks) are the descendants of human colonists.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Cato, who's secretly maintaining power, light and security in the Hommik base using a hidden Master Computer. Nina is something of this too — she's shown doing surgery and knows about the hidden computer room.
• Hypocrite: Pella tries to kill everyone on Xenon Base, then blames Avon for believing that Violence Really Is the Answer.
• Improvised Weapon:
  • When told to choose his weapon for the challenge, Avon requests a glove. They give him back his gauntlets, which he uses to pick up a heliofusion rod and disintegrate Gunn Sarr's sword.
  • Pella uses her telekinetic powers to give people a Tap on the Head with various handy objects.
• Informed Ability: Despite boasting of all the men he's killed, Gunn Sarr invokedineptly swings around a longsword. Though this may be due to the constant rain during location filming which made the BBC Quarry slippery with mud.
• It's All About Me:
  • Tarrant asks Orac what they should do with a nuclear device 16 minutes from detonation.
  Orac: The most logical thing to do is transport me to safety with all due urgency!
  • Pella isn't trying to preserve Seska society, just save herself. In fact she shoots dead the only other remaining Seska.
• It Was There I Swear: Vila's injury disappears thanks to Pella's ointment, so he has trouble convincing the others it wasn't just him seeing pink asteroids.
• Literal Metaphor:
  • The Seska and Hommiks are fighting a Battle of the Sexes.
  • When Throwing Down the Gauntlet to Gunn Sarr, Avon demands an actual gauntlet (which he then uses to pick up a live power cable).
• Locked Room Mystery: Vila tries to convince Tarrant and Dayna that he saw Pella, but the hatch she claimed to come through is locked from the inside and she's not hiding on Xenon Base. Turns out she used her telekinetic powers to pull across the bolt.
• Low Culture, High Tech
  Avon: An ordinary domestic heliofusion rod. You haven't seen one, have you? All that underground heat, light, power... and you never considered where it came from?
• Made of Indestructium: The door to the Scorpio’s hanger is made of Herculanium. “Can’t cut it, burn it, blast it.”
• The Man Behind the Curtain: Cato is hiding the computer room from everyone because if the Hommiks knew about the modern technology they'd want more of it, and there's none left after it was destroyed After the End (except for the self-sustaining computer room which was overlooked).
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Nina; she's even helping convert Seska into Women by removing their Power Crystal.
• Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Avon overpowers Pella, pointing out that Men will always be stronger than Women (despite the fact that Pella is using her telekinetic powers, not physical strength). "Unfair, perhaps, but biologically unavoidable." Though that doesn't explain why the Seska don't resort to the Great Equalizer — guns! Perhaps they don't like the association?
• Motor Mouth: Vila starts babbling when he’s getting nervous (like when a nuclear compression charge is ticking down the last few minutes).
• The Need for Mead: Gunn Sarr calls for meat and ale when Avon is brought in.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Pella shoots Kate; providing Avon with the Power Crystal he needs to get the teleport working, beam onto Scorpio and shoot her dead.
• No-One Could Have Survived That: Gunn Sarr argues with Cato over one of his ‘unconfirmed’ kills who died a Disney Villain Death.
• No Woman's Land: The Seska are a diminishing tribe, and the only recourse for survival is taking a submissive role in Hommik society.
• Nuke 'em
  Vila: Have you ever seen a nuclear compression charge go off? Everything gets sucked in. It’s like a mini-black hole. Looks good. From a distance.
  • The Hommiks used a dirty bomb to destroy the Seska Baby Factory.
• Our Doors Are Different: The entrance to Xenon Base involves a pair of revolving triangular doors.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Averted; the password to the door is 'Narcissus', which is certainly appropriate for Dorian, but it turns out Orac just made that up.
• Psychic Powers: The Seska have telekinesis, and there’s a brief debate over whether Pella used teleportation to get through the door (she didn’t, as it turns out). However Pella’s power is limited, so it’s not enough of a Game Changer against the Hommiks.
• Race Against the Clock: Dorian left a nuclear destruct device in his base, which would detonate if he hadn’t sent a signal every 48 hours. No-one knows how long it’s been ticking down either.
• The Radio Dies First: Avon's bracelet is smashed by the Hommiks.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Gunn Sarr at his embroidery.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: There’s only got three weeks’ worth of food in the base, unless they can get to Scorpio.
  Vila: Well, there's always rodents of one sort or another.
  Tarrant: I'm a growing lad, Vila. Rats are not the answer to my diet.
• Schizo Tech:
  • Gunn Sarr's base has blinking computers in it. Turns out it's an After the End society that rejected technology, and now thinks all the technology that they have is magic.
  • The Seska making the Apocalyptic Log reports that the Hommiks used a 'nucleic burster', yet it's an axe that slams down on her desk moments later. It's possible that people like Cato (or the previous leader, Maravik) are secretly using technology for military purposes as well.
• Space Clothes: Despite wearing Pelts of the Barbarian, the Hommiks have silver clothes underneath instead of the usual black and brown leather. Justified when we find it's a once-advanced Scavenger World. Meanwhile the Seska slink through the BBC Quarry in long flowing dresses despite being at war.
• Standard Female Grab Area: Averted; Vila grabs Pella this way and gets thrown aside by her telekinetic powers.
• Straw Feminist: The Battle of the Sexes isn't a struggle for equal rights and opportunities, but a literal battle with the Seska a Lady Land that rejects all need for men.
• Straw Misogynist: Gunn Sarr in his introduction. It's all Testosterone Poisoning though; unlike Pella he starts mean but is eventually revealed to be rather inept and dependant on his wife to run things.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Averted; it looks like one of the Seska will join the crew to replace Cally as the resident telepath. Instead the Seska all die and Soolin forces her way into their Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
• Sycophantic Servant
  Slave: It is beyond my humble capacity to offer an opinion, Master.
  Avon: [smiles broadly] Oh, that's very good. You may turn out to be my kind of computer after all.
• Tap on the Head: Avon gets clonked by a telekinetic keyboard. Gunn Sarr gets killed when his head slams into a power box with a bit of psychic assistance.
• Teleportation Rescue: Avon calls for one when he’s about to get captured by the Hommiks, but Orac refuses as he hasn’t got Dorian’s teleport working reliably (in fact Avon had been searching for the Dynamon crystals that would fix it).
• Textile Work Is Feminine: Inverted despite accusations of sexism directed at this episode; it's Gunn Sarr who's shown knitting.
• That Woman Is Dead: Nina is no longer a Seska, she's a Woman.
• Two of Your Earth Minutes
  Pella: There's a switch. When the door is closed, every forty-eight hours Dorian must say a code word to reset the timing.
  Vila: Is that forty-eight hours Standard Time?
  Pella: Earth Standard Time. This planet is very like Earth, I think. That is why the Seska came here.
• Variant Chess: Gunn Sarr playing with his balls on a 3D board.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: In-Universe when Avon shoots Pella after she tries to kill him.
  Pella: That always was the easy answer for the Man — the Hommik!
  Avon: If you didn't want the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. (Pella dies)
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Avon is said to be the only one of their team that Orac will treat as an equal. Though Avon is rather glad to encounter the sycophantic Slave.
• Wake Up Fighting: Avon goes to karate chop Pella when she wakes him up in their cell.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Gunn Sarr is introduced getting a massage.
• Who Dares?: "Who are you to address me like some joker?" asks Gunn Sarr. Avon, that’s who.
• With Friends Like These...: Turns out Orac had supplied a false password so that no-one could steal Scorpio and leave without Avon. Which could have lost them Scorpio or got them all blown up — instead of providing the correct password when time is running out, Orac only wants to be taken to safety himself.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Gunn Sarr is introduced cuffing Nina and shouting for booze. He later takes a direct swing at her only for Avon to grab his fist and stop him before he can hit her.
  • Avon twists Pella's arm and gives her a Forceful Kiss (and later shoots her dead). Although she attacked him first on both occasions, it fits Avon's habit of violence towards women that he believes are deceiving him; invokedlikely a result of the Anna Grant betrayal.
  • Pella points her gun at Dayna to get Avon to open the door — an interesting choice of hostage, as Avon points out. She then shoots Kate, the only other remaining Seska, when the latter tries to stop her.
• Written-In Absence: Soolin vanishes for most of the episode, only reappearing right at the end to join the team. The crew ponder where she is (especially Vila, who's worried about her intentions) but no explanation for her absence is ever given.
• Your Door Was Open: Or so Pella claims.

---