Julien Neaves, Caribbean Head Writer
We returned to post-apocalyptic Trinidad with the third episode of the webseries Black Land entitled Another. With a post-apocalyptic SPOILER ALERT let’s get into it.
The episode begins with a cold open of the Survivor trying to turn on an unplugged television. That’s not how televisions work! It then continues the format of starting with global/national context of the story before switching to the more personal story of the Survivor. We get a little more info on the secret experiment which the Survivor was apparently a part of, the mysterious death of a whistleblower in a fire, and more with the new Tobago President. There’s also a brief scene with the female US president but it is unclear what is happening or how it is connected to what follows. And overall I thought this segment went on a bit long, especially when the episode is just over eight minutes and 30 seconds, the shortest so far. At a point I was like, “Can we get to the actual story please?”
And I will give props to the actual story that something actually happened compared to the filler of the previous episode. Our still unnamed Survivor is attacked and kidnapped by a mysterious masked man played by Ville Ventures veteran Vechenko Noel (whaddup Chenko!). And I was like, “Yeah man! Things happening!” But then I wasn’t sure what was happening.
You see, Masked Man proceeds to feed her what looks like cat treats and then untie her and talk soothingly to her. Why tie her up in the first place if you’re just going to untie her? The dubbing for his voice is also very obvious and feels awkward. When she inevitably attacks him (no surprise there) he says “Amira” (not sure of spelling) which may or may not be her name and/or a code to shut her down. She then has this vision of what looks like a lab and a creepy half woman, half crustacean looking thing. Nice visuals but I have zero clue what is going on. And we have a second consecutive episode ending with the Survivor falling into unconsciousness.
Now I don’t mind a good mystery being teased out (I did watch all six seasons of Lost) but after three episodes I feel like I have been teased enough. I need to start to get some kind of answers. Not all of them, mind you, but give me something. And I still want to know about that drone from the first episode. Hello!
While Another had more happening than the previous episodes I think it could have done more to move the story forward. So here’s hoping we start to get some answers come Episode 4.
Editor Jules’s Score: 5 out of 10
You can check out all episodes of Black Land for yourself on GT Caribbean Network TV by clicking here. And you can check out more great TT content below:
Julien “Editor Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by Freddy Krueger, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “12 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more.