In Review: Blake’s 7: Liberator Chronicles Vol 9.2 “Planetfall”

Synopsis: Can Avon and Cally get off Space Station Arcadia before it crashes into the planet below?

Review: In this second episode of volume 9 of Big Finish’s ‘Liberator Chronicles’ Avan and Cally find themselves caught in the middle of a terrorist plot against the federation, which goes awry.

Providing narration and playing their famed roles in this are Paul Darrow as Avon and Jan Chappell as Cally, but we also have a wonderful guest appearance by David Warner who plays Governor  Tavac, who by the end of the episode turns out to be more than just the Governor of the trashed space station, but we’ll not go there for fear of spoiling your enjoyment of the story.

The story starts off as a bit of a mystery and Paul Darrow’s narration at the start of the story put me in mind of a film noir detective narrating the events of his day, which was fun to listen too. In essence a mystery person has contacted the Liberator and Avon and Cally have come to the station to find out who it is, but the question of who they can trust is raised very, very quickly. My one gripe is the the first half felt a little slow in parts, but not so much so that it spoiled my enjoyment of it.

About halfway through the story takes a change of pace and goes from a noir kind of mystery into more of a disaster movie as Avon and Cally race against time to escape the station, which is falling down around them.

As always the sound mix on this was outstanding and acting performances were wonderful. Was nice to hear David Warner lend his voice to Tavoc, who I’m sure if going to be an interesting character to pick back up on once I have chance to listen to the third episode in this set.

Paul Darrow and Jan Chappell were awesome and I really liked the moments in the story where they were posing as a couple in order to blend in with the locals of the station.

• You can buy yourself a copy of Liberator Chronicles Vol 9 at: www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-liberator-chronicles-volume-9-893

Although not quite as strong for me as “Defector” this story still adds a lot to the overall arc of vol 9.