Black Dawn – Ep 2.

Adam finds other survivors, but as they gather together it is clear that no one knows what has happened.

2 Swirlies

“We don’t know what tonight is going to bring. Or tomorrow.”

In true movie fashion, the beautiful girl in distress is the second character we meet. Will they get together?

This is the second episode of the series, and we see that there are, indeed, some survivors from whatever it is that killed almost everyone in L.A. The survivors huddle in a basement and get what surely must be the worst pep talk ever – a real downer followed by, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

I’m still waiting for this series to get going. I’m a sucker for science fiction, so I guess we’ll see what picks up next…

The Velata – Ep2. Resurrection

The Vetala Web Series – Season 1/ Starring Candace Chase, Paul Mendel, Marina Pasqua, Leslie Mildiner, James Tyce/ Written & Directed by Damon Vignale http://www.TheVetala.com

3 Swirlies

“You either want the big story or you don’t.”

The title kinda gives it away.

So, in this second episode, it starts with a surprise (that would have been a bigger surprise without the spoiler title) and then the events of the first episode are (mostly) explained.

While this episode is largely expository – a bad choice when you’re dealing in 5 minute episodes – there’s one interesting part where they show a clip from an old movie, which I assume hints at what’s happening to our gal.

This episode leaves me disappointed after the promise of the first, and I gotta say (at the risk of coming across like an asshole) – what? She wouldn’t go to the hospital or the cops after someone shot at her?

I’ll give it at least a one more episode. What do you guys thinks? Are you going to keep watching?

The Black Dawn – Episode 1

Day 1 – 9:27 am. A mysterious plague falls over Los Angeles, leaving death in its wake.

2 Swirlies

Okay… and then what?

Nice premise, even if we’ve seen it before. People start dropping dead and no one knows why.

The problem is that we watch a full five minute episode and we don’t know more than that… which is to say the same things we knew going in. We don’t know anything about the main character, not his name (at least I didn’t catch it) or why we care about his story.

I don’t want the maker’s of The Black Dawn to feel like I am singling them out in order to make a point, but they have fallen into a trap very common to short form series. Your first episode is not like an opening chapter of a novel, nor is it the opening scene of a movie.It needs to tell a satisfying story, like a pilot for a TV show, only in a very short time span.

Here’s the difference. With a novel or a movie, the audience has already committed to the work as a whole. With a 5 minute episode, the story has to be compelling enough to convince someone to seek out the next installment. You can’t simply start to tell the larger story, you have to finish a smaller one. (And of course leave things hanging enough to make people care about what the storyteller has up their sleeve.)

In this episode of Black Dawn, we know going in that people are going to drop dead, and that’s what we get. I’m hoping in the next episode something else will happen. We’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a little poll. What webseries has the best first episode?

Captain Blasto – Episode 1

Growing tired of his repetitive life, Colin Carter decides to break free of his boredom and become the comic book super hero of his childhood, Captain Blasto.

3 Swirlies

Slow but interesting start.

Okay, so this series isn’t new, but it is new to me, and that’s good enough for The Watch List.

This first episode has a bad case of ‘pilot-itis’. It’s all set up. In fact, it’ s only half of the set-up – almost a prologue, really.   By the end of it, I’m not really sure where the story is going. The preview of the next episode looks funny. Which is something this episode could have used a tiny bit more of.  But while we have seen this concept before, I’m a sucker for superhero stories so I’m willing to go along for the ride.

There are a few laughs in it. I did like the “dinner” left out for Colin by his mom.  And the use of split screen toward the end, starting at the 4:00 mark, was nice. The layout and style of the split screen had a nice, graphic feel to it, and I admire the fact that they left some panels blank. Many people would feel like they were required to fill each one.

The production looks slick. There’s some nice use of colors. It looks like they put a lot of money into lighting and their sets.

So I’m going to keep posting episodes of Captain Blasto on The Watch List.

When you come across a webseries that you haven’t heard of, do you look at the date it was posted? And if you do,does that affect your willingness to watch it? Leave a comment and let us know!