Spoiler Danger: Very High

Well, what a way to wrap up a season!

When I first heard the rumors that ABC was thinking about canning V, I was not the happiest camper around. The show is good, it’s getting better as we go along, and it would be quite unfair to those such as myself who’d invested the time in watching it thus far to axe it without giving us a proper end to the story. Now that I’ve seen the cliffhanger ending that was the season finale, I’m more relieved than ever that the show was saved.

All season long, we’ve been building the tensions between the Fifth Column and the Visitors. It’s been fascinating to watch it unfold, and I went into the episode expecting big things. That being said, let me clear the air by starting out with my big gripe for the episode. If you have not watched the episode yet, you’d be well advised to turn away now. There be spoilers ahead.

Anna has snapped already, and the show ended with the skies turning red and the fleet of attack ships en route to start doing to earth whatever it is that they’ve been planning. The way they handled her snapping, feeling her first human emotion, was done very well – what, with all her eggs being blown to bits and what have you. But I feel it was too soon. Anna has long been the pillar of strength, the bastion of apathy, and all too suddenly, she’s feeling emotions. It would have felt more real had she slipped up a couple of times before this happened. The flip side of the coin is that, as queen, it should take something monumentally tragic for her to cross that line, but it still felt rushed to me. The other thing that bothers me about this turn of events is that it kills so many story opportunities they had. For example, they just converted Chad Decker – Joshua showed him the light.m In the wake of Anna’s premature attack on earth, that whole storyline was negated. See, it didn’t matter whether he was converted or not. Upon seeing the red skies and the attack vessels, he would have understood what that meant, and would have converted anyway. Looking back on the episode, it seems that the creative minds behind it sense that the show may be cancelled sooner rather than later, and are subsequently rushing to get the story finished.

On the more positive side of things, there are many other aspects of the story that they are handling very well. Ryan’s conversion back into the V fold, for example, was handled exceptionally well between this episode and last. The fact that he is back in the fold is surprising, but the way that story was told made it feel like a natural progression. We are led to realize that Ryan is weak. His principles are week, and he flip flops often. We saw it first as John May shook his loyalty to Anna, then we saw it again as Anna shook his loyalty to the humans. It will be interesting to see if she ends up killing him for his transgressions.

Also, Lisa finally went good guy on us, as she helps Joshua escape his prison, and provided Erica with the blue energy bomb she used to destroy the eggs. Speaking of which, the Visitors have surveillance everywhere, as we’ve seen time and time again. Are we really supposed to think that there’s nothing in the egg room that would have shown that Erica was the one who tossed the grenade?

One character who I’ve become quite attached to over the course of the season who has yet to receive and love in this blog is Joshua. He’s Anna’s top medical advisor and also a member of the Fifth Column as well as being one of the most honest characters in the entire show. Unlike Hobbes or Ryan or even Erica, he knows what must be done to save humanity, and he works hard to ensure it gets done. He has no ulterior motives (at least, we’ve seen none so far) and is one of the shows true good guys. Watching him die, for the good of the cause no less, was surprisingly depressing. I didn’t realize quite how much I liked Joshua until he was gone. Sad thing, that. Of course, the visitors later resurrect him, and Marcus utters a remarkably evil “Welcome back.” On one hand, I was excited that he’s back – yet I also find myself horrified at the torture he’s likely going to have to endure now. On the upside, I feel that he will continue to play a major part in the defense of earth in the second season.

Speaking of Marcus, he’s about as evil and V-ish as you get. Even more so than Anna, he has a firm grasp on anything even resembling human emotion, going so far as to try to keep Anna from springing her trap prematurely. The guy gives me a serious case of the creeps, and I find him to be the most despicable of all the Visitors. I mean, even Anna has her human side – there’s just no redeeming qualities for Marcus, other than his always-sharp style of dressing.

That about covers my thoughts for the episode. It’ll be a while before you’ll see any new posts here, as the first season of V is over. Stay tuned, as I will be back with the premiere of the second season. Let the countdown begin!

Spoiler Danger: High

So, today I’m catching up with my V write ups. Finally, right? I’m a bit upset at my current life schedule, as I’ve had time to watch V and keep up with it, but every time I sit down to write a review, I am pulled away by something going on in the 3 dimensional world. So, I’ve cleared my schedule – albeit briefly – and I’m going to sit here and write this review.

Episode 9 was pretty darned epic, especially as far as the story line for Ryan and Val went. After discovering that she is pregnant with a hybrid baby, Val freaks out. Her relationship with Ryan disintegrates throughout the episode, and as evil as this may sound, it is a pleasure to watch. Not because the story points are happy, per se, but because it is so well acted. Pay attention when they’re on screen, as there are a lot of small details to appreciate.

In other story segments, Hobbes tortures the sniper captured in the last episode in order to get answers from him. While interesting from an I kind of like Hobbes standpoint, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about it.

Much more interesting are the dynamics escalating between Anna/Lisa and Erica/Tyler. Tyler is beginning to forgive his mother for the supposed lie about his father, and then he is invited to join the Live Aboard program, a program that allows humans to live aboard the V ships. Why that wouldn’t raise red flags with people who expect them to be going home soon, I have no idea, but it’s TV. It is mostly expected. Anyway, as Tyler hesitates about accepting, we see the human side of Lisa come out, as she starts to sympathize with Erica and Tyler. I think there’s a lot to their relationship that Lisa appreciates, perhaps wishes she could have. As she tries to convince Tyler to stay with his mother, Tyler assumes that Erica put her up to it and proceeds to get irrationally angry at his mother. Teenagers…

Finally, it seems Chad Decker has finally turned completely to the dark side. The end of the episode shows us that he seems to be working with Anna in an effort to expose and eliminate the Fifth Column. Decker is very well played by Scott Wolf, and there are few characters on TV I enjoy hating quite as much as him.

Anyway, the episode introduces us to a new kind of Visitor – the soldier. Bum ba BUM. They are supposedly very evil and skilled and all around badasses. They’ve never set foot on Earth, but apparently their ability to destroy things is great enough that there is concern about the aftermath and humans wondering where it came from. We don’t really see that in this episode though. The soldier is dealt with almost single-handedly by Ryan. Granted the big guy doesn’t die easily, his powers of destruction definitely left something to be desired. Disappointing, to say the least.

Moving right along to episode 10, there was only one really interesting thing that happened. Lisa, deciding she can’t bear whatever it is her mother wants to do to Tyler, breaks up with him. Tyler, for his part, deals with it as any teenage male might, and promptly blames his mother. Huzzah. Lisa goes back to tell Anna that Tyler is not the one, and we get to see Anna’s most evil act to date. She slaps her daughter to the ground and orders her legs broken. It seems that each week, we get to see just how deep Anna’s vileness goes, and that hole is deep indeed.

This moves us right along to episode 11 where we get to see the consequences of Anna’s actions. Lisa is found in an alley, her legs brutalized and bent completely out of shape. She fingers Hobbes and a man we haven’t heard of yet whose name is Parker. We learn that Hobbes was hired to kill Parker 4 weeks ago, right before being framed by the Visitors for the bombing of their warehouse. Long story short, Hobbes finds Parker first and steals research Parker was working on – some environmentally friendly fuel experiment gone wrong. The advantage is that the “wrong” part results in an algae that can potentially kill the Visitors. We finally know why the Visitors want Parker. It’s likely that they want Hobbes just because he is a loose end, as the episode leads us to believe that it was they who originally hired Hobbes to kill Parker – a job Hobbes turned down.

Now, Hobbes is trying to sell that research to the Visitors in exchange for his own freedom.

As I mentioned earlier, the dynamic that continues to evolve between Erica, Tyler, Lisa, and Anna is utterly fascinating. Erica finds out that Lisa is a Visitor and that she is Anna’s daughter. Lisa apologizes to Tyler to bring him back into the fold, and Erica is made head of the Fifth Column task force, therefore putting her in the position of being a prominent member of Anna’s plans for the world. Also, Erica finally meets Joshua face to face, where he tells her the truth of what happened to Lisa.

The episode ends on a really fascinating note. Anna is giving out the Bliss, and we see Lisa and Joshua standing together, both listening to the Bliss, but neither really feeling it. This, I think, will prove to be the turning point for Lisa, as she converts tot he cause of the humans. We also got an interesting counterpoint to that in that we see Ryan, who is struggling with the loss of Val, almost return to that Bliss. He stands, staring out his window, and he hears the Bliss, and for a moment I thought he was going to open up to it fully. In the end, he resists, but it was great to see his struggle with rejoining at the same time we see Lisa pulling away.

Summary of the episodes aside, there are a few things I’d like to discuss. First, I find myself yet again wanting to gripe about the way the Visitors draw completely unnecessary attention to things that they really shouldn’t. In this episode, we are introduced to Parker, whose research will likely be the thing that spells the end of the Visitor menace. However, up until the Visitors drew attention to him, nobody knew that there was an algae that could kill them, nor would anybody likely have found out. Sure, their ploys allowed them to capture Parker, but they also allowed Hobbes to steal the research and Erica to get a sample of the algae – not to mention the fact that now the Fifth Column knows that a weapon like this exists now. In my own brain, I would think that the Visitors would be better served by just ignoring the problem instead of trying to shed light on it.

On a more positive note, I have become quite attached to Erica Evans. For the first time in a long time, we have a really strong female lead, one who is both tough but still human, still emotional. Watching her try to balance the the two completely opposite sides of her life is wonderful, and my hat is off to Elizabeth Mitchell for bringing this character to such powerful life. Evans is a wonderful counterpoint to Anna – they are both strong and driven women, they are both leaders and mothers. The way these two are contrasted against each other throughout the episodes is great. For example, the scene where Evans learns that Anna is responsible for the atrocities done to Lisa is great. The horror of the realization stuns Evans, shocks her and horrifies her. This is held up immediately to the cold and calculated responses of Anna, and the differences are stunning – and more than a little creepy too.

I also maintain that Morena Baccarin was the perfect choice to play Anna. She plays her with a calm composure that is almost intoxicating in its level of evil. She is half the reason this show is so good – Evans is the other half. Together, these two make a powerful on screen duo.

So tomorrow is the season finale. Its funny to see how far we’ve come in just 12 episodes. I’m eagerly anticipating what we’re going to see tomorrow. Look for the review to be posted (hopefully) Wednesday night.

Finally, ABC has announced that they are renewing V for a second season!!!!! I am relieved beyond words, because the show has been getting better and better ans the season has progressed.

See you in a couple of days!

I know I promised more timely V reviews here, but unfortunately the “real world” has been pretty good at getting in the way. Take right now, for example, I’m writing this review at work. Win!

“We Can’t Win” was a really great episode. When I first started watching the show, I wasn’t really enamored with any of the charaters, yet as the show moves on, I find myself liking them more. In particular, Erica has really grown on me. She’s a really strong female lead, and I think it’s great that we are treated to such a character. It’s sadly still not too common to have such a character as the central character in a show, but Erica is just that.

Hobbes has really grown on me as well. He is very much the antithesis of the rest of the team. The rest of the team has some humanity, a lot of compassion – Hobbes, however, does not. He is the ultimate “war realist.” He knows that sacrifice is necessary, and he really doesn’t hesitate when it comes to using people to accomplish his goals, as practical as those goals happen to be.

We also get to see some internal conflict with Father Landry. He promises the father of a V massacre survivor that he will protect his son. When it comes down to it, though, the son dies – by his own hand, because he was a moron – and the toll that takes on Jack was immediately evident, both in his actions and his facial expressions. That was a fine bit of acting on Joel Gretsch’s part.

In a rather bold move, Joshua attempts to secure the allegiance of Lisa, Anna’ daughter. For the last couple of episodes, Anna has been getting all the Visitors aboard the ships tested. The test involves watching a a video comprised of images and sounds associated with human suffering. The test measures the empathetic response to those images. Of course, the idea is that the Fifth Column members will fail the test, because they have learned to feel human emotion, and will therefore exhibit a strong emotional response to the test. This test is what led to Joshua and Ryan making first contact.

Not too surprisingly, considering Lisa’s growing feelings for Tyler, she fails. She is quick to blame her failure on Tyler. Joshua, thinking she might be a useful ally for the Fifth Column in the future, decides to lie to Anna about the test results. This assures that Lisa won’t die at the hands of her mother, but I’m not entirely sure it buys her loyalty – she seems fiercely loyal to her mother, going so far as to appear angry that Joshua didn’t tell her mother the truth.

This episode also sees Ryan finally finding his girlfriend, Valerie. See, she had run away after finding Ryan’s secret stash of old passports and the real images of her baby. She runs off to a V healing center where they see her baby and decide that she must die. Fortunately, Ryan shows up just in time and saves the day. Now that they are back together, I find myself interested in how their storyline shapes up. I imagine that Ryan will finally tell her the truth about who he is and what is growing inside her, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Finally, Chad Decker… I go back and forth on his character so much. It seems there are times when he has a conscience and that he is truly bothered by the things he sees Anna doing. Then there are other times when he just shoves all that down for his spot in the limelight. This episode has another one of these moments, as throughout the entire episode, he is doubting everything that Anna is doing. Yet, in the end, as always, he is right back to kissing Anna’s backside. I’d love to see him do the right thing for a change, rather than just ride Anna’s coattails.

That will about conclude this week’s review. Before I take off, however, I’d like to point out that V is on the verge of being cancelled. It and FlashForward are both in that spot where they are good enough that they can be renewed, but they are not getting the ratings they need to guarantee a second season. I highly encourage you all to go sit down and watch the show. Let’s show ABC that we want a second season of V.

More apologies are due here, as I have been fantastically busy the last week or so, and I have not had the chance to post a review of Episode 6 of V. In order to save myself a bit of time, and to ensure you get your review for both episodes 6 and 7, I’m combining them into one review.

On to it then!

Spoiler Danger: High

Things are definitely ramping up in the world of V. These last two episodes have given us a TON to wrap our brains around. If you’re not watching the show yet, you should be, because it is getting REALLY good.

Despite my lingering annoyance with the way Kyle Hobbes was brought into the Resistance, I enjoy his character. He butts heads with everybody (his confrontations with Agent Evans are pretty sweet), he’s a hardass, but he’s got a great sense of what needs to be done. Very militaristic, which is something the show definitely needed. The resistance was soft before, it was hardly credible that they could stand a chance against the Visitors. Hobbes lends them that credibility, thin as it may be right now.

In terms of Ryan, he is torn between dealing with the needs of the Resistance  and the needs of his wife, who is carrying his alien and very deadly baby. Circumstances work such that Ryan gets on board the V mothership to embed a Resistance message in one of Anna’s messages. In brief, this leads to Ryan meeting Joshua, the chief medical advisor to Anna and Fifth Column member. This is welcome, as I was wondering when he was going to play a role in the show. Also, Ryan is decidedly horrible at blending in. I would have suspected him the moment he stepped in line, so obvious was his behavior different from the regular Visitors.

This also leads to the capture of Georgie and the saddest moment the show has seen yet. I’ve liked Georgie’s character since the beginning, and his capture is heartbreaking.

One of the most interesting parts of the story has become the relationship between Erica Evans and her son Tyler. I’ll be honest, at first, I really did not like it. However, as the characters have grown, especially over the last two episodes, I have come to like them and appreciate the tension between them more and more. I think it took the addition of Tyler’s father into the story to give me the appreciation I have now. The tensions between the two of them feel more real than most family drama you see on TV nowadays, especially with the bombshell dropped in episode 7. Yowza!

So, what review would be complete without a couple of gripes. In the most recent episode, Joshua notes that the Visitors aboard the ships were under heavy scrutiny, yet he maneuvers rather deftly through that surveillance. When he uncovers Ryan’s alignment with the Resistance, nobody seems to notice. He kills somebody who is being tortured by injecting a drug, but the Visitors didn’t realize it. For all their advanced technology, you’d think they’d be able to detect their own freaking drugs! Am I right? Also, wouldn’t they be able to trace the embedded message to find out which terminal the message was embedded from, and then use footage from one of their cameras that they seem to have all over their ships?

OK, end rant.

Episode 7 deals with the consequences of the lies. There are a lot of lies that have been told in this show, and they all start to fall apart in this episode. The lies Ryan tells his wife, the lies Erica tells Tyler. They all come crashing down, and damn is it ugly. This is great story telling. After episode 6, I felt closer to these characters  than I have since the beginning of the show, and that adds to the feeling of sadness that accompanied most of the events in episode 7. Plus, we get the added bonus of seeing the tale of John May, equally sad, through a series of flashbacks.

In one of my favorite parts in this episode, Chad Decker grows a pair. I was excited that he finally seems to be taking a stand against Anna, listening to his instinct for a change. Hopefully.

Final thought: Lisa, Ty’s girlfriend and Anna’s daughter, is a manipulative beeeeee-yotch.

Anyway, that covers my thoughts for the last two episodes. I hope to get back on a more regular reviewing schedule here, so stay tuned.

Peace!

Spoiler Danger: High

I’d like to start by apologizing for the HUGE delay in getting this out. I thought I’d published it, but it turns out this post has been sitting in my Drafts folder for the last couple of weeks. Yikes! That’s what I get for not checking properly, eh? Anyway, here’s the full episode review in its entirety.

The first episode after V’s extra long break picks up right where the last episode left off. It doesn’t take long before we see the ramifications of Jack’s run in with the warehouse guard, the R6 compound, and the pregnancy of Ryan Nichols’ girlfriend.

It is interesting to see that there are cracks in the Visitors’ plan for world domination. The explosion that resulted int he destruction of the warehouse was apparently a major setback. The rise of the Fifth Column looks to be a major thorn in their sides – especially since, unbeknown to the Vs, the head of Anna’s medical team is among the Fifth Column’s ranks. Yet, despite all the setbacks, Anna moves forward, conducting all the pieces of their plan. And that plan has a good many pieces, from their mysterious purpose for Tyler, the R6 compound, the impromptu creation of a new army (Anna is not just the V leader, she is their queen), the manipulation of Chad Decker to continue to pain the Vs in a positive light, and so on and so forth, all of which are addressed in this episode.

The show continues to come close to answer questions without necessarily spilling all the beans. Part of the excitement for me coming back each week is seeing just how new pieces of the plan will unfold and how the resistance finds ways to throw a wrench into the works.

Speaking of the resistance, they have a new, and reluctant, member now, thanks to some confounding actions by the Visitors. I don’t quite understand why they felt they needed to frame Kyle Hobbes – a British mercenary apparently very good at training militias –  for the explosion at the warehouse. He didn’t want anything to do with the Visitors, but by framing him, the Visitors gave Erica and her gang a new and very powerful ally. The Visitors’ move to frame him struck me immediately as nonsensical and very unlike them. Why provoke somebody they fear so much, when he wasn’t really a threat until after the provocation? Anna mentions that he can help the resistance build an army, but he wouldn’t likely have done that before the framing incident. Is there more to this that we are aware of currently, or is this simply a plot hole, a convenient excuse to get another member into the resistance movement?

The other thing that bugged me was the pregnancy of Valerie Stevens, Ryan’s girlfriend/fiancée. She learned of her pregnancy at a V healing center. There are some events in this episode that make it abundantly clear that she is carrying a V child. If this is the case, however, why wouldn’t the Visitors’ highly advanced medical technology have picked this up? The show has spent much time hyping their technology, so why would it miss something so monumental as a woman who is pregnant with a lizard-child? Color me confused.

Anyway, those gripes aside, I continue to enjoy the show. “Welcome to the War” was a great way to kick off the second portion of the season, and I hope the show continues to show such life. Like I mentioned before, I’m very curious to see all the levels of Anna’s plan start to come together, and I ultimately want to see how or if the resistance can stop it.

Super spoiler alert here.

The last scene in this episode shows the mating process as Anna chooses her mate and goes about creating her new army. The scene was very well choreographed and shot, and it gives us a neat glimpse into the culture of the Vistors, much the way the Bliss scene from a couple of episodes back did. While in the human culture, sex is (often) an emotional and passionate endeavor, this is not so with the Visitors. Anna is truly the dominant being of her race, and we see that clearly as she comes in, shoves her mate’s head to the side and hovers over him for a few moments while the deed is done. Having finished with him, she decides he’d make great nourishment for her eggs and promptly goes all black widow on him in a scene that was rather… creepy. Talk about a great way to end an episode!

As always, thanks for reading.  Peace!

Spoiler Potential: Moderate

Welcome, readers, to my first review of V – the new series on ABC that attempts to remake and modernize the cult classic from the 1980s. It took me a while to get really excited about this show, in all honesty. I was too young to get into the original series, and my opinion of remakes is, in general, very low. The more advertisements I saw, however, the more interested I became. So, as the show premiered late last year, I sat down to see if the show could live up to the hype.

It didn’t take long for the show to really sink its hooks in. The producers waste little time in getting straight to the meat of the story – the alien invasion. To summarize: The show starts with earthquakes and crashing airplanes, segueing very quickly to the lovely visage of Anna (played by Morena Baccarin) reassuring the people of earth that they come in peace and would like to trade advancements in medical technology for water. Of course, anybody whose seen even a small amount of Sci Fi should be well aware that such generous offers should rarely be taken at face value. Unfortunately, it seems that most people in this world haven’t seen much Sci Fi…

Anyway, queue the world lining up to partake of the miracles the technology of the Visitors can bestow upon the sick and crippled. They can cure cancers, blindness, most forms of sickness – the common cold is still out of their grasp, however – and can even make the crippled walk again. Their technology allows them to see everything bad that’s ever happened to your body as well as predict what will happen to your body. It truly does sound amazing.

Not everybody is so smitten with the Visitors, though. The show does a good job of portraying the riots and dissent among the folks who aren’t quite so quick to trust the gifts offered by the Vs. Episode after episode, however, that group is dealt some serious damage through the ever devious actions of Anna as well as the attention-craving journalist Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) who sacrifices his principles time and again to get at his 15 minutes.

Among the dissenters is a group of people who want to rise up and fight the Vs, people who know who the Visitors are and that the cost of these medical miracles is far greater than just a supply of water. And it is here that we start to see the true face of the Visitors – they have infiltrated all levels of government with their sleeper agents and will not hesitate to strike down any who stand in their way.

It is with this resistance movement that we find our core characters: FBI Agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell), a mother who is torn between her job and the drama caused by her hormonal teenage son Tyler (Logan Huffman); Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch), a priest with the Catholic Church who struggles with always wanting to do the right thing; Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut), a V who has decided to side with humanity and who has a human girlfriend; and Georgie Sutton (David Richmond-Peck). I am quite undecided about this core group of characters. There are times when the acting here is really good, then there are times when it’s really not. As we move forward into the back portion of the season, I would love to see some more consistency in the acting.

The high points of the show, in terms of cast, are really Anna and Chad Decker. Morena Baccarin and Scott Wolf do a fantastic job portraying their characters. Baccarin was the perfect choice to play Anna: she is at once seductive and despicably creepy, which is exactly what she needs to be. As the leader and public face of the Visitors, you just can’t ask for a better villain. Ched Decker is the journalist who is constantly struggling with his principles. He is offered a deal – portray the Visitors in a positive light and he becomes the only one with the privilege of interviewing Anna on TV. In particular, the scene in the pilot episode where Decker struggles with the idea of sacrificing his journalistic integrity in the name of fame is quite good.

Story and characters aside, the show dwells on several interesting points. I won’t cover all of them in this review (I do have to have things to talk about in future reviews after all), but one of the things that the show touched upon very heavily in the first few episodes was the idea of the power of devotion. It is called a weapon at one point in the pilot, and taken in context, that couldn’t be closer to the truth. The Visitors have a great plan – gain the loyalty, the devotion of the human race. They give us these fantastic gifts in the form of their highly advanced medical technology, and we are grateful to them. Father Landry points out at one point that the problem with gratitude is that eventually it can transform into devotion. The first 4 episodes do a fantastic job of showing the progression from gratitude to devotion.

Now that the Visitors have our devotion, it will be interesting to see how they wield this new weapon.

For whatever reason, ABC decided that after 4 episodes, the show would take a 4 month hiatus. This is a decision I have thoroughly disagreed with for numerous reasons. Mostly, I was a bit pissed that I had to wait 4 months for the fifth episode, just as I was starting to get into the show! that gripe aside, the first new episode of the year debuted on Tuesday, and I’m off to watch that one right now.

Ciao.