I’d almost rather have the camp and rag tag adventurous spirit of the ’80s original, though maybe I’m simply steeped in ’80s V nostalgia?
The original series was one of my favorites as a kid, which was why I was genuinely excited when it was brought back as a new edition. The oddly short initial run (four episodes) followed by a long break gave us a taste of what was going, but now that we’re six episodes in I have a better feel for what I think of this new show.
This incarnation of V is watchable and has some interesting moments, but it doesn’t (yet) have all that much more than that going for it. Whatever Great Evil Plot the Visitors are cooking up is borderline interesting, but there’s not a lot of depth to the characters or situations that we’re watching. The tone is of a serious show, but it doesn’t feel all that serious. I’d almost rather have the camp and rag tag adventurous spirit of the ’80s original, though maybe I’m simply steeped in ’80s V nostalgia?
That being said, the final third of this episode picked up its pace nicely, culminating with 5th columnist Ryan meeting up with some of his fellow alien rebels up on the mothership (which eventually led to Anna’s worldwide message about the Live Aboard program getting interrupted with: JOHN MAY LIVES). There were also several other large story threads touched upon near the end, including Ryan obtaining the “phosphorous” that will in theory protect Valerie Stevens’s (Lourdes Bendicto) life while giving birth to her half-alien, half-human child. And lords know we’ve spent enough time watching the travails of Tyler (Logan Huffman) with Anna (Morena Baccarin) and her daughter Lisa (Laura Vandervoort) using all means necessary to keep that kid and nascent Peace Ambassador up on board the good ship V.
I’d look forward to watching more often if we were looking at scenarios where there’s high stakes conflict going on between the V’s, 5th columnists, and the human team of heroes on terra firma.
I guess what I’m saying is: let’s pick up the pace and get a larger feeling of scale on this thing.
More thoughts on “Pound of Flesh”:
* So is Anna the mother of all the visitors, or just some, or just an army, or…
* Looks like R6 might be a drug of some sort that allows Anna to control the masses with Anna’s “bliss,” some kind of spirituality-as-mind control.
* I don’t get why Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) doesn’t just sit her son down and flat-out tell him the creepy psycho deal with the V’s is. Could it really be that much safer letting him go up to the ship blind?
* “Are we gonna sit on our hands or man up and fight?”
* The plot this week reminds me a little of the original V series, which at its best was a rollicking campy adventure of “the gang” hijacking the mothership for some minor but important victory for The Cause. This new version of V has been a far grimmer affair, but things lightened just a hair this week, which was a good thing all told.
* I love the logic of: Ryan (Morris Chestnut) announcing that he will be the one heading up to the ship a) as it’s the only way of stopping Hobbes (Charles Mesure) from doing it, even though b) it’s a suicide mission
* The Feds are now after our gang of resistance heroes. I dig that their take on Ryan is that his record is “clean… maybe too clean.” Cliche alarm!
* Once again, the CGI and special effects really stand out on V. The shots of Ryan’s arrival on the mothership are super cool, and the interior reminds me of visions etched out by the likes of Ben Bova and Arthur C. Clarke.
* Am I the only one who will always think of Scott Wolf, who plays “V mouthpiece” and CNN-type anchor Chad Decker, as Bailey from Party of Five?
* Wow, can’t believe I just thought of this: V is being looked to as a “successor” of sorts to Lost, which is wrapping up its final season this spring. Matthew Fox was on Party of Five, Scott Wolf was on Party of Five… see what I’m getting at? Conspiracy! If Jennifer Love Hewitt jumps ship to ABC, that means the aliens are coming!
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.