Blake's 7 (TV Series)

Death-Watch (1980)

David Sibley: Commentator

Quotes 

• Commentator : [voiceover, dignified and measured]  Space. "The Final Frontier" as it was once called. A weightless, freezing vacuum, here created artificially and maintained by the central computer as one of the hundreds of different environments offered by the combat grounds for the coming battle.

  [the viewscreen shows shifting scenes of different environments: oceans, rocky shores, tropical beaches, etc.] 

  Commentator : In giant chambers, exact recreations like these you see are controlled by the combat computer. Environments from other planets, other cultures, other times. The computer will choose which of these environmental chambers will be used for the battle. This choice is what the combat grounds are all about. In the words of the Convention, "Let no man say, 'This man chose the ground on which we die.'"

  [Darvid stands in front of a combat grounds chamber entrance] 

  Commentator : The combatants will each enter the chamber through a door like this. Only the computer will know what awaits them on the other side. Their only clue will lie in this locker, which contains protective clothing and specialized weapons, should the environment behind that door require them.

  [Darvid holds his hand against ear for a couple of seconds.] 

  Commentator : And I've just been told that the combatants are in fact now arriving at the spaceport, and we are going across to join the thousands of cheering spectators who are waiting to catch a glimpse of the two men on whose skill the outcome of this war depends.

• Commentator : [in an ordinary conversational tone]  That all right?

  Viscast Director : [bored]  Fine.

  Commentator : Oh, that good, eh?

  Viscast Director : Well, what do you want me to say? It was your usual delicate mixture of enthusiasm and dignified cliché.

  Commentator : I love you too. What's next?

  Viscast Director : [incredulous]  You mean you've forgotten? I don't know why we bothered to rehearse.

  Commentator : From the way you've been juggling those remotes I didn't think you had.

  Viscast Director : If the performer won't move then the camera must.

  Commentator : I thought it might confuse you if I moved.

  Viscast Director : Oh, you've been *thinking*? Another first.

  [unintelligible sounds of another voice] 

  Viscast Director : What? What d'you mean you've missed them? Oh, wonderful! Congratulations! Crowd scenes we can get anywhere, you idiot! Darvid?

  Commentator : Yes?

  Viscast Director : We missed them at the spaceport.

  Commentator : [calmly]  It happens.

  Viscast Director : [frustrated]  Only to me! They didn't even wave to the crowd. Their seconds bundled them straight into two V.I.P. shuttles and off.

  Commentator : We'll get some good shots of them when they present their credentials to the Arbiters.

  Viscast Director : Oh, remembered finally have we?

• Viscast Director : Listen: *Our Heroes* should arrive in about thirty minutes; you want to wander down and place the remotes for me?

  Commentator : [amusedly mimicking the director's sarcastic tone]  "Our Heroes"? I suppose you'd change places with them, would you? Step through one of those doors without any idea of what's in there, without even knowing whether your opponent's been let in first and is all set up and waiting; you'd fancy that would you?

  Viscast Director : Not a lot, but then I'm not a professional killer.

  Commentator : [snidely]  That's not what the critics say.

  Viscast Director : [offended pause]  You want to position those remotes for me, Darvid?

  Commentator : All right, give me voice control.

  Viscast Director : [coolly]  You've got it.

  Commentator : [to something off-screen]  Follow me, men. We have one hero and one dead man to meet, and as yet no way to tell which... is which.

  [Darvid beckons with one finger and walks away. Three floating cameras come into view and follow him.]