Incentive (2013) Review

 

Incentive is a bit too on-the-nose for my liking, but it's carried by the charismatic guest star and energetic storytelling. 

WRITTEN BY

Peter Anghelides, who also wrote Warship and Mirror. I'm starting to notice a serious overreliance on continuity with him. But at least he tends to pair it up with good action sequences.

PLOT

The Liberator crew track Blake and Jenna to the Federation's weapons factory on the ocean world of Jallicor. Using a nearby space race as their cover, Avon and Tarrant infiltrate the factory and pose as new potential investors for Servalan in their bid to locate the missing crewmembers. 

ANALYSIS

I had fun for about two-thirds of this story, but despite having a solid foundation and being, up until a certain point, a decently entertaining romp, there's something about the resolution that just didn't feel right to me. Obviously, I knew that the crew couldn't achieve their mission(although I held onto a vain hope that they might encounter Jenna or hear about her whereabouts), so to me, it was more about seeing what convinced Avon to abandon the search as well as simply having a good time with the adventure at hand. 

Although Incentive employed the narrative choice of having one or more of the crew literally narrate the events of the story to another character in-universe(which I've often criticised for being forced or causing issues with the pacing), it was actually written very well here. Anghelides borrowed a bit from Rashomon in the sense that both Avon and Tarrant provide different details from their own perspectives, sometimes without even knowing it. If you're gonna ape something, ape from the best!
My point is that for once, this choice didn't bother me and in fact felt quite appropriate and clever. So just for once, I can count it as a positive.

The actual story is split in two parts - a little farce where Avon and Tarrant get to masquerade(which reminded me of the Star Trek: Picard episode Stardust City Rag, except done much better here) and a typical Federation base runaround. Both perfectly entertaining and engrossing in their own right. The problem comes when Anghelides overcomplicates the matter by revealing the main antagonist to be a puppet master, one who very obviously exists to push our heroes' buttons in just the right way for them to make the decision to leave Blake. 

That, coupled with a really cringeworthy final scene where Tarrant and Avon come up with a nonsensical plan to resume fighting the Federation to draw attention off of Blake(?) is what brings Incentive down for me. All we really needed was an escapade where something goes wrong in the search for Blake. That the crew would decide to stop risking it is obvious. Actually, it gets even better. In the TV episode Volcano, Avon flat-out says they should stop searching for Blake! Yeah, isn't that when they decided to give it up? So this story doesn't even need to resolve that arc. 

That Anghelides specifically came up with a villain designed to accomplish that and then had to have the characters jump through mental hoops to justify following Blake's crusade(a plot hole which The Armageddon Storm had already filled as well) is plain silly. It's a shame, because the rest of it really is quite fun, and with a solid resolution, could've been a classic. As it is, it's merely ok. 

CHARACTERS

Adrian Lukis(a veteran British character actor) steals the show as the enthusiastic Bracheeni. He brings a lot of energy to the part, even outshining the increasingly deliberate Paul Darrow. Much like Carnell before him, the joy of our latest psychostrategist is seeing how well he understands his opponents and the delight he takes in outsmarting them. That being said, I wouldn't mind having a psychostrategist with a different personality next time. They can't all be so cocky and overconfident, can they? 

That being said, Darrow has nothing to be ashamed of. His teasing rendition of a French pirate is a riot, and I loved the slightly antagonistic double-act he and Pacey formed. It occurred to me that we'd never really seen Avon and Tarrant on their own very often(Powerplay is really the only episode that comes to mind) so it was great to explore that dynamic a little bit. Fortunately, the two weren't nearly as bitter at each other as in some of the early television episodes. In fact, Anghelides is actually rather sentimental towards the crew as a whole, dropping "hints" here and there about how much they really all care for each other. We'd better not show him Rescue... 

Steven Pacey is back! ... I think. I can barely tell it's him, his voice and cadence are so different. Although Gareth Thomas and Paul Darrow sound clearly aged as well, something in their delivery still makes me see them as their young selves. In this case, I haven't really been able to do that. As far as my mind is concerned, Tarrant now exists as some kind of peculiar alternate universe version of himself, who's about 30 years older. It's not a huge problem, because I liked the way Tarrant was written and Pacey is still a good actor, but it was strange. 

NOTES

• Anghelides seems to completely ignore Vila and Dayna's existence about halfway through, sending them off to a wild goose chase to find Jenna until, at some point, they get captured and then, at some point, rescued. I don't like it.
• For some reason, Tarrant assumes in the beginning of the story that Vila would be with Jenna. This seems to be a teaser line that doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you think about it.
• Tarrant's genuine hatred of Bracheeni's musical tastes was pretty funny.
• I liked the touch of Bracheeni randomly interrupting during Avon and Tarrant's narrations. That being said, however, there were times when the "interviews" seemed to be going ridiculously in-depth. I'm surprised Bracheeni didn't tell Avon to keep it simple when the latter was passionately describing how sweaty the bar was. 
• I found Tarrant's perspective of Blake and Jenna, and apparent jealousy of them, quite interesting. It would've been cool if they'd been compared like this in the show, perhaps by Avon, Vila and Cally. But maybe that would've risked alienating them from the fans.
•  How would Avon, a presumably handcuffed prisoner with a torture device on his head, get into the interrogator's chair without him noticing? I know Avon's cool, but still...
• Vila successfully drinking a contact under the table is a great Vila moment, even if we don't have Keating around for it. 
• "Problem waaaaaaas, there was no ship for saaaaaale." There's times when I really enjoy Darrow's sly delivery. And then there's this nonsense lmao. 
• Hoodlum is a word that needs to make a comeback. I haven't heard of hoodlums in ages.
• Tarrant executing his plan without Avon's approval or even a chance for the latter to argue his point might genuinely be my favourite Tarrant moment ever. It perfectly sums up his bullheaded, brave nature without taking anything away from his likability as a hero.
• At one point, Steven Pacey refers to Patterdale as Patterson, a pretty glaring error that I'm surprised was left in. 
• I'm not sure if Avon's justification for giving the Federation blueprints for new types of weapons holds water - he believes the rebels would smuggle them all way and share them, but then wouldn't the Federation notice their guns are missing and send somebody to investigate? The Federation would ultimately still be able to produce those new weapons for themselves. 
• "We don't need weaponry, we need Blake!" Avon barks. And I realise that Anghelides forgot the most important part of this story - explaining why Avon is even looking for Blake.
• For some reason, Tarrant is under the impression that Blake was injured escaping the Liberator(he wasn't, he got shot on Star One) and that he was the last to leave the ship(he was actually the first). 

INFORMATION!

• The crew have isotopes embedded in their body to track them. Bracheeni is able to detect it, which explains why, in their next chronological appearance in Rumours of Death, Avon is rescued after he's switched it off, rather than on. 
• Bracheeni is a psychostrategist, just like Carnell from Weapon. 
• Tarrant tells Bracheeni about the events that led to the loss of Blake and Jenna, and his own arrival onto the Liberator. These were depicted in the episodes Star One, Aftermath and Powerplay. 
• The Liberator visited the Morphenniel sector mentioned in Jenna's last message, but couldn't find any trace of her. 
• Orac is bored by the search, so delegates the task of sifting through the relevant data to a network of Federation computers close by. This "laziness" would be seen again in Traitor.
• Both Tarrant and Dayna were already familiar with Blake before boarding the Liberator(Tarrant having had close access to Federation news outlets, and Dayna from the broadcasts shared by her father Hal Mellanby).
• Since the Galactic War, alliances have been shifting as different forces try to take advantage of, or profit from, the Federation's power vacuum. This is also seen in the episodes Children of Auron, Rumours of Death, Moloch and Death-Watch. 
• The crew purchase a space skimmer and a planet hopper with jewels from the Liberator's vault(some of which are seen in Cygnus Alpha). Ironically, they would later adopt a planet hopper as their primary ship in Series D.
• Avon references blowing up Federation industrial units. This was depicted in the TV episodes Time Squad, Seek-Locate-Destroy and Killer . Also the audio drama Mirror. 
• Avon irritably ponders that Blake's ability to complicate things will get him killed. Or worse, Avon himself. As one can gather, this is some cute """"foreshadowing"""" to Blake. 
• Dr Bruckmeyer has weaponized some of the aliens' leftover viruses from the Galactic War, one of which presumably was later used in Children of Auron. 
• In an argument with Avon, Tarrant brings up his longrunning partnership with Blake, specifically the escape from the London(in Space Fall) and the abortive attack on Central Control(in Pressure Point).
• Professor Patterdale worked with Hal Mellanby and Hower in the Central Science Complex mentioned in Volcano. 
• It's revealed that at least one of the reasons Avon lied to Tarrant about the Liberator's destination in Terminal was to hide the fact that he broke their agreement not to seek out Blake anymore.
• Avon and Tarrant also agree to use the Liberator to "resume fighting the Federation"(Moloch, Death-Watch) and "settle old scores"(Rumours of Death). 

BEST QUOTE

"This isn't a space skimmer! It's a planet hopper!" - Tarrant

Something about the earnestness with which Pacey delivered that ridiculous jargon just cracked me up. 

CONCLUSION

We were this close to greatness...