Blake’s 7 fans can enjoy the first chapter of the late, great Paul Darrow’s autobiography, read by the man himself back in 2016, from Big Finish. This can be downloaded for free, as part of the company’s Lockdownloads project. While the UK remains in lockdown, Big Finish is releasing free downloads of full-cast audio dramas for a limited time. Every Monday, a new story (or episode from a…

If you’re still self-isolating, sheltering, or working from home, we’re sure you’d love a free audio adventure to enjoy. And Big Finish has you covered!

Big Finish’s series of free audio downloads reaches week 11 with an award-winning episode of Blake’s 7. The Armageddon Storm Part One is written by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott. The story won Best Audio award at the Scribe Awards in 2014. And…

The crew of the Liberator are, not for the first time, up against it in this latest audio box set from Big Finish. With their ship crippled at the conclusion of Restoration Part 1, they are forced to undertake a hazardous quest to mend their broken vessel. It’s a journey that will pose questions as to whether their ongoing fight is worth it, or is a different life possible for this bunch of…

We’re sad to say that Paul Darrow’s final work for audio company, Big Finish, will be released in November 2019 – but fittingly, it’s in his most iconic part, as Avon in Blake’s 7! The crew of the Liberator fight the tyrannical Federation, in four full cast audio adventures set during the third season of the classic show.  

Paul Darrow, Jan Chappell, Michael Keating, and Steven Pacey all…

First up: a confession. When the chance to pick a season of Doctor Whoarose, I went out of my way to pick something I had DVDs on the shelf I was overdue watching. While I’d seen Season 7 back in 1970, at the time I didn’t take it all in and, truth be told, a couple of the stories were rather vague in my mind, and not watched since. Well, it was nearly 50 years ago, and I was only 9! So, Season 7…

Doctor Who has come top in TV Years magazine’s ‘Top 50 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Moments.’ The full list includes enduring vignettes from The Day of the Triffids, Heroes, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Incredible Hulk, The Prisoner, Red Dwarf, V, and The X-Files.

Third place went to another British classic, Blakes 7, with a scene from the 3rd season story, Sarcophagus. This was the first…

Paul Darrow passed away on 3rd June 2019, but the legacy he left was immense. Doctor Who fans will know him from Doctor Who and the Silurians and Timelash, but he’s more widely known for starring in Blake’s 7 as Kerr Avon.

Such a giant of our TV screens naturally becomes a giant in the lives of fans too. Join Alex Skerratt, Jonathan Appleton, and David Traynier as they regale what Darrow, and…

It is with great sadness that the Doctor Who Companion records the death of actor Paul Darrow. He died on Monday morning, 3rd June 2019, after a short illness. He was 78.

Paul was best known to genre fans as Kerr Avon in Blake’s 7. Avon was one of the original team: he joined the series in episode two and stayed for all four seasons. Avon was promoted to the leader of the Liberator (and then…

Look to Doctor Who Season 22 and you’ll find Timelash, the sole serial written by Glen McCoy, starring Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown. It’s fair to say it gets pooh-poohed with regularity, and there’s due reason for that. In fact, we’ve gone through and found at least 141 disappointing things about it. (Coincidentally, this is the 141st story, bookended between The Two…

“You have a reputation for straightforward mayhem that’s second to none!” It’s a well known part of Doctor Who lore that Colin Baker owes his casting as the Sixth Doctor to his attendance at Assistant Floor Manager Lynn Richards’ wedding reception. Such was his sparkling ability to keep the guests (who also included Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, and Eric Saward in the Doctor Who contingent)…

It’s been a good 40-odd years since Blake’s 7 exploded (in terms of BBC special effects, I guess we might want to reshape that imagery to “fizzled loudly”) on to our screens. The show, call it Robin Hood in Space, or the true “Mirror Mirror” of Star Trek, is largely considered Doctor Who’s sister show, for its cross-pollination of talent, both in front and behind the screens. Be it the actors…

Forty years since it was first broadcast, BBC Worldwide are bringing the complete Blake’s 7 to DVD on March 12th. The series produced by Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks, the cult sci-fi series was first broadcast on the BBC in January 1978 and ran for four, 13-episode series until 1981. The programme follows the adventures of a small group of rebels, led by Blake (Gareth Thomas), as they…

I originally read the Eighth Doctor books on the train commute from Bedford to St Albans (isn’t that interesting?); they’re uneven, but this is one of the best. Actually – and this is probably a heresy – I prefer the BBC’s original novels to the Virgin ones (NDWAs and the Missing Adventures). I know the Virgin books have a passionate following, especially the New Adventures. While there were…