Julien Neaves, Caribbean Head Writer
The perilous journey of alien hero Prince Vaser Claw continues with the new episode “Conflict”. With a SPOILER ALERT for Episode 1 of the Trini Sci Fi web miniseries, and very mild spoilers for Episode 2, let’s jump in.
Last we saw Vaser Claw (Jumael James) he had arrived on the planet V-En in search of the mysterious villain Excalibur and had reluctantly picked up a guide, the goofy Trinidadian human Keith (Kendall Arneaud). We’ll chat about this mismatched duo a little later, but I wanted to start off with Queen Lou-Cinda Lamos, Vaser’s adoptive mother, as she gets most of the spotlight here.
Charli Griffith is a fantastic actress so I did not mind the Queen getting the royal treatment. We follow her investigation into Excalibur, which introduces a new character and some pretty sweet looking visual effects. I also have to send a shout out to Martin Weston, the British actor who provides the voice for the Queen’s AI “Q”. His work here is nothing short of phenomenal and I would love to see (make that hear) more from him.
And speaking of the ladies, we do get more of the story of Lallane (Khaliyah Jaggernath-Mills) and her trial. This episode was better for her than the last one, but I am still on the fence with the whole “confronting herself” storyline. Hopefully the payoff will be strong.
But the series is called “Vaser Claw”, so what is the Prince up to now? Well, not a whole lot. He and Kenny encounter a mysterious warrior whose super cool entrance I truly adored. I would have liked to learn a bit more about him and his race (he may be a Moor but I’m not sure #unintentionalrhyme), as I do love me some lore. And the fight between him and VC was somewhat anticlimactic.
On the positive side, the location looks great and Karlie Morris does commendable work on the cinematography. Keith’s antics also made me laugh again. That dude is a fool squared. And the final scene? Yeah, that’s gonna have viewers begging for Episode 3.
I recall Sommer mentioning that she found Episode 1 too short (it was under 20 minutes) and wanted more. Well, she might bawl with this one as it is only a little over 11 minutes. Though much shorter and not as strong as the premiere it is still a very solid episode that continues and expands the story well.
Editor Jules’s Score: 6.5 out of 10
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.
You can catch Sommer’s video reviews of Episode 1 and 2 below:
And you can catch up on both episodes by clicking here. You can also check out related content below:
great review again