Introduction
As an old man of
some 70 years, I'm now an elder of society. And as an elder of
society, I believe I've the right to yell at the clouds. Hell, as
an old man of 70 I've nothing better to do than yell at the clouds.
For all the good it will do. And with nothing more to write about my
writing, for now, I might as well use this blog to yell at those damn
clouds. So this is my first post in a new series of what I shall
call, well, let’s see… Remarks and Observations Directed at the
Clouds.
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| Image: Syfy Vagrant Queen 1st episode |
First in the series is, the syfy TV show called the Vagrant Queen,
which is (allegedly) a science fiction show. Sysf description of the
show:
The
10-episode series follows Elida (Adriyan Rae) from child queen to
orphaned outcast, as she scavenges the treacherous corners of the
galaxy, always one step ahead of the Republic government out to
extinguish her bloodline. When her old friend Isaac (Tim
Rozon)
shows up claiming her mother Xevelyn is still alive, they head off
with their new ally, Amae (Alex McGregor), to stage a rescue that
will take her back into the perilous heart of her former kingdom and
up against a deadly foe from her childhood, Commander Lazaro (Paul du
Toit).
The
first two episodes have been released on Youtube, which allowed me
not only to view them, but to tell you just how bad they are, from my
viewing of episode one and ten minutes of the second. Ten minutes
into the second episode proved to me my limit. I’m
not going to do a full recap. Watch’em if you care to.
The
first episode opens with a ruin in a desert (wow!
original)
with the title character,
our ex-queen now working as
a scavenger. One point here, at least the hero is not a bounty hunter. She
had just
discovered a macguffin of some value when she is ambushed by two other scavengers. Who talk a lot, like villains do
until she shoots them. One, at least, in cold blood. She’s a hard
boiled scavenger.
Then we’re off to a space station, with lots of
aliens and bars. No points here for originality. Straight out of
Firefly, and likely countless
other
sf shows. (Firefly is about the only one I’ve seen…) She doesn’t
get what she expects to get for her macguffin, and well, her ship is a
piece of sh*t and needs repairs that she can ill (or not) afford to
get done.
Next
we
see some lighthearted shots of some guys playing strip-something, and
a lesbian mechanic, before a vast Republic
space ship appears announcing that the authorities are boarding the space
station to search for a fugitive, our hard boiled ex-queen/scavenger.
A shuttle, tiny compared to the great ship, departs from the vast space ship and heads to space station, with a comical
villain in command of a pack of storm troopers in black, apparently with
three eyes. Those three eyes buys them half a point.
The
search for our hero aboard
the space station occupies
the next 40 some minutes, ending in a gun battle as our hero and her
new found
companions,
try to reach
her piece of sh*t ship to escape. The battle just
comes to a screeching halt
when the comical Republic villain appears. Everyone
just stops shooting so that they
can stand around talking, which villains love to do. I don’t know why our hard boiled hero doesn’t just shot
him, since
he’s
just standing there… but I guess… well, I guess he has a contract for 10 episodes. In
the end, a
dog-boy alien seems to sacrifice his life so that our
heroes can
escape
in their ship.
The
comical villain is just
left
standing there, frustrated.
When one of his men suggest that he contact his superiors about what
happened, the villain shots him. Our comical villain is also
hard boiled. As an aside, I have always wondered why storm troopers
wear armor when it provides absolutely no protection. Or why storm
troopers don’t shoot pathologically ruthless officers in the back as soon as they turn around and simply claim they were shot in the course of the action. Anyways
back to the escape. It goes without a hitch, because that vast
Republic spaceship -- remember it? Well, the writers didn't, because it is gone. Not anywhere to be found. I guess it was too inconvenient. I mean, how could they escape if it was
still around? It would require some clever idea and writing, which is nowhere to be found here.
Episode
two has them landing on a planet to make repairs to their sh*tty
ship. It opens with them landing on this planet. I will admit that I did not see the threads
that had to have been holding up the little model that they were
using to film the scene. But that's about all. It looked every bit as real as a Flash
Gordon serial out of the 1930’s. Sorry, no points. To repair the ship they need to
get some gas. I kid you not. They go off with a 20 gallon container to
collect some gas from a wrecked space ship nearby. Yah, in this
future, I guess space ships run on gas, just like your Honda. Huh,
who
would’ve thunk that? I wonder how many lightyears to the gallon do spaceships get?
While
getting the gas, our hero is attacked by a guy in a monkey suit with
extra long arms. Our hard boiled ex-queen/scavenger shoots him or
her. This was about ten minutes into the show, or maybe a little
less, and well, it was all I could watch. I’m 70 years old. I don’t
have the time to waste watching one of the dumbest shows I’ve ever
seen.
But
wait! Maybe, I’m seeing it all wrong. Maybe it is actually a campy
comedy! It has all the earmarks of one -- utterly lame, complete with cheesy special effects -- everything was very pre-Star Wars, maybe
even pre-Star Trek. The dialog was certainly lame, the jokes, even lamer. The
writing in general was pretty much cut and paste from other sf shows,
without even bothering to make any
sense of it. It is hard to see, in the finished product, that anyone
cared about it at all. Certainly not the writers, nor the showrunners,
the producers, or the network. Maybe the actors did, though they
played like a camp comedy. But then again, aren't camp comedies shows that
tried, and failed miserably, to be taken seriously. They ain’t even
trying in this one.
The
first two episodes are free on Youtube. Be sure and let me know if
I’m wrong.
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