Michael Keating has died

5/21/2026 at 3:03:59 PM

There was some graffiti near me that said "bring back Blake's 7". It appeared in the mid 80s, and lasted about 30 years. It was like a landmark. Eventually they did bring back Blake's 7, and it unfortunately wasn't any good, and the graffiti has faded and vanished now. Farewell, Vila.

by card_zero

5/21/2026 at 3:19:50 PM

That’s just a perfect story.

by dhosek

5/21/2026 at 3:55:30 PM

> Eventually they did bring back Blake's 7, and it unfortunately wasn't any good

huh? They only announced the reboot in January.

by busterarm

5/21/2026 at 5:22:25 PM

My mistake: there was a long history of reboots, none of which got as far as being released. I see another one was announced this year. Sixth time lucky!

by card_zero

5/21/2026 at 4:12:05 PM

There were some radio dramas or something.

by simonh

5/21/2026 at 4:26:39 PM

One of the only episodes of Blake's 7 I really remember is "Orbit", in which Avon and Vila play a game of cat-and-mouse aboard a shuttle that's been stripped back to the wiring but is still doomed to crash into the planet it's trying to launch from unless another 70 kg can be ejected: as Orac helpfully points out to Avon, this is more or less exactly Vila's body mass. The respective faces pulled by Avon and Vila as Orac announces this tell you everything you need to know about their characters.

by dghf

5/21/2026 at 5:59:44 PM

Media companies spend untold millions on new content, and yet the acting and writing on a comparatively obscure and low budget British TV series still occupy a place in my psyche many decades later.

RIP Mr Keating.

by pnw

5/21/2026 at 4:24:11 PM

Sad news. I just last month watched all the way through Blake's 7, which I hadn't seen since I was a kid. Vila was always my favorite as a kid, and Keating still held up.

by technothrasher

5/21/2026 at 4:27:05 PM

For me, it was always a two-hander between Avon and Vila. The sparks just flew whenever they were in a scene together.

Vila was the most relatable character though.

by simonh

5/21/2026 at 4:53:39 PM

Avon and Servalan was the combo I liked seeing the most on screen. They had such great intellectual tension as they constantly tried to sniff each other out. But, as you say, Vila was definitely the most relatable.

by technothrasher

5/21/2026 at 6:21:10 PM

Avon was a hell of an anti-hero and Paul Darrow nailed the role. All my friends at school wanted to be Avon. And don't get me started on Servalan...

by pnw

5/21/2026 at 6:06:11 PM

Blake'7, what i can remember is green stuff (?) and a computer saying 'confirm' as a 'i heard you' sentinel. I remember how it sounded.

by nuancebydefault

5/21/2026 at 3:36:19 PM

PSA: Keat[ing] was an english actor. Michael Keat[on] (batman) has not died.

by saltyoldman

5/21/2026 at 4:08:55 PM

he was Mr Mom first fyi

by jagged-chisel

5/21/2026 at 3:47:36 PM

That was my first thought.

by charlieo88

5/21/2026 at 3:19:57 PM

Vila 'There isn't a lock I can't open if I'm scared enough' Restal was one of the finest sci-fi characters on British telly. The caustic exchanges between him and Avon were priceless.

> Michael was asked whether Vila could cope living in a society stripped of all technology [..] His answer was entirely in character: "I'm sure he would survive. As long as he could make fire, keep warm and meet a young lady. He'd learn a lot about the trees on the planet, build a little hut. It would be wonderful."

I'm not sure that is entirely in character. There's a marvellous episode 'The City at the Edge of the World' where Vila is the main focus of the story. He is given more or less the very opportunity described above and he turned it down:

KERRIL Are you coming with me? VILA I can't. KERRIL Why not? It's a chance to be free. You saw that place, it's beautiful. VILA But there's nothing there worth stealing [..] a thief isn't what I am, it's WHO I am.

https://www.hermit.org/b7/Episodes/scripts/City-EOTW.html

Michael Keating also did a cameo in 'Micro Men' which can be watched on YouTube.

Rest in peace.

by endoblast

5/21/2026 at 3:49:22 PM

turning down an option does not necessarily mean you can't cope with that option.

by bryanrasmussen

5/21/2026 at 3:52:47 PM

That was my thought when reading it as well. It wasn't the only option and he chooses to continue with everything else. The real question would be if the everything else suddenly vanished, would he be able to cope then?

by dylan604

5/21/2026 at 2:50:16 PM

That's a bummer.

I'll admit that, at first, I thought this said Michael Keaton. And oddly enough, Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas. So, there's a whole spiral of madness that my brain went off into.

by MattCruikshank

5/21/2026 at 3:01:07 PM

I assume it was changed so there wouldn’t be a name collision with Issur Danielovitch’s son?

by rz2k

5/21/2026 at 3:06:47 PM

Yeah looks like Micheal Douglas was using that name professionally about decade before Michael Keaton started his career so union rules would require an alternate name.

by bragr

5/21/2026 at 3:23:51 PM

Yep, that’s also why Michael J. Fox isn’t merely Michael Fox. I like to imagine that at some time in the 25th century or so, actors will end up having names that sound like generic pharmaceuticals because all the names will have been used already.

(As an aside, when Michael Douglas first attained prominence in the early 80s, I thought briefly that he was maybe the 70s daytime talk show host, Mike Douglas.)

by dhosek

5/21/2026 at 3:39:38 PM

Michael J. Fox's middle name is Andrew. But he didn't want to be Michael A. Fox because that sounded too much like "Michael, a fox."

by madcaptenor

5/21/2026 at 4:03:36 PM

Today I Learned Vila's second name. RIP

by Angostura

5/21/2026 at 4:55:48 PM

loved him in Batman

by GerryAdamsSF

5/21/2026 at 6:07:38 PM

That's another Michael Keat*

by nuancebydefault

5/21/2026 at 5:59:59 PM

anyone else read this as Michael Keaton has died and have a panic attack?

by jaylane

5/21/2026 at 6:12:20 PM

I also read it as Michael Keaton at first. It didn't cause me to have a panic attack, though.

by dormo

5/21/2026 at 3:41:12 PM

cant access the website OP.

by addedGone

5/21/2026 at 3:55:19 PM

Time to retire your NetZero dialup account.

by SirFatty

5/21/2026 at 3:57:30 PM

but how will I watch all that ASCII pr0n from my minitel? :(

by addedGone

5/21/2026 at 3:29:29 PM

If webmaster is around, maybe let's adjust a bit the dictatorship? Can't browse (no privacy setup for this visit, just VPN)

Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access bigfinish.com

Edit: Works with privacy setup (Residential proxy + Spoofed fingerprints).

by pixel_popping

5/21/2026 at 3:44:42 PM

It's really weird you go straight to "dictatorship" when talking about a regular security feature of most websites.

Most people don't use VPNs, nevermind spoofed fingerprints, etc. The problem is on your side.

by boca_honey

5/21/2026 at 3:51:35 PM

I understand that some users are alright giving their browsing history to ISPs (it does, even with TLS 1.3 and DoH and so-on due to correlation but it's out of place here) but this is HN where I would believe that most have very basic security principles applied and we are also talking about tech, so it's relevant (VPN isn't for privacy, it's for basic security, it's unsafe to let ISPs resell history with identity attached).

If we don't point it out, how can we expect a change and respect users that don't want to be KYCed when browsing a website?

by pixel_popping