Jenna is taken for interrogation – but the Terra Nostra have other plans…

Andrew Smith provides the conclusion to this mini-arc for Blake’s 7 – one of those sets that’s very much a collection of B7 adventures with the focus on the established heroes, albeit without vocal appearances by most of the crew. There’s two strands here, following Jenna as she deals with the Federation’s best interrogator, Shrinker as well as his boss, and Cally, who is determined to rescue her if at all possible, and who makes an unusual ally along the way. All this is set against the background of one of the Federation’s less than pleasant research areas, where respect for life is very low on the agenda (if it even makes it as far as a footnote!).

This isn’t necessarily the story you might expect – while there’s some torture sequences, it’s not a pure battle of wits between Sally Knvyette’s Jenna and Nigel Betts’ Shrinker, with Nicola Goodchild’s Lana Tremayne overseeing proceedings. It’s much more of a battle for survival against the odds for both this group and Jan Chappell’s Cally and Ahmed Hamad’s Kelver, and this being Blake’s 7, there’s no guarantees who’s going to survive beyond the Liberator crew… Lisa Bowerman keeps things taut, with Benji Clifford’s sound design an essential part of the tension. Clifford’s score is also well judged: the lack of music in certain key scenes is a development very much to be welcomed – we really do not need every emotional beat underlined, although that does seem increasingly to be the case in a lot of the audios!

Verdict: A tense and sometimes dark conclusion. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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