Or ... the episode that was on *this* week twenty years ago ...

Warlord is for me one of the *great* episodes of Blakes 7 (no Blake, not enough Vila, too much Servalan, way too much Zeeona) but it is wonderful in that it has a unique atmosphere. It's part Jacobean melodrama, where almost *everyone* has their hidden agendas and is 'against' everyone else; and it's part malevolent chess game, Black against Red (if you can work out which is which), but also Black against Black (Servalan betraying Zukan, Zukan literally throwing away his co-conspirator) and - rather unusually - Red against Red.

The careful, considered movements of the three most important pieces - Tarrant, Soolin and Avon - is fascinating (it's a pity that Vila is underused and Dayna mere wallpaper, but then more might mean less in this game). Tarrant and Soolin go behind Avon's back (and to to drive a knife in it IMO) by working against the most important member of this alliance that is - as I said - their last, least hope; the prize being Tarrant's new love. It's dishonorable and distasteful, and (being a betrayal driven by a love affair) very, very Jacobean, and it brings with it the seeds of its own destruction, in Avon.

When Avon finds out, he does nothing at first - a simple, empty threat against Soolin, which she ignores - but it's more a biding of time until he *can* take a hand. Watch him in that final scene, listen to his measured, over-articulate iciness - he's coldly, silently, but quite deliberately pushing Zeeona into the move she is actually willing to take.

And the ending makes it clear that he knew what she would do. It's not just a matter of Zeeona being the new and therefore expendable one; one of the others *might* die, but equally might survive. He knew she'd kill herself, and that for once actually ugly smile at the end indicates to me that he wasn't displeased by it (and Tarrant - from that look at Avon - realised it, but waaaayy too late).

And - even better - Soolin supports him. She also knows that Zeeona's going to die. She's just as calm, just as cold. This is where Soolin goes from quite interesting to totally fascinating - the manoveuring between the two men, the calculation in her every move - supporting Tarrant and Zeeona, mocking Avon, pretending to turn on his then saving him, falling back behind him in the shuttle when he's rescuing the others by long-distance, then *staying* there, a little behind, a little to his side, when he's silently pushing Zeeona into that honorable, deadly move. (I can't quite pull off an achoing significance in the fact that she, who at first seemed to be helping Tarrant's new love, then pretends to be Tarrant's new love turning on them, but I'm still working on it). In Warlord, Soolin appears more dangerous because it *does* show she can shift her alleigances, in such tiny, careful steps, without emotion or uncertainty. There's a steely taint of - *something* there, something unfeeling in its calculation, very different from Avon's harsh self-preservation and Vila's soft selfishness. It's what makes me even more sure that she's have been (to coin a phrase) a killer character in any 5th series.

In Warlord, there's this Grand Guignol feel behind the space opera sets and flip language. As I said, it's Jacobean in its lack of feeling (Pacey does his best, but the shallow romance sinks beneaths the darker, bloodier currents swirling around) and an air that is poisoned even before Zukan's virus is released. A rather wonderful lead into the Shakespearean episode ...

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