Thursday, April 1, 2010

V: Murder She Wrote, Only With Reptilians

I commented to Jeremy Vaeni the other night that V is very trite, very mainstream, sooooooooo TV series prime time stuff that it's like "Murder She Wrote, only with Reptilians." I liked the first series, becuase is was over twenty years ago, and for a prime time network show, V back then was different. V now is not different, it's a few steps backwards, as far as quality of writing or production values go. Torchwood it isn't.

I'll continue to watch V, at least for now, because I'm a Fortean TV junkie, and can't resist. I'm at the point now where I mock rather than enjoy, but it's still fun. I didn't say good, but fun.

Last night's night episode was the worst yet. I don't know if this happened nationally or if it was just a local thing, but the episode was horribly out of synch. It was bizarre; and lasted for the entire program. So that made it fun. Then at the end -- I'd say SPOILER! but that would imply we care --- where Queen Bee Lizard mates (naturally, she's on top, and for some reason, they seem to do it on a bed of dishsoap bubbles) with her soldier/drone/sacrificial reptilian guy. During the brief mating act Jim turns to me and says "She's going to eat him," and sure enough, she does. In the coolest scene of either season yet, she opens her mouth mega wide to expose doulbe rows of sharp pointy big white fangs, and... cut to commerical. Jim was very offended by that; "Reptiles aren't insects!" he raved, and while that's true, I said "They're Reptilians, not bugs," but no matter, it was a cheap stunt and it pissed him off. Citing the classic unhinged jaw rat eating scene from the original V, Jim made his point; one was truly creepy scary surprising -- while staying true to general reptilian-ness -- the latter was hack writing.

That shot lasted for a dissappoitng second, it seemed. The coolest thing in the whole series and they rush right by it.


Well, I'm not the only one disappointed by the new V. One of my favorite blogs, The Secret Sun, reviews V, which includes both funny and accurate insights:
We're told these aliens have no emotions and then spend an hour watching them express emotions. If Morena Baccarin's character had a mustache, she'd have spent the entire episode twirling it.

I'll keep watching V for now, but I share The Secret Sun's sentiments:
I'm not giving up on this series yet, but I am damn close to it. These people need to show me something new, for frak's sake, and soon.
The Secret Sun gives us an update to its previous blog posting, which explains a lot. Go here to find out what that is.

Somewhat related post: I comment on Destination Truth on my blog Frame 352.

5 comments:

Deirdre said...

I so remember the feeding seen from the original V. I also remember Donovan and that chick who had the reptile baby. Oh, and Robert Englund was one of the nice Visitors.

I agree with you on the current V. I watched the pilot just to see, but it was crap. Then again, I think pretty much all television is crap.

Erik said...

Well...she would be a fun date...at least once....

Anonymous said...

My husband was a total fan of the original V series (we have it on DVD, plus the second mini-series, plus the short-lived regular series...) and he's completely disgusted with the new one. He's even a fan of Morena Baccarin, and at one point he wailed, "What have they done to her!"

It's crap. Just chiming in.

Jessica Penot said...

I like the new V. Granted it's not literature, but it is fun and whoever that woman is who is playing Diana is creepy. She's scary enough without the teeth.

Red Pill Junkie said...

I've been following this series —though, being Mexican, I'm not supposed to... yet *ehem*— and I can't help thinking there are a few interesting correlations between it and the Contactee movement of the 1950s.

And I'm not talking only about the physical beauty of the Vs, compared with the gorgeous space babes reported by the likes of Truman Bethurum. Consider this extract from Micah Hanks' book Magic, Mysticism & the Molecule (which incidentally, i was just reading yesterday before I found your post), text in brackets is of my own addition:

_______________

"Bertie Lillie Candler was a popular spiritualist during the 1950s, described frequently as the "greatest physical medium of the world". Candler is credited with allegedly summoning an entity called "Diane" [emphasis mine]; a very beautiful, eight-foot tall Venusian woman [V as in Venus?] first encountered by contactee Dana Howard beginning in 1939."
_______________

The Contactee movement had alwas had this connection between the 'space brothers' and the planet Venus. And the planet not only has a link with Femininity, but in Mexico is linked with the Feathered Serpent (Kukulcan/Quetzalcoatl)

The V & the Serpent again...

So there you have it. Maybe since I'm Mexican I can't help encountering these interesting correlations between feminine entities that can appear with an aura of beauty and goodness if you're lucky —and do what you're told— (e.g. Tonatzin, Guadalupe), but can turn into cold man-eating bitches if you cross them (e.g. Coatlicue) :-P