Julien Neaves, Caribbean Head Writer
We return to post-apocalyptic Trinidad with the second episode of webseries Black Land from Ville Ventures Universe. The new episode “Vision” continues to explore this grim world and follows the unnamed survivor played by Aliyah Whatley.
With a mushroom-cloud-sized SPOILER ALERT let’s dig into it.
Like the first episode, the new one starts with some world-building. We learn about Tobagonians returning to their island and receiving their own president. Now I hope this doesn’t give the sister isle any ideas. One country people. Trinidad AND Tobago. #justsaying.
The scenes, a mix of original and stock footage, are well-done and look authentic. And I once again have to give props to the polished look of this world. They may not be working with a Hollywood-sized budget but with talent and some creative shortcuts the audience gets something that is visually pleasing. I especially enjoyed the bleak cityscapes as they screamed post-apocalyptic wasteland.
All of this is a frame for a personal story, namely that of the survivor. And again I enjoyed Whatley’s costume and her non-verbal acting. But I got issues and I’m gonna air them! Now I don’t know how good of a survivor she is (we really don’t know anything about her at this point) but I see my girl taking a sip of some rum. Now that’s fine; post-apocalyptic life is hell after all. But then she fills up her canteen with said rum. Um, you know that alcohol dehydrates you, right? Well I guess she’ll find out eventually.
And then we see her having a messy meal of baked beans. The slice of survivor life stuff was fine but I felt like we got enough of that with the first episode. I’m ready for some action! Where’s that drone we saw? Who’s after her? What about that lab scene?
Well we do get a hint about one of these issues as our survivor has some type of episode, has a flashback to her time in the lab and collapses. It appears she was experimented on or…she was created in a lab!
And then fade to black. Quit teasing me people! I need more!
So, while I found “Vision” was decent I thought they could have cut down on some of the survival stuff and pushed the story further more. But I suspect things are going to heat with the next episode. Only time will tell.
Editor Jules’ Score: 5.5 out of 10
You can watch both Black Land episodes by clicking here. And you can check out more from Ville Ventures Universe and GT Caribbean Network 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.