Blake's 7 (1978) - 166 mistakes in entire show

Visible crew/equipment: The "exterior" windows in Blakes 7 are a constant source of amusement. In many cases you can see the top or bottom of the board which is supposed to be the window, with empty set behind the board. Turn the brightness of your screen up to maximum and in many cases you can see that "windows" are semi-transparent perspex with light bulbs for the stars. You can often see wiring running from bulb to bulb, looped and cable-tied together, etc., through the "windows".

Revealing: When Tel Varon walks in front of the wall screen in the justice data center, a flash of gibberish lettering and a blue matte line both appear briefly above his head.

Revealing: When the prison ship launches, the cloud of smoke reveals the black wires that are lifting it up.

Revealing: Just after Avon slips into the access tunnel and the prisoners close the hatch behind him, the star field in the window shakes and wobbles.

Visible crew/equipment: That main console! The uppermost of the flight consoles of Liberator isn't fixed down in this episode, and wobbles almost every time it is touched, and not just small wobbles. Watch for the 10 seconds or so after Jenna says "Eventually I might just be able to get her to start and stop", and you'll wonder how she didn't knock the entire prop off whatever it's sitting on and onto the floor.

Revealing: The boom shadow is visible moving swiftly across the actors' heads when Avon says, "You've got an army of five, Blake."

Continuity: Though no one touches him, the London crewman lying dead in the transfer tube changes positions between the time Blake and co. first board Liberator, and the time Raiker enters the tube and shoots at Blake.

Revealing: Whenever the prison ship fires its engines, the smoke trails travel to the top of the screen, as smoke does in an atmosphere. In space however, it should billow away from the engines in a more or less straight line.

Revealing: Aboard the London, as Raiker opens the rec-room door, a boom mike shadow moves across Avon's face.

Continuity: At the end of "The Way Back," Blake, strapped in his prison ship seat, looks over his shoulder at the window behind him as the ship leaves Earth. This same scene is recapped at the beginning of "Spacefall," only now Blake is sitting one seat to the left of the window instead of directly in front of it.

Continuity: A large white cushion, knocked askew when Blake tosses Avon over the flight couch, has righted itself a few shots later, as Avon gets up from the deck.

Continuity: When Vargas beams up to the Liberator just ahead of Blake, Gan & Vila, he challenges them when they arrive from the other side of the room - by stepping out of the teleport bay. But they're standing in the teleport bay, and Liberator has only one. So exactly where is Vargas standing?

Continuity: At the end, Blake teleports Vargas, who's wearing a long purple robe, out into space. But the figure we see materializing in space isn't in a robe. It appears to be wearing a spacesuit instead.

Revealing: Stock footage of the London's launch from Earth is run in reverse when it lands, supposedly 8 months later, on Cygnus Alpha. What are the odds that a remote penal planet will have a launching pad with configurations, lights, buildings and background terrain all completely identical to the launch stage on Earth?

Revealing: The high priest Vargas is wearing a nice new pair of decidedly 20th century basketball shoes under his robe. We even get a good close-up of them at one point.

Continuity: During Blake's first encounter with Cally, the smudges on the front of his tunic (including a big chalky footprint left by her boot) disappear, reappear and rearrange themselves several times between shots.

Revealing: Jenna moves down the corridor on her way to the hold with her Liberator gun in hand. The weapon lights up and flashes several times, even though she isn't firing it.

Visible crew/equipment: An electrical set cable, poorly concealed between the seat cushions, tangles around Jenna's foot as she's getting up from the teleport console, and causes her to trip.

Continuity: The alien hiding in the hold throws a large blue tool at Jenna. It strikes her on the back of her right arm. But in the next shot, she's holding her left arm, and Gan later treats a bruise on her left arm, nowhere near the spot where the tool hit her.

Revealing: The double-bladed axe one of the Decimas uses to attack the station windows is wobbling as he strikes with it. Small wonder he's not getting far at breaking in, with a weapon made of rubber.

Visible crew/equipment: After Avon says, "I haven't been anywhere near them," and sits down on the flight couch, part of the camera dolly moves across the bottom of the screen.

Visible crew/equipment: On the flight deck, an equipment shadow sweeps across Jenna's hair as Cally says, "It's a beacon signal."

Visible crew/equipment: When Jenna tries to call Gan and Vila from her flight deck station, part of a piece of equipment is sticking out into the lighted corridor to her left. It's still there later, when Gan walks through the opening, but it's gone a short time later.

Revealing: When the Federation troopers blow open the interrogation room door, you can see a brief glimpse, through the smoke, of the thrown sledge hammer that was used to make the door fall in.

Plot hole: When the Liberator returns to the planet, Travis remarks that their orbit is too far away to use their matter transmitter. Since Travis had only found out that they even HAD a matter transmitter (which the Federation hasn't managed to develop yet) when he spoke to a technician just before that, how would he know what the range was?

Plot hole: Avon delivers his summation of the crimes and the murderer's identity to the Ortega's crew - with his back turned to the guilty party the entire time. This gives the killer ample time to pull a gun on them. But it's also egregiously out of character for Avon, whose suspicious nature bordered on paranoia and would never have allowed him to be so careless.

Other: Just after Cally says that the pilot's death was "a misfortune," she stands and her chair scrapes noisily on the floor. The sound apparently startled Paul Darrow, causing the always-unflappable, nerves-of-steel Avon to flinch: the only time in all four seasons that he's ever seen, albeit briefly, to break character.

Plot hole: Kendall stresses that only he can open the safe containing the valuable neutrotope. Yet later, he casually asks a crew member to retrieve it, with no mention of the safe's combination, making it a cinch for the villain to steal the goods and hand over an empty box. Naturally, no one bothers to look inside before Blake races off with the container.

Continuity: When Avon is removing the gas canister from the ventilation system, an insert close-up of his hands shows that he's wearing a wedding ring. In the full shots, however, the ring isn't there.

Revealing: When Blake hastily slaps at the oxygen vent control to close it, the knob breaks off, drops to the floor and bounces noisily away.

Other: When Avon and Cally are taking off their gun belts to hand them to Blake, Avon accidentally clips himself in the chin with the protruding barrel of his gun.

Visible crew/equipment: Just after Avon says that the numbers on the clipboard mean absolutely nothing, the boom shadow moves across the top of the metal safe set into the wall behind him.

Plot hole: When he first shows the burned ison-crystal to Cally, Avon says that its loss will blind the Ortega's forward vision. Later, he assigns it a completely different function, saying it controls the hyperdrive instead. If this one little crystal is that vital to the ship's systems, why aren't these guys carrying a spare?

Plot hole: Gan sees both of the "weird women" when they first arrive on the planet. But later, he asks Blake what one of them looked like, and doesn't disagree when Blake says, "That's right, you never saw her."

Factual error: Travis fails Astronomy 101 with the line, "Blake - the other patrols have pushed him into this galaxy." That should be star system, not galaxy. B7's ships weren't capable of intergalactic travel. Not just a character mistake, either. Travis is a trained Space Commander, and should definitely know the very big difference between a solar system and a galaxy, even if the scriptwriters - and people who keep miscorrecting this error - do not.

Visible crew/equipment: When Vila asks Avon if he ever cared for anyone except himself, an equipment shadow scurries rapidly across the set behind him.

Continuity: During the firefight in the detention corridors, the blaster holes in the metal wall Jenna's firing toward keep changing, sometimes disappearing altogether. One of them is created twice, appearing as the troopers duck out of sight, vanishing and then reappearing in the same spot when Jenna fires again.

Visible crew/equipment: When Blake and the landing party are on the flight deck, preparing to go down to the planet, something black intrudes on the left side of the screen during a shot of Avon on the flight couch.

Revealing: When the fight begins in the detention block and the trooper runs away from Jenna down the hall, two large blaster holes appear in the wall he runs toward - before the first shots are fired.

Visible crew/equipment: Ah, the hazards of shiny metal set walls. When the doctor closes Avalon's cell door, there's a hazy but discernible view of the camera and a moving film crew member.

Revealing: As Jenna leaves the flight deck and heads down the access corridor, a camera is briefly visible just to the right of the hexagonal entryway.

Revealing: A very poorly executed special effects matte causes the star patterns behind the 3 pursuit ships to slide in opposing directions at the same time.

Factual error: Zen refers to the objects encountered at the beginning of the episode as "meteorites". In space, these objects are known as meteoroids. When they enter the Earth's atmosphere they are called meteors, and when they hit the surface of the earth they are called meteorites.

Plot hole: When Blake teleports to XK72 to meet Professor Kane, he takes 2 teleport bracelets so that Kane can return to Liberator with him. When Avon goes over to retrieve the medical assistant, he neglects to take an extra bracelet. The assistant beams over with one anyway, and Avon somehow still has a bracelet to return with later.

Continuity: Liberator's orientation relative to the space station changes. As viewed from inside the administrator's office, the ship is "parked" parallel, with its port side against the station. But in the subsequent exterior view, Liberator suddenly has its bow pointed directly at the station instead.

Continuity: The XK72 space station has a distinctive shape, with a large ringed aft section that's to the right of the screen every time we see it. Liberator is moving past that section at the end, passing on the right. But in the next shot, the ship is abruptly heading away from the station, which is still in the same position, and flying left, in the opposite direction.

Visible crew/equipment: Avon is picking himself up from the computer room floor after a berserk Gan has attacked him. Blake rushes in to say, "Are you all right?" But he's been standing out there in the corridor, blocking a big bright patch of light throughout the scene, only to rush in on cue.

Revealing: When Avon is calling for teleport from the space station, Cally's reflection on the Liberator's shiny corridor wall reveals that she's standing and waiting for her cue to rush into the teleport room.

Visible crew/equipment: Zarkov holds his Plexiglas/Perspex butterfly case up to admire it, and captures a perfect image of one of the set's large rectangular light reflectors.

Visible crew/equipment: When Zarkov puts a record on his antique phonograph, the metal desk behind him reflects a camera dolly rolling by.

Visible crew/equipment: When Jenna asks Gan to keep trying voice contact with the unidentified ship, the boom shadow is distinctly outlined on the control console to the left of the shot.

Revealing: The explosive collar supposedly locked around Blake's neck is undone and hanging open just after he's thrown into the cell with the other prisoners.

Visible crew/equipment: During Zen's report on the planet conditions, an equipment shadow is visible on the flight couch at the lower right of the screen.

Continuity: Meegat peeks at the rocket through the oval space Gan has cleaned on the dirty glass. The shape of this space changes dramatically when the camera angle switches to the other side of the pane.

Visible crew/equipment: When Avon says, "It could have been a power unit burnout," a boom shadow moves quickly across the bottom of the screen.

Deliberate "mistake": Because Stephen Greif tore an Achilles tendon playing squash, a stand-in had to complete his scene with Servalan in Ensor's underground complex. The result was a very odd segment in which we hear Travis' voice (pre-recorded by Greif) answering Servalan's lines, but never see him - except for an awkward shot of shuffling, black-booted feet that are all-too-obviously not Greif's.

Visible crew/equipment: At the end, when Blake says "The other end is connected," the boom shadow crosses Avon's face.

Revealing: As Liberator approaches it, the planet changes color.

Revealing: When the "phibian" lizard creature attacks Servalan, note the claw that grabs her leg: it is obviously made out of soft fabric and visibly bends as it latches on.

Plot hole: When the newly-acquired Orac is first set up on the flight deck, Blake comments that "the other end's connected." Connected to what? Orac didn't require plugging in, other than putting his activator key in place, and that was never connected to anything else.

Visible crew/equipment: When Avon calls and wakes Vila up, ordering him to the teleport room, you can see Vila, who's supposed to be in his quarters at this point, hiding in the corridor waiting for his cue.

Continuity: When Cally puts her teleport bracelet on in the teleport room, it's on her right wrist. After she and Blake materialize on the planet's surface, the bracelet has mysteriously moved to her left wrist instead.

Revealing: As Avon and the crew run through the station and the guard tosses a grenade at them, you can see the white packet of incendiary charges on the floor that will set off the grenade's explosion.

Deliberate "mistake": In the escape scene near the end, an explosive charge that went off too soon knocked Paul Darrow over - and briefly out of the shot. Because he was able to get back up and keep running, the accident was left in, though he's said it was fortunate there was no microphone on him at the time, as he uttered a few words that were "definitely not rated PG."

Visible crew/equipment: When Vila is talking to Cally on the flight deck, the boom shadow moves across the Liberator's control console.

Revealing: When Bek pulls the silver shroud off of Petey, note the movement on the chest of the corpse, which is obviously breathing.

Visible crew/equipment: The boom shadow forms a distinct outline on the control console next to Vila when the crew are discussing Space City and the Terra Nostra.

Other: On the flight deck, when Vila says he can't remember anything "between meeting Largo and waking up back on the ship," Bek, sitting behind him, starts his next line too early, stops and waits for Vila to finish, then says it again.

Plot hole: How very perspicacious of the clone masters to create their duplicate Blakes wearing the exact same outfit that the real Blake happens to have on in this episode, considering they have never seen Blake in person.

Plot hole: The IMIPAK weapon marks its victims and then kills them with a secondary device. But it's inconsistently selective. When Servalan kills the guard with it, Blake and co., marked and standing nearby, are unharmed. But Rashel later warns Travis not to push the button because he and Servalan are marked and would die too.

Visible crew/equipment: When the clone Blake is asking Coser for the weapon and holding his hand out, the boom mike is visible hanging over his head.

Continuity: Jenna's bracelet changes from her right to her left wrist in mid-teleport when she and Blake go down to the planet.

Continuity: When the crew teleports up at the end, the shirtless Vila arrives in a completely different position relative to the others. On the surface, he's standing in a ring with the rest of them. When they materialize, he's hunched over and is now in the middle of their circle with the others around him.

Revealing: In the control complex, Avon tosses two coin-like objects onto the electrified floor to test the grid. But the "coin" is already on the floor before the sound effect of it landing can be heard, and the mini explosions the coins set off is the same footage both times.

Plot hole: Whomever designed the base's defenses was an idiot. The electrified matting outside extends for a distance exactly equal to the distance a man can run in the 8 seconds it takes to self-repair; any sensible defense designer would have extended it to a greater distance than it was possible for anyone shooting it to run in that time. Inside the base, we see the ceilings of many passageways (well, actually the same section of passage over and over with different lighting), and the only passage with overhead pipes/monkey bars is the one with the electrified floor. Very convenient.

Visible crew/equipment: In one shot of the Liberator's flight deck near the very end, there's a BBC workman's toolbox visible, sitting under one of the control consoles.

Factual error: Servalan's space station is shown rotating at a fairly fast clip. But the stars in both her office window and in the courtroom window are stationary. Because the station is spinning much faster than a planet's normal rotation, the stars should be visibly moving.

Factual error: Avon and Vila watch the rocket launch from the surface of the planet. The rest of Liberator's crew also watch it from the flight deck, and somehow their view from orbit is at exactly the same angle from which Avon and Vila are seeing it: a ground-to-air shot.

Revealing: Due to recycled stock footage from "Space Fall," the Liberator leaving Fosforon at the end of this episode still has the prison ship London attached to its hull.

Continuity: Provine shoots the rebel guarding the rocket in the chest. But later, when his body is found, the man is bleeding from the mouth instead, and the blood pooled on the floor beside him changes from beside his head to above his head between shots.

Revealing: Avon drills holes in the Plex/Perspex tubing housing the bomb's trigger mechanisms. If you look closely, you can see that the holes are already there before he starts drilling.

Plot hole: Avon drills the last hole through the bomb's tubing and then, with the drill still in place, has to hunt down the dropped rod needed to block the plunger. Tense drama ensues while it's found and inserted, though simply leaving the drill bit in there would have worked just as well.

Factual error: Avon and Grant use an electric torch to melt the ice covering the bomb. When it's removed from its hiding place, it is suddenly completely dry and clean: not a trace of ice, water or dirt on it anywhere.

Plot hole: Travis, dressed up as the supposedly disabled dissident Shivan, fools Blake and the rebellion leaders far too easily. His head bandages completely cover his mouth (how did he eat?) and his glued-on glass eye is so obviously fake it's laughable. If we noticed, why didn't they?

Continuity: In the final scenes on the planet, Blake's teleport bracelet appears and disappears repeatedly between shots. It reappears the final time just before he snatches it off and tosses it away to avoid being teleported up.

Revealing: When he sits on the floor in front of Servalan, Jarrier's earring falls off. He fumbles at it briefly, and then the actor breaks character for just a moment, glancing nervously at the camera. When it's apparent there won't be a retake, he goes on with his lines.

Revealing: Blake hands Cally a photo of Docholli, supposedly obtained from Zen. It's a publicity still of the actor that's not only in black & white (how low tech), but Cally has to hold her thumb rather conspicuously over the very 20th Century necktie he's wearing in the photo. You can see a bit of it anyway.

Plot hole: To sneak Orac into the Casino, Avon tricks it into reducing its own size by claiming that it is impossible to do so, whereupon Orac immediately shrinks itself to prove otherwise. Knowing in theory that it is possible is one thing, actually doing it immediately without the use of any other equipment is just plain silly. What practical device or physics did Orac use to perform this miracle? There are only two possibilities for shrinking an object to, for example, 1/4 of its size. (1) You can remove 3/4 of the atoms in it. Orac might still be functional doing this but would never be able to be upsized to original size again (since 3/4 of the molecular content is now lost, you'd end up with a "pixelized" version of Orac on re-expansion). (2) You could compress the available atoms into 1/4 of the physical space, which would made it 4 times as dense, and therefore as stable as a nuclear bomb, with a gravitational pull similar to that of a neutron star. Apart from the fact that physics are different for objects of that density and so electricity, for example, wouldn't work anymore: if Orac used this method, its voice would have changed beyond the range of human hearing.

Continuity: The molecularly miniaturized Orac has been hidden in a metal box while Avon & Vila smuggle him into the casino. Back on the ship, Orac returns to his normal size, but the metal case around him doesn't get larger too - it instantly disappears.

Revealing: Goth's primitive inhabitants are pre-industrial. They wear furs, use swords and other ancient weapons, and live in tents. So where do they come by their shiny black plastic ski goggles? Goth-mart?

Visible crew/equipment: During the fight in the banquet hall, the spikes on Gola's mace bend several times, most obviously when he falls back onto the pillows. Must be tough bashing your enemies' skulls in with a foam rubber weapon.

Deliberate "mistake": There is only one real human left aboard Star One. Instead of killing her on sight, the Andromedan invaders prefer to tax their own energy maintaining human forms to deceive her instead. Servalan views her Federation personnel file back at Federation HQ, and then the shot fades to the woman herself, on Star One, not only in exactly the same pose but wearing precisely the same clothing, makeup etc. as in the personnel file. That's what I call an up-to-date records system.

Revealing: While Avon is occupied in hand-to-hand combat with a native on the beach, someone who isn't supposed to be in the shot can be seen walking on the ridge in the background, waving his arms in the air.

Continuity: Avon refers to Tarrant hitting him "over the back of the head." But Tarrant didn't. He struck Avon from the front, on the forehead, and not from behind.

Continuity: The Liberator gun Avon uses to kill two of the three troopers on the flight deck disappears entirely between shots after he's hit by the third trooper's return fire.

Factual error: Cally has some trouble counting in this one. She telepathically informs Avon that there are three troopers boarding Liberator - but there are four.

Factual error: Liberator's medical treatments are certainly weird. Vila dresses Avon's wounded arm with padding that's put on over top of his clothing.

Factual error: Cally's bracelet falls off while she's being dragged to the platform by the troopers, but she somehow manages to teleport down to the planet with them anyway. And the lost bracelet later miraculously appears on her wrist in time to bring her back up again.

Other: Just after Tarrant and Dayna teleport down, the power cord to Tarrant's gun comes unplugged and is hanging loose behind him.

Revealing: Liberator's auto-repair circuits have mysteriously stopped functioning. The molding on the top center flight deck console is hanging loose, a glitch that remains for several episodes.

Factual error: Tarrant fails Astronomy 101 here, just as Travis did in the first season. He tells the clerk, "I'm surprised you've heard of it (the FSA), if you're from another galaxy." The Tharn and his minions were not extragalactic; they were from other planets in our galaxy.

Audio problem: Just as Zen is reporting that it can find no stars for navigational reference points, something crashes very noisily off screen.

Continuity: As the ship falls into the black hole, Cally loses consciousness with her right hand beneath her head. A few shots later, her position reverses and she's lying with her left hand under her head.

Continuity: When Jarvik and Dayna teleport up at the end, her bracelet disappears as they materialize in the teleport bay, but is back when they reach the flight deck a few seconds later.

Factual error: Tarrant is some pilot. He miraculously gets the LEM into orbit without any rocket boosters or propulsion system of any kind - and with its landing gear still attached.

Visible crew/equipment: When Bayban is introducing himself to Vila, an equipment shadow moves across the back of his studded leather jacket.

Continuity: The probe Vila uses to collapse the door's forcefield vanishes when the forcefield actually collapses.

Continuity: Dayna's outfit is skin-tight and she's not carrying any sort of backpack. So just where was she hiding that rather large robotic bomb she sends down the hall to blow up Bayban's goons? (The pack on her belt isn't a storage pouch - it's the Liberator handgun's power unit. Note that Avon, Tarrant and Cally wear identical packs, with the guns plugged into them. And it isn't large enough to hold the mobile bomb anyway, not even disassembled.)

Revealing: When Liberator moves into view on Servalan's screen and stops, a bad special effects matte causes the stars behind the ship to keep on sliding to the right.

Other: As the Auron pilot's ship is being brought aboard, a bad scratch on the special effects film briefly creates a large black gash on the hull of Servalan's whale-shaped spaceship.

Visible crew/equipment: When Avon and Tarrant are consulting Orac about cloning, an equipment shadow crosses Avon's chest.

Revealing: When Tarrant, trying to call Dayna, falls against the flight deck console, the whole thing tilts visibly.

Continuity: The little plastic dome Tarrant places on the alien artifact, connecting it to Orac, disappears when the object begins to disintegrate.

Revealing: Peter Tuddenham was the talented voice behind most of the Blake's 7 computers - Zen, Orac & Slave in particular. In "Sarcophagus," Zen is under attack from the telepathic alien mind brought aboard, and its voice changes pitch, rate and timbre as it struggles to ward off the attack. During many of these moments Zen sounds exactly like Orac or Slave, since normally those computers' voices are Peter with the same type of pitch/rate tricks anyway.

Factual error: The Ultra may be expert collectors of knowledge, but they have their facts wrong about Avon, who tried to steal 5 million credits from the Federation banking system. The Ultra think it was 500 million.

Plot hole: When Ultraworld first shows up on the Liberator's screens, all scans show it isn't there. Avon explains it can't be detected because it is an artificial planet using alien technology which blocks all electromagnetic radiation from escaping. But the crew are looking at it on their screen - the ordinary visible light we use to see things is part of the electromagnetic spectrum too.

Continuity: In his scuffle with Servalan's trooper, Vila's teleport bracelet falls off and rolls away. We're even shown a close-up of it as it comes to rest near the dropped gun. Yet in the very next shot, as the fight continues, the bracelet is back on Vila's wrist.

Visible crew/equipment: As Servalan begins explaining her nefarious plan to the captured Avon, an equipment shadow slides across the blue diamond-shaped pane just behind her.

Revealing: To conceal their unauthorized entry into the secret lab, Cally very carefully closes and locks the sliding door. But when she turns back to speak with Tarrant, the "secured" door rolls halfway back open by itself.

Continuity: The damaged Orac has long loose wires hanging out when Dorian carries it off the ship, but they disappear in the next shot, when he enters the base.

Continuity: Avon apparently found a hair salon somewhere on the supposedly deserted planet Terminal. Between the time he and his crew were marooned in the previous episode and the events in this one, he's suddenly acquired a spiffy new blow-dry haircut.

Continuity: Tarrant's hair seems to have grown at least an inch overnight. It's longer and bushier than it was in "Terminal," which supposedly took place the day before.

Continuity: The planet Terminal changes shape and color completely from its appearance in the previous episode. Where it was blue-green and cigar shaped before, it is now gray, striped like a yarn ball, and round.

Visible crew/equipment: When Vila has pulled Tarrant out of the burning shaft and is going back for Cally, a film crew member sprints across screen in the background behind him.

Continuity: The weather on Terminal has changed from Summer to Winter overnight. When Avon first beams down, it's obviously warm and all the trees have leaves. The very next day, all the trees are bare and there's snow all over the ground.

Continuity: Vila makes an improbable costume change in this episode. He's wearing one outfit at the end of "Terminal," when Liberator is destroyed, and another outfit entirely here, where he's supposedly marooned on the planet with the remainder of the crew. Did he take time to smuggle a spare set of clothes off the ship, even though it was disintegrating at the time?

Deliberate "mistake": Because Paul Darrow had turned an ankle while shooting the fight scene with Gunsar, the uninjured Avon is inexplicably limping throughout most of the fight.

Continuity: Cato's body moves to a different spot on the floor relative to the unconscious Avon, who also moves. (The two are suddenly much farther apart than before.) Cato's hands also change positions.

Continuity: At the end, Dayna and Tarrant, shortly followed by Soolin and Vila, all teleport to Scorpio without wearing the necessary bracelets.

Revealing: BBC costume recycling allows one of the natives on Helotrix to show up wearing one of Tarrant's old 3rd season outfits. Another wears an even older, 1st season costume of Avon's.

Continuity: Tarrant and Dayna mug a pair of Helotrix citizens and change clothes with them. Later, when the pair are beamed back to Scorpio, they change back into their original costumes in mid-teleport.

Visible crew/equipment: When the crew are discussing Helotrix, big yellow power cables (probably used to light up Scorpio's main flight console) are showing at the right of the screen.

Continuity: The president-elect's body changes both poses and locations on the floor between the time Sleer shoots him and the time he's found and the murder investigation is begun.

Revealing: The Federation Commander reads a report to Servalan, but when the camera angle shifts to a shot taken over his shoulder, you can see that he's "reading" from a colorful plastic board with no printing on it whatsoever.

Factual error: Servalan's ship takes off from the surface of Bucol 2 with Avon and crew standing directly below it. Yet for some reason, the down-blast from the very large launching ship does nothing more harmful than slightly mess up their hairdos.

Continuity: When Avon & Co. barnstorm the ruined lab, a large piece of plastic debris on the floor is there when they enter, but then disappears between takes. Avon actually slips on it coming in, and does a hilariously un-macho little balancing dance. To quote (and agree with) actor Paul Darrow: "I can't believe they left that in!"

Continuity: Maybe he ran into a barber along the way? Avon beams into the woods on Bucol 2 with his hair brushed straight back, but a few shots later, it's restyled and combed neatly down over his forehead.

Visible crew/equipment: When Avon is questioning Muller's wife at Xenon Base, an equipment shadow moves across the top of his head.

Continuity: Relative to the white striping on Scorpio's deck, the unconscious Vila changes locations on the floor three times between shots.

Continuity: Muller's wife teleports holding her spacesuit gloves with the fingers pointing up. She arrives with them in the same position, but when the shot cuts, they've reversed positions and the fingers are now pointing down.

Continuity: Muller and Vila have a brief struggle over the teleport console. When Muller grabs at the controls, Vila pulls his hand away, making the teleport lever break off and fall onto the console. It fixes itself again a short time later.

Continuity: The headless android falls into a pile of rubble after an explosion, getting up with its red, white & blue striped costume in smudgy tatters. A moment later, its outfit is mended and completely clean. Still later, when the android is walking outside, its costume is dirty and shredded again.

Visible crew/equipment: Someone with a mustache moves briefly into the shot behind Avon when he's questioning the android about its plan to unite with Orac.

Revealing: After its "borrowed" head is blown off and it rampages through the base headless, the android mysteriously gains 10 inches in height and has much longer arms. If they'd just found a shorter actor to wear the headless costume, it might have looked more convincing.

Revealing: When Avon pushes a button to call Tarrant, the entire control panel tips upward, revealing that it's not anchored to the console at all.

Visible crew/equipment: When Nebrox is relaxing in a chair on Scorpio's flight deck, large bright yellow power cables are visible running from the console behind him and across the set floor to the right of the shot. Maybe they were jump starting the space ship?

Other: The number of buttons on the left shoulder of Tarrant's costume keeps changing throughout this episode. Most of the time, all 4 are there, but in several intermittent shots, one of the buttons is missing.

Visible crew/equipment: While pulling back from Vila's conversation with the gaming computer, the camera apparently runs over a cable. There's a visible jump in the picture and an audible clanking noise.

Revealing: The dead man, shot by the game computer in the orbiter's corridor, is still moving his fingers, and later moves his arm from resting on his chest to flat on the floor.

Continuity: The computer simulation shoots Gerren in the left shoulder, but when the Scorpio crew teleport him up to let Soolin render first aid, he's holding his right shoulder instead.

Continuity: Orac is in two places at once: he's sitting on the console, plainly visible in front of Dayna as she calls the landing party - but in the next shot of the crew over on the orbiter, Vila is holding Orac.

Revealing: At the end, when Tarrant is beamed out, Servalan's position shifts considerably, even though she's supposedly standing still.

Continuity: When Dayna and Tarrant find Keeler unconscious, Tarrant's teleport bracelet disappears between shots. It's back a few shots later, though.

Continuity: Tarrant beams down to the refinery complex and back again without a teleport bracelet.

Revealing: Avon and Soolin hide from the processing plant guards in an alcove, but Avon's black-booted foot is sticking out in plain sight. Fortunately, the guards don't seem to notice and walk on by anyway.

Revealing: Scorpio is in stationary orbit over the planet Malodaar - but a shaky special effects matte causes the "stationary" ship to wiggle and wobble severely.

Factual error: Maybe they took time in the midst of a desperate escape to tack Orac down with Velcro? When the shuttle first takes off, its angle of ascent causes Orac to nearly slide off the control panel. A short time later, the angle is far steeper, but this time Orac stays perfectly still.

Revealing: A shot of Scorpio en route to Betafarl falls victim to a special effects problem. The camera shooting the model was apparently bumped and shaken, so the ship is suddenly wobbling so badly it's a wonder it can keep a straight course.

Revealing: A bad effects matte causes one of the two ships approaching Xenon to partially dissolve along the way.

Plot hole: Ordered to kill him, the Federation squadron stakes Avon down - on a sand dune. Naturally, he has no trouble pulling loose and clobbering them all. This is hardly just a "character choice": it's a plot hole the size of Tuskeegee. A trained military unit (which they were) would never be so stupid. They could simply have shot him with no difficulty whatsoever.

Plot hole: When the warlords lift their glasses in a toast, the same mysterious blue electrical arcs, which later appear and kill everyone in the freight bay, spark and sizzle around their hands. But for some strange reason, no one seems to find this at all peculiar.

Continuity: Just before Scorpio crashes, Avon grabs Orac and teleports to safety. When they're still aboard the ship, Orac has several wires hanging loose from underneath. When they materialize on the planet, however, all the loose wires are magically repaired and no longer hanging.

Revealing: Scorpio is attacked upon entering Gauda Prime's atmosphere. The ship lurches left: everyone leans left and hangs on. The ship lurches right: everyone leans right and hangs on. The ship rolls over a full 360 degrees: no one leans or hangs on, nor do they fall out of their unbelted flight chairs. And oddly, those same chairs that held fast here tip over with ease later, when Avon escapes with Orac.

Revealing: When Scorpio flies from its launch bay cut in the Xenon cliff face, it's broad daylight (and no, the planet does not have twin suns) - but the ship casts a shadow on the cliff above itself. There's no possible light source from that angle other than studio lights on the ship model.

Plot hole: Before Scorpio even sets course for Gauda Prime, everyone but Tarrant is already wearing a teleport bracelet. How'd they know in advance that they'd need the bracelets at all, and that Tarrant wouldn't because he'd be going down with the ship?

Revealing: Avon & Co. are supposedly racing through the woods and cloudy skies of Gauda Prime in a flyer. But the reflections on the vehicle's windscreen never move.