V, right? You all remember, right? Right? Elizabeth Mitchell? Scott Wolf? Morena Baccarin? She was the ultra hot Companion from 'Firefly'? Was gonna be Wonder Woman for a while before the studios did what they do best and kicked Joss Whedon off the project? No. Oh, okay. Well...
V is that show about the aliens who come to Earth ('V' for Visitors, see how clever they are?) in giant spaceships which float over all of our major cities (Vancouver stands in for New York here, are they saying that Vancouver isn't major enough to attract a six square kilometer alien space ship? Toronto may agree, but fuck them, they're Toronto.) Now I know what you're thinking, "Wait a minute, giant alien spaceships hovering over our cities, here to conquer us. Wasn't that 'Independence Day'?" Well, yes it was. But you see, 'Independence Day' was inspired by A) 50's B-movie invasion movies and B) This miniseries called 'V' from 1983. Now I watched the original -
- SIDEBAR - I would LOVE to say that I watched the original when it aired on TV, to be just that hip, but that means I would've watched a primetime miniseries when I was 2. As awesome as that would've been, it would've meant my parents were pretty irresponsible, so NO, I actually watched 'V' when I learned about the inspirations for 'ID4' before the movie debuted -
- And found it to be an excellent treatise on contemporary sci-fi and late cold war paranoia (yes, I could understand the importance of commentary on paranoia during the waning days of the cold war, I was a damn clever kid smarty pants) So when I heard they were making a modern remake I thought:
Wow, what a great idea. We live in the age where we're scared to ride the bus or train (well I am, at least) in case that backpack left under the next seat is filled with C4 (PS, if you DO see a random discarded backpack, please tell someone - police wise - about it. They'll shut down the train, send in the robot to blow it up only to find it's full of gym clothes, but you'll feel better about it) so a show about aliens who come to Earth, look like us and profess peace while insinuating themselves into our everyday lives would be a smash hit; full of intrigue, veiled commentary on our modern paranoia about our neighbours and speaking to how readily (or steadfastly opposed to) we integrate foreign cultures into our own.
And then I discovered the show would be on ABC. EPIC FAIL.
What's wrong with ABC you ask? Well nothing, really. I mean, they're no CBS (by the way, SUCK IT CBS!!!) But aside from a few shining lights (and their comedy line up, tre' excellent) ABC hasn't lately been able to field a decent drama. The problem - they're still so damned 'family friendly'. I've talked about this before with 'Castle', which I love, but ABC has this requirement (culturally, or self imposed, I'm not sure) to make sure their primetime shows are watchable by the whole family. Sure they try to sex it up with, well, sex and some blood, but it keeps them from REALLY attacking the material with the same gusto that Fox, or say, Syfy (BSG anyone?) does.
But wait Angry Steve, didn't ABC make that wicked cool mind bender 'Lost' that you loved so much. Yes. Yes they did, and that is the exception that proves the rule. We will examine:
V: "Red Rain"
Written by Scott Rosenbaum & Gregg Hurwitz
Directed by Bryan Spicer
We open with bodies littering the streets of faux New York under a 'blood red sky' to borrow from U2. Already, a more poetic scene than I've encountered before in this show. It reminds me of some of the final images from 'Watchmen' (the book, not the movie - not to knock the movie, as it was awesome) so there was actually some wicked thought put into this composition. SURE we cheap out by making it a dream, but whatever, it was still nice, more reminiscent of what we saw in the original show 27 years ago. Then we get a nice CG glimpse of Ryan's half Human, half V baby in the tank on the spaceship (our first real glimpse of a V in any form) and that was pretty cool too. Alright, now we're getting somewhere. Things are gonna puck up this season!
And then they give us scenes of rioting in faux NY. I love watching actors pretend to riot in my home town. It's heartwarming.
But then we get back to Anna's (alien queen, for those who don't watch) 'evil machinations' for the sad people below. I often compare this show to 'Lost' as I feel that's the show it's most trying to emulate. Sure, they come from the same network/studio, both have characters who's allegiances are in question, both have an ongoing serialized plot and both have intrigue and good guys behaving as bad guys. But whereas 'Lost' weaves these elements deftly like a concert violinist, V uses them like a blind man driving a Buick. Anna releases Ryan (one of her children) back to the freedom fighters he came from so she can use his daughter against him later? You bet she says that flat out, so there's no real intrigue. If you were having dinner with someone, stepped up to use the loo, and while you were gone they said out loud 'Now I will use him to have my plans put into action' that isn't all that crafty now is it?
Anyways, at the end of last season, the V's turned the sky blood red, our "5th column" freedom fighters were gearing up for a war and Anna was pissed off in general at Humanity, so when season 2 started, I was ready for some progress, some change, ready for the story to blow wide open.
The title of this episode should've been "GET READY FOR EVERYTHING to stay the same." There's no attack on the V motherships. By the end of the episode the sky is blue again, and Anna is back to 'biding her time' while the wheels in her plan turn. Anybody remember that show 'Earth: Final Conflict"? You shouldn't, it's terrible. But that was another 'aliens invade Earth, very slowly' story line. I think things picked up around season 16 or so.
The show has good 'Lost' characters: Scott Wolf as 'Chad' the reporter who may or may not be interested in helping the freedom fighters. 'Hobbs' the mercenary who is just so bad ass he doesn't NEED to kill someone each episode, those types. It even has Elizabeth Mitchell as Erica, the protagonist, essentially playing Juliette over again but without the subtext. And it has good 'twists' as they were. We discover what the V's really look like when Anna kills one for... sport I guess, when she finds out that some of her followers are worried she's being poisoned by the Human skin she's wearing. (you'd think the big reveal of the appearance of the aliens would be a cliff hanger moment - we've had glimpses before but never a good look - but here we use it at a commercial break. Tells how confident the writers/producers were with the 'impact' of this reveal) We encounter a new, younger guy who's done research on some alien skeleton found in a mass grave in Mexico (that's yet to be explained, really) A guy who, by the way, our ultra secret freedom fighters seem to trust pretty quickly. We also learn of some crazy V plot to cross breed with Humans, which is another element borrowed from that exemplary paranoia granddaddy 'The X-Files' -
- Okay, yes, for all the X-Philes out there, I know the alien plan there was to create Human/alien hybrids that would survive the apocalypse of the killer bees who would sting us all, infect us with the alien black oil and make us all carriers for their reproduction, thus leaving a slave race AND providing a vaccine for the richest Humans so they could work hand in hand with the aliens, but I digress -
But this reveal in V DID give us what could be the first REAL juicy moment in the show, Tyler, Erica's son, might be half V, which is actually pretty decent for a twist. Tyler is also the kid who gets to 'get it on' as it were with one of the blonde alien hotties. If only nailing hot alien chicks was as easy as TV and Captain Kirk made it out to be...
So Angry Steve, why do you keep watching this show? Easy. Underneath the mediocrity of the program 'telling' us everything instead of 'showing' us (a cardinal sin in screenwriting for those not in the know) it has POTENTIAL. Potential that I can see will not be realized with the start of the second season, but that's okay. The V I watch in my head is way better than the one on Tuesdays. It behaves as an episodic show, where we wind up right back where we started at the beginning of each episode and you COULD watch any episode out of order and not miss much, but it wants SO BADLY to be a taught serial the way 'Lost' was. But 'Lost' had it's dedicated fans who came back week after week, season after season to find out if Jack would actually save young Benjamin's life, or what was in that Hatch, or will Kate's reappearance break up the love-in between Sawyer and Juliette. This show does not have that kind of power, character, or draw. The whole thing is bathed in the same neutral lighting (probably to make it easy for all the green-screening they do to recreate alien space ships on a tight budget and make sure no Canadiana makes it into a show filmed *gasp* in Canada) but any first year lighting apprentice can tell you that neutral lighting kills emotion on film (and essentially replaces the cinematographer with a light meter) -
- But it has ALIENS, and SPACESHIPS, and Elizabeth Mitchell is kinda hot, and so is Morena Baccarin and Laura Vandervoort (more hot), and sometimes they shoot at each other, and every once in a while there's some psuedo par-kour chase and it gets exciting up to the commercial break.
I don't watch 'Mad Men', and yet I watch this. Is something wrong with me, or am I just too dedicated to sci-fi? It just seems that spaceships will win out over suits any day.
So yeah, in conclusion, this was meant to pump the show to people, but instead it tore it down. But you bet my PVR will have it recorded next week, and you bet I will watch it. Isn't that endorsement enough?
No comments:
Post a Comment