Episode 1: Redemption

In the last episode, Blake and the gang went to Aristo, where Ensor Sr., the creator or Orac, lived (spoilers). Orac briefly takes over the ship, because Ensor Sr. is asleep and has left him in charge of security. Blake and Cally trot down to try and fix Ensor, but end up with a corpse and a free Orac. They pause long enough for Avon to blow off Travis' silly robot hand, then scamper away with Orac, the world's grumpiest fish tank.

This time, Blake will have another use for Orac's hacking skills.

Death by paradox

Blake's going over Orac's prediction from the last episode, which shows The Liberator blowing up in sexy slow motion:

He's looking for a loophole but Orac won't tell him any more details about the prediction because then Blake would be able to avoid it. So Orac would rather explode with The Liberator than give Blake any useful information which might avoid this fate. I'm sure we've all met people like this on the Internet before - heyooo!

The Forth Doctor turns into some vet from All Creatures Great and Small I feel I should be able to reach into my vast knowledge of the Who-niverse to find a similar example of this prediction / limiter thing. The has a cloister bell which warns of danger, but gives little useful information other than making a mournful BONG noise. I could spend pages discussing the Doctor's thoughts on changing the past / future. (The old Blinovitch Limitation Effect and similar nonsense.) The fourth Doctor does predict a presidential assassination (before finding somewhere comfy for a wobbly lie down) and his own regeneration (via the medium of paper mâché).

Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions

Avon explains that Blake is looking in the wrong place: instead of staring at the explosion like a child at a fireworks display, he should look at the background. The star field is unique and all they need to do is avoid that bit of space.

We all know that Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions, but what few have wondered is I wonder how The Doctor reacts to explosions? Luckily, I know someone who has put extensive thought into the matter:

For all his alien intelligence and skill, the Doctor is mainly really good at causing chaos. Few stories end without the leadership having been overthrown, the system broken down, quite a lot of extras having met their untimely end and at least one building / space ship going ba-ba-da-BOOOM! in slow motion. Bits of model work everywhere. The Doctor has three reactions to explosions: run away slightly too slowly so the blast propels him into a muddy trench (Fenric) run away a bit faster so he can bury his face in a sandy pit (Zygons) stroll away casually with Panama barely askance (Greatest Show) using his brolly as a cane, like a chap on his way to the office of Farborough, Farborough and Pugh, galactic attorneys at law. Too cool for Time Lord school.

Avon has knows about this for hours, but didn't tell anyone because he wanted to make a weird passive-aggressive point.

He does this a couple of times in the episode. I think Avon admires Blake for having skills he does not, such as inspiring devotion in people, rather than creeping them out or (even worse) inspiring them to draw endless pictures of him topless, riding a unicorn and then putting them on Tumblr Finding, or indeed illustrating, such a picture is an exercise left up to the reader .

The bit of space where Avon has identified the explosion takes place is very far away.

Environmental damage

The Liberator is rocked by a weird green explosion and everyone does some tumbling. The ship is being shot at, but because the intermediary sensers are down, Zen can't tell them who's doing all the shooting.

Avon gets on the communicator and says battle stations with really dramatic intonation:

Blake sets the controls of The Liberator to run away and there's a chase which goes into the upper atmosphere of a gas giant:

The ships look suspiciously like they're made out of bits of The Liberator. Zen is his usual evasive self, admitting that the ships aren't Federation, but when asked who they are, says That information is not available .

In the last episode, Orac is similarly evasive about the fate of The Liberator, and uses weasel words to avoid giving anything away, but also to avoid telling a lie. It's a strange trope of science fiction, the idea that we can create an , but not one which is capable of telling a lie, or allowed to lie in the first place.

The Gasball Rally

The Liberator starts orbiting the planet really fast, but the ships are catching up. Gan picks up their communications, but it's all in chirpy computer language.

Vila tries to fire, but the failsafes stop him from doing so. Then the force wall won't work. Blake is left with one option: leg it, only more so.

Cruise control

Cally and Avon begin repairs on The Liberator

Both ships attack and shoot The Liberator so hard, everyone except Blake falls unconscious. The Liberator is flying somewhere at full power, the scanners are down and Blake and his crew have no control over it any more.

Blake asks Zen for a status report, but he doesn't answer. Avon hypothesises that the translator unit has blown. Blake gives everyone jobs and Avon gets to use his computer probe thing again Still the aerial from a transistor radio .

Avon suspects that the ships didn't want to destroy The Liberator, they wanted to disable some of it's systems, then take it somewhere else.

Suffragette city

Meanwhile, somewhere else, there is a bunch of David Bowies milling about in skin tight snow suits. Look, I'm sorry to go all mathematics on your arse, but the following equation should explain them:

Starman plus bleach times Thin White Duke plus power button equals Bowies.

Like a lot of people, you're probably under the misconception that David Bowie was a musician and occasional actor and painter. This is not true. David Bowie is a pan-dimensional life form which transcends our crude definition of reality. Observe:

History of The Bowie The Bowie assumes physical form and crawls out of a shallow pond on the planet Anthea The Bowie gently floats up through the atmosphere of Anthea, born aloft on the solar wind. The gravity of earth tugs The Bowie out of deep space, and it drifts down to Earth. The Bowie meets Nikola Tesla and gives him the idea for Teleforce The Bowie lightly touches the virgin bellies of Toby Reed and Louella Osterberg Lou Reed is born in Brooklyn, New York Iggy Pop is born in Muskegon, Michigan The Bowie places one of its eyelashes in some agar jelly. Overnight, it takes the form of Brian Eno. The Bowie is pleased with his butler Brian Eno and fits him with a head-computer. Lou Reed's first son, William Reid, is born in East Kilbride Lou Reed's second son, Jim Reid, is born in East Kilbride Lou Reed forms The Velvet Underground. He arranges that his children's mother will raise them in secret, in a music-free environment. The Bowie divides itself into two parts. The smaller part is called Davy Jones and joins The Monkees. The Bowie releases Space Oddity, a partially fictionalised account of his trip from Anthea to Earth. Lou Reed releases Metal Machine Music and demands that it is the only music the Reid brothers are allowed to hear. The documentary The Man Who Fell to Earth is released. The Bowie absorbs the zooid Angie Bowie. Her consciousness enriches his own, but she ceases to exist. Jim and Willian Reid form The Jesus & Mary Chain, whose first album, Psychocandy, can only be understood by listening to Metal Machine Music. The Bowie regenerates into Jareth, the Goblin King, in order to evoke weird boners in man and beast alike. The Bowie is accidentally captured on film, during the filming of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me The Bowie created BowieNet , a network of computers designed to hold parts of his consciousness. The Bowie copies part of it's essence into the computer game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, so that future generations will be able to experience it. The film The Prestige is released, featuring The Bowie playing his old friend Nikola Tesla Davy Jones is reabsorbed into The Bowie. His experiences with pop music will enrich their joint consciousness. Lou Reed is absorbed once more into The Bowie's consciousness The Bowie moves beyond this mortal realm and becomes a creature of pure energy.

Altered Images

The two figures are called Alters and are sort of funny robot people, because they say things like acnowledged , rather than OK, pal , in order to finish a sentence It's strange that neither uses Zen's catch-phrase of confirmed , even though acnowledged serves the same purpose in the sentence. Zen always was rather wilful. . They're wearing little see-through wipe-down tabards, so they can eat a lobster dinner if they want, and not worry about getting their uniforms all messy.

The one with more hair tells the one with a Bowie cut that the pursuit ships have done their job.

Electricity python

On The Liberator, Blake is checking up on some sub-system or other, so he can bypass the auto-pilot. Once he starts mucking about, some electrical cables come loose and traps him in the room, because computers taking over a spaceship is exactly like being haunted by a ghost. Look:

I love the look on Blake's face, when he goes for the communicator, and the cable pops in. Anthropomorphism is always funny.

The machine genie

There's other mischief going on, such as the teleporter controls waggling about and repairs the crew makes being rejected. Avon figures that Zen is working, but just not for Blake and the crew. He assumes that when The Liberator is boarded, it will all kick off in the teleporter lounge.

Blake manages to reach the communicator and asks Avon to come down to help him with his possessed cable. Avon does this with all the good grace of a child being asked to eat some Brussels sprouts, when they want to play with Lego instead This is not based on something from my childhood. No, you're autobiographical. .

That's like that time I missed the resolution of a key cliff hanger in Remembrance of the Daleks coz mum made me have a bath. No-one who has known me for less than an hour will have heard that story before.

Snake charming

Avon saves Blake by planting a very distracting bomb elsewhere in the room, which means the cable has a sniff about that, while they both leg it.

Gan passes through the teleporter lounge, when he hears some weird teleport noises. He's in the process of warning Blake when three morph-suited stormtroopers teleport in and start wrestling with him, then taser him unconscious. Crew members start disappearing left and right and Blake gets so desperate, he turns to Orac for help. Orac says he's busy with something, and can't receive any more instructions but will put Blake's instructions in a queue. Suddenly the Bowies turn up, under green lighting, for some reason. They take control of the ship.

/img/characters/alter1.png Alter 1 John Humphries on Mastermind Silver hair spray That time I made a database query and the results came back null, so I just ended up repeating the last cached data, and sounded like a right berk That I've missed a spot on the back of my head with my silver hair spray Nitzer Ebb

Bowie number one was played by Sheila Ruskin, who was also cast as Kassia in the forth Doctor era The Keeper of Traken

Kassia from The Keeper of Traken Keeper of Traken. Not my favourite although it had the benefit of: The brilliant Anthony Ainley on real form and Being one of the few Doctor Who novels we could rent from my school library. (It was a grammar school. They generally frowned upon any literature that wasn't 'improving' in some way.) Kassia (Nyssa's mum) was a bit of a crazy lady who was in love with a statue. Turns out that's not super sensible as it transformed into the Master's and went all planetary domination on the Traken's arse. Never idolise kids. It'll end in...wait, did someone move something on my Tom Baker shrine?

/img/characters/alter2.png Alter 2 Hemisphere-fondler Access to the pain-wand That time the server initiated a handshake protocol with me and I sent him a garbled synchronise-acknowledgement message, because my palms were all sweaty. That my forehead button is slightly off-centre Marilyn Manson

Bowie two was played by Harriet Philpin, who was also cast as Betan from Genesis of the Daleks

Betan from Genesis of the Daleks Betan is apparently one of only two women on the planet Skaro according to the amount of screen time ladies get in Genesis of the Daleks. The other one is Sarah and she's just passing through. I bet internet dating is a whole heap of fun. Anyway, Betan is super cool and leads up a resistance army against the Daleks despite apparently being about 12. Good to see she's kept the same pixie cut too.

Blake wants to know where Gan, Cally and Vila are. The Bowies are not interested in his questions:

The Liberator approaches Space World Ask about our family weekend ticket deals!

Parking Space (World)

Zen's all better and the Bowies order him to dock with a sort of space-molecule.

There's a landing sequence, cobbled together from shots of the actors looking bored and other shots of runways at night taken from aeroplanes. Blake, Jenna and Avon are ordered to walk to the main hatch.

After Blake has left, the first Bowie hears Orac making a sound. She walks over and looks at him, utterly uninterested.

The part of Space World Not to be confused with Spice World in tonight's performance... This is the second appearance of the Oldbury-on-Severn Nuclear Power Station in Bristol as a location. It was first used in Time Squad. But I don't mind: it looks great.

The Oldbury-on-Severn Nuclear Power Station's appearance in The Hand of Fear Is it ok that I knew this fact before you mentioned it? Anyway. It's a great location and they make the most of it in Hand of Fear. Lots of lovely angles and running up and down ladders. In the same way as the quarry appears as a quarry in the same story, the power station plays the part of a power station. That shouldn't be weird, but somehow is. I love Hand because it gives Sarah the chance to be a baddy. She also has a very sweet relationship with the Doctor in this, her last story. Low points include a rubbish attempt to bash the Doctor with a massive polystyrene spanner. Oh and STEPHEN THORNE.

Let's take this to the next level

Blake, Avon and Jenna are led through an industrial looking part of Space World Winner of Most Improved Hygiene Award , 2X58 . Blake is separated, so he can be interrogated by The System . Avon and Jenna are to be executed. Blake argues that the Bowies have no right to do such a thing, and gets LEVEL FIVE to his neck:

Avon and Jenna are taken to a cell. Things don't look good, but at least they've got a lovely view of the stars.

Pipe down

Blake is taken past some supporting actors, wearing comedy rags and carrying a large pipe on their shoulders. One of them drops the pipe, then gets the sparky rod treatment. Blake rushes to his aid and helps him up. They march on.

Roy Evans playing the un-named miner in The Monster of Peladon. 50% Leo Sayer, 50% badger. The unnamed slave is played by Roy Evans, who has one of those faces which keeps popping up. You might remember him from The Black Adder or The Elephant Man, but I'm grateful for his page introducing me to the film Moon Zero Two. He also appeared in a couple of Doctor Who stories: The Monster of Peladon and The Green Death. He plays a miner in both, but looks much funnier in the first one. Unfortunately, both episodes were of the Jon Pertwee era, so they fall outside of Charlotte's jurisdiction. But let's nudge her, and see what she says anyway, eh, gang?

Alpha Centauri (right) from The Monster of Peladon. An influence on the Garth Marenghi's Darkplace episode Skipper the Eyechild Hmm, Jon Pertwee era. Stretching it. The Third Doctor goes to Peladon twice in his era, then never visits again in his remaining ten (depending when you're reading this) regenerations. This sort of thing, together with series 'arcs' makes Doctor Who tricky for me. If he can travel anywhere in time and space, why does he see particular species of monster in strict evolutionary order? Why doesn't he accidentally materialise, say, three tenths of the way through the Master's incredibly circuitous plan? Just saying. Yeah I know that wasn't anything to do with Jon Pertwee's era. It's not like I get paid for this.

Get it out of your system

Blake is taken into a room where the Bowies interact with these orbs set into the desks. Blake asks what The System is. The Bowie explains that The System is a series of computers which runs every aspect of society, but also control the Bowies themselves. Blake demands that his crew remain unharmed and nearly gets LEVEL SEVEN to his neck:

Recap in hand

The System wants to know how Blake and his crew ended up on board The Liberator, which is handy, as it lets Blake do a bit of back story for those who missed the first series, because they were busy listening to The Clash or Yes. If you want a recap, just read my summary of Space Fall, yeah?

One of the Bowies (Alter 1) starts to go a bit wrong, and keeps repeating the question State any further information you have, regarding DSV 2 , until smoke starts coming out of her orb. The other Bowie (Alter 2) notes that something is messing their computers right up. The first Bowie calls off the interrogation, until they can update their McAfee install. Blake realises that Orac is monkeying about in The System.

Avon paces the cell while Jenna worries about the toilet facilities

Written in the stars

Back in the cell, Avon and Jenna overhead that one of the slave gangs have attacked their guards and scarpered. Avon suddenly realises that the pattern of stars they can see out of the cell window matches those which was behind the video which Orac showed them, of The Liberator being blown up.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane are imprisoned during Planet of Evil Being incarcerated is a well known staple of 70s Who stories. It joins a tick list that includes corridors run down, regular cast knocked unconscious, on-screen deaths and people being moved pointlessly from one part of the set to another. The obvious reason for incarceration is to add a bit of sense of danger and to allow someone else to conduct a brave rescue. Sometimes it means the Dr and co. can have a nice chat about what's going on, so the more stupid or distracted viewers can keep up. In Planet of Evil the Doctor and Sarah have got so used to being locked up, they just sit on the bunk bed together. It's like they're sort of hanging out in a hostel, like bored gap year students.

Always crashing in the same star

In the interrogation lounge, Bowie 2 tells Bowie 1 that they've got all kinds of errors up in their asses. The other Bowie suggests killing off the prisoners right away. Blake's not delighted by this. He gets marched to Elimination Chamber 2.

To recap: The System is a computer whose control extends over three planets, plus Space World Book now, for summer next year. All transactions are final.

The Bowies are essentially dumb terminals, doing the bidding of The System Doesn't this mean that when they speak to each other, it's The System talking to itself? Perhaps it's just show-boating, for Blake's benefit.

Debug the plug thug

On the way there, he finally breaks out some karate on the guards and unplugs something from Bowie 2's neck, which causes her to collapse. But it's OK: one of the guards plugs her in again and she's fine.

Blake gets trapped in a dead end, but then the slave he helped lug that pipe pops out of a tiny hatch, and beckons him inside. A guard follows after Blake, but ends up looking like a right proper nana, because it appears that Blake has disappeared into thin air, and the man looks about the place, all confused.

/img/characters/slave.png He doesn't seem to have one Slave / Pipe-carrier Back-story dispenser Norman Lovett

Hack the planets

The slave gives Blake some back-story: the three planets in this system were eternally at war until one of them developed a computer which hacked into the weaponry of the other two, but then sort of took over all three. The Bowies are called Alters and aren't really people at all, apparently.

In the cell, Avon and Jenna hear a noise from the door, so Avon adopts a karate pose next to it. Vila comes in, and gets a punch in his guts for his troubles. The three of them move off and meet Cally and Gan, before a guard spots them. They leg it, and the guards lob grenades and stuff at them Remember, all of this was shot in an operational nuclear power station. The 1970s were a different time. .

Boys keep swinging

Gan gets to do some wrestling, which the others just sort of watch. They clamber up a set of stairs, and the Bowie who got plugged in again holds them up. She gives the order to fire, but then the slave pal of Blake grabs her, and gives her DESTRUCTION LEVEL to the neck:

At death's door

Blake gives the guard a go of the pain wand too, in case he feels left out. The slave leads them back to the door where they came in This is the same door which appears in Time Squad, but it is a very cool door. . For some reason, the slave wants to stay on Space World Twined with Crematoria . As he's closing the door, he gets shot in the back by one of the morph-suited guards.

Blake and the crew get onto the bridge, and start launch procedures. The guards who tried to follow them through the door stagger out coughing on The Liberator's exhaust fumes, like they're in a Laurel and Hardy film Except one of them dies. That probably didn't happen in Laurel and Hardy films .

The remaining Bowie sends a couple of guards through the teleporter onto The Liberator, where they immediately pull the pins out of a couple of grenades. But before they can lob them, Cally sends them right back again. Ha! In your face Bowie! Oh. Too soon. Sorry David .

The Bowie isn't dead, but she's chanting Destruct over and over again, which is rarely a good sign.

Prophecy and loss

The Liberator makes it out of Space World Might you, or anyone you know, be interested in working at Space World? Come along, for a no-strings trial, and see how you feel! and Zen tells them there's another ship in pursuit. Jenna and Avon are convinced all is lost: Orac's prediction is coming true. The Liberator is in exactly the location where Orac showed them their destruction. Blake ordered the ship on the view-screen and they see it's The Liberator's sister ship. It immediately explodes because Orac reprogrammed the missiles to detonate before they were launched. He did this so that his prediction would come true, rather than to save Blake, or even himself. Orac is an arse.

Blake sets course for the Earth sector, which Avon isn't delighted with. He narrows his eyes at Blake, but does what he says.

Deus Ex Machina So now we've seen the power of Orac, let's have a little inventory of Blake's assets: The Liberator, the fastest ship in the galaxy, whose power recharges automatically

Orac, a computer which can hack into any other computer in existence, even those which don't use Tarial cells

The only teleport in existence capable of teleporting life forms

Jenna, a highly skilled pilot, who can fly any ship

Avon, a computer genius and star of fanfic

Vila, who can pick almost any lock

Cally, who can speak to others with the POWER OF HER MIND

Gan is also there One of the things we found out way back in the first episode is that trials are not decided by jury. They're decided by computer, which automatically weighs the evidence. Even if Blake parked The Liberator in orbit, and allowed Orac to free those sympathetic to his cause, who were wrongly imprisoned, think of the impact he could have For all we know, Orac could do this from half a galaxy away . But Blake doesn't do any of this. He flies about the galaxy picking off targets seemingly at random. It's baffling.

Watch Redemption on YouTube