Blake's 7 (1978 - 1981 BBC)
I was a big Doctor Who fan. I mean I was a serious fan. I knitted a Tom Baker style scarf. I cried when Adric died. I played the Doctor Who role playing game. Oh yes, me and my battalion of geek friends, who were also yo-yo enthusiasts, sat down and went through the complicated process of creating our own Time Lords and Companions and rolling dice and mapping out our own universe. And then Blake's 7 entered our universe. I created versions of each of the characters for our game and, after arguing the lock picking levels of Vila and Avon, we played a version of Doctor Who/Blake's 7. Slowly the edgy world of Blake's 7 began to take over more and more of our universe. Luckily it did not invade our fashion sense and none of us were injured by any Blake inspired collars. (Blake fought fashion as much as he fought the Federation.) The point of this is the series was very important to us.
The storyline remains compelling. A man rebelling against a totalitarian regime is falsely accused and convicted of a heinous crime he didn't commit. His memory is wiped and he is sentenced to a penal colony far away from Earth where he will remain a symbol of shame. He meets several real criminals on board the transport ship the London and the series unfolds.
This was where Terry Nation, the genius who brought us the Daleks, created one of fiction's greatest characters — Kerr Avon. Avon was the antithesis of the William Wallace-esque Blake. Avon was the perfect anti-hero. Sure, he'd help the rebels against the Federation, but only because it helped him as well. Sure, he might have had a touch of the freedom fighter in him, but he was a pragmatist not an idealist. Avon was a computer genius who had almost stolen a fortune (almost, hence he was on the prison ship). He trusted no one and would later curse the only person he had ever trusted. Such depth of character! And such a powerful character he remained when the eponymous Blake left!
Are the sets and costumes dated? Oh yes. Were the special effects flimsy even for the time? Oh indeed. But the stories and characters are still brilliant and hold up well and the themes are timeless.