We'd heard reports that V's long hiatus was due to ABC's unhappiness with the new scripts, so I don't know if this episode was written before or after the shutdown.
I hope to God it was written before. This is terrible sci-fi, rehashing every alien invasion trope you've been sick of forever.
Not a single one of these characters are credible- they're all stock cutouts. The asskicking female cop, the earnest priest (a hideous anachronism in this day and age), the evil queen, her slimy henchman, the noble rebels, the opportunistic reporter, the hardbitten soldier-of-fortune- it's all comic book stuff. And by that I mean pre-Stan and Jack, never mind pre-Alan Moore. We're told these aliens have no emotions and then spend an hour watching them express emotions. If Morena Baccarin's character had a mustache, she'd have spent the entire episode twirling it.
The conflict we're presented with could barely sustain a miniseries, never mind an ongoing one. All the more so given the fact that this is a remake. The Scientology analogies were all that kept me watching until the end, but the writing itself (including some of the clumsiest character exposition I've ever seen) was on the level of a Steven Seagal movie.
This is binary conflict of the lowest variety, really a terrible comedown given the pedigree of talent involved. What an incredible disappointment. I must say I'm not surprised this show lost over a million viewers in its second half-hour.
I'm not giving up on this series yet, but I am damn close to it. These people need to show me something new, for frak's sake, and soon.
UPDATE: Ah, now I get it. From the Den of Geek review:
OK, good. Now I can stop watching.
Not a single one of these characters are credible- they're all stock cutouts. The asskicking female cop, the earnest priest (a hideous anachronism in this day and age), the evil queen, her slimy henchman, the noble rebels, the opportunistic reporter, the hardbitten soldier-of-fortune- it's all comic book stuff. And by that I mean pre-Stan and Jack, never mind pre-Alan Moore. We're told these aliens have no emotions and then spend an hour watching them express emotions. If Morena Baccarin's character had a mustache, she'd have spent the entire episode twirling it.
The conflict we're presented with could barely sustain a miniseries, never mind an ongoing one. All the more so given the fact that this is a remake. The Scientology analogies were all that kept me watching until the end, but the writing itself (including some of the clumsiest character exposition I've ever seen) was on the level of a Steven Seagal movie.
This is binary conflict of the lowest variety, really a terrible comedown given the pedigree of talent involved. What an incredible disappointment. I must say I'm not surprised this show lost over a million viewers in its second half-hour.
I'm not giving up on this series yet, but I am damn close to it. These people need to show me something new, for frak's sake, and soon.
Did you enjoy your V-cation? While you and I had a break from the show for a few months, the powers that ABC were busy little beavers. The show runner from the first four episodes, Jeffrey Bell, was taken off the show permanently. Scott Peters, creator and executive producer, lost his power.
The show is now the baby of a guy named Scott Rosenbaum, a writer and producer for NBC's hit Chuck, because a guy known for writing light spy comedy is a guy I want in charge of my hard-hitting sci-fi drama!
Yeah, me too.
The DoG reviewer picked up on the tired old "action" hash the show is slinging now:
They seem to be moving in that direction (Anna's black widow snack attack, the new character's proclivity for violence, how this episode started out with Erica killing a V ambusher), but I don't know if it's going to work. It was awfully quippy this episode, like a bad 80s action movie.So V suddenly feels like a completely different show because the original producers (the ones who worked for the past two decades on classic sci-fi shows like Outer Limits, X-Files, Angel and 4400) were replaced by a novice showrunner with less than 40 episodes of TV under his belt.
OK, good. Now I can stop watching.
