V S1E04: It's Only the Beginning

"We landed a punch."

Kittens, we couldn't wait to see last night's episode. Not because we were anxious to see what happened next; we already knew what happened next thanks to a screener sent to us by those lovely folks at Warner Brothers. The reason we couldn't wait is because the screener was a rough cut sans special effects (with some unintentionally hilarious results) and we were eager to see what the engine room and the V armada looked like. Well, now we know. Kinda cool that the Vs fly in V formation.

It's all coming together a little bit more. We can't say we know exactly what the Vs are planning, but they clearly built their plan banking on human fears and paranoia. You have to remember that this isn't a strict remake of the original V so it's not a foregone conclusion that they want to eat us. It looks to us like whatever the plan is, it's a bit more complicated than that.

So what do we know? We know that they're sucking humans further and further into relying on them to "save" them, by opening up "medical centers" where they can magically treat a host of ailments that we backwards humans haven't conquered. We know that they've been secretly experimenting on humans and that they plan on introducing a drug they call R6 into a common flu vaccine. We know that Valerie is pregnant with a little V hybrid and that Chad is dying (or was fooled into thinking he is). We know that Georgie is a loose cannon and a pain in the ass and we know that we won't shed a tear when he gets killed. We also know that Tyler is an idiot and we also won't shed a tear whenever he finds out how he's been used by the Vs. Whatever else Tyler is, he's "The One" and we don't think Lisa means her future husband when she calls him that. We know that "The Bliss" entails Anna acting out her own little Chanel No. 5 commercial for the V population, which makes us think she's as much a religious figure as she is a political one to her people - and that makes her far more dangerous and powerful than we originally thought. We know that Father Jack really is Action Priest and we know that Erica, for all her other good points, is kind of a lousy mother. We also know that there are cute gay Vs.

Okay, maybe that last one was just us. But did anyone else get a "I wish I could quit you" vibe from Fifth Columnist Joshua and his little compatriot, who sacrificed himself for the good of the movement? There were an awful lot of longing glances between them, wouldn't you say?

Thankfully, the creators realized that they needed to step up their game and they did so with this episode. We still see problems (and apparently so do they, hence, the hiatus): Erica needs work, the show needs to rethink its style, and the dialogue is sometimes painfully clunky, but the tension level rose dramatically with several major plot advancements and some juicy cliffhangers. How long is Ryan going to let Valerie think she's carrying a normal baby? Now that Erica knows her idiot son is in tight with the Vs, what will she do about it? Will Father Jack live? Of course he will, but now the Vs know who he is and that can't be good. Will Chad become a full-on V supporter after they save his life? What is R6? And what happens when that V armada shows up in our solar system? And the one that they're going to drag out as long as they can: Who is John May?

We know this: we can't wait for the show's return in March.

[Photo Credit: ABC TV]

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Labels: V Season 1, V Series