Blake's 7 (Big Finish Series)

Blake's 7 (Big Finish Series) is a series of tie-in audio plays to the British science fiction television series produced by the BBC and created by Terry Nation, Blake's 7, produced by Big Finish. As officially licensed tie-in material, the audio plays feature both the original cast and a series of guest stars.
Established in February 2012 with the first set of three audio plays, Big Finish continue to produce Blake's 7 audios as of August 2021. They have indicated that they will continue to do so despite the recent deaths of three major actors, Gareth Thomas/Roj Blake in 2016, Jacqueline Pearce/Servalan in 2018 and Paul Darrow/Kerr Avon in 2019The Future of Blake's 7 at Big Finish, statement by producer John Ainsworth, 7 June 2019 (Accessed September 2020), archived link and are currently actively releasing the Worlds of Blake's 7 series.
==Individual Audio Plays==
The Big Finish range is split into two categories, The Liberator Chronicles, audio plays generally narrated by one character with another in a supporting role, and the Classic Adventures, full cast audio plays. While they function as separate series for the most part, there are some cross-influences, such as the presence of Del Grant on the Liberator in the second series of the Classic Adventures following the third set of The Liberator Chronicles. The most recent series The Worlds of Blake's 7 primarily feature side characters of the original show as main roles, but are described as full cast. In this case, and in contrast to the Classic Adventures, "full cast" can be taken as referring solely to the narrative format rather than the involvement of many or most main characters of the original show. 
For fuller information on the individual stories, see Wikipedia: Blake's 7 (audio drama) or the Big Finish website.
===The Liberator Chronicles===
As of 2020, there are 12 sets of The Liberator Chronicles, and the series is considered concluded. Each set consists of 3 individual audio plays. 
===The Classic Adventures===
As of September 2020, there are five series of Classic Adventures and one special: two untitled sets, The Spoils of War, The Way Ahead (40th Anniversary Special), Crossfire, and Restoration.
===The Worlds of Blake's 7===
In February 2021, Big Finish announced a new series, The Worlds of Blake's 7, which features further full-cast audios and seems to focus on expanding the stories of side characters from the original TV show. The first two sets, for example, feature rebel leader Avalon as main character, who originally appeared in Project Avalon. This series seems to be Big Finish's chosen route to continue telling Blake's 7 stories without or with only secondary involvement of the original main cast due to the passing of many of the original actors. However, The Worlds of Blake's 7 audios also include original main cast members, such as Sally Knyvette (Jenna Stannis), Jan Chappell (Cally), Stephen Greif and Brian Croucher (both Travis) and Michael Keating (Vila). 
===Other Material===
Aside from the above series, Big Finish has also released a variety of other Blake's 7 material, primarily a set of tie-in novels and associated audio books. 
==Fandom Impact==
Despite the fact that Big Finish have now produced more hours of Blake's 7 content than were contained in the original show, the impact on transformative fandom has been minimal. 
However, the Big Finish plays themselves show involvement by fans-turned-pro, such as Una McCormack, and are therefore considered something between a pro-work and a fanwork by some fans, also because they engage with the TV show canon in similar ways that fanworks of the TV show do. 
===Fannishness of the Audios===
While all audios are set during the show, and so constitute missing scenes, some draw specifically on canon storylines. 
The Armaggeddon Storm and its wider story arc, for instance, references back to the TV episodes Countdown and Rumours of Death and expands on the role of Del Grant.
The Way Forward features a Post-Gauda Prime frame narrative (a first for the Big Finish range), and Warship fills the gap between series 2 and 3 of the TV show.
The Worlds of Blake's 7 consists entirely of spin-off stories featuring and expanding on side characters of the original show. 
Throughout, there are also a number of original-to-Big-Finish characters, or OCs, some of them with direct (familial) links to the original TV show characters.
===Fanworks===
There are few fanworks that directly reference Big Finish material, though some do exist. 
====Fanfiction==== 
*Ghosts May Be Fun by NannaSally, Gen, following on from Ghost Ship
*Fanficer by Bruinhilda, Gen, inspired by and following the novel Mediasphere
*Trust by fififolle, Slash (Del Tarrant/Del Grant), again set after Ghost Ship. This fic evidences the increased interest in the character of Del Grant and shipping him with others after his vastly expanded role in Big Finish.
*Portions of the Soul of Man by aralias, Slash (Blake/Avon), following False Positive, showing that the Big Finish audios also inspired works for pairings already established through the TV series.
*Uncaged by sparkycola1, Gen but heavily Avon and Vila, following on Caged from the first set of Classical Adventures. 
====Fanart====
*Inspired by LC-1.1. by mohi-chan on Tumblr, a rare example of fanart directly inspired by the Liberator Chronicles, here The Turing Test. 
===Fan Reactions===
Generally, however, the audio plays have been received positively by the fandom. 
The Horizon forum has a section reserved for discussions of the Big Finish tie-ins as of 2020, and is running a communal re-listen of the Liberator Chronicles as of September 2020. Earlier discussions on the forum took place under a section titled New Blake's 7. 
A fan discussed the target audience of the first audios in January 2014, saying:
 
Another fan in 2014 said: 
A review on the Horizon website on the Classic Adventure Fractures reads
 
Fans on Tumblr similarly commented on / joked about the change in the actors' voices from the TV series to the Big Finish audiosTumblr post by blakes7facts and comarum, 2016-09-04 (Accessed 13 September 2020); archived link:
In Issue 2 of Rebels and Fools, Tumblr-based fan bruinhilda reviewed seven 'favourite Liberator Chronicles' (Solitary, Logic, Promises, Spoils, The Sea of Iron, Ministry of Peace and The Armaggeddon Storm), saying:
 
==Actors' Involvement and Comments==
Many of the original actors involved in the Blake's 7 TV series reprised in their roles for Big Finish, though arrangements had to be made for the actors who had already passed away at the start of the Big Finish range. 
Paul Darrow, who played Avon, was interviewed by Big Finish for the first Liberator Chronicles. In the transcript available on the Big Finish website, he is quoted as expressing enthusiasm for the audio projects:
 
===Re-casting===
As several original Blake's 7 cast members had passed away by the time Big Finish was planning the first (full-cast) audios, several characters had to be either re-cast or left out of the stories in the role of narrators. 
Left out in this way was Olag Gan, actor David Jackson having died in 2005. As of August 2020, there has been no major audio content involving his character created by Big Finish - though Gan has appeared in some of the novels. 
Immediately recast was the voice of the computers Orac and Zen. Originally played by Peter Tuddenham (died 2007) in the TV show, Alistair Lock took on the role for Big Finish from the first audio in which either appeared.
The role of Travis, played by two different actors in the TV series, was taken up primarily by one for Big Finish, Stephen Greif. The other, Brian Croucher, has not been involved in any of the The Liberator Chronicles, though he reprised in the role in the the first series of the Classic Adventures. 
As of 2021, there has been no Big Finish audio set in series 4 of the TV show, so the character of Soolin, played by Glynis Barber in the TV show, has not yet appeared. However, Glynis Barber starred as original-to-Big Finish character Magda in The Way Foward (the 40th Anniversary Special).
Also as of 2021, there seem to be no plans to recast the actors who passed since the beginning of the Big Finish range, all of whom portrayed major characters: Gareth Thomas, who played Blake, Paul Darrow, who played Avon, and Jacqueline Pearce, who played Servalan. While Gareth Thomas's death could originally be navigated by setting audio plays in series 3 or later (as Big Finish did with all Classic Audios after the first series), as Blake had left the Liberator by then in the original TV show, the subsequent death of Paul Darrow presents a larger obstacle. Big Finish have stated that '[t]here are no plans to recast Avon with a new actor'.The Future of Blake's 7 at Big Finish, statement by producer John Ainsworth, 7 June 2019 (Accessed September 2020), archived link In February 2021, they announced a series of stories featuring side characters, The Worlds of Blake's 7, and the remaining original cast members in secondary roles, which can be considered a response to this.Beyond the Liberator for Blake’s 7, 26 February 2021 (Accessed August 2021), archived link
====Dayna====
For the first series of Classic Adventures set in Series 3, the absence of the character of Dayna Mellanby owning to the non-involvement of actor Josette Simon was turned into a plot point. 
When Dayna was set to return again for The Spoils of War and further Classic Adventures, Big Finish re-cast the role with actor Yasmin Bannerman, whose likeness was subsequently also used for Dayna in all cover arts. 
==References==
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