Spoilers Vagrant Queen - Season 1

[Velocity]

I haven't been able to sit through a whole episode yet. I tried the first and third eps, but they just didn't hold my interest very long at all. I think I'm done. I don't have particularly high SF standards, either, but this one I just can't get into. That happens sometimes.

 

[anti-matter]

Been following VQ since it premiered thanks to my DVR. While watching it the other day I was thinking how much I missed Farscape...

...and I use to stay up late and watch this gem cause we didn't have a VCR.

It's early so I'll give it a chance and thank God for man's technological inventions...like DVR.

Stay well comrades in Sci-Fi & Fan.

 

[cylkoth]

Booted from primetime as of tonight.

According to the current schedule, the planned April 17th airing has been preempted and the network’s website indicates that the show will next air Thursday, April 23rd at 11 PM EST. That shifts the show out of the Prime Time hours (8 PM to 10 PM EST),

http://www.cancelledscifi.com/2020/...s-vagrant-queen-from-the-prime-time-schedule/

Sorry guys.

 

[Christopher]

Booted from primetime as of tonight.

Oh, too bad. Just when I was getting over my initial ambivalence and starting to become fond of it.

I guess that means it probably won't get a second season unless it finds an alternate home, which seems unlikely if its ratings are so poor. But at least the rest of this season will be burned off. As I understand it, cable networks contractually commit to one full season at a time, so they're obligated to show the whole season even if it means burning it off in late night or in a marathon, unlike broadcast networks which can yank a show off the air whenever they want.

I hope the rest of the episodes are still posted on YouTube or end up on Netflix or Hoopla or something.

 

[Christopher]

I've been catching up with the episodes of this on YouTube, though I'm not certain I should be, given that they don't seem to be an official upload. Still, YT hasn't taken them down, for what it's worth.

Anyway, I think the character work is quite good, with a lot of complexity and nuance to the characters' motivations and relationships, and a lot of ambiguity to the situations. And Winnibot, the boxy, run-down droid they picked up in the second episode, has become as charming an AI character as Lucy on Killjoys.

It's also surprising how fast the narrative is moving, with the big quest for Elida's mother coming to a head in episode 5 and the main bad guy Lazaro gaining effectively ultimate power at the same time. But I guess that's the halfway point of the season, so it makes sense to put the midpoint reversal there. On the other hand, the show is really dragging its feet with the romance they've been teasing between Elida and Amae.

I find their approach to Lazaro kind of weird. I mean, nominally he's on the right side -- he overthrew the monarchy to create a republic, and now destroys the republic because its leaders have become just as decadent and disconnected from the people as the monarchy was. But he's a ruthless sadist and psychopath who gets off on killing and torturing people on a whim. I guess it fits the principle that revolutionaries often become as bad as the regimes they overthrow, if not worse, but it does make the ethical standpoint of the show pretty muddled.

One thing I'm still not a fan of is the fairly graphic violence, often played for grossout humor, and tending to feature "bullet time" set pieces of the camera gliding through a frozen/slowed scene of blood-soaked chaos about once per episode. Some aspects of the show's humor and attitude work reasonably well for me, but not this aspect.

 

[Kelso]

I like this show a lot. The Clue episode was a hoot.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Showrunner Jem Garrard and star Adriyan Rae have nice social media if you enjoy the show.
Adriyan has #FanFriday where she speaks with cast members and does instagram lives and zooms with fans and stuff. It really doesn't come off like corporate PR but seems to be something she enjoys.

https://twitter.com/Jemga
https://twitter.com/AdriyanRae
https://www.instagram.com/adriyanrae/channel/

And for good measure:
https://twitter.com/AlexPiaraMcG
https://twitter.com/realtimrozon

 

[Christopher]

I like this show a lot. The Clue episode was a hoot.

They went all out with the homages, didn't they? The board (the palace map), the players (though it took me a while to realize the six Parking Authority characters' uniforms were color-coded), the weapons, even Mr. Boddy. (And the episode title was "No Clue.")

Several of them, by the way, were returning actors in new roles. Lesley was the third role for Robyn Scott, who's also Winnibot and Admiral Rykal, and Leon Clingman (McKean) is also Dengar of the loyalists. Keeno Lee Hector (Mull) was Clive in episodes 3-4, though I don't remember who Clive was. Carel Nel (Lloyd) played a "Slimy Guard" in an earlier episode, and Richard Wright-Firth (the delivery driver) has played four previous roles. I guess that's the advantage of a show relying so heavily on prosthetic makeup -- you can reuse the same actors a lot.

 

[JD]

Damn, I thought I was caught up, but I haven't seen the Clue episode yet, so I guess I have one more left.
@Christopher, I'm not positive, but I believe Clive was the guy who helped them get aboard the space station at the republic border crossing.

Anyway, I think the character work is quite good, with a lot of complexity and nuance to the characters' motivations and relationships, and a lot of ambiguity to the situations. And Winnibot, the boxy, run-down droid they picked up in the second episode, has become as charming an AI character as Lucy on Killjoys.

I love Winnibot, she's awesome.

​

I find their approach to Lazaro kind of weird. I mean, nominally he's on the right side -- he overthrew the monarchy to create a republic, and now destroys the republic because its leaders have become just as decadent and disconnected from the people as the monarchy was. But he's a ruthless sadist and psychopath who gets off on killing and torturing people on a whim. I guess it fits the principle that revolutionaries often become as bad as the regimes they overthrow, if not worse, but it does make the ethical standpoint of the show pretty muddled.

We haven't really seen enough of what the monarchy was like to know if Lazaro and the Admirals were on the right side when we over threw them, but they were were pretty clearly the bad guys afterwards. Just because they were a monarchy doesn't automatically mean they were bad guys who deserved to be over thrown.

One thing I'm still not a fan of is the fairly graphic violence, often played for grossout humor, and tending to feature "bullet time" set pieces of the camera gliding through a frozen/slowed scene of blood-soaked chaos about once per episode. Some aspects of the show's humor and attitude work reasonably well for me, but not this aspect.

The graphic violence is kind of weird, there really wasn't any for the 3 or 4 episodes, and then suddenly they started throwing in some really gory stuff after that. The only scenes that have really bothered me was what happened to the little bunny creature, and the Admiral's fight after Larazo got the Sterzaad.
I do love the when they zoom through the slowed down scenes though, it feels like a live action comic book panel.
This has quickly becoming one of my favorite shows, I love how goofy it gets, and the main and supporting cast is absolutely great. I was really disappointed how quickly they wiped out almost the entire recurring cast in the episode with them at the temple, I liked all of those characters.
Larzaro is a great villain, he's over the top, but still manages to be scary as hell.

 

[Christopher]

We haven't really seen enough of what the monarchy was like to know if Lazaro and the Admirals were on the right side when we over threw them

As far as I'm concerned, monarchy is intrinsically the wrong side. It's just another way for the rich few to screw over the masses. The fact that the occasional monarch may be well-intentioned doesn't erase the intrinsic injustice of a system that gives the people no voice in how they're governed. The only exceptions are constitutional monarchies like Britain or postwar Japan, where the monarch is strictly a ceremonial figurehead and actual governance is by democratically elected representatives. But that's clearly not the system they had on Arriopa.

Besides, a revolution like this one wouldn't generally get anywhere unless it had a lot of popular support, which would mean the masses had good reason to feel that they were oppressed and had no other recourse. Be wary of thinking in terms of a "right side" and a "wrong side." That's not how it usually works. As I said before, most of the time, both sides in a revolution are the wrong side -- the old guard was overthrown because they were tyrannical and oppressive, and their overthrowers, however well-intentioned their cause, end up becoming just as tyrannical and oppressive, if not more so. See Mao overthrowing the Nationalists, Castro overthrowing Batista, the Ayatollahs overthrowing the Shah, etc. In every case, the old regime was brutally oppressive and their replacements just as bad. That's the norm, not the exception. It's like abused children growing up to become abusers themselves. So I take Lazaro at his word when he says that both the royals and their replacements were equally decadent and greedy.

The graphic violence is kind of weird, there really wasn't any for the 3 or 4 episodes, and then suddenly they started throwing in some really gory stuff after that.

No, there was some pretty graphic bloodshed in the pilot -- I remember it as much for how poorly the CGI blood spatter was composited into the shots as for how much of it there was.

 

[JD]

Oh, I don't remember there being anything that bad in it.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, I don't remember there being anything that bad in it.

Well, it was mild compared to what they've done since.

 

[Kelso]

Is Vagrant Queen the first space based Sci-fi series with all female writers and directors?

I can't think of another.

https://www.thetvjunkies.com/vagrant-queen-female-lens-piece/

 

[JD]

Are these on a week delay for the online streaming? The streaming version of the most recent episode isn't posted on the Syfy website. The have a recap and a clip, but not the full episode, and all the rest are up. It's up on the app, but I'd prefer to watch it on my computer since it's bigger.

 

[Christopher]

This week started the 2-part finale, and featured a lot of flashbacks to Lazaro's formative years. The show is still pretty vague on how someone apparently motivated by populism and the genuine desire to end oppression and bring social justice ended up being such a sadistic, murdering psychopath, aside from a token mention of being abused by his father. It feels inconsistent that they spent the season establishing him as this broad, cartoonishly murderous goofball and are now retroactively making him sympathetic and tragic. But Paul du Toit's acting is much more impressive as the more serious, conflicted, sympathetic Lazaro in the flashbacks than it's been as murderous-goof Lazaro in the present.

And yay, Elida and Amae finally kissed. The surroundings could've been better, though, and they even remarked on that.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The mixed messaging with Lazaro is surprising and I’m not quite sure to make of it. The Make Arriopa Great Again hat was an easy joke but still made me laugh.

 

[Christopher]

Not a bad finale. Interesting twist with Elida finding her mother alive, only for her mother to turn out to be not what she expected. Not sure how I feel about the Steerzad (sp?) remaining in play for season 2 (if there is one). It's too powerful to keep around so long.

I only just realized that the guy who showed up midway through asking about his sister and then appeared in the last 20 seconds must've been Chaz, Amae's brother. We've seen so little of him that I forgot he existed. I thought there was some twist coming about Elida having a long-lost half-brother.

So if the action moves to Earth for at least part of next season (if any), what caption will they use in place of "Another Galaxy. Not Yours"? (Ugh, I hate that inconsistent punctuation. Either use periods both times or not at all!)

I've been wondering about the locations they've been using for the royal palace. Turns out the show is filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, so I did some looking around. The interiors are in St. George's Cathedral, and the exteriors seem to be Cape Town City Hall with digital extensions. They're impressive, and really add to the show's visuals, which is quite a change from the very run-down, low-budget look of the first few episodes. (I couldn't figure out what location was used for the city streets.)

 

[Christopher]

Cancelled, alas:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/vagrant-queen-canceled-at-syfy-1300695

In an attempt to boost the drama's fortune, Syfy moved the series from Fridays at 10 p.m. to Thursdays at 11 p.m. after three episodes in a bid to boost it to a time slot where it has achieved success with late-night programming like The Great Debate and animation block TZGZ and repeats of Futurama. While posting an 11 percent gain week to week with the move, the series still wrapped its run as Syfy's lowest-rated series among total viewers and in the demo since 2019.

That's a shame. It started out a bit rocky, and it had its issues, but overall it was a fun, well-written show.

 

[JD]

Damn, I was really enjoying it by the end and was really looking forward to more. I want more bright, colorful, cheesy sci-fi.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I didn't even realize the cancellation was in question, thought it already was. I was surprised at Christopher's link that the move to 11PM Thursday's saw a bump in ratings. I figured that was another sign of Syfy being done with the show but the article suggests it was done to help it.