ABC’s V Could Use The Beastmaster

The second episode of V was disappointing, its not just me– nearly 4 million fewer viewers tuned in.  It seems to be playing out like the original series.  Big spaceships.  Attractive brunette alien with a non-threatening name running the show.  They’re still lizards and they’re up to no good.

The dialogue was clunky when the FBI figures out that they had a mole.  And Father Jack did his 360 degree turn, he wanted to help and then not, and now he’s made as hell about the V.  I would be more enthusiastic about the show if they could resolve some of the weaker points.

The V have been on Earth for years infiltrating society at the highest levels (so we were told in episode one). Why would these beings of superior intelligence reveal themselves, heal the sick, run covert ops in preparation of their arrival, and then decide– ooops.  Now we need a pawn in the media.

We’re in the government, law enforcement, religious organizations–but we forgot to put a sleeper agent in the media!?   Wouldn’t you buy Keith Olbermann or Glenn Beck as some alien sent from the outer cosmos to guide public opinion laying the ground work for an invasion? So now the V are putting their money on Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) and he’s not 100% on their side.  So decades of planning on their part are riding on a previously obscure TV anchor with a chip on his shoulder.

Ok, so the V come in peace and are  negotiating with all of the world’s governments.  They set up embassies and get Earthlings to be goodwill ambassadors who– hand out pamphlets?  The V have 30 spaceships hovering over our largest cities have traveled from a galaxy far far away– and pamphlets handed out by kids in retro Stasi uniforms are the best they can do to sway public opinion?

Reminds me of the original NBC series, where the V had big ships, lasers, shuttle craft and yet they hunted down the resistance in Jeeps and sometime on horseback!?  And those orange jumpsuits, which in the 1980s said aliens–now it just says standard issue for state penitentiary.

I guess Father Jack will grow into the Marc Singer role and lead the Resistance.  And the FBI agent Erica Evans, who is divorced will eventually fall into his arms.  But not before her son, Tyler, joins up with the V.  The son may get busy with V hottie Lisa (Laura Vandervoort).  But I don’t think she’ll give us the twins: The lizard baby and the Star Child.

I would assume that the V, being reptiles would lay eggs.  And unless you’re in the Aliens franchise, egg laying is lame in sci-fi.  Just ask blockbuster hack Roland Emmerich what happened when he turned icon Godzilla into a literal egg laying multi-million dollar flop back in 1998. I think the honor of interspecies birthing will go to the human Valerie (Lourdes Benedicto) who is engaged to the V turncoat.

While they’re doing that they might as well take a page from Battlestar Galactica and bring in cast members from the previous series.  Battlestar Galactica brought in Richard Hatch for a few seasons.  Let see Marc Singer, Robert Englund, and Michael Ironside should show the new kids how its done on cheesy network television sci-fi.  I couldn’t resist, I had to show this clip from Singer’s Beastmaster days…