Stopping on an apparently deserted junkyard planet for spares and repairs, Elida, Amae and Isaac find themselves in a spot of bother.

Vagrant Queen came out swinging for the fences in more ways than one with its pilot episode, with flashy effects, decent costumes and a determination to lean into its limitations with knowing, wink-to-camera humour. This second episode carries on that trend turning the wacky up to 11, and in all honesty, it’s hard not to like it.

Landing on an apparently empty junkyard planet, our three heroes first commit the cardinal sin of splitting up, with Isaac and Elida off to find fuel while Amae stays with the ship, and then when the two explorers get themselves into serious bother it’s left to Amae to come rescue them. Only that can’t go straightforwardly either and they find themselves at the mercy of some very vicious captors and forced to engage in honestly the weirdest battle for their lives that you could envision. Remember when the crew of the Enterprise destroyed the bad guy’s ships with Beastie Boys music played out of giant speakers on their hijacked starship? Think that sort of out of nowhere wacky and you’re on the right track.

Interspersed with the current day hijinks are a series of flashbacks filling us in on how Elida and Isaac met and became partners in crime, as well as what it was that finally drove them apart. Fair play to the writers here – they do a good job of making this not be quite as cliched and obvious as I’d initially expected. Indeed, the relationship between these two is more complicated than it first appeared, as are the circumstances surrounding their previous falling out.

Amae too becomes more than initially expected. I in fact owe Alex McGregor a sincere apology for implying last time out that her character was just a Kaylee from Firefly clone – this character has depths I hadn’t expected, and is also a hell of a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing how her own arc pans out as the show progresses.

Where I fear it may slightly lack is in its chosen overall bad guy. Paul Du Toit’s Commander Lazaro is undermined here not just by the extreme hamminess of his dialogue and the uselessness of his minions as per last week, but also by an exchange with some superiors. The superiors themselves are difficult to take seriously in any way, but they also treat Lazaro with such derision publicly in front of his own crew that it’s difficult to feel he isn’t utterly defenestrated as a villain. Given that he’s supposed to be the big bad our heroes are fleeing in terror from, that’s less than ideal.

Overall though, it does it’s job well enough. It’s funny, genuinely touching in places and it injects just the right amount of self-aware silliness into its characters and plotting that it’s hard not to enjoy being in its company.

Verdict: Deeper than it first appeared and obvious that everyone involved is just having a ton of fun. Impossible not to enjoy. 8/10

Greg D. Smith