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One of the highlights of this year's Gallifrey convention was the Blake's 7 panel, featuring Andrew Cartmel (Doctor Who script editor), Derek Riddell (who plays Roj Blake in the audios), Simon Guerrier (writer of a forthcoming Blake's 7 audio), and Andrew Mark Sewell (producer and cofounder of B7 Media).
The panel started off with a short documentary video on the making of the first set of audios. The most notable thing about it was how much fun the actors seemed to be having in the studio - something confirmed by Derek Riddell when he was asked about the recording process. (For audio nerds: rather than having each actor in an isolation booth, as Big Finish often does for their audio plays, most of the actors were in a single room clustered around a few microphones, which allowed them to do quite a lot of physical acting out of the action.)
Anyway, more concrete news about the series: Sewell confirmed that the audio series has been a success, and there will be more audios produced. Another "trilogy" of episodes in the main story-line is due later this year. (And Sewell confirmed that it will feature Cally.) They're also doing a prequel set of four stories, as a special project to celebrate the show's anniversary. These prequel stories will be short (I think Sewell said 30 minutes) two-handers, each exploring the backstory of one or two of the main characters. One will feature Vila and Gan, one (penned by Simon Guerrier) will feature Jenna, one will feature Blake and Travis (and tell the story of Blake's initial brainwashing by the Federation), and I presume that the fourth will feature Avon, although now I don't recall if that was specifically confirmed.
The other big news is that the audios have done their job of helping to demonstrate that there's interest for a new Blake's 7 TV series. Apparently an unnamed British broadcaster has put up about half of the necessary funding, and Sewell is trying to secure the rest from international sources. It's possible that he's being over-optimistic, but Sewell seems pretty confident that the series will happen, and that it could start filming as early as late next year.
Like the audios, the TV series will be a "reboot" or "re-imagining" of the original series. (Sewell says that B7 Media just wasn't successful at selling a straightforward sequel to any broadcasters.) Sewell said that the TV series would be "more character focused", because broadcasters are convinced that that is what science fiction needs to be in order to work for a mainstream audience. I'll confess that I'm not entirely sure what that means in concrete terms for the show, but if it keeps the broadcasters happy, well and good. The TV show would also not simply be a straightforward retelling of the audios, and that the audios and the TV series could co-exist for as long as both were successful. (It wasn't quite clear to me whether the audios and the TV series would be completely separate continuities, or if they would represent two semi-overlapping ways of looking at the same events. I'm not terribly worried either way.)
Someone asked if the actors from the audios would reprise their roles in the TV series. Sewell said he'd like to have most of them do it, but that a few of the actors (whom he declined to name) were probably not quite physically right for their parts. He emphasized that the broadcasters who were putting up the money would have final say. Riddell seemed agreeable to the idea of playing Blake on TV, but he's clearly not counting any chickens before they're hatched. He also said that seeing the kind of workload that David Tennant has on Doctor Who, he's a bit wary of taking a lead role in a big science fiction TV series. At one point, he said he'd probably be too old for the part by the time the TV series was filming, at which point Sewell asked him if he was planning on aging drastically before the end of next year.
Since Riddell is currently living in Los Angeles and picking up some American TV work, including what may become a recurring or semi-recurring part in Ugly Betty, he might be hoping to be busy by the time the show makes it to filming. We'll see.
Anyway, it's nice to see some good news for another classic British science fiction franchise. At a minimum, it looks like we can count on some good audio adventures this year.
The panel started off with a short documentary video on the making of the first set of audios. The most notable thing about it was how much fun the actors seemed to be having in the studio - something confirmed by Derek Riddell when he was asked about the recording process. (For audio nerds: rather than having each actor in an isolation booth, as Big Finish often does for their audio plays, most of the actors were in a single room clustered around a few microphones, which allowed them to do quite a lot of physical acting out of the action.)
Anyway, more concrete news about the series: Sewell confirmed that the audio series has been a success, and there will be more audios produced. Another "trilogy" of episodes in the main story-line is due later this year. (And Sewell confirmed that it will feature Cally.) They're also doing a prequel set of four stories, as a special project to celebrate the show's anniversary. These prequel stories will be short (I think Sewell said 30 minutes) two-handers, each exploring the backstory of one or two of the main characters. One will feature Vila and Gan, one (penned by Simon Guerrier) will feature Jenna, one will feature Blake and Travis (and tell the story of Blake's initial brainwashing by the Federation), and I presume that the fourth will feature Avon, although now I don't recall if that was specifically confirmed.
The other big news is that the audios have done their job of helping to demonstrate that there's interest for a new Blake's 7 TV series. Apparently an unnamed British broadcaster has put up about half of the necessary funding, and Sewell is trying to secure the rest from international sources. It's possible that he's being over-optimistic, but Sewell seems pretty confident that the series will happen, and that it could start filming as early as late next year.
Like the audios, the TV series will be a "reboot" or "re-imagining" of the original series. (Sewell says that B7 Media just wasn't successful at selling a straightforward sequel to any broadcasters.) Sewell said that the TV series would be "more character focused", because broadcasters are convinced that that is what science fiction needs to be in order to work for a mainstream audience. I'll confess that I'm not entirely sure what that means in concrete terms for the show, but if it keeps the broadcasters happy, well and good. The TV show would also not simply be a straightforward retelling of the audios, and that the audios and the TV series could co-exist for as long as both were successful. (It wasn't quite clear to me whether the audios and the TV series would be completely separate continuities, or if they would represent two semi-overlapping ways of looking at the same events. I'm not terribly worried either way.)
Someone asked if the actors from the audios would reprise their roles in the TV series. Sewell said he'd like to have most of them do it, but that a few of the actors (whom he declined to name) were probably not quite physically right for their parts. He emphasized that the broadcasters who were putting up the money would have final say. Riddell seemed agreeable to the idea of playing Blake on TV, but he's clearly not counting any chickens before they're hatched. He also said that seeing the kind of workload that David Tennant has on Doctor Who, he's a bit wary of taking a lead role in a big science fiction TV series. At one point, he said he'd probably be too old for the part by the time the TV series was filming, at which point Sewell asked him if he was planning on aging drastically before the end of next year.
Since Riddell is currently living in Los Angeles and picking up some American TV work, including what may become a recurring or semi-recurring part in Ugly Betty, he might be hoping to be busy by the time the show makes it to filming. We'll see.
Anyway, it's nice to see some good news for another classic British science fiction franchise. At a minimum, it looks like we can count on some good audio adventures this year.
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Date: 2008-02-20 02:57 pm (UTC)"I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and...."
Date: 2008-02-21 06:44 am (UTC)Now if only the original show would get released on Region 1 NTSC DVDs....