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.
“The year is 2136” contradicts with the episode “Killer” from Season2 of the original:
“BLAKE: Probably the oldest ship you’ll ever see, Wanderer class, the first Earth ships to reach deep space.
JENNA: So how old?
BLAKE: Six, seven hundred years.”
which suggests that the year is about 2700.