Fearless (2017) Review

 

Fearless has an amazing central premise, but unfortunately doesn't bring much else to the table.

WRITTEN BY

David Bryher (also known as David Bailey) dips his toes into the Blake's 7 waters for the first time. He wrote the Doctor Who "Eternity Clock" video game. So far, not too bad. I feel like studio meddling might have scuppered his script a little. 

PLOT

40 Federation pursuit ships are being auctioned by Zeera Voss - a lady thief who once worked with Vila - at a secret space station near a sun about to turn nova. It's up to Cally and Vila to sabotage the auction in order to prevent the ships from ending up with Servalan. However, with Vila's cowardice back in full force, Cally decides to use an experimental Auron technique to absorb his cowardice, leaving us with a brand new thief...

ANALYSIS

The first half of this was so, so good. And totally unexpected too! Right off the bat, we have an intriguing mystery with the space auction, a solid new antagonist, and one of the funniest uses of Vila the franchise has ever devised. It was fresh, written very well and got me completely engaged with the story... until I realised that we were getting nothing else. It's as if the writer himself was aware of how cool these concepts were and just decided to spin the wheels for the remainder of the runtime. At the end, we learn that the story amounted to little more than setting up the rest of the "Crossfire" storyline. 

So what I'm trying to figure out is whether Bryher's comedy episode got hijacked to fit the rest of the box set, or if he wrote a comedy episode in spite of his instructions and then had to change the ending. Because not only is the setup for future episodes really clumsy, it also causes a massive shift in tone. How can a story about Vila turning into James Bond end on a declaration of war? Not very neatly is the answer. It's a pity, because all the ideas are really fun, but they're just executed in such a haphazard, slapdash manner. I mean, we never even learn where this new mental link between Cally and Vila came from. If it's just natural to Cally, you'd think she'd try to use it in more extreme circumstances than these.

CHARACTERS

Michael Keating is an actor whom I've always loved in small doses. There's a limit to how much nervousness and fretting I can take. However, there are a few rare stories that depict him in a more dynamic, heroic light and these are usually the ones where he's at his most endearing. Poison and Games are two examples. Totally unbound here from his usual routine, Keating is free to be as charismatic as he likes, and the result is glorious. It's almost as if he's playing his version of the Doctor (with Cally as a companion). It's a pity he's never really had an oppurtunity to show off leading man chops, because he absolutely has them in his repertoire. 

Jan Chappell is excellent as well, although her role is mostly limited to playing straight-man to Keating's hilarious bravado. Still, the chemistry between them is impeccable and Vila's boasts of having seduced her ("Yes, I've never been happier in all my life" deadpans Cally) are gut-splittingly funny. 

Unfortunately, Jacqueline Pearce doesn't fare so well. Although I loved Vila's attempts to seduce her (harkening back to their scenes in Moloch), it's far too obvious that Pearce recorded her lines alone. She doesn't really react to things properly, and the line delivery is one-note. To be fair, Pearce was reaching the end, and so perhaps it's unfair to be overly critical. She does retain her natural panther charm, and I'd much rather have her than not. 

It's hard to judge new recurring character Zeera Vos. The actress does a good job giving her an edge and her past with Vila is somewhat intriguing (albeit derivative of Roska from Outpost), but I don't really understand why Servalan would recruit her beyond the writers wanting to keep her around. It felt very forced and not in line with the antiheroic personality she'd had up to this point. I mean, they did specify that she'd gone to the trouble of saving Vila from psycho-surgery. Now she's just a villain? I don't get it. I'll need to see more to judge. 

NOTES

• The organ version of the main theme is gorgeous. Why was it cut so short?
• Cally puts a suspicious amount of emphasis on how much Vila might 'enjoy' the mental link. Curious choice by Chappell there. 
• Given that Cally's inability to telepathically communicate with others has been a major plot point countless times, I'm disappointed that there wasn't any more explanation behind this link. It's just a lazy way to segue into Vila's new personality. And again, why use it here and not in much more pertinent situations where it'd be amazingly useful?
• References are made to software and coding, slightly betraying the '1970s/80s sci-fi' vibe the franchise generally goes for. 
• I know the galaxy is a big place, but how could Zeera and Herrick possibly be oblivious to Vila's exploits with Blake? It's Series C, and neither seem like the type to ignore the news. Herrick in particular is a former Federation officer. 
• Why does Herrick suffer a nervous breakdown in the middle? It seems to come out of nowhere. I thought it might be related to Vila, but it doesn't seem to be. 
• Speaking of Vila, while I can blame his complete shutdown on the mental link going haywire, it doesn't exactly leave us with the best image of him. At the very least he should have pushed through to participate in the escape. It's odd seeing him be too cowardly to save himself.
• The Liberator seems to return far quicker than the established 24 hours. 
• Why is Vila confused by Servalan wanting to buy 40 pursuit ships? All she's done in Series C is work on rebuilding her fleet.
• Would an experienced criminal like Zeera really tell Servalan she scammed her instead of just giving her the keys to a damaged ship and letting her find out on her own whilst she made her escape?
• One of the few loose ends I do like is us not finding out what happens to Jallen after he wishes death on Cally. Did she euthanise him? Abandon him? It's interesting to wonder.
  
  

INFORMATION!

• Zeera and Vila used to collaborate. Although it doesn't seem to have been a positive relationship, she did at least save him from the psycho-surgeons by falsifying his credentials, giving him a delta grade instead of an alpha. The psycho-surgery was mentioned in The Way Back. The delta grade story seems to be the writer confusing Vila's backstories in Shadow and Volcano (he was always a delta grade, but he forged his own grade 4 ignorant classification to avoid becoming a Space Captain). Zeera and Vila haven't seen each other since Vila was sent to Cygnus Alpha (at the beginning of the series).
• Zeera is curiously familiar with the Aquitar project, to the point of recognising a teleport echo despite it not being a well known technology.
• Vila mistakenly calls Cally "Jenna" during a moment of confusion. Jenna was last seen in Star One.
• During his mental breakdown, Vila tells Servalan about the Old President's intention to reclaim the presidency with the 13th legion, as seen in Liberation.

BEST QUOTE

VILA: "You'll get to meet Zeera. You'll like her."

CALLY: "You said she was dangerous. You said she was utterly without morals. You called her a calculating bitch!"

VILA: "You like Avon, don't you?"

CONCLUSION

A fun enough yarn, I suppose.