Blake's 7 - The Early Years, Avon and Travis

Two More Blake’s 7 Prequels Cover Avon and Travis

Mar 17, 2010
Steve Rogerson

Blake's 7: The Early Years - B7 Media

A look into the past of the classic science-fiction series Blake's 7 with Craig Kelly as Travis and Colin Salmon as Avon

B7 Media followed up the original “The Early Years” audio story “When Vila Met Gan” in 2008 with two more Blake's 7 prequels, these looking at the back stories of Travis and Avon.

Point of No Return

This looks at an episode in the life of Travis that helped shape the Travis seen later in the TV series. In this story, Travis (played by Craig Kelly) is a major in the Federation and is sent to interrogate a political prisoner – Carl Varon (played by Peter Guinness). Varon claims that the evidence against him has been forged and asks Travis to investigate honestly. The young Travis starts to do just that with the aid of Sub Lt Garcia (played by Jake Maskall).

Despite finding anomalies in the evidence, Travis is not convinced either way and suspects Varon may be planning another terrorist attack that would wipe out a city. Travis has to decide whether or not to free him.

“Point of no Return” in a way mirrors the opening episode of the Blake’s 7 TV series when the defender at Blake’s trial – the similarly named Tel Varon – investigates whether the evidence against Blake has been forged and is killed as a result.

“Point of No Return” was written by James Swallow.

Eye of the Machine

Three characters from the TV series feature in this story, though all played by different actors to the TV series. There is Avon (played by Colin Salmon), Professor Ensor (played by Geoffrey Palmer) and Anna Grant (played by Keeley Hawes). Avon comes to Oxford University to work with Ensor (who was later to invent Orac) and meets political activist Anna Grant, starting the relationship with her that ends so tragically in the TV series.

Avon writes a programme for Anna to monitor the upcoming election to make sure it is not fixed; Anna is a supporter of Blake’s Freedom Party. Meanwhile, Ensor steals some of Avon’s work and passes it off as his own. These two plots link when the Federation responds badly to the election result and the work Ensor stole doesn’t work quite as planned.

“Eye of the Machine” was written by Ben Aaronovitch.

Availability

“Point of No Return” and “Eye of the Machine” are available on a combined CD. They are also available as part of a boxset along with five other audio adventures – “When Vila Met Gan”, “Blood and Earth”, “Flag and Flame”, “The Dust Run” and “The Trial”.

Blake’s 7 Trivia

In the B7 Media audio adventures, Travis is given the first name Stefan though in the TV series his first name is never revealed.

Craig Kelly is the third actor to play Travis. In the TV series, the role was played by both Stephen Greif and Brian Croucher.

The “Eye of the Machine” CD has a false ending. The CD goes quiet at the end of the story and after a short gap a song starts that is not listed on the CD cover.