Category: On TV

The tortuous story of the long-running plan to revive and remake Survivors‘ creator Terry Nation’s space drama Blake’s 7 has taken yet another turn this week.

In April 2013 it was announced that FremantleMedia International would produce a 13-episode series remake of Blake’s 7 to be broadcast of the cable channel SyFy. This was to be a ‘re-imagining’ of the original (1978-81) show.

On Thursday 15 August, the Financial Times, BBC News and Digital Spy all reported that these plans had been shelved. Instead it was announced that the revival of Blake’s 7 would now be funded by Microsoft, with the series airing on the Xbox Live service. The London-based Motion Picture Capital company was reported to have taken over responsibility for the show’s development.

Digital Spy suggests the development is “part of Microsoft’s ambition to reposition Xbox as an ‘entertainment hub’, and to directly compete with other online subscription services.”

However, a Freemantle spokesman told BBC News that it was “not aware of any deal” with Microsoft, while both Microsoft and Motion Picture Capital declined to comment. Rights owner Andrew Mark Sewell told BBC News: “When we have news to report, we’ll let everyone know.” It seems clear that position remains far from settled.

Blake’s 7 was the show that Terry Nation created shortly after his departure from the original Survivors at the end of series one in 1975. Later in his career, Nation sought to get an American network to revive Blake’s 7, as he also (unsuccessfully) attempted to do with Survivors.

After a series of false starts stretching over more than a decade, a remake of Survivors‘ creator Terry Nation’s science-fiction space drama Blake’s 7 (1978-81) has finally been confirmed.

The BBC News site reported (10 April 2013) that, with the licensing of the project agreed with the Nation estate, a first series of thirteen episodes had been ordered by the SyFy channel, and will be distributed by FremantleMedia International, and produced by Georgeville TV and Marc Rosen. Initial reports indicate that the series will be written by Joe Pokaski (Heroes, CSI) and directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, GoldenEye).

Freemantle Media has outlined the show’s premise:

The year is 2136, Blake wakes up on one side of the bed. He reaches for the other side. There’s nobody there. As reality sets in, this handsome ex-soldier sits up, and looks at a photo of his wife Rachel. Beautiful. Deceased.

A revolutionary reinvention of the long-running BBC series made in the late 1970s, Blake’s 7 tells the story of seven criminals – 6 guilty and 1 innocent – on their way to life on a prison colony in space, who together wrestle freedom from imprisonment. They acquire an alien ship which gives them a second chance at life and become the most unlikely heroes of their time.

Blake’s 7 was the show that Terry Nation created shortly after his departure from Survivors at the end of series one. Later in his career, Nation sought to get an American network to revive Blake’s 7, as he also (unsuccessfully) attempted to do with Survivors.