Hi and welcome to the first regular V recap/review thingy for Republibot. I am Republibot 1.0 and I will be your host and guide through the next several weeks until the show goes on indefinite hiatus based on how well the ratings hold up. I will try my best to be fair and balanced as I share my thoughts on this show with you over its short run, but I feel it important and in the interest of full disclosure to let you all know that I have a very soft spot in my heart for the original, regardless of how hokey it is in retrospect. I am even more fond of it than I am of Man From Atlantis.
The basic premise has been maintained from the original mini-series to this new iteration. Large ships appear in the skies above major metropolitan cities all over the world and introduce themselves as the Visitors and make their case for a peaceful exchange of earth resources for V technology and help. Of course it wouldn’t be a very interesting show if that was all it was really about.
The V are really lizardoid creatures that have come to destroy all humans. And take over the world, or something. Not sure if this episode ever got really specific on the V’s long term strategic goals with earth – but that could be because they are looking to eat us all and want it to be a big surprise just like our beloved original.
Before I get to the rough play by play, I have to say I really don't know what I think of this show yet. I was hoping to be more blown away by it than I was. Remember the first episode of Heroes? I was hooked after episode one – even the lackluster installments worked hard the entire time at hooking you so you had to turn in the next week to see what happened.
I found this episode overall, just really slow and incredibly bland. How do you end up being this bland when a bunch of big interstellar ships are parked all over the world and crewed by supermodels that are really lizards and could possibly be looking to eat everyone? I don’t know if this is a question that I can easily answer, other than to say they accomplished massive blandness with ease.
Having said that, everything seemed to come alive in the last 10 minutes and started to catch my interest with the possible promise that things might pick up in future episodes.
Quick Play-by-Play
The start is all about introductions – we meet our main characters as they go about their lives – there is Ryan (Morris Chestnut) who is buying an engagement ring from a jewelry store. Chad (Scott Wolf who I shall refer to as Party of Five from here on out), a big time reporter for an Entertainment Tonight type of show, who is demonstrating that he is smart and decisive and not just a pretty face by giving instructions to people as he walks busily from one place to another. Erica (a very quirky sexy Elizabeth Mitchell) and Dale (Wooohoooo, Alan Tudyk from Firefly still sporting an American accent) are FBI agents exchanging the type of banter only long time partners can exchange. Tyler (Logan Huffman, a generic good looking teen type) who is the son of Erica, and his overweight best friend (who isn’t listed clearly enough on IMDb for me to figure out who he is real life) who will probably be killed off in shortly, are in an emergency room exchanging the kind of dialogue that only Hollywood thinks teenage best friends actually exchange.
Suddenly everything starts to shake and everyone becomes alarmed. We cut to a church where a large plaster Christ statue falls from the balcony and almost hits a poor crippled man in a wheelchair who is just hanging around the church. People are panicking all over the city in a most orderly fashion. A fighter jet loses control and crashes into the middle of the city, while the pilot drifts safely to the ground unconscious.
We can see the giant ship slowly move across reflective glass of the skyscrapers. I guess this is the first anyone has seen of the ships, they just suddenly appeared floating over the city. It seems kinda strange – we don't hear any sirens, or see any military response other than an arbitrarily set-up military check-point in the middle of the city.
Quirky sexy Erica walks through
Yeah, I agree with what y'all are saying. It was a little bland for a series premiere and some of the plot points were predictable and it'll probably be canceled, but I still enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. I probably had more fun watching this one episode than I did sitting through all those Stargate Universe episodes. It had some action, and some plot twists. But It'll be interesting to see how the brain-trust responds to some of the criticism out there that the show is anti-Obama. I bet they make some hurried changes in the future.