Speaking of which, one of the issues that reportedly didn't sit well with the network was the fact that despite the antagonists being LIZARDS from FREAKING OUTER SPACE the show refused to use the word "alien". If true, it really makes me appreciate just how damn racist the Colonials were to those frakkin' skinjobs and toasters over on "Battlestar Galactica".
Is this about being politically correct or about reinforcing the term "visitor" to the viewers? If its about being p.c. I'll boycott the show because of the pussification of language and my general dislike of the ever growing plague of political correctness.
Honestly, I see it being a backlash against political correctness. I can see the rebellion using "ALIEN" as a term to get people to realize that hey, these V's aren't all they are cracked up to be, they aren't from here, and they are bad from the word "go."
I also never watched the original, but my best friend is obsessed with it, so I mostly watched it for him & I was a fan of Elizabeth Mitchel back in her ER days (sigh). I thought it was ok, I liked the beginning, but, like others, am not a huge fan of the son. I wish they kept the reptile thing a secret for another episode or two and made that discovery a bit more suspenseful.
They really should have taken a page out of the Ronald D. Moore/BSG handbook and made the first 4 eps a mini series that aired consecutively instead of every week until coming back in March. I'm with everyone else that wished for a less compressed storyline. Everything feels so rushed and unnatural as an audience member, you don't have the time nor reality for the truth to sink in.
This show could be the worst thing on tv right now. The pace is rushed, the story lines are unbelievable, the characters are unlikeable... bucket of yuck. I'm a fan of sci-fi and was looking forward to this series but they royally fucked it up.
I think I'm going to stop watching this show. The last episode just wasn't that good. There are way too many things being revealed too fast that it seems rushed. It's like reading the major plot points on paper without a good story to hold everything together. I'm already sick of the whole priest/Erica thing - Let's form a resistance, let's forget about it, but I want to form a resistance, now I want to forget about it. Plus, it's obvious that there will be some kind of love connection between them with all the complications since he's a priest. No thanks.
This is why I took the news of the long hiatus as a good thing. Hopefully ABC realized the shotgun approach runs counter to the storytelling method that has made "LOST" and now "FlashForward" so appealing.
If there's one thing I didn't see coming- it's the blond chick (I can NEVER remember her name) being Anna's daughter. I haven't figured out what exactly they're going to use the emo kid for though. I did get the sense that blond chick did not want to be "using him" in whatever scheme Anna has planned. I like how the Fifth Column is coming together, had hoped Anna's #1 was the insider and not the doctor though. Would have been interesting, but this works too.
I'll admit, the third episode was a big improvement over the second. Considering both episodes were written (or at least finalized) after the pilot was picked up is an encouraging sign. I liked that they brought back the Fifth Column from the original series although the presence of Visitor sleeper cells makes their motivations a bit more complicated. The original Fifth Column were simply "soldiers" that didn't agree with the V's genocidal mission... conscientious objectors, if you will. The mention of "The Bliss" though makes these new rebels ostensibly less concerned about what the Vs have in mind for Earth and more about some underlying lizard-on-lizard beef. Still, I like the positioning this episode set up of Anna manipulating public opinion and using Tyler as a puppet for something down the line. Both of those are throwbacks to the original story ("conversion" and Sean Donovan), which are nice but don't yet make up for the lack of IRONSIDE!
I know the producers said that they had always intended to split up the season into this 4-episode arc and then put the show on hiatus until March, but has anyone given an actual reason for it yet? I haven't really gotten the whole "make the show feel like an event" impression that they claim to be going for. Are they just hedging their bets against the cost of producing a full slate of episodes and having the show bomb, or has the whole season been filmed already? Just based on the way the first three episodes have tried to cram so much into an hour, I don't see a way that they're going to come to some sort of resolution of any plot line that won't make it feel like the show is just disappearing for three or four months. This week's episode was way better and the show is showing signs of getting better over the course of the next few episodes, but unless they end next week's with a serious cliffhanger or resolution that gets people talking about the show and wanting to see more, they're gonna lose a ton of viewers by the time it comes back on the air.
I'm still incredibly confused about what "the bliss" is, some kind of drug? That part completely confused me and I forgot about it until you brought it up. The guy kept yelling about how he was promised to get "connected" again.. connected to what??
I've heard the "official" reason is for the Winter Olympics, but the "unofficial" reason is that the network saw the plans for the rest of the season and was like, Fuck no, redo this immediately, we'll give you four months to fix it and call it a break for the winter olympics. disclaimer: this is all rumors I've heard
Perhaps some kind of neural network? Anna said they've been able to eliminate out of their minds negative things like greed, anger, etc. Perhaps they are still capable of feeling these things, but this network connection forces them out / renders them moot / something like that where in short, you no longer feel them. All that is left are positive feelings. Artificial happiness in other words. I was a little too young to have watched the original series so I'm coming into this pretty fresh. Overall I'm enjoying it. It's moving pretty fast with almost no filler. Perhaps some in-depth character background is being sacrificed because of that, but I'm too interested in finding out what happens next to notice or care. The Fifth Column seems really interesting to me. I was especially surprised to learn the V doctor is actually a member.
The Vs are really the Borg? Actually, I think the whole "connected" aspect, along with "the bliss", will have a much deeper meaning, on that renders the literal intepretation of the blonde chick being Anna's "daughter" suspect. I foresee the V society/hierarchy being like that of a hive, Anna is the "mother" of all Vs in that she controls/dominates the groupthink. If I had to guess, the set up goes something like this (and I am completely spit-balling here): prior to the events depicted, the Vs homeworld was one of warfare and chaos. Anna (or some predecessor) then brought "peace" to the planet, but only by making everyone "connected", i.e. at the price of individualism and freedom of thought. The Fifth Column are those Vs that rebelled/refused to surrender their individuality and fled after an unsuccessful revolt. For whatever reason, the Vs always intended to come to Earth, hence the sleeper cells, perhaps its the only nearby inhabitable planet so the remaining Fifth Columnists fled here, thinking that whatever Anna had planned was a long time off. Or maybe they just want our water and to use as food. Anyone got any Red Dust?
God damn that sucked. Four episodes in and I just couldn't care less about any of the characters, the plot, any of it. Let's hope the break helps. Also, how does that anti-V hobo NOT hit that V? Instead of shooting at that door like a fucking idiot and then standing there while the guy gets up, turns around and shoots you in the stomach, how about taking a step to the right and shooting him first while he's scrambling to find his gun?
Well, I for one think the hiatus is coming at the right moment. The ingredients and the recipe are good, but the cooking leaves a lot to be desired. Put another way, this show smells like "Battlestar Galactica" but tastes like "Heroes". And if you aren't familiar with that metaphor...trust me, it's not a compliment. Here's hoping that the re-tool gets the show on track. And if said re-tool happens to include an off-screen skinning of Undercover Brother so be it. Morris Chestnut isn't a bad actor, but he's a terrible fit for a rebel alien. I find it 100% unbelievable that he and Anna are from the same species.
Leave it to me to buck the trend but i've really enjoyed ALL of the episodes thus far and am sad to see it go on break for so long. They're doing the same to Glee, so other than House- I basically have nothing left to watch. I did stop watching Heroes after I got lost when I missed one episode and the plot holes and continuity errors got too ridiculous for me to continue, and I can see the comparison- so far I think V is handling itself better (although it took 2 seasons for Heroes to lose me) While I know from the original series what the V's main objective is, I don't see how it quite ties into the new series. The whole Flu shot thing confused me (I also having a screaming refluxing 8 week old that breaks my concentration). So.. they're giving the humans a super shot that what? makes you sick so you run out and get the contaminated flu shot? And all the creepy fried up bodies in the lab.. why? If they're going to Spoiler eat us Why fry the bodies beyond recognition?
That's actually a perfect example of the sloppy writing that's been causing problems. Ryan hinted that the Vs were working on a drug that would harm humans but couldn't or wouldn't elaborate on the specifics. But, he apparently knew the names of all the V scientists that were working on it and knew how to crack a V security console. Either he's a wealth of information for Erica and Kung Fu Padre or he's too in the dark to actually bring down Anna. Likewise, the Vs can apparently study human biology in four dimensions but can't hire more than one night watchman to safeguard part of their master plan? If this is a show that supposed to appeal to the "LOST" and "Battlestar Galactica" nerds that love to nitpick shows then ABC was right to stop the bleeding sooner than later. Let's just hope they make it work.
To be fair though, I must admit I liked the introduction of "skinning" as some fate worse than death for the Vs.* It was delightfully left unclear whether Joshua was forced to just cut off the human skin or the leather underneath. Although, I did like Ryan's insinuation that the former would be just as terrible. It's already been hinted that the new skins are more biologic in nature than the fake skin the original series Vistors wore, which were apparently painless and easy to repair. *It reminded me of "boxing" the humanoid Cylons on BSG.