The Morning After: We Come in Peace

I was strangely bored and confused. Could someone explain to me why the Vs should be feared? Because all I can figure out is they should be feared because A) they actually look like lizards underneath their human exteriors, and B) because they had a "sleeper cell" of Vs invade and pose as Vs before the invasion.

Thus: A) they tried to look like us so we wouldn't be scared of them, and B) they sent an advance team here to get the lay of the land. And that makes them evil?

Oh, the human dude with absolutely unknown credibility and no discernible factual basis for anything he says told everyone that the Vs destabilized Earth for their invasion, so I suppose we should trust him. Plus, they went out and tried to kill a group of humans that had met FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE of fighting against the Vs.

You know, because preemptively attacking supposed terrorist enemies is something we've never....oh, wait.

(On top of that, I was hoping Elizabeth Mitchell's son would die, and wishing that she was given more to work with, even as she shined with what little they gave her. And I could see the Alan Tudyk twist coming from the first five minutes of the episode....)

Well, it was better than the remake of Bionic Woman.

My main issue with it was that it was in such a rush. We had no time to identify with any of the characters before they were off and killing. We had no time to revel in the technologic wonders of the visitors and wonder about their motives before they were co-opting the youth of America with strategically unzipped jumpsuits.

The show is a step back in our post-Galactica tv-verse because the aliens are eeeeevil right from the jump (in fact, responsible for all of the evils in the world today). Frankly, if the aliens are that unsubtle, the Independence Day approach would have been a more effective invasion strategy.

The more I think about it, the more I find the whole show unsubtle. The falling giant crucifix... please.

In mapping the 26 years between the series, one point of interest in our society is the victory of guerrilla marketing over traditional marketing - the spray-painted-V was a mark of the rebellion in 1983, but in 2009 it's a clever marketing trick by the visitors, who know now that happy posters are no match for YouTube.

I'm disappointed, but the show is pretty, and I have an irrational affection for Joel Gretsch due to my irrational affection for The 4400. I'll keep watching.

Yeah, I went with the bikers Sons of Anarchy has absolutely been on fire this season, IMO. My favorite moments were quiet ones - Gemma brought to tears as she listened to the choir sing Lay My Burden Down, the conspiratorial "Thanks, doc" from Chibs to Tara after she told him how to lie his way back to the critical list, Jax and opie silently smoking outside during the fiasco at the judge's house, and Jax seeing Tara in the shower and taking off all his layers of motorcycle club clothes and going to join her, with the final shot of that tattoo.

There was also an understated moment last night when (I think) Bobby put two and two together about Donna. He had heard what Agent Stahl had said last season, but apparantly hadn't processed it or really believed it, but all the pieces seemed to fall into place for him, and he had this quiet ah-ha! expression.

The action stuff - the fire, the confrontation with the judge, the confrontation between Jax-Clay, the confrontation between Darby and Zobelle, that was all good, but this was an episode where I thought the quiet moments ruled. And seriously, how effing stupid is Darby - he goes to confront Zobelle about selling him out, and his anger is quickly directed back at SAMCRO and off he goes to do more of Zobelle's work (and look where it got him!). Darby is such a tool. But I LOVE seeing Mitch Pilleggi (sp?) on my TV again, so whatever.

This thing with Opie and the pornstar - as much as I'd like to see Opie happy and all, it doesn't feel like they are really a good match - it seems to me like he is really attached to the idea of a buffer between himself and his kids - he needs a gentle maternal presence in his family to balance his damage and angst, especially after his mom split on him. Again. And he's turning to Lyla because she provides that for the kids, and because he's lonely. But maybe I'm misreading?

I actually liked V more than I thought I was going to. But I agree that a couple of the reveals were predictable. But I did have the advantage of seeing the promotional photos (no Tudyk) and some reviews.

@Chaddogg

I don't think they wanted to reveal why people shouldn't trust the Vs. And the reason doesn't matter right now. I mentioned yesterday that most of the world would be like Elizabeth Mitchell's character. We don't even trust our neighbors when they're nice to us, so why would we trust aliens.

And I wouldn't give the Vs a pass for murdering people who were against them. Technically, the undercover Vs are civilians. So I am not going to say that it's okay for civilians to kill other civilians just because of threats.

I'll say it again: this is not anti-Obama. It has nothing to do with Obama. Mentions of hope and universal health care do not mean the lizard people are our President. England, France, Germany, Japan have universal health care. Obama has not made the wheelchair bound able to walk. Obama has a hard time convincing some Americans that he is not Hitler; he is less liked than the Vs which apparently everybody claps and cheers for, even though, you know, they are aliens with highly advanced weaponry! After being a Muslim, socialist, communist, fascist, secret Kenyan, Hitler, do we really want to saddle the guy with lizard too? It's a very thin, incorrect reading of a so far generic sci-fi show.

The whole thing felt very 1980s. They didn't even try for nuance or suspense; right away the people all adore the aliens, including a skeptical FBI agent's credulous son, and right away the aliens are evil. Mitchell's performance was wasted as there is no character to play yet. And the "Where were you' intro was seriously self-important. But, since there is a lack of sci-fi on TV and because V is not as mediocre as FlashForward, which I watch, I will stick around.

Was "V" supposed to be a 2-hour pilot that was cut down to 1 hour at the last minute? Because that's exactly what it felt like. It was almost like this was a clip show comprised of the first few episodes, and not the pilot

It was almost laugh-out-loud ridiculous at some points, especially the universal health care bit. Most industrialized nations have that now, yet the reporter acted like it was such a far-fetched idea that it was laughable to even suggest it.

So far, ABC is 2 for 2 in getting interesting ideas made into series, and 0 for 2 in the execution of those ideas. I'm not bailing on V (or flashforward) just yet, but it doesn't look good for either one.

At least SOA is still amazing.

1) I thought V should really have been a two hour pilot. The episode was far too rushed.

2) Despite the forced speed, I thought the writers did a good job of introduction and setup.

3) But the dialogue is atrocious. Just ugh.

4) @Chaddogg - From what I understand, the V universe was not supposed to be ours - a series of disasters, wars, etc. had them living far more on the edge than we are.

Hence the reveal of the V "terrorists" swaying Juliet so quickly - the world was in the toilet because the Vs made it so, to make their arrival as saviors all the more miraculous.

But since the finished version didn't establish if this is our world or not (9/11 and Independence Day mentions suggest it is, whereas the couple external shots of the church and the resistance leader's speech suggest not), the reveal fell flat.

5) It is amusing that the subtext people are seeing is "Obama is a lizard!" when the only government action they've established as alien controlled is the Republican "unnecessary" wars!

yes, ugh, i will give it one more shot but the pilot was incredibly weak, it was neither engaging nor did it feel like an appropriate setup episode for what seemed like it needed to be a more nuanced piece...

...even though they have one reporter in the bag, can't we just get those other reporters to report what they know a) maybe don't mind that they're lizard people but they are lying, what else are they lying about b) they've been there for ages and have had questionable actions like killing people c) they've got some rebel lizards who can give their side of the story so folks know more... and just move on and have it be a different series...

I decided almost immediately, partly because of my experience with Flash Forward, that I was going to give V the ol' MST3K treatment. In that regard, it didn't disappoint. It enabled me to laugh out loud when they had E. Mitchell's character's ask her son, with the subtlety of an anvil, if "your dad leaving" was the reason he was falling for the V's.

Only similarity with Lost -- the multi-character epic all these new shows are failing to emulate -- is the format of crediting all the actors at the start of the show. Thanks for telling us (knowledgeable) viewers that Alan Tudyk was only a guest star and not a series regular! Boy, I wonder if anything will happen to his character near the end of the episode?

I have to agree about us being told that Alan Tudyk (who should be on TV more) was just a guest star, from that I guessed he was a V (and I am not the smartest guy in the room).

I have two problems. 1) It was rushed, and really suffered from that. 2) How are they going to deal with the question of 'terrorists'? They have made Juliet a FBI counter terrorism agent (I seem to remember that from FlashForward), who is after 'terrorists' without us know why they are terrorists. Terrorism is a tactic not an ideology. Also the good think about V (apart from Jane Badler's sexy alien vibe - I was a teenager at the time) was that the goodies were the terrorists; see Julie's speech about 'cells' in the first episode, of Donovan's idea to attack the hospital. Classic terrorism. But now its the Vs who are the terrorists. I don't think this will work, because unlike BSG I don't think ABC will allow us to support terrorists at 7PM on a Tuesday night.