Powerplay (1980) Review

Powerplay has an interesting Die Hard-esque premise, but drags considerably.

WRITTEN BY

Terry Nation, completing the reinvention of the series.

PLOT

Avon and Dayna play a cat-and-mouse game with Federation survivors in order to regain control of the Liberator. Meanwhile, Vila and Cally find themselves stranded on the planet Chenga, in a hospital of ill repute...

ANALYSIS

Everything to do with the Liberator is pretty great - it's fun to see Avon thrown into yet another wild situation on his own ship after having escaped so many. The idea of him stalking through the Liberator and using his own knowledge of the surroundings against a cunning Federation officer in control is cool.

Unfortunately, the Vila/Cally storyline is tepid. I got the impression that Nation just felt he had to show what the two are up to since they've been gone for so long, but he clearly didn't care much about Chenga, given the bare minimum of backstory that it gets. Every time we cut back to Michael Keating doing his shtick with the ladies, it sucks the tension out of the episode and so I'm just left remembering Powerplay as the episode where everybody wanders around for 45 minutes until Michael Sheard is finally dead.

This one was directed by the reliably inventive David Maloney, so I can at least say there's some interesting location filming in a cavernous forest and good cinematography(not counting one odd bit where we see the same corridor cut from video to film, which is very jarring).

CHARACTERS

Paul Darrow looked like he was having a ton of fun being the lead, all gung-ho. His reactions to just about everything were hysterical. The reserved, monotone Avon of series A is a distant memory.

Let's talk about Steven Pacey's Del Tarrant. Like Dayna, I don't exactly welcome him with open arms. They try to set him up as the equivalent of Avon's original role, the shady second alpha male with plans of his own. Which is nice in a full circle sort of way, but the casting of Steven Pacey just doesn't make much sense to me.
He's significantly younger than Darrow or Gareth Thomas, lacking the authority that only natural age can bring. He is thin as a reed and thus not physically intimidating. And he has the face of any handsome British fop from Jeeves & Wooster(the latter of whom he portrayed in a musical).

The result is that Tarrant is kind of a joke, someone who seems to be trying way too hard to seem badass. Which I could live with, if the show(at least at this stage) didn't treat him as a force to be reckoned with. And on a writing level, I'm really irritated that we never find out why Tarrant even stays onboard. He claims to have had a smuggling career on his own, so why doesn't he just go back to that? With the Federation mostly gone, it should be more profitable than ever. I'm sure there can be many good reasons, but actually give me one!

Same goes for Blake and Jenna, both of whom have contacted Zen to update him on their situation, but then are never heard from again for some reason.

Props to Maloney for going against typecasting and getting the affable Michael Sheard for the brutish part of Section Leader Klegg. Sheard is excellent, by the way, snarling and threatening his way through the episode.

NOTES

*Paul Darrow couldn't reconcile Avon's decision to give Tarrant and Dayna access to Zen with Avon's character until David Maloney told him they couldn't do Series C unless he did. Years later, Darrow cited the incident as one of the reasons he began portraying Avon as a psychotic, to circumvent other disagreeable writing choices.

*I forgot to note the new title sequence in my last review. I've grown fond of it, though it's nowhere near as good as the iconic original. Very Star Trek-ish with just ships flying around.

*Dayna claims not to know Blake at all, which seems odd given that Hal Mellanby did. Maybe Dayna's not interested in freedom fighters(even though they seem her type), but you'd think Hal would mention Blake at some point.

*Did Avon deliberately provoke Tarrant by appearing to reach for a weapon? Because if not, I can't figure out why Tarrant would want to prevent him from confirming his identity - it would grant him as the supposed highest ranking officer immediate control over the Liberator.

*What a waste of John Hollis. And Josette Simon, for that matter. She spends most of the episode as a captive or useless in a fight. Quite a comedown from the warrior lady in Aftermath.

*The Liberator's floor is clearly made of wood.

*The nurse played by Catherine Chase acted and sounded eerily like a female version of Colin Baker.

*How did Servalan end up on the dustball planet where she got picked up from? Or is it supposed to be Sarran and there was a freak hurricane?

*I like that Nation has given Zen the light side version of the classic "seek-locate-destroy" with "search-locate-recovery". Terry likes his catchy phrases.

*Keating's stubble really emphasizes his physical resemblance to Shining-era Jack Nicholson(which, oddly enough, came out the same year as this episode).

*It's weird that Avon refrains from using a grenade on Klegg because he's afraid of wrecking the teleport when we've seen the Liberator's repair circuits remove burn damage from it onscreen in The Web.

*The decision to lie Keating and Chappell down on the teleport section with half of their bodies outside of it makes me shake my head.

INFORMATION!

*The episode is a direct sequel to Aftermath. It's also the resolution to a long series of inter-connected episodes that began with Gambit.

*Zen was reprogrammed to only recognise certain voiceprints before the crew's departure(at some point between Bounty and Aftermath). It's also become much more reliable, being able to tell Avon where to find Federation troopers as opposed to Series A's "you will have to make a personal investigation".

*Vila calls Zen an electronic moron, just like Avon did in Cygnus Alpha.

*Avon defines the Liberator as his ship, due to the deal he made with Blake for the Liberator in Star One.

*We see some of the Liberator's treasures from the strongroom for the first time since Cygnus Alpha.

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

DAYNA: I thought you said it was yours?
TARRANT: Prize of war.
AVON: What do you want now, a deed of transfer perhaps?

CONCLUSION

It's a necessary story, but I don't get much enjoyment out of it.