Blakes 7: Gambit (20 March 1979). "Speed chess!" Visually this is either incredible or utterly bizarre, but the aesthetics of the future is always an interesting topic.

What should a Pleasure Planet look like? Freedom City is the destination for the Liberator crew in this episode, and it's a gaudy pantomime of Weimar Berlin, Regency London and the Wild West. Powdered wigs and black fedoras, pierrots and ringmasters, Beau Brummell and Butch Cassidy. Everyone drinks Green Midori sprawled on chaises longues. And there are still ashtrays and party poppers in the far future.

But why wouldn't there be? We don't really have a shorthand visual look for future hedonism, because we keep imaging the future as utilitarian, military or agrarian. The idea of fun in the future, let alone sex and booze and cigarillos isn't something we know how to show. From Logan's Run to Buck Rogers we think of it as a disco with apps. Kubrick possibly had the strongest aesthetic with the Korova Milkbar, but even that has an element of kitsch.

So I think this episode is honest: future pleasure is backwards looking, the erotic and the archaic are conjoined. If it looks silly it's because we think the Dionysian is silly and in the future it must be even sillier.