Blake’s 7 Reboot Finds A Home At Syfy

The reboot of cult British sci-fi series Blake’s 7 has found a home, and that home is the Syfy network. Georgeville Television, an independent TV studio founded earlier this year, has been shopping the series around for a few months. Casino Royale director Martin Campbell will direct, while Joe Pokaski (Heroes) will handle the writing duties.

Deadline reports that Blake’s 7 has a “script-to-series commitment” from the cable network. What that means is simply that if Syfy likes what they read on the page, they’ll greenlight the project for a 13-episode first season. This is apparently a strategy that Georgeville has successfully used before.

Blake’s 7 originally aired for four season from 1978 to 1981 on BBC. Created by Terry Nation, who also created the Daleks for Doctor Who, the show is often referred to as “The Dirty Dozen in space.” Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas) is a political dissident who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned. But no jail can hold this guy, oh no; he wastes no time breaking out of that piddly prison planet (like Riddick). With a crew of other escaped convicts in tow, Blake travels the galaxy, stirring up dissent and waging a war against the totalitarian Terran Federation.

Complex characters, moral ambiguity, and a wounded, dysfunctional protagonist are hallmarks of the series. The influence of Blake’s 7 was wide reaching, and can be seen in shows such as Firefly, Farscape, Babylon 5, and many, many others.

This sounds like fertile ground for a reworking. We all saw how well it went when that other beloved sci-fi series from the late 1970s, Battlestar Gallactica, got remade. Maybe they can pull it off again. What do you think, will lightning strike twice?