VAGRANT QUEEN Season One
Royal with cheese
UK/US Syfy, Finished
Now available on Blu-ray, DVD and download
Showrunner Jem Garrard Cast Adriyan Rae, Tim Rozon, Alex McGregor, Paul du Toit
A Syfy Original shot in Cape Town, with a budget that we might have been able to whip together ourselves by holding a few car boot sales, Vagrant Queen isn’t what you’d call great sci-fi. At times it’s dreadful – mostly down to ropey effects shots which frequently look as though they’ve been whipped up in Microsoft Paint, printed out and jiggled around in front of the camera.
But the makers of this show, adapted from a comic series, clearly don’t care. They’re so goddamned happy to be bringing Vagrant Queen to the screen that their joy is infectious. The lack of budget almost becomes a virtue: you end up marvelling at how they’ve managed to create so many insane aliens out of goggles, papier mâché and stilts, or at how they’ve thrown in a cheeky bit of crappy stop-motion despite it looking dumb. Vagrant Queen’s chutzpah is an inspiration to us all.
It’s also an inspiration in other ways. The almost all-female creative team have cast a black woman as the lead; sexuality is fluid; the male character can scream like a girl when he’s scared and yet also manages to be sufficiently masculine.
It’s a hoot, too. Unapologetically channelling Farscape, Firefly and even Indiana Jones, it tells the story of an ousted Queen travelling the galaxy with a group of misfits. There’s an evil empire, some plucky rebels and a campy, boo-hiss villain who unfortunately gets way too much screen time. Sure, it’s overly familiar and about as believable as Teletubbies, but who cares when everyone concerned is having the time of their life? The very definition of a cheap thrill. Jayne Nelson
Showrunner Jem Garrard is now busy finishing off Project IVAN, a film about robots that screen prospective parents.
The lack of budget is almost a virtue