V, 1.3 - "A Bright New Day"
It was good to see a plausible ramification of the V's arrival being tackled here, as a woman called Mary Faulkner (Michelle Harrison) became the figurehead for an anti-V movement, as many people's relatives have died as a result of giant spaceships suddenly arriving overhead. I mean, men crash cars when a new Wonderbra billboard is erected, so there must have been a fair few accidents when flying saucers descended from the sky. As usual, Anna (Morena Baccarin) is keen to nip this problem in the bud as Mrs. Faulkner starts to gather support and riots breakout (not helped by the controversial decision to grant aliens visa's*), so she rehearses the perfect speech to win over this influential detractor.Rebel alien Ryan (Morris Chestnut) tries to reassemble an old anti-V cell by finding resistant member Georgie (David Richmond-Peck) via his fellow rebel Cyrus -- who turns traitor and alerts the V's to Ryan's presence. It appears the V's would want to "reconnect" rogue Ryan, and reference is later made to something called "The Bliss" that all V's desire. Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) had an early conversation where the priest asked a welcome burning question -- why don't the super-advanced V's just annihilate everyone? -- and Erica theorizes that the V's must need humans for something...
So, armed with with these nuggets of information, here's my educated guess: the V's weren't lying when they said they need a valuable resource that's abundant on Earth, but it's actually something biochemical that humans produce. In an echo of Torchwood: Children Of Earth, do the V's basically want to harvest a narcotic from human bodies? "The Bliss" sounds like something all the V's can "connect" to and get high on, which is therefore a pleasure rebel V's like Ryan have turned their back on for moral reasons. The V's have basically arrived to cultivate a global poppy field. All of this is just personal speculation right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the direction we're headed. V doesn't strike me as a show that's genuinely going to mine new sci-fi territory, rather recycle very old ideas and give them fresh paint jobs.
Anyway, Erica is called in to protect the V's after they receive a death threat, and uses the access she's granted to snoop on the V's while she plays bodyguard. She finds a surveillance room that proves how every chest strip on the V's signature jackets contain an undetectable camera, broadcasting real-time feeds to the motherships. Eventually, Erica manages to stop the assassin who's been targeting V diplomats from carrying out his hit, and is congratulated for her good work -- although it's later revealed that the assassin was himself an alien playing a role to engender sympathy.
Erica's son Tyler (Logan Huffman) is growing closer to alien Lisa (Laura Vandervoort), who is now able to walk freely around New York and go on a proper date with him to a pizzeria because of her visa. She's also pulling strings to get him back on the Peace Ambassador Program (unfortunate acronym, that), and makes the male demographic cheer by stripping down to her underwear in Tyler's bedroom when Erica bursts in, rather than be caught wearing her V uniform. In a latter scene, it's made clear that Lisa is Anna's daughter, and her interest in Tyler is purely to accomplish a mission -- which I'm going to presume involves seeing if V's can procreate with humans. Okay, threat of lizard-babies, be damned -- where do I sign up?
Last week's climax revealed that dough-faced Dale (Alan Tudyk), an alien who's spent seven years working undercover with Erica as her partner, has been restored to health aboard the NYC mothership. Unfortunately, the blow to his head has resulted in him losing his memory, but he's nursed back to health and the V's use a form of cognitive "virtual reality" to stir up Dale's memories. Along the way he lets slip that there's another undercover V at the FBI building where he worked, and there's a good twist after Dale remembers that Erica knows the truth, only for the doctor he's confided in to reveal himself as a rebel V -- part of the so-called "Fifth Column" -- who then kills Dale by lethal injection now he knows his rebellion have a human ally.Overall, "A Bright New Day" showed the same pace as the hurried pilot, but it all felt more controlled and necessary. A few of my concerns were tackled and the writers did a good job dropping breadcrumbs to follow -- such as the name of resistance folk hero John Mays. The final scene had Erica and Father Jack meeting Ryan and Georgie for the first time, so we'll hopefully start to see a more cohesive battleplan being drawn up about how to expose and defeat the V's. I'm still not convinced that V '09 has much to offer anyone familiar with its '80s progenitor or the abundance of alien invasion shows (like TV's War Of The Worlds sequel with Adrian Paul), but those unfamiliar are probably enjoying it, and this episode was definitely an entertaining one.
17 November 2009
ABC, 9/8c
written by: Diego Gutierrez & Christine Roum directed by: Fred Toye starring: Elizabeth Mitchell (Erica Evans), Morris Chestnut (Ryan Nichols), Joel Gretsch (Father Jack Landry), Lourdes Benedicto (Valerie Holt), Logan Huffman (Tyler Evans), Laura Vandervoort (Lisa), Morena Baccarin (Anna), Scott Wolf (Chad Decker), Michelle Harrison (Mrs. Falkner), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Michael Filipowich (Cyrus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Britt Irvin (Haley Stark), Tyler McClendon (Steven), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Alan Tudyk (Dale Maddox) & Jesse Wheeler (Brandon)
* It's a bit of a slap in the face if you're human and struggle to get one, no?
