Epitaph (2013) Review

 

Epitaph is rather unusual, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

WRITTEN BY

Scott Harrison, an independent scriptwriter and novelist who occasionally contributes to Big Finish. Stylistically, his writing seems very straightforward, if a little lacking in detail. 

PLOT

Jenna responds to a distress signal from her former smuggling partner, only to discover that rebel forces led by her unstable brother Tomak have occupied their old ship. She and Vila are forcibly recruited to join his unwise attack on the tightly guarded Federation data storage facility on Myonis II... 

ANALYSIS

The most eyecatching aspect of Epitaph for me was the choice of leads. Jenna... and Vila? They're the last two I'd expect to see in a story together. And I don't think Jenna has had a lead role like, ever. I knew this had to be a little bit different from usual Blake's 7 fare. It was... and it wasn't. Whilst the dysfunctional relationship between Jenna and her family is established, I don't think it was explored anywhere near as much as it could have been. It seemed to serve more as an excuse to set the character into a more dramatic context, and of course as setup for the more traditional attack on the Federation base. 

I really enjoyed this. Harrison has a great knack for writing tense action scenes that clip by at a good pace. Plus, there was a strong presentation - the incidental music was excellent, and the fact that only Jenna and Vila speak dialogue means that we're constantly focused on our familiar characters. The situation is established as dangerous enough to the point where you're constantly wondering "how are they going to get out of this??" So one might say that the shallower side of Epitaph exceeded my expectations. However, the promised development disappointed. Tomak's character is very hazy and inconsistent, and since he's not played by an actor, there's very little sense of a relationship between him and Jenna, or him and his wife(who just disappears afterwards). His death also seems to serve nothing beyond setting up Jenna's own vengeance subplot. Which means that nothing is really resolved in this specific episode, because his death is the only consequence of their attack on the data storage base.

Amusingly, Vila appears to be involved purely because he's the crewmember with the least agenda, meaning that he can just stay out of the way and do his shtick in the background as Jenna deals with her problems. They should've just cut Keating out and gotten someone else to play Tomak. His presence makes absolutely no difference, and there's no real development between him and Jenna.

CHARACTERS

Sally Knyvette makes for a compelling, passionate lead in her own right, and I was quite excited at the prospect of maybe getting more of her history as a smuggler. Her family hating her feels like a cliche, but I have to remember that Blake's 7 has very rarely done that kind of soap opera stuff. The closest we got was probably Blake's encounter with his uncle and cousin in Hostage, and they got on fairly well. So in that sense, it is new to the show and it gives Jenna a tinge of tragedy that she lacked before. I just wish we got a more in-depth look, you know? It's not at all clear what actually happened to the family. Tomak seemed to resent his father, yet goes on a mission of vengeance for him whilst also threatening to kill Jenna... who is a rebel just like him, and whose only point of disagreement with Tomak was the fact that he resented their father in the first place. 

Why Jenna changes her mind about Tomak and his murder spree even though he's been nothing but a "homicidal bully" as Vila put it is also left entirely unexplained. As a result, it fails to have much impact. I feel like we might've gotten a lot more out of that smuggling premise. Running contraband is the very foundation of Jenna's character and seeing why she adopted a more noble attitude post-Blake could make for a great episode, I'm sure of it. 

Michael Keating is just a prop, and Vila is horribly written to boot. It's just the stock "drunken whiner" Vila, without much depth to him. Although I did enjoy his colourful impersonation of a Federation officer(shades of his bravado in Seek-Locate-Destroy there). 

NOTES

*I wonder what became of Jenna's old ship the Dmitri after this. Or how Tomak got it from Jenna's partner in the first place.

*As an example of how useless Vila is: they never explain why he goes with Jenna in the first place. There's absolutely no indication that his skills would be required until they're captured.

*Somehow, Vila knows that Tomak's supposed to be dead even though Jenna 'never talks about her family'. I guess maybe she told him whilst we were busy listening to the narration.

*For unexplained reasons, the sound effect of the Liberator bracelet's communication is reused for the intercom of the Federation freighter that Tomak's people commandeer.

*Part of Tomak's intricate plan to infiltrate the Federation base is to have Vila handle the retro thrusters as they land... Vila. 

*I don't know what a hydraulic calipus is exactly, but I want one.

*I must disagree with Jenna's assessment of Vila's performance as "genius". Being a jolly soldier is kind of the last thing you'd do when pretending to be Federation. 

*Tomak killing an 18-year old civilian would be a lot sadder if we had any idea why she was there. 

*It occurs to me that the scheme to attack a data storage facility and then getting trapped there is the plot of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. 

*Do maintenance shafts usually have ladders? I'm not sure how the gang got up 18 stories... and if they did, why Jenna thought that the shaft wasn't accessible to people in the first place.

*It was nice of Harrison to mention that there's 100 rebels in Tomak's gang at the very end of the story. The confusion made the earlier battle scenes so much more stimulating(not).

INFORMATION!

*There's a bit of confusion with the setting of the episode. The Big Finish website states that it takes place during Series A, and the mention of the "few months" that Jenna has spent onboard the Liberator certainly tallies with that. But Vila also longs after his flask of adrenaline and soma, which we know he only bottled after Horizon. Yet, this can't take place before Pressure Point, since by that point it's been at least a year since Blake's arrival onto the Liberator. So I've done the only reasonable thing and added it between the two, in Series B.

*Jenna's narration states that she was caught with Federation bullion when she was sent to Cygnus Alpha(as opposed to shadow). Her father and acquintances were rounded up by the Federation several days after she escaped onto the Liberator in Space Fall. Why they didn't take them earlier given the widespread reputation of Jenna as a smuggler is anyone's guess.

*Vila yells at Jenna not to leave him alone, the same way he did to Argo in Cygnus Alpha, and Blake in Seek-Locate-Destroy. 

*Jenna grew up in "the Dome"(suggesting there's only one).

*The graves on Not!Tatooine(twin suns, desert, come on!) are made of polyherculaneum, a relative of the herculaneum that makes up the Liberator.

*Shutting down a ship and faking a distress call is a trick taught to Jenna by an old Amagon. We saw the Amagons reunite with Jenna in Bounty. 

*Jenna mentions that the two most guarded Federation targets are Outpost 117 and Central Control on Earth. The latter is the Liberator crew's target in Pressure Point. 

*In order to enter the data storage facility, Tomak's people outfit Vila with fake eyelenses developed at space station XK-72, which was visited by the Liberator crew in Breakdown. 

*Vila randomly mentions that the only person who knew more about locks than he does was his deceased mentor Vorash. 

*Jenna references the conversation she had with Avon regarding their ability to kill, which occurred in Cygnus Alpha. 

BEST QUOTE

"I was the only one with the skills to pull this off, get us down to the surface undetected and in one piece. Leave something like this to a less experienced pilot and all it would get you is scattered over a two-mile wide area in little flaming pieces."

CONCLUSION

It's solid entertainment whilst listening, but I'm ultimately indifferent to it.