V Series Episode Four Review: “It’s Only The Beginning”

Valerie leaves the house on her own in this episode (and must seek comfort)

Note: As usual, minor episode spoilers, major series spoilers if you haven’t seen the previous episodes.

This blogger is more than satisfied with V’s fourth and final episode of 2009. We got more action, more technology, more Morena Baccarin, and finally more of our other chica Latina Lourdes Benedicto as Valerie Stevens! Even some humor! Bliss all around!

The Visitors practice what they preached when they first came by opening healing centers around the world. It is especially interesting to note how quickly they find perfect locations to open these centers, at least in New York City. They must have Sleeper Agents in the real estate business! They offer the best diagnostics ever, fast healing and a preventative “vitamin supplement” which of course is met with suspicion by the Resistance. The rest of the world seems OK with it as evidenced by the Centers’ months-long waiting lists. Unfortunately the Visitors have not developed the cure to the common cold (oh Anna, you’re so funny when you try human humor).

The Resistance investigates the “vitamin supplement” by following leads to a V-lab which kind of looks like the Fringe lab in terms of creepy things, sans the crazy old guy and the cow. During this whole episode the Resistance shows its strengths and weaknesses, and although everyone has their own agenda it seems that they work well together. The only one who seems to be a loose cannon is Georgie. In my head I keep referring to them as the Mini-Resistance because they are only four people, at times even less.

Our chica Lourdes’ character Valerie gets a personality! (sort of) and we discover more about her: the work she does, her work ethic, and her health issues. Turns out she will have an important role in the V/human saga after all. But I fear her character is being set up to die so her importance may be fleeting.

Chad Decker, a.k.a. The Only Reporter in New York does a story on the Healing Centers and he gets some startling news on his own health. Chad is another character that needs more development. For example, I want to know how he’s handling his fame.

Meanwhile, up on the mothership, Anna investigates the murder of valuable Sleeper Agent Wash Dale Maddox at the hand of the 5th column. The sentence for the traitor? To be skinned. Why exactly this is a punishment struck me as odd, since they all have artificial skin that in theory should be removable. Well apparently being skinned alive is a punishment worse than death. And there goes my theory of why the Vs never show their true form on the ships- I thought they didn’t want to risk any human guests seeing them.

Besides managing the media, we also see Anna managing her fellow Visitors’ opinions what with the whole 5th column rumors going around. We see exactly how she uses the Bliss we had heard about previously. Anna’s position is much higher than expedition leader. (As a side note, the Bliss reminded me of the Russian sci-fi novel Prisoners of Power -or the cooler movie adaptation The Inhabited Island– where citizens are controlled by a similar method only via radio waves.)

Teenager Tyler becomes less annoying, mostly because you know he’s gonna get it for being such a whiny brat. Even his mom ignores him, ha! Also I am more lenient towards him today because in his scenes we got to see some more above-the head-shots (which I really like) and the ship’s propulsion system (pure computer-generated magic). Speaking of special effects, I still cannot forgive the terrible green screen. Please fix that by March, dear ABC! Yes, March… we have to wait until March to get the next installment of the series. Will the Visitors march in March?? Sorry, couldn’t resist!

It’s going to be a long wait because of several cliffhangers, especially the final one. As Anna says at the end, this is only the beginning.

Note: As usual, minor episode spoilers, major series spoilers if you haven’t seen the previous episodes.

This blogger is more than satisfied with V’s fourth and final episode of 2009. We got more action, more technology, more Morena Baccarin, and finally more of our other chica Latina Lourdes Benedicto as Valerie Stevens! Much Bliss all around!

The Visitors practice what they preached when they first came by opening healing centers around the world. It is especially interesting to note how quickly they find perfect locations to open these centers, at least in New York City. They must have Sleeper Agents in the real estate business! They offer the best diagnostics ever, fast healing and a preventative “vitamin supplement” which of course is met by suspicion by the Resistance. The rest of the world seems OK with it as evidenced by the Centers’ months-long waiting lists. Unfortunately the Visitors have not developed the cure to the common cold (oh Anna, you’re so funny when you try human humor).

The Resistance investigates the “vitamin supplement” by following leads to a V-lab which kind of looks like the Fringe lab in terms of creepy things, sans the crazy old guy and the cow. During this whole episode the Resistance shows its strengths and weaknesses, and although everyone has their own agenda it seems that they work well together. The only one who seems to be a loose cannon is Georgie. In my head I keep referring to them as the Mini-Resistance because they are only four people, at times even less.

Our chica Lourdes’ character Valerie gets a personality! (sort of) and we discover more about her: the work she does, her work ethic, and her health issues. Turns out she will have an important role in the V/human saga after all. But I fear her character is being set up to die so her importance may be fleeting.

Chad Decker, a.k.a. The Only Reporter in New York does a story on the Healing Centers and he gets some startling news on his own health. Chad is another character that needs more development. I want to know how he’s handling his fame for example.

Meanwhile, up on the mothership, Anna investigates the murder of valuable Sleeper Agent Wash Dale Maddox at the hand of the 5th column. The sentence for the traitor? To be skinned. Why exactly this is a punishment struck me as odd, since they all have artificial skin that in theory should be removable. Well, perhaps being skinned alive is a punishment worse than death. And there goes my theory of why the Vs never show their true form on the ships- I thought they didn’t want to risk any human guests seeing them.

Besides managing the media, we also see Anna managing her fellow Visitors’ opinions what with the whole 5th column rumors going around. We see exactly how she uses the Bliss we had heard about previously. Anna’s position is much higher than expedition leader. (As a side note, the Bliss reminded me of the Russian sci-fi novel Prisoners of Power -or the cooler movie adaptation The Inhabited Island- where citizens are controlled by a similar method only via radio waves.)

Teenager Tyler becomes less annoying, mostly because you know he’s gonna get it for being such a whiny brat. Even his mom ignores him, ha! Also I am more lenient towards him today because in his scenes we got to see some more above-the head-shots (which I really like) and the ship’s propulsion system (pure computer-generated magic). Speaking of special effects, I still cannot forgive the terrible green screen. Please fix that by March, dear ABC! Yes, March… we have to wait until March to get the next installment of the series. Will the Visitors march in March?? Sorry, couldn’t resist!

It’s going to be a long wait because of several cliffhangers, especially the final one. As Anna says at the end, this is only the beginning.

V Series Episode 3 Review: A Bright New Day

I has a visa now!

[NOTE: Minor spoilers for this episode, and big spoilers for episodes 1 and 2]

With the third episode of V, I can confirm that the series is going in the right direction. My doubts from Episode One have abated and now I’m brainwashed by the Visitors. I only have two requests: Fix that sub par green screen and kill off the teenager! Just kidding! His story just became less annoying interesting in this episode.

Episode Three begins with news of a credible death threat to the Vs, now that they have their visas and are able to move about New York City. The FBI is sent to protect the Vs on their first visiting day and since we know that the FBI has such a limited pool of agents (bit of sarcasm there) they have Agent Erica help out. She ends up discovering the Visitor surveillance technology, which is pretty cool stuff. Actually we see a lot more alien technology in this episode and get a look at their written language. Apparently they like to label everything like good space aliens. We also learn about Visitor culture; they are “connected” somehow but can be disconnected from something called the Bliss. This is very Odo from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Or Borg perhaps. OR, closer to human teachings, Nirvana. It was only briefly mentioned so we can’t tell the nature of this Blissful state yet.

There is more talk of forming the Resistance movement, and previous episodes’ whispers of an alien against alien rebellion are better explained. The V non-human resistance group is called the Fifth Column and has a leader we have yet to meet. Or maybe we met him and don’t know yet! Every episode of V has proven chock-full of big reveals and I’m loving it.

Our main chica Anna, played by Morena Baccarin, has a disturbing yet hilarious scene where she tries to fake human empathy. We get a look at how she practices her appearances to get the best public opinion possible. Her main job on this episode was to counter the negative publicity generated by those protestors who were affected by the Visitor arrival. All those earthquakes in Episode One created panic and killed several hundred humans (I didn’t catch the exact number) and one woman in particular had a sad story about her dead husband. This widow, Mary Faulkner, had become the voice of the protestors and Anna did her best to make an example of Mary’s story, spinning it as much as possible as she did the death threat story from the beginning to get good Visitor PR. And yes we got creepy Anna stares.

As for our other chica Latina, Lourdes Benedicto (of part Dominican heritage), I am still waiting for her Valerie role to become something other than a girlfriend background story to elicit sympathy for the Ryan Nichols character.

As an interesting note, Diego Gutiérrez co-wrote this episode with Christine Roum.  Not sure what heritage Gutiérrez has, but since he has worked on so many projects from Argentina, I’m guessing Argentinean.

Next week is the fourth and final episode of V for 2009! This is a terrible way to cut up a series, but hopefully ABC will rebroadcast the show so others can watch and catch V fever- and the rest of us don’t forget about it by the time it comes back.

V Series Episode Two Review

I will answer all your fashion questions today

[NOTE: Minor spoilers, especially if you haven’t seen the first episode.  In that case, big spoilers!]

Episode Two of the V series- the one that should have been shown with the pilot- definitely made more sense than the pilot episode. Events were better paced, and if something happened too fast (like establishing Earth-Visitor diplomatic relations), it was explained early on that sleeper Visitors have been on Earth for at least seven years. Presumably during this time they have been infiltrating every influential organization on Earth including governments.

Characters are fleshed out more and additional characters are introduced.  Still no military though.  Maybe I question the lack of military power because I am so used to the mostly military human organizations in series like Stargate and Star Trek.  In this episode we also see more people protesting. The writers are making us paranoid just like FBI agent Erica is; since Visitors can look and act like humans, now we don’t know who to trust.

Unfortunately this episode had a lot of teenager Tyler and his buddy Brandon. I say unfortunately because I can tell that they will be the most annoying characters, the ones who act stupidly and need others to rescue them.  Tyler for example ignores his mom’s advice and gets more involved with the cute Visitor Lisa. Since I doubt Tyler is going away any time soon, I hope they make his character grow up and fast. Or die. Meanwhile on the New York mothership, we see more of the Visitors intent on crushing any “new” rebellion, implying that they had fought this battle before- perhaps on Earth, perhaps on another planet.

As for Anna, we get a glimpse of her holographic wardrobe, and all us women who can’t figure out what to wear in the morning are instantly jealous. We also wonder how lizard-Anna is hiding under the human skin of skinny Anna. Besides the “very important” wardrobe scene we see Anna thanking different nations for their diplomatic ties in different languages and watching a Visitor television debate with reporter Chad. I really like the way Morena uses more facial muscles than anything else to convey emotion. It seems that non-sleeper Visitors are much less emotional than those that have been living on Earth, so Morena makes every twitch count.

Morena Baccarin in V (Pilot Review)

No garish red and black for me

Tonight the much-anticipated series V (Visitors) aired on ABC. This is a remake of the 1983 series about alien visitors to then-current-day Earth which I remember with a mix of excitement, disgust and fear as a child. The Pilot started off with the Visitors causing panic and mini-earthquakes. Spaceships hover over major cities blocking the sun and causing mass houseplant extinction. Just kidding.

People begin to calm down when Anna, played by Morena Baccarin, shows up and says everything is fine. Anna is the alien leader. Her story is that the Visitors need water and minerals abundant on Earth and will in exchange provide technology and universal healthcare. They even have a motto: “We are of peace, always.” Plus, every Visitor is humanoid and very attractive. As we all know, pretty people tend to be more successful at providing a good first impression (their shuttle craft, on the other hand, are butt-ugly).

Anna selects a reporter for a one-on-one interview based on the perception that said reporter will ask softball questions; in fact, she demands it with a beautiful yet evil smile. But hey, she’ll provide universal health care so who cares? Sign me up to become a “Peace Ambassador”- humans who learn about the aliens and pass along their awesomeness.

Morena’s acting was excellent. She does emotionless and calculating very well, like she did for the Stargate SG-1 series. It is refreshing to see a strong female leader, and this blogger is doubly happy to see a Latina in the role.

As a Pilot, my opinion is that it could have been better. ABC should have broadcast two hours to really get people interested. As it was, most people already knew the show’s premise from the 80’s series, and needed more to get them hooked. The timeline seemed rushed, with people deciding all too quickly to accept the Alien visitors, even visiting their ship (which is beautiful, by the way). Even being allowed to visit the ship so soon by the authorities  was ludicrous.  I saw very little military presence beside a fighter pilot and I found this highly illogical.  There seem to be very few people surrounding such a historical event, and there wasn’t a real sense of awe produced by extraterrestrials coming to Earth you get from films like District 9 and Independence Day. Perhaps the humanoid aspect of the aliens had much to do with that, but still.  (Remember the wonder the 4400 produced? And they were just humans.) Where was the sense of excitement and fear? In more people going to church? There are other lacunae I won’t mention because of potential spoilers, and I hope to get them explained as the show develops.  The topics covered are solid and interesting and I would like to see more. Media manipulation, humanity in crisis, beauty/attractiveness as a weapon of acceptance, terrorism, betrayal… I’ll be watching.