Mania Grade: B-
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- Starring:: Elizabeth Mitchell
Morris Chestnut
Joel Gretsch
Logan Huffman
Lourdes Benedicto
Laura Vandervoort
Morena Baccarin
Scott Wolf
Michelle Harrison
- Written by:: Scott Peters, Kenneth Johnson
- Directed by:: Fred Toye
- Network:: ABC
- Series:
V Review V: A Bright New Day
V TV Show Review By Joe Oesterle
November 18, 2009
Source: www.joeartistwriter.com
© N/A
Still Too Fast
If we learned anything about the V’s this week, it’s that the writers apparently don’t read this article or the subsequent comment boxes. Come on V- guys; slow it down. Give us a little time to settle in to a scene before you give us all Pocket Monster seizures from the incessant jump cutting.
Your audience is chock full of fanboys (and girls) who have sat patiently through the movie Dune, gave Lucas a pass on two heartbreakingly disappointing efforts, (yet still bought the DVDs) and stood in line for hours at the release of each magical adventure of boy wizard Harry Potter – and I’m talking about the books!My point is this is an audience that enjoys a leisurely pace if you can pay it off. And I think you can. The material is there. The interest is there. Now the challenge is to keep us there.
You need to allow us some intimate time with at least one more character. This episode at least focused a little on Elizabeth Mitchell’s character, Erica Evans, but I got whiplash following the rest of the people. Not that the story was too complex to handle. I think I got it all:
Quick Recap
Priest wants to be more involved, goes over to Agent Evans house, douchey son is douche to priest, Erica announces human assassin wants to kill a V, she decides to work from inside to get info. Ryan meets Georgie (not George) and convinces him to join the resistance (which is exactly what Georgie was doing to Ryan not 2 weeks ago.) Erica’s former FBI partner and undercover reptile is alive, but conveniently is suffering from amnesia (or “convesia” as I like to call TV amnesia.)
Widow Mary Faulkner is on a hunger strike to protest the V’s getting visas, (Visa V’s) while the fat kid surprises the douchey kid with the hot blonde chick at the pizza place. And if memory serves, all this was just before the first commercial break.
At times, watching this show is like watching someone recite the state capitals in under 30 seconds. Odie gets more screen time in a typical Garfield strip than Morris Chestnut does here. It’s like we came to relax to the soothing sounds of a Mozart concerto, and they’re speed playing “The Flight of the Bumblebee.” Do you get my meaning? It’s too effing fast!
Now that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying the show. I am – kind of. I will confess that if it weren’t my job to review this show, I would be considering abandoning if next week doesn’t get better. The good news is there’s a real chance that it can get better. Now that Erica, Father Jack, Ryan and Georgie have formed a sort of Fantastic Four amongst themselves, maybe the writers will have a chance to slow down and spend more than two minutes on a scene before bounding over to the B story, the quick switch over to the G story, 30 seconds over here on F, before zooming back over to the A for a full minute and a half.
Here’s What I Liked
1) We found out about the mysterious and legendary John May. While this new character is bound to add an N story to each episode, I like he fact that there’s some bad-ass rogue V working on the inside trying to help out humanity.
2) “The Bliss.” Not exactly sure what it is, or how many V’s and V defectors are on it, but apparently it’s addicting, and it’s how Anna controls at least some of her populace. It’s a powerful enough narcotic to make former war buddies/life long friends turn on one another, and it will obviously feature prominently this season.
3) Georgie Sutton. Not sure why he doesn’t like the name George, but I suspect there’s a story there. He’s another potentially fascinating character. An earthling-loving V, his family was killed, presumably by the V’s, as a message to him for jumping ship.
4) The hot blonde V girl in a bra and panties. Oh, and that she’s Anna’s daughter, and is obviously setting up Douchey for something, but mostly for the bra and panties.
5) The fact that we’re not sure if Agent Evans’ supervisor is V or not. I’d like to assume he isn’t, since it’s too easy to assume he is, but that may be the exact game they’re playing with us here.
6) The “human assassin” was a covert V all along. It’s possible, based on his gratitude toward Erica, Anna didn’t even let her toadying reptilian second in command in on that little ploy.
Here’s What I Didn’t Like
1) It’s too damn fast, but I believe I’ve already covered that.
2) Erica walking into to the secret V room. It seemed a little too opportune that no one was in there. She had no way of knowing that the room would not be occupied, and as a trained FBI agent, she would have never compromised her mission like that without knowing for certain that room was empty; Even then it was a huge, probably unwise risk.
3) The douchey son. I imagine this character was written in as a Zac Efron type to get some teenage girls to swoon and tune in, but my bet is he annoys throughout the demographics. Male or female, 8 - 80, ya gotta hate this kid, and I don’t think he was purposely created for that reason.
Not Sure How I Fee
1) Alan Tudyk’s character, “Dale” was revived just to go into a coma? I enjoyed the fact that he might crop up to be a thorn in Erica’s side – although I did feel that it might be a little too fast. (Again with the fast.) If Dale was put under instead of terminated, I won’t be happy, because this is clearly an all-out war. Neither side, good guys or bad guys, just erases memories, or knock out their foes in an actual war. (Except in DC comics) If the V’s are real terrorists, and are hell bent on eating us, enslaving us, or making us complete all of their unfinished Sudokus, we need to kill them, not just incapacitate them.
Summing Up
So in the final analysis there was plenty to like, but the problem once again was there was simply too much thrown at us too fast, and we haven’t really has a chance to get to know any of these people enough to develop any feelings (other than hatred for Douchey) for any of them. I hope they do eventually slow this pace down, because there’s a lot to like about this show. I’m just afraid if they keep up this expeditious rate of storytelling the audience is going to exit even quicker.
“V” ya next week.
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Hey Joe, I new to posting on this site, but I've been reading your reviews (especially Lost) for some time now.
Great review, but I don't think Georgie is a V, only because of how horrified he looked in the first episode when he saw that Morris Chestnut was one.
I watched the original series back in the 80's, and I gotta say, I'm loving what they're doing with this version. The terrorist themes are great. My only complaint is exactly what everyone else's is...too damn fast.