I think I brought this up before, but it's gone very quiet so I'll mention it again. By putting together The Way Back and Voice from the Past it's possible to piece together the sequence that first Blake was arrested for his revolutionary activities, mind-wiped, and spent a period of time as a law-abiding citizen until his second arrest, which resulted in another mind-wipe and his life sentence to Cygnus Alpha on the fabricated child abuse charges.
I have a problem with this sequence for several reasons. It's hard to believe that the Federation wouldn't simply dispose of Blake as a recidivist--nobody seems to have believed the charges in the least, and he would be nearly as inspiring an example of martyrdom in exile as dead. (In fact, there would always be the risk that some of his comrades would try to rescue him from Cygnus Alpha, or that he would foment rebellion there.)
But my real problem is in structural terms. The second time, Blake isn't trying to do anything subversive; he's just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A plot is more interesting with a human and flawed hero than with a uniformly noble and perfect hero--but it's also more interesting with an active hero (not all of whose actions are successful) than a patsy.
I think the show would have been stronger by starting out with something about the Freedom Party, its goals, and operations; then Blake's arrest and mindwipe; then send him to Cygnus Alpha and start from there.
That way, it would make the patterns of guilt more interesting: i.e., Blake would have been convicted of the revolutionary activities--he would be criminal but not immoral. A lot of people would put Gan's killing of the Guard in a similar category. Cally is aligned with Blake as a revolutionary, but has neither been charged with crimes nor (for most audience members) been guilty of immorality. At the other end of the scale, Vila, Avon, and Jenna really have committed crimes, although probably most people wouldn't consider smuggling seriously immoral.
The Federation itself is an immoral system, but canon gives us Travis' war crimes trial but not Servalan's.
-(Y)