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V (2010) |
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Erica Evans - Elizabeth Mitchell Jack Landry - Joel Gretsch Anna - Morena Baccarin Ryan Nichols - Morris Chestnut Chad Decker - Scott Wolf Tyler Evans - Logan Huffman Lisa - Laura Vandervoort Kyle Hobbes - Charles Mesure 
OTHER V SEASONS Season 1 V (1983) V The Final Battle OTHER ALIENS AMONGST US SERIES 3rd Rock From the Sun Dark Skies Threshold Invasion Roswell 
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Red RainWith Earth's sky turned red by Anna's emotional outburst, she is forced to extreme measures to re-establish her control over her commanders. Erica, meanwhile learns of a scientist who just might hold the key to the meaning of the red sky. Chad wants to help the Fifth Column and Joshua is revived. V returns after a rocky first season and shows immediately that it means business with a city full of dead people and a character with a very graphic melting face. Following that, things settle down a bit as the various characters are re-established and some big secrets are revealed, not to mention Anna's rather unconvincing CGI scorpion's tail. The special effects are kept low key whilst the story concentrates on the human and alien stories, but there is a baby V in a tube that fails to convince. The story doesn't have a lot of room for actual action in it, so a chase sequence is crowbarred in for no reason and the fanbase of the original show is given a treat as the final scene witnesses the return of Jane Badler as Anna's mother. Now that the players are back the situation set back up, we can hope for better things to come. TopSerpent's ToothAnna challenges her mother Diana to reveal the power behind human emotions. She uses this against Ryan by deliberately making his daughter sick. Erica and Hobbes, meanwhile, have to track down a group of terrorists who are being a more effective fifth column than they are. This episode serves up a direct copy of one of the most famous science fiction TV moments from the original V miniseries by having Anna eat a live rat. When Jane Badler did it in 1983 it wasn't very believable, but was effective for a lot of mainstream viewers. This time around and with the benefit of CGI it is just as unbelievable and unlikely to reach many mainstream viewers at all. Having Jane Badler on board as Diana is a touch confusing since it offers up the idea that this is somehow a sequel to the original, which it isn't. Her presence on the cast list was gimmick enough, why give her the same character name and cloud the waters? The plot meanders all over the place and isn't very interesting, but offers up a few options for future improvement. TopLaid BareErica is in possession of a V prisoner in the shape of her partner. Is she willing to torture her to get answers? Is Ryan willing to sell out the 5th column for his daughter? And what will happen to Jack now that Anna has him on her radar? This is one of the toughest episodes to date with the show going all out to show that its renewal was worthwhile. There are fingers chopped off, some light skinning and a smart girl on girl punch up to get things going. The plot is much more focussed, which helps things enormously so that even the excursions into Anna's attempts to change Lisa into a copy of herself and the nonsense about measuring human souls is welcome. Best of all is the neat way in which Anna cuts off Jack at the knees with the help of Chad Decker. It's clever and effective. TopUnholy AllianceSomeone bleeds out three peace ambassadors as Anna tries to build bridges with the Catholic church. Father Jack becomes a target of interest for both the FBI and the violent faction of Anti-V activists Anna's manipulation of the Vatican is so blatant that it paints the Catholic church in a very poor light. Its global importance plas off against the small scale emotional battleground that is Erica's relationship with her son. Ryan continues to walk a fine line between working for the fifth column and betraying them to Anna, whilst Diana's continued defiance of her daughter over the issue of the human soul would be better without the reptile mouth transformation. The plot is somewhat plodding, but just about gets by on the strength of the performances. TopConcordiaAnna holds a gala to announce her new gift to humanity, bringing her plans closer to fruition. Erica fights back in the struggle for her son's future and an assassination is planned. The fifth column finally goes to war and the show comes up with its most interesting and exciting episode for a while. The action/thriller elements are balanced by the character developments as Jack faces expulsion from the church and Ryan has to pick a side at long last. TopSiegeWith the assassination leaving Anna's trusted aide in critical condition, she sends Ryan after the head of the militant Fifth Column. He is captured, but not before the whole FBI is called in and a tense siege develops, a siege with Erica right in the middle. This episode may be the moment when the fortunes of this show change for the better. There is a sense of drama built into any armed siege and it is hard to mess that up and nobody here is trying hard. The situation twists in Anna's favour and then back to Erica's so often that it's almost dizzying. It's nicely scripted and the action and tension dovetail well. Ryan's situation plays out rather unexpectedly (if it is truly played out, that is). True, some elements are horribly hackneyed(when Erica's ex declares his love for her you just know how that's going to end), but Elizabeth Mitchell gets a chance to remind us of what she can do when she is given the material and when she is gifted the whole Fifth Column network and declares war on Anna there's a real frisson in the air. This is the best episode that the show has produced to date and something that we can only hope will be built upon. TopBirth PangsFollowing the death of the leader of the worldwide militant Fifth Column, Erica has been left in charge, but she will have to prove herself. In order to do that, she tracks down the woman who helped her through her pregnancy in the hope of finding out what Anna's hiddena agenda really is. V tries to expand its scope to a more global scale with this trip to Hong Kong, but though it might be set there it mostly takes place in one cafe and an apartment building, so the effect is muted. What is significant is that we finally learn what the visitors are doing on Earth, what they want from humanity and why they have created gaps in human DNA. It's an interesting update on the plans of the original show and again displays that this reboot does have a few ideas of its own. TopUneasy Lies The HeadNow that Anna's plan to combine human DNA to fast track Visitor evolution is known to the Fifth Column they have a plan. Infecting the last few of Anna's test subjects with a stolen virus, they hope to destroy her store of the final product, not knowing that this is all that can save Tyler from a mysterious illness. Erica is faced with a moral dilemma of how far she is willing to go and whom she is willing to sacrifice in order to succeed and since rising to head the global Fifth Column she has become very much like her counterpart; cold, calculating and ruthless. None of this sits well with Jack. The illness attacking the test subjects at the same time that they are to be infected by the Fifth column virus is a bit clunky as a plot device and Diana being able to hide fairly big and noisy escape pods on board the mothership doesn't ring true either. Considering that Erica just buried an ex-husband she was starting to love again and has lost a son to the enemy her sudden taking up with Hobbs is quite a turnabout. TopDevil In A Blue DressThe Fifth Column learn that Anna's Concordia sites are landing pads for hundreds of motherships; her invasion fleet. They gain access to some blue energy and attempt to sabotage the reactor in New York, but set off a chain reaction that will level the city. The conflict between survival and morality continues in this story which combines the standalone story of the attack on the reactor with the ongoing story, the pieces being moved around the board into the final position for the big finale. It's a perfectly fine episode, but by this point it should be a lot more exciting than this. When the high point of an episode is the special effects rendering of V technology then you know you're in trouble. TopMother's DayWith the assistance of Anna's mother and daughter, Erica plans to bring Anna down. The whole plan relies on Lisa killing her mother at the right moment, but when she fails to do so, the V leader's revenge is brutal and deadly. It's season finale time and for the second year running the show is fighting for its life and so it throws everything at the cliffhangers. Virtually every character is left in a dangerous situation in the hoope that it's enough to save a show that really hasn't quite managed to deliver on its promise. The assassination plot is nicely done, but it's only when things go to hell in a handbasket that things get really interesting and the twists keep coming. Even a cameo by Marc Singer of the original series is thrown into the mix in desperation. In the end, it didn't prove to be enough and none of the cliffhangers are likely to ever be resolved as the show has been cancelled. Top |
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