Created by Mark A. Altman, a producer on The Librarians and Castle, CW’s summer sci-fi series Pandora follows Jacqueline ‘Jax’ Zhou (Priscilla Quintana), a young woman who enrols in Earth’s Space Training Academy after her home is destroyed and her parents killed under suspicious circumstances. It’s 2199, and humanity is recovering from a decade of war with their extra-terrestrial neighbours, the Zatarians (who are essentially just Romulans with better hairdos). Jax must navigate new alliances, friendships and romances while training to defend the planet in an era of fragile peace and ultimately unravelling her own mysterious origins.

It’s easy to write off any fantastical school as a Hogwarts rip-off, but Pandora’s alma mater is more akin to a sexed-up Starfleet Academy (already a high bar, given Trek’s sexy track record) or even Starship Troopers: The College Years. Now, it’s nowhere near as bitingly satirical as Paul Verhoeven’s stylistically cynical space-soldier romp – and Pandora does name its space academy in the blandest way possible – but there’s a layer of interesting social commentary under the preternaturally pretty sheen of your typical CW cast. It can, at times, lapse into a kind of thematic genericity – but when it hits gold, it glitters.

Nine episodes in to its thirteen-episode first season, and I’m hooked. There’s an indefinable magic to the series that has me eagerly anticipating each weekly instalment. The hardest element of the show, according to its producers, was assembling the right actors for the roles – and in this area they have excelled. The cast really commits to the characters and the story, and the chemistry between the central ‘Scooby gang’ feels natural and genuine, in spite of the rapidity at which it developed. I was invested in the team by episode two and as the show goes on, it shifts the spotlight onto different characters to flesh them out.

The natural leader of our merry band is, of course, Priscilla Quintana as Jax, a character who feels like the descendant of Talon (Jessica Green) from The Outpost, another CW show which has a small budget and a big heart (aka my kryptonite). Quintana is a charming lead and makes Jax feel like a fully realised, even relatable, character when she could so easily have slipped into stereotype. I love that she genuinely cares about people and risks her own safety to do what she believes is right – whilst also being sarcastic as hell. The central mystery as to who – or what – Jax truly is, or could become, drives much of the series’ intrigue; the question of whether Jax – ostensibly the titular Pandora – possesses the calamitous powers of her mythological namesake has become its most relentlessly interesting aspect.

I think the major reason her friendships with her college buddies works so well is that the cast get along and they’re all having a riot. Much of the levity stems from two characters in particular: Atria Nine (Raechelle Banno) and Greg Li (John Harlan Kim). Atria is a clone who escaped her abusive creators to join the academy. Whilst almost everyone else is kitted out in the generic grey-green garb of most science fiction, Atria looks like she’s been pulled straight out of an anime – with her purple hair and technicolour outfits, she could easily come off as parodical, but Banno’s effervescent performance and her character’s internal quest for a soul promise more interesting character beats for her to come. Pandora is also refreshingly clear and upfront about its characters’ queerness, with Atria and Jax openly attracted to people of all genders, and Jax’s relationship with ex-girlfriend Cordelia Fried (Isabelle Bonfrer) taking centre stage in episode eight.

Greg, meanwhile, is a medical student so charming you almost overlook the fact that he is given next to nothing to work with story-wise. Kim played the roguish Ezekiel Jones on TNT’s The Librarians, televisual comfort food at its fluffiest and finest, who started off as a cardboard cut-out and ended the show’s four-season run as its best and most beautifully developed character. Here, he’s a college-era Han Solo with shades of ER’s Dr Ross. It’s refreshing to see a romantic lead who is a genuinely good guy, and not a tormented bad boy with a dangerous streak. Even though ‘Greg’ may not be the most swoon-worthy name in the book, Kim’s charisma and leading man charm is a real boon to Pandora – which is why it’s a shame that he’s side-lined so early on. After a strong start which positioned him as one of the main leads alongside Jax, and a serious contender for her affections, Kim simply doesn’t appear for a good portion of season one for reasons unknown and unjustified.

Greg has two major rivals for Jax’s heart, at least in the main cast: Xander Duvall (Oliver Dench), a teaching assistant at the academy, and Ralen Maht (Ben Radcliffe), son of the Zatarian ambassador, and whose enrolment at the Academy is something of an olive branch after years of warfare between his species and humanity. I’m fairly certain that Xander is being set up as Jax’s endgame love interest, which is a shame because of her four suitors he’s the least compelling thus far. Despite being some kind of super-badass TA with a secret mission and murky past, there’s no real emotional hook to his character, and he’s written to be so buttoned-up and officious that he can’t even rely on charm, as John Harlan Kim does, to plaster over the gaps – the writers seem to have decided he’s The One and that’s the end of it. I would be pleasantly surprised if they’ve planned a more interesting trajectory for him (à la Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) but I’m not optimistic.

Ralen, on the other hand, is much more intriguing. Although he’s initially sketched in the broad strokes of Star Trek’s Lt. Comm. Data – driven by logic and intellect over outward emotion, often to humorous effect – Radcliffe rises above archetype and crafts Ralen as a sweet, sensitive and soulful person torn between loyalty to his people and his newfound human friends. His striking performance is embellished by subtly effective makeup and a great wardrobe – he looks like if Tom Holland was possessed by a demon and subsequently raised by David Bowie and Spock. Ralen’s already great on the page and on the screen but Radcliffe is the reason he’s so compelling – not only does he get to shine in fight scenes thanks to Radcliffe’s gymnastics know-how, his physicality in dialogue-driven scenes gives the character a genuine alien feel that enhances the sense of otherness between him and his Academy friends.

Rounding out the fellowship are Thomas James Ross (Martin Bobb-Semple) and Delaney Pilar (Banita Sandhu), arguably the characters with the most potential going forward. Pilar is a nannite-enhanced human whose cybernetic implants allow her to access the Datastream (basically the internet but turned up to eleven). She’s given centre stage in episode six, where she is bullied and attacked by other students jealous of her beauty and academic prowess, in a way which interestingly investigates campus culture. As Jax’s roommate, Pilar shares the most screen-time with her so far, but I’m hoping she and Atria will grow closer because of their shared territory in bio/tech fusion.

As well as being the best-dressed on the show by a mile (I think half the budget went on his jackets, and I call that money well spent), Thomas also has the strongest arc so far, thanks to a wonderfully anchored performance from Bobb-Semple and some brilliant developments in episode five, where he is reunited with his fair-weather father, Billy D. (Richard Blackwood). Billy can read minds, Thomas can read emotions – and while Billy initially comes off as a suave psychic conman, the episode explores the complexity of their relationship and the dark origins of Billy’s powers and their connection to Earth’s wartime strategy against the Zatarians. Their complex father/son is a definite highlight of the series so far, and their story was genuinely emotional.

The episode, and Thomas in general, also brings some much-needed conflict into the main gang in a show in which everyone seems to have buddied up instantaneously, when he falls out with Jax for very legitimate and understandable reasons and causes a rift amongst the ‘Super Friends’. There’s a general wariness of Ralen, as the sole Zatarian student, but this brings conflict of a passive kind. The conflict involving Thomas occurs because he is a more active character, narratively speaking – and the show would do well to write more of its characters in this way. Conflict drives the story and reveals who the characters truly are because it forces them to make challenging and difficult choices – our cast of young heroes is diverse, charming and brimming with potential, but there’s simply not enough friction between them just yet.

The gang’s most obvious Earthbound antagonists, for now, are their professors. Profs Ellison Pevney (Tommie Earl Jenkins) and Martin Schral (Vikash Bhai) are basically Lupin and Snape in all but name – Bhai’s supercilious Schral even reprimands Jax for being late in an almost beat-for-beat recreation of Alan Rickman’s introductory scene in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – but the most pivotal is Jax’s shady uncle Professor Donovan Osborn (a nefarious moniker if ever I’ve heard one).

Played by Noah Huntley and looking like the bewaistcoated lovechild of Peter Facinelli and Eric Bana, Osborn may be largely confined to his (rather swish) office as yet, but he’s an intimidating and perplexing presence – is he a cog in the machine or the puppet master? The existence of Osborn alone raises several points of interest, not least the seemingly non-existent separation of powers in late 22^nd century Earth – Osborn is not only a professor in wartime politics and battle strategy at the Academy, he’s also a high-level operative in the Earth Intelligence Service, which is (by Huntley’s own admission), a ‘futuristic CIA’. On a more superficial note, the man should really have his own fashion line in sci-fi couture, because his outfits are to die for. If you’re a fan of how the genre tweaks familiar clothing in ways that make them more science fiction-y, Pandora is the show for you.

Although its world-building can sometimes feel derivative, and the inner lives of its characters are still being formulated, Pandora is an intriguing and compulsively enjoyable show that has much to recommend it and heaps of potential for its future. It’s another entry in the ‘small on budget, big on heart’ genre I love so dearly, and it does a lot with what it’s got, incorporating exciting fight scenes, cool missions and constructing its plots around thematic analyses of xenophobia, intolerance, climate change, and colonialism. I hope the bizarre choice to call the alliance of planets a ‘Confederacy’ is critiqued in-universe and that we see more sympathetic Zatarians than just Ralen. A second season has already been ordered, and though the first has so far been a shaken martini of potential, I’m interested to see which box Pandora opens next.

Pandora airs on Syfy Channel in the UK on Thursdays at 9pm.

[This review contains spoilers for Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker]

Imagine, if you will, that the ‘Scavenger Rey has royal lineage’ twist had been the plan from the beginning of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and not just The Rise of Skywalker’s tacked-on cynical move to appease sexist fanboys? If you want to know how to do that plot properly, look no further than Vagrant Queen, Syfy’s latest swashbuckling series set in a galaxy far, far away.

Co-produced with Blue Ice Pictures, Vagrant Queen is that rarest of gems: an under-the-radar show that truly deserves the spotlight. Created by Jem Garrard and based on the Vault comic book series of the same name by Magdalene Visaggio and Jason Smith, the series stars Adriyan Rae as Elida, a scavenger on a desert planet who has long been running from her secret past. Elida, aka Eldaya El-Fayer, was once the child-queen of Arriopa, a sprawling celestial empire in another galaxy (not ours), until she was deposed by a band of revolutionaries led by Commander Lazaro (Paul du Toit) who shot Elida’s mother (Bonnie Mbuli) in front of her. Over a decade after she went into hiding, news that her mother may be alive after all leads Elida to team up with the roguish Isaac (Tim Rozon) and the effervescent Amae (Alex McGregor) on a hazardous quest to learn the truth and overthrow the corrupt government that stole everything from her.

Space train! Karaoke death battle! Spaceship murder mystery! What more could you possibly want from a show? In its DNA is the antipodean oddness of Farscape, Mad Max, and Thor: Ragnarok, coupled with a Mystery Men-style wackiness that ticked every one of my boxes. Colourful, campy and cool, it’s a delightfully zany mishmash of all your sci-fi faves – Star Wars, Killjoys, Firefly, Guardians of the Galaxy – but with a tone and style that’s completely its own. Whilst a lot of low budget sci-fi restricts its setting to a single spaceship and a handful of samey locales, Vagrant Queen is filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, and takes its audience to a smorgasbord of smorgasbord of distinct, memorable and diverse locations, making it a genuine delight to see where the characters will go next. The series isn’t afraid to end a fight scene with a cheesy pun or a pop culture reference, but it’s all done with a winking self-awareness that is so refreshing in our recent glut of grimdark genre fiction. In a landscape of po-faced programming, Vagrant Queen was bright, breezy breath of fresh air that didn’t take itself too seriously. My kingdom for a bit of light entertainment!

Showrunner Jem Garrard has assembled a multi-talented team of brilliant women both in front of and behind the camera – not only is every episode written and directed by women, Vagrant Queen’s lead character Elida is a Black queer woman who is wonderfully complex and multi-faceted: impulsive, kind, cynical, loyal, occasionally cavalier, and delightfully unafraid of punctuating a punch with a dorky pun, Elida is reluctantly heroic and compulsively likable. Adriyan Rae is utterly magnetic in the role, moving effortlessly between comedy, drama and action – by the end of the show you’ll want to go for a drink with her and take down a totalitarian government with her! Rae, a multi-talented Renaissance woman (she was a scientist before becoming an actor, singer and model) with recent credits in Atlanta and Burning Sands, is definitely one to watch.

Although Elida starts out as something of a lone wolf, she quickly assembles a motley crew in her quest comprising of Isaac Stelling (Tim Rozon) and Amae Rali (Alex McGregor). Isaac is more Jack Sparrow than Han Solo, haplessly selfish and frustratingly self-centred, but Rozon (of Wynonna Earp and Schitt’s Creek fame) manages to make the character relentlessly endearing in spite of his many transgressions. Amae is a whip-smart, endlessly kind and joyously optimistic engineer who is probably the only reason Elida and Isaac haven’t killed each other yet. I wish we’d seen more of Amae’s bartender brother Chaz (Steven John Ward), but their bond was excellently sketched even in the brief time they shared the screen. McGregor is utterly charming in the role, and it’s easy to see why she and Elida fall for each other.

To see a healthy, loving and well-written queer romance in any show is something to celebrate, especially in an era in which showrunners are more than happy to bury its gays (*cough* The 100 *cough*) or string its audience along with the promise of an LGBTQ+ love story while never intending to make it canon (looking at you, Teen Wolf). Representation in Vagrant Queen is straightforward and unfettered right out of the gate: we first meet Amae in bed with another woman, and often see her flirting with other women throughout the show. The sweet, sparkling chemistry between Rae and McGregor is right there in their first interaction, and the bond they strike up through various (mis)adventures makes for both a breathlessly swoony and emotionally healthy romance – they support each other, trust each other, listen to each other, protect each other, and truly care about each other as friends first and (potential) lovers second. Not only is this a particularly brilliant queer romance, it’s just a gorgeously written romance full stop, one which doesn’t function solely on angst for angst’s sake (*ahem* Vampire Diaries).

The show’s fun, feminist and cheekily badass vibe has shades of Lost Girl and Wynona Earp, but sometimes it goes full-on Saw – and the character responsible for most of the bloodshed is the meticulously unhinged Commander Ori Lazaro (Paul du Toit). If you were to mash together Joaquin Phoenix’s roles as Emperor Commodus and Johnny Cash with a pot of hair gel and a pair of elf ears, you’d get Commander Lazaro. Du Toit may be having the most fun of the entire cast, which is really saying something – and it’s easy to see why. Lazaro is a completely looney tune; a preening sadist with both a raging superiority streak and an inferiority complex (a dangerous combination). This is a galaxy which feels genuinely dangerous, especially for our three ramshackle heroes, and it’s largely down to du Toit’s unnervingly psychotic performance.

My only real point of contention is that I think the show is often too gory for its own good. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of gore – but it has to fit the tone of its story. The campy ultraviolence of Punisher: War Zone matched its hyperbolically brutal tone; the casual carnage in Deadpool is an essential part of its cynical metatextuality. Vagrant Queen’s not afraid to Go There™ – and that’s commendable, but its gore often feels disturbing for the sake of it – there are things that Lazaro compels lackeys and prisoners to do to themselves that will haunt me for a long time, and while it reinforced his credentials as a worthy villain, it often feels gratuitous and unnecessary given the otherwise tongue in cheek tone. At the same time, it’s commendable of the show to have the courage of its convictions and go to some truly dark places…

…Because this is a show which is 100% itself. It’s refreshingly proud of its strangeness, and its scrappy, unpolished charm is a real draw in an age of by-the-numbers blockbusters. This is a show that cares. It cares so deeply – about its characters, its story, its world, and its audience. It knows when to be goofy, when to be cool, and when to be emotional. Everyone on this show is giving it their all, from the hapless loyalists to the Republic guards (essentially Goth Stormtroopers) who all have distinct, quirky personalities. One particular standout is Thembalethu Ntuli who plays Nim, a canine-faced humanoid who steals any scene he’s in and is in too few of them. Ntuli’s performance is so good he makes you forget that the CGI on his face is little more a marginally enhanced Snapchat filter.

There is a genuine warmth and sincerity infused in every frame – and shows with a low budget and a big heart are my kryptonite. It’s clearly having a ball and wants you to join in with the fun. It’s a terrible shame that Syfy thoughtlessly cut the party short when it was only just beginning – and also a huge mistake for a channel with the least inspiring line-up of shows that don’t come close to filling the void left behind by Vagrant Queen. It could have been their new Killjoys – but instead, with Van Helsing ending and Wynonna Earp as their sole remaining draw, most of their remaining content is composed of rookie shows in their first seasons – like Vagrant Queen, which had so much potential that I can only hope another network has the guts to put their faith in.

With very few exceptions, it is unwise to judge a series on its first season alone. They need time to breathe, to experiment, to play, until they’ve settled into a tone. Cancelling a series after one season is like throwing a first draft in the bin – and Vagrant Queen, like many shows cut down before their time, got better and better with every episode. There’s a common misconception that a pilot has to hook you for a show to be worth investing in. I’ve been guilty of switching off a show mid-premiere, only to give it another try and become involved. Killjoys’ first season was shaky but promising. The Expanse’s first episode was almost unwatchable, but a mid-season turn got viewers hooked. Dark Matter had an intriguing pitch but its slow burn approach to character and plot rewarded viewers by the end of its first season. Season one is where you work out your tone; season two is where the story you want to tell truly begins. You need to give a series the time and space to find its footing and build its audience.

For my part, I feel that every series should be automatically locked in for a first and second season when a network green lights them – a single season is just a graveyard of missed opportunities otherwise. There seems to be an increasing aversion to investing in shows which aren’t an immediate worldwide sensation. Networks are giving hope and opportunity to creators without actually giving them a chance to build new worlds with long-lasting mileage. It seems that if a series isn’t an instant hit, it’s binned – and there’s a trend of co-productions not lasting long at Syfy (I’ve never got over them cancelling Dark Matter three seasons into a five-season plan). Haven’t networks learned from Firefly that cutting down a promising show before it’s even hit its stride is a mistake in the long run?

After The Rise of Skywalker crushed my love for Star Wars into a fine pulp, Vagrant Queen was like the fix-it fic I desperately needed. Knowingly campy, pulpy fun with fantastic costumes, striking makeup design, a goofily psychedelic tone and technicolour palette that makes it one of the most distinctive and innovative shows on TV right now, Vagrant Queen is a neon-splashed, gung-ho space adventure that has an enormous amount of fun and wants you to bring you along for the ride.

Sign the petition to #SaveVagrantQueen and stream the series on Syfy.com.

Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams star as a quirky Icelandic musical duo who fail their way to the top in representing their nation at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision is, at its heart, a celebration of togetherness; it’s essentially a festival of campy delights that annually gathers the wondrous and the weird together on a single stage. It’s so singularly, spectacularly strange that I’m not surprised to hear that Will Ferrell of all people is a fan. The man loves to sing! He sings in practically all of his movies, like this one, this one, this genuine belter from Casa de Mi Padre and of course this classic. He even sang at the Oscars – twice!

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga brings two of these loves together in a joyous ode to being completely and defiantly true to yourself. Directed by David Dobkin, the film follows Lars Erickssong (Will Ferrell), a lovably unlucky wannabe-musician who dreams of nothing but winning the Eurovision Song Contest. The only support from his small-town home of Húsavík comes in the form of his long-suffering bestie and Fire Saga bandmate Sigrit Ericksdottir (Rachel McAdams), who has been in love with the oblivious Lars since they were children. Through a series of loopholes, freak accidents and government wrangling, the unlikely duo finds themselves representing their nation in the contest.

Ferrell could play the lovable man-child archetype in his sleep, and in his last few films he seems to have done just that – Daddy’s Home 2, Get Hard and Holmes & Watson all missed the mark in so many ways – but here he’s on top form (aided in no small part by an absolutely fantastic wig). Rachel McAdams shines once again in a comedic role after her hilarious turn in Game Night, and they have real chemistry – even if the film veers into fantasy by suggesting that McAdams and Ferrell could have grown up together or that she would be the one pining for him and not the other way around. Fire Saga is not quite a musical, not quite a pastiche, but its songs are enjoyable across the board. I liked that neither Lars nor Sigrit are inept musicians – the lavish music video for the extremely catchy ‘Volcano Man’ may exist only in their dreams (for now), but their songs are genuinely excellent, from the foot-tapping ‘Double Trouble’ to the sweeping ballad ‘Húsavík’.

The highlight of the whole thing is Dan Stevens having the time of his life as Alexander Lemtov, an ostentatious singer representing Russia in the contest. Not to spoil the film, but you should absolutely know in advance that there is a scene in which Stevens, wearing a gold-brocade suit and a Careless Whisper-era George Michael wig, sings a song called ‘Lion of Love’ while flanked by a group of scantily-clad hunks. You owe it to yourself to watch that in HD.

A starry medley featuring a multitude of Eurovision winners (I spotted Conchita Wurst and Alexander Rybak) is the cherry on top of a loving homage to the hilarity and exuberance of the contest. It compelled me to revisit my Eurovision favourites of yore – Only Teardrops, Running Scared, Hard Rock Hallelujah and Fairytale – and though nothing could ever beat Ukraine’s entry from 2007, Ferrell has distilled the magic of what makes a classic Eurovision act, capturing the campy charm in a way that only a superfan could.

Sometimes Ferrell’s comedies veer into the mean-spirited (Get Hard, Anchorman, Daddy’s Home) – that’s not the case here. Instead, the film affectionately teases a show which is already acutely self-aware, and gloriously proud, of its quirks. In terms of Ferrell’s filmography, it’s his most successful blend of good comedy and genuine emotional warmth since 2003’s Elf (although I have a place in my heart for both The Other Guys and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, you would be hard-pressed to call either film particularly warm-hearted).

Although it’s a shame we won’t get to witness Daði Freyr win the top spot with the immeasurably catchy ‘Think About Things’ due to the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling this year’s contest, Netflix’s endearing, fun tribute is a loving send-up of the things which make Eurovision bizarre and brilliant in equal measure. It may not be for everyone, but for me it’s the best film released in lockdown so far, and a welcome slice of escapist fun.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is currently streaming on Netflix.