Julien Neaves, Caribbean Head Writer
Those familiar with the Trinidadian webseries that comprise the Ville Ventures Universe (if you are unfamiliar, you’ll find some suggested reading at the bottom) will know they have focused so far on superhero and science fiction content. With their latest series Sister Bond things get much more grounded, though retaining some Sci Fi flavour.
Here’s my review of Episode 1 “The Job” with mild spoilers:
The series stars Chimere Prince as Keisha, a retired police officer turned private investigator, and Celina Lyons as Giselle, Keisha’s real estate agent sister who joins in her adventures. Prince and Lyons are both likeable, have an easy chemistry and bounce off each other well. Series creator Ancil Harris explained in a video post that the actresses were given the outline of the story but not a complete script, allowing them to ad lib their lines. This infuses the show with a light, realistic and breezy conversational style that distinguishes it from the other Ville Ventures series and one which I felt worked.
The story begins with Keisha detaining a man (Keyon Byron from Batchack Man playing a different character) in her vehicle with Giselle, and the three have some great banter. The episode jumps forward five years (I presume/hope the initial scene is paid off later) and the sisters get a job to escort an individual to “hidden coordinates” for pick up. Yeah, that sounds fishier than an all-you-can-eat buffet at Long John Silver’s, but the money is good, so they take it.
In the above-mentioned video post Harris also explained that Sister Bond is part of the Ville Ventures Universe, and this is made apparent early as we see the character Keith (Kendall Arneaud) from the sister series (no pun intended) Vaser Claw. We last saw the loquacious Keith stranded on the planet V-En but in the episode we see him returned to Earth in the year 2025 and back home in Trinidad. Now I was wondering what he was doing in the new show, but it seems the sisters have history with good ole Keith which should be revealed in the next episode.
Sister Bond starts off pretty decently. Sure, it’s very light on action and some of the editing is a bit choppy, but the characters are cool, and we get enough pieces of the puzzle to whet the audience’s appetite. So, while I was neither shaken nor stirred, I look forward to seeing more from genre-bending series Bond, Sister Bond.
Score: 6.5 out of 10
You can watch Sister Bond Episode 1 for yourself by clicking here. And you can check out more from the Ville Ventures Universe 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 tabletop games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “12 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more.