As I think I’ve said, the third season of Blake’s 7 was the one I was most familiar with, certainly until the show started coming out on VHS in the early 90s: I saw it on both its original transmissions, as opposed to nothing from the first two years and only part of season four (most of that only on its repeat showing). My memories from 1980 are fragmentary: some episodes clearly made more impact than others. I’m guessing I missed Children of Auron entirely, as nothing from watching it again recently rang any bells, but quite substantial portions of episodes like Aftermath and City at the Edge of World did match up with my misty recollections. (Further research indicates that Children of Auron got skipped from the 1981 repeat run, which may explain why I’ve no memory of it.)
Even back in 1980 Chris Boucher’s Rumours of Death struck me as a bit unusual – mainly the unusual in media res opening, which finds Avon being held prisoner in a Federation interrogation centre, where he has apparently been for some days. What’s going on remains obscure until the arrival of Federation torturer Shrinker (John Bryans). Shrinker doesn’t know Avon’s identity, but – assuming we’ve been paying attention – we know that Shrinker is the man Avon was on his way to kill before he got diverted last episode. And so it proves: Shrinker has been implicated in the death of Avon’s lover Anna Grant, which he intends to take revenge for. Yes, Avon has let himself be captured so they will eventually send Shrinker to interrogate him, at which point he summons up the rest of the crew for an escape-by-teleport, taking Shrinker with them.
Already this is starting to feel like an unusually dark and restrained episode, and the next scene only continues with this: Tarrant and the others mock and ridicule their terrified prisoner, much to the disgust of Cally. Boucher gets the original regulars spot-on – Avon recognises that Cally is the most moral of the group, and doesn’t involve her in his revenge plot, but with Vila there is an obvious and unspoken understanding: both criminals, both highly skilled, both ultimately driven by self-interest.
One of the many very pleasing things about Rumours of Death is the way it addresses the issue of what’s been going on back on Earth since the end of the Intergalactic War. The answer is that the revolution Blake had been hoping for did break out – but, it’s implied, factionalism and poor leadership led to a counter-revolution which kept Servalan and her clique in power. Elsewhere on Earth, preparations are being made for the first official reception to be held by Servalan at her official home, Residence One (another of those reconstructions of ancient architecture, or so the script would like you to accept). But it transpires that the rebellion hasn’t quite been snuffed out, and an attempt is underway to depose the President and return control of the Federation to a People’s Council (this lot seem as murderously brutal as the existing regime, so it’s difficult to imagine they will be much of an improvement).
And, naturally, Avon and the others walk into the midst of this, for Shrinker reveals to Avon that the one truly responsible for Anna Grant’s death is a Federation operative code-named Bartholomew, whose identity is known to Servalan and her closest advisors. (The twist which connects the coup plotline with Avon’s search for Bartolomew is moderately guessable, but even the limited way in which Boucher’s script and Fiona Cumming’s direction are able to obfuscate it is quite impressive in the circumstances.)
Maybe my critical faculties are impaired, having just come through a run of episodes mostly as bad as Volcano and Harvest of Kairos, but Rumours of Death looks exceptionally good to me, easily the best of the third season so far, perhaps even the best of the entire series. Partly this is down to the episode’s willingness to be experimental in both script and direction, and of course there’s some of Chris Boucher’s best-ever dialogue for the series: ‘Have you finally lost your nerve?’ Avon demands of a chained and possibly traumatised Servalan. ‘Have you murdered your way to the wall of an underground room?’ ‘It’s an old wall, Avon. It waits,’ she replies, with almost a hint of pity for him.
Beyond all this, the episode really works as a sharp reminder of what Blake’s 7 was originally about, and what series three so far has – mostly – failed to be: a cynical look at the politics of authoritarianism and revolution, albeit dressed up as a science-fiction adventure. Rumours of Death is entirely missing the pulp sci-fi elements (and, as a result, the ropey visual effects) which feature so prominently in the bad episodes of the season: I think I’m right in saying there isn’t a single model shot of the Liberator in it, which may be unique. With its palace revolutions, torturers, and undercover operatives it’s almost more like an episode of The Professionals than conventional science fiction. It drags the series back to where it’s supposed to be, and fulfils the promise of the third season by exploring the post-War settlement and the relationship between Avon and Servalan.
Of course, nothing is quite perfect, and I suppose we must address one slight head-scratcher arising from this story in terms of the series’ wider continuity. Rumours of Death establishes that the woman Avon knew as Anna Grant was, to say the least, using a false name, and essentially was not the woman he believed her to be. So what are we to make of the season two episode Countdown, in which we meet her brother, who is very cross with Avon for supposedly causing her death? If Anna Grant was a fake identity, who the hell is this guy and what’s his beef with Avon?
Well, naturally, a couple of possibilities occur to me: firstly, there really was an Anna Grant, whose identity was taken over by the woman Avon knew, and Del Grant is the brother of the real Anna. This does assume that – somehow – Del Grant never learned that the Anna Grant Avon was involved with wasn’t actually his sister, which is hard to imagine plausibly happening, but may just be possible. The other is that Del Grant isn’t really anyone’s brother, but some poor schmuck the Federation have brainwashed and memory-implanted into believing he’s Anna Grant’s brother, to add credibility to her cover identity and potentially act as a bodyguard. Again, it’s quite far-fetched, but there doesn’t seem to be an especially plausible explanation for what appears to be going on in this case.
This is the definition of a fannish question, anyway: nobody watching Rumours of Death in isolation, or even as a fairly casual viewer, would be aware of the issue. To be honest, anyone watching Rumours of Death in absolute isolation would probably come away thinking what a terrific series Blake’s 7 was: intelligent, cynical, hard-edged, and properly dark and dramatic, the characters moving around one another in a dance of nihilistic pain. It’s not all this good, obviously. But it’s nice to fantasise about a world where it was.