Orbit and Insanity

Just watching the end of the Blakes Seven episode 'Orbit'. My god, this is bleak. Avon tries to kill Vila - he thinks he'll be able to save himself by throwing Vila off a shuttle craft they're on. There's that moment on Avon's face when he realised that he'll have to kill his oldest, well, friend. That expression in his eyes - Avon's gone insane. He cajoles Vila to come out of his hiding place (Vila has overheard) with the voice of a madman. We see a shot of Vila hiding in the darkness, terrified. We cut to a shot of Servalan, who learns that Avon and Vila have escaped her plans again. A look of despair on her face, utter exasperation. Egrorian crawling on his kness, insane now too, pleading with Servalan. Egrorian's companion, Pindar, also now insane, 'reversing fields' and turning himself and Egrorian into old men, then skeletons. Insanity rules. It all seems to foreshadow the end, two episodes later. The end of four years, when all the main characters are shot. No relief, no resolution, no hope. Television was brilliantly bleak in the eighties.