Ok, well I'm still not quite sure what the problem is, but I've found a workaround via the TeamCity forums.
Basically you want to echo some abitrary string and pipe that output into your powershell executable, like thus:
echo 'executing powershell...' | C:\windows\system32\windowspowershell \v1.0\powershell.exe exit 1
So then your full plink command becomes:
plink.exe user@someIp -i key.ppk -P 22 -batch -v "echo 'executing powershell...' | C:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe exit 1"
Nb. Plink will still pass through return codes and console output using this method.
Link to TeamCity forum:
http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/TW-6021
Hope this helps