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06/06/2007: "300 Pages and Blake's 7"

Music: Mary Timony Band
Mood: impressed with myself

Greetings and salutations! I know I haven't been updating much lately, but I'm using most of my computer time productively and writing. I hit 300 pages last night! The end is coming and I wish I could just take the night off from work to write but you gotta pay the bills.

My television watching since I began writing in earnest has dropped off to nearly zero. I do, however, occasionally feel the need to veg out. When I do I have gone over to Scarecrow Video, the second-best video store ever (best video store ever goes to the immortal and sadly defunct Garage Video in Allston, MA), where I have been picking up videos of Blake's 7.

I first watched Blake's 7 when I was a kid. As a Doctor Who fan, I had heard rumors of this show that sounded like it was a rival even thought it was on the same network. Channel 2, the local PBS station at the time, showed it only late at night, which posed some logistical problems for me at the time. My dad, however, is a cool dude who introduced me to sci-fi, so he taped a couple of episodes for me. Since I didn't know any of the back story, I got a little lost. It was also a little more adult and didn't quite capture my imagination at the time like those of the good Doctor and his friends. It didn't help that the series was broadcast only once, so the series faded to the periphery of my sci-fi consciousness.

Fast forward to this decade: when I discovered the goodness that is Scarecrow Video, I was marvelling at their comprehensive Doctor Who collection when I noticed they had a complete set of Blake's 7 videos. When I watched the first episode, I was blown away. It was a nasty, dystopian future with a totally corrupt Federation that kept the population servile by putting drugs in the food and air. Blake and his crew are trying to foment a revolution against this nasty government. Sure, the special effects are on the level of late '70s Doctor Who (and indeed, most of the crew and some of the cast worked on Doctor Who at the same time), but Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and Blake's 7 have always interested me more because the level of writing and the ideas that they take on are so innovative and interesting it blows away their American competition (well, the new Battlestar Galactica is damn good). If you are complaining about the bad special effects, it means you're ignoring the story or you have no imagination or both. Special effects don't mean anything if your story sucks (see all post Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek series or the 1990's American Godzilla movie for more details).

The series is currently only available on Region 2 DVD so if I want to watch the series, I have to rent all 26 videos. Good thing I still have a VCR!

Anyhoo, I'll let you all know when the book is finished. See you on the other side!